Gravestone (17 page)

36. Maybe

That night I try to find out what’s on the zip drive that belonged to my uncle. But all I find are files that I can’t open after an hour of trying. The next day, I find Newt and ask him if he’s any good at computers.

“Why do people automatically think I’m good at computers and electronics?” he asks me, as if it’s a question he’s been asked a hundred times.

“Are you?”

“Well, yeah. Of course.”

I shake my head. “Here. Take this home and see if you can do anything with it.”

“It’s an older model.”

“It can’t be that old.”

“A couple of years at least.”

“See why I asked you?”

“Whose is it?”

“You just tell me if you can open it, okay?”

“Did you steal this?”

“No. But make sure nobody steals it from you. Okay?”

He slips it into his pocket and walks away from me as if I’ve just given him drugs.

Maybe this zip drive holds all the information I need on this town. Maybe it has one of those “If you’re reading this now, then …” letters from my uncle.

The maybes remain with me in my classes and in my breaks and in the hallways and in the vast canyon of my mind.

I see Poe, but she still continues to ignore me.

Maybe she’s with them and knew all along.

But that doesn’t make sense. She suspected something was wrong when a guy she liked went missing the year before Jocelyn did.

Maybe that’s when she went over to the dark side.

I try and tell myself that this isn’t Star Wars and that there’s no Darth Vader reeling me in. I already know who my father is, thank you very much. I don’t need to scream
No!
as my father asks me to join him, because I’ve already been there and done that.

Maybe it’s time to tell your father.

But I can’t and won’t. There are people out there to ask for help. The problem is they’ll want proof. I have nothing. I have nothing but stories that seem made up by a new kid who’s been nothing but a problem since he got into town.

Maybe she’s still alive.

That question comes up daily and gets shot down right away. I saw Jocelyn there, dead and lifeless. She’s gone. I know it.

In history, as Mr. Meiners smiles at me while most of the other students seem to be drifting off, I make a list of names.

D
ON
’
T
T
RUST
:

P
ASTOR
M
ARSH

S
HERIFF
W
ELLS

K
EVIN
R
OSS
(
MORON
DEPUTY
)

A
NYBODY
WITH
A
LAST
NAME
OF
S
TAUNCH

N
OT
S
URE
:

M
OM

P
OE

R
ACHEL
(
THOUGH
SHE
’
S
GONE
,
SO
WHATEVER)

R
AY

P
ROBABLY
:

N
EWT

J
ARED

T
HE
BLOND
WOMAN
(H
EIDI
??)

I glance at the list and see how pathetic it looks. I don’t trust my own mother. My father doesn’t even make the list. As for friends and family—nope. None are on it.

I decide to add one more name to the probably list. Just to make it even. Just to make it seem like I’m not a complete and utter loser.

Kelsey

I don’t know her any better than most of the people in this place. But it just seems like if there’s someone I might be able to trust, it’s the shy girl who blushes several times a period every art class.

I have to start somewhere.

This is where I’m starting.

And as Jared told me when we first met, I need to lay low. Or lie low. Whichever one really works. That’s what I’m going to do.

For a while.

Just a while.

37. A Locker Love Poem

I think this place is preparing me for prison, if I ever do something to deserve to be imprisoned.

It’s like that Bill Murray movie
Groundhog Day
with the same things happening over and over.

I see the same girl named Harriet every day on the bus, and she does the same thing. As I walk by, she makes sure that no part of her body touches me, not her leg or her arm or anything. It’s like I have the plague. And this girl Harriet is—well, I don’t want to be mean, but she’s a big girl. And it gets me because I’m like
What did I ever do to you, and why are you rejecting me?

Every day I see Newt, his shifting eyes, the scar so evident on his face, his body always two seconds away from bolting from the limited conversation we have. Every day I ask about the zip drive, and every day he gives me a long and detailed reply that I never quite follow but that makes it obvious he’s working on it.

Every day, at some point, I see Poe. Every day is Halloween for her. It appears that her Goth tastes have taken over. Her skin seems to be getting paler and her makeup darker and her sneer snarkier. I’ve given up trying to talk to her, and I’d give up passing her by if I knew where she’d be walking. But she pops up at the most random times. The thing is, I always see her. Every day, without fail. It’s like she’s there to remind me of what’s not there. Like she wants to rub it in my face.

Then there’s Gus. He hasn’t gone away. It’s obvious that he does what his father tells him to, because he’s been staying away from me, but I have to see him just as I have to see Poe. It’s not
that
big of a school. You can’t hide from everybody and everything.

