Far Far Away (40 page)

The prisoners did not speak. They did not even move on their cots.

The baker pushed bundles of clothes and flowers onto each of their shelves, and opened the serving doors to provide access, but the prisoners lay still.

“I’ve brought spaghetti, as promised,” he said. “And with my own special spaghetti sauce. None of the
Rangu
stuff you were talking about.” He gave a tired smile. “ 
‘Resist, annoy, never give up.’
Wasn’t that the rallying cry?”

None of the prisoners spoke. Their eyes were now on the plates that he was filling with small portions of pasta.

“I’m afraid these are leftovers,” he said.

The food smelled rancid, and the tiny bits of meat were coated with a furry gray mold. He pushed the flowers and clothes
through the small doors and onto the floor of the cells, and left the plates of moldy food on the shelves.

The prisoners stood with difficulty and pulled the plates through the door. There were no utensils. The baker stood watching as his prisoners ate with their hands and wiped their faces with their forearms.

Finally, when there was nothing left on their plates to lick, the prisoners picked up their parcels of clothes. Ginger unrolled hers first. They were all black. So, too, were Jeremy’s. They looked from the clothes to the baker.

“Just like the night of your famous stealth mission,” he said.

“And his?” Ginger said in a low, raspy voice, pointing to Frank Bailey’s clothes. “Why are they black?”

The baker shrugged. “Who knows? It just seemed to suit the occasion.”

He turned then and, rolling the serving tray before him, headed for the door.

And I with him.

“You’re going, right?” Jeremy said.

The baker turned. “Who are you talking to?”

“You,” Jeremy said.

“But why, my dear boy? You can see that I am going.”

“I don’t know,” Jeremy said. He dropped his head. “I’m just really tired.”

Yes, I am going, Jeremy
, I said.
I must try to change our fortunes
.

Jeremy nodded very slightly, but otherwise held himself completely still. He looked like he was fighting back tears.

The wheels squeaked as the cart rolled on.

I moved quickly past Jeremy so that he would feel the slight current of warmth.

Lebewohl, Jeremy
, I said.
Good-bye. Do not give in and do not give up. Perseverance is all
.

But just as the baker was turning out of view, Jeremy called to me: “You’ll come back, right?”

Again the baker stopped his cart. His expression seemed almost consoling. “Yes, my dear boy. I will be back. But I cannot say with certainty when.”

I again swept close to Jeremy.
Yes
, I said.
I will return. It is a promise. I will
.

The baker’s cart was moving again, and this time, when he pushed the numbered buttons and passed through the wall, I followed. After mounting the stairs and tidying his kitchen, he stepped into the garden to cut flowers. I hastened past him, close enough to stir the air, for he said in a low voice as if to himself, “Ah, is that you, ancient ghost, or a gentle breeze?”

I darted close again, this time from the other side.

“So it is you,” he whispered. “But it is too late, old ghost, and you are too weak. Yes, try, by all means try. But don’t waste time playing parlor tricks with me. Be off to do what you cannot do! And who knows, dear ghost? Perhaps you will protect the next children better than you have protected these.”

So I fled the Finder of Occasions, fled him as he bent close to examine his bed of irises, separating the long, upshooting stalks, searching for the showiest flowers for cutting.

Main Street was quiet. The light was harsh, and though I could not feel the heat, I could see its vapors rise from the black asphalt. I hastened at once to the Twinkle Tub Laundry. During the time in the dungeon, I had nurtured an idea. Now I would test it.

Mrs. Truax was there, and the door was open. I slipped close to her at her ironing board, within an inch of the hood of her musty cloak.

Mrs. Truax!
I shouted.
Mrs. Truax! Listen, if you will!

The washing and drying machines that lined the walls hummed and thumped.

I shouted louder.
Mrs. Truax, I need your help! I believe I know what happened to your son. Mrs. Truax! Your son, Possy! He may be alive!

I believed what I said. But Mrs. Truax heard nothing. I darted by her, back and forth, and swirled about her in hopes that she would pull back her hood to hear me better, but this hood had been her hiding place for years, and it protected her now from the stirring air. She detected nothing. She turned a shirt on the padded board before her, and pressed the iron along its sleeve.

Mrs. Truax! Mrs. Truax, please!

Nothing. She continued to iron, a woman who had worked for years in the same laundry and lived in the same tiny trailer so that her son would know where to find her if he ever came back, a woman who could not hear the hopeful news I had come now to deliver.

I hastened down Main Street to Elbow’s Café, where citizens were dining heartily and Jenny Applegarth bustled from table to table. The everyday busyness of it all was alarming. Three
children were missing, locked in a dungeon a stone’s throw from this very café, and here were the villagers eating and talking and laughing as if nothing at all was wrong!

I drew close to Jenny Applegarth and said into her ear,
Listen, if you will
.