In this dark gulag, with the weather bleak and cold and gray, I find myself looking forward to something surprising: art class. Not so I can project something deep inside that I don’t even know is there onto the canvas. Hardly. It’s so I can step out of the bleakness and the cold and the gray and see something that’s the opposite of all those things.

I realize this is happening, and a part of me finds the biggest frying pan it can to whop me upside the head.

That’s the last thing you need, Chris.

I know. And it’s not like there’s anything between us. Kelsey’s harmless and she’s cute, but that’s all. She’s so shy that I still have a hard time talking with her. She could be schizophrenic as far as I know. But it’s nice. That’s all I can say. It’s a nice breather. It’s like those short breaks to get water during track practice.

Even if she’s harmless, you’re certainly not. Look what happened to—

But that’s crazy, because this isn’t Jocelyn and it never will be.

Still, I gotta say that it’s nice to hear laughter here. It’s nice to hear someone laughing with me and not at me.

It’s nice to see a smile.

The days groan by, and I mark them on the stone wall of my mind like a prisoner who’s lost track of the date.

Yet even prisoners have surprises. Mine come every now and then.

Most of them are unexplainable. And most of them seem to pop up in my locker.

First there was the picture. The one of me that I can’t remember being taken, the one with an expression I can’t remember ever having. I have that picture at home in my room, hidden from view and also hidden out of curiosity and for safekeeping. Then there was the photo of the woods—the photo that seems to keep coming up, the one that seems to have some kind of meaning that is lost on me.

Now today, my Groundhog Day is broken up by something new.

A Hallmark card.

Actually, it’s not a Hallmark card. It’s too unusual to be one of those.

It’s in my locker, and it has my initials on the front. Written in black ink in a very precise matter.

The card is funny. It shows a funny-looking guy with spiked hair surrounded by a circle of people yelling and screaming at him. All the people look like ordinary men and women, but they’re all angry and crazed. The guy in the middle has a smile.

On the inside of the card is one line:
D
ON’T LOSE YOUR SANITY LIKE THE REST OF US
.

And underneath, no signature. Just a simple note:
You
’
re not as crazy as you might think.

I examine the card and make sure there’s nothing else on it. But no.

Like all my locker love poems, this one is unsigned.

38. What Do You Believe?

I want to kiss her longer when she turns her lips away and gazes up at me in the field we’re hiding in.

“What?”

“You’ve got to stop this, Chris.”

I look at Jocelyn as the world around seems to drift slowly away like smoke into the air.

“Stop what?”

“These dreams. These thoughts. They’ll confuse you.”

“What do you mean, ‘confuse’ me? I know exactly what I want, and it’s something I should’ve given into when I had the chance.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I want to say that.”

“You’re dreaming. This isn’t real.”

I touch the edge of her cheek, and she feels real. This feels real.

“It doesn’t matter what it feels like,” Jocelyn says. “I don’t want you getting this confused with other things.”

“What things?”

“You have to let me go.”

“So how do I do that?”

“You’ll find out,” she says.

As I move to kiss her again, she’s gone.

On my first day of work at the Crag’s Inn, Mom gets lost again and ends up making us half an hour late. It’s not like this is some maze of streets in Chicago; there are only a handful of back roads weaving their way through these hills. But it looks totally different this time, as if new roads have sprouted like weeds in the backyard. Mom knocks on the door and sees Iris and apologizes for my tardiness.

“I certainly hope this is not a sign of what’s to come,” the proper-sounding voice says.

“No, not at all.”

“Good. Then I will lead Chris to his first project of the day.”

I scarcely say good-bye to Mom before I’m in the woods at the side of the cabin, cutting and hauling chunks of wood. There’s a large tree that looks like it recently fell or was cut down. It’s been chainsawed, and my job is taking those sawed bits and cutting them down into usable logs for the fire. An hour into the job I can already feel blisters under the gloves I’m wearing. I’m sweating even though the morning air is still quite cold. The dense woods cover up the sun that’s slowly beginning to brighten up the area like lights on a Christmas tree.

Sometime, I’m not sure when, Iris comes outside carrying a plastic cup of water.

“I thought you might need a drink.”

“Thank you.”

She doesn’t ask how it’s going, doesn’t scan my work. She leaves the cup with me and goes back inside. I look at the side view of the inn and notice that the only part that’s not enclosed with trees and woods is the front. I can tell from the slanting ground that the inn is at the very edge of what appears to be a steep cliff.

I’m curious about the place, but not willing to snoop around too much. I have a job to do, and two hundred bucks sounds pretty good to me.

“Did you bring a lunch