But she was taking someone’s order for chicken and potatoes. When she was finished writing on her pad, I tried again, this time even louder:
Listen, if you will!

She did not hear me. I followed as she bumped through the swinging door into the kitchen, where Mr. Johnson looked up from his dishwashing and offered a blank smile, which she returned. I have seen such blank smiles before. They belong to intimates sharing a common grief. The blankness comes from waiting—waiting for something to be revealed, or written, or understood.

She pinned up her order. “Lemmy Wittle says kudos on the pepper steak,” she said in a dull tone to Elbow Adkins, who, spatula in hand, nodded and mopped his brow before leaning again over the hot black fry-top.

In this town, Jenny Applegarth was my last faint hope for communication, so I waited as patiently as I could until the crowd had finally abated and she had stepped into the back alley with Mr. Johnson to sit and sip a glass of lemonade.

“Busy,” she said.

Mr. Johnson stared off toward the smoke rising from the encrusted hot springs.

Jenny Applegarth said, “Now that Pittswort’s calling the kids runaways, everybody is. Cassie Willis called them runaways today, and so did Bill Kibbs.”

Mr. Johnson turned toward her. “What did you say to them?”

“What you always say. That Jeremy’s no runaway.”

She sipped her lemonade.

It became perfectly quiet. This was my moment.
Listen, if you will!

Jenny Applegarth looked wonderingly toward Mr. Johnson.

I shouted this time.
Listen, if you will!

She shook her head, and peered in my direction.

Listen, if you will!
I shouted.
Listen, if you will! Listen, if you will!

“Did you hear that?” she said to Mr. Johnson.

“What?”

“The wind through the trees,” she said in a soft voice. “It was almost like faraway words. Pretty words. Like they were coming from heaven.”

“Don’t say that!” Mr. Johnson said with sudden vehemence. Then, more gently: “Don’t say that. He’s not dead.” His eyes drifted again toward the hot springs. “He’s not a runaway,” he murmured, almost to himself, “and he’s not dead.”

I know where he is!
I shouted.
I know where he is!

But Jenny Applegarth only gazed out at the trees, where, she believed, the wind made the leaves whisper.

The screen door behind us swung open and young Conk Crinklaw stepped through. “Hey,” he said, and Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Applegarth nodded.

“Elbow said you were back here.” Conk took off his hat and held it in his hands. “Guess you haven’t heard anything.”

Jenny Applegarth shook her head.

Conk sat down and turned his hat in his hands. He wanted to say something, and finally he did. “Just seems so strange that
Ginger’d do this. And then to write to her
grandfather
, who couldn’t care less about her, and not write …” His voice trailed away.

Jenny Applegarth turned to him. “Not write to you?”

“Well, yeah. Or Maddy or Marjory—somebody who actually cares about her.”

He turned and tightened his face so that nothing—a tear, for example—might escape, but this did not fool Jenny Applegarth. She laid an arm over the boy’s shoulder and then they were staring off, all three of them, waiting and waiting and waiting, with only eroding hope to soothe their fears.

Listen, if you will!
I shouted one more time, then again, and again, exasperation and even anger hardening my voice.

Nothing. She heard nothing. This time she did not even look toward the trees.

I left those grieving people. I left that town and searched out others, moving from person to person, from ear to ear, whispering, cajoling, and shouting ever more desperately, trying to find just one mortal who might understand my words and repeat them to a sheriff. I traveled farther and farther from the town by the red buttes. Several days passed, and several more. I found a few other dead souls.

Three children in a dungeon
, I told them,
and yet I can find no one to help
.

The ghosts were indifferent.

We should not interfere
, one dead man told me.

Perhaps it is for the best
, another said.
Between death sooner and death later, there is little to choose
.

This was a fatalism I could not accept. Perseverance is all: this had always been my belief. And so farther and farther I went, speaking into the ears of mortals of every description
—Listen, if you will! Listen, if you will!
—but no one heard my words.

I found no one able to hear me. No one, and I was far from home.

That was what I thought to myself.
Far from home
. A phrase that carried within its ribs a meaningful surprise.

Home, as I now thought of it, was where Jeremy Johnson Johnson was.

“My ghost.”
That was how he had described me to Ginger.

Suddenly, my fear for his safety and my need to see him one more time came upon me with such force that I gave up my search and hastened back to the little town by the red buttes. I had no trouble finding my way. It was as the wanderer had told me years before:
It is difficult to find, but, once found, you will never lose it
.

It was nearly dusk by the time I reached Main Street, which, except for a few trucks parked in front of the Intrepid Bar & Grill, was almost deserted. Elbow’s Café was closed and so was the bakery, but, far down the block, the Green Oven Bakery truck stood parked in front of Crinklaw’s Superette. Inside the market, I found the baker himself, carrying a basket of groceries toward the cash register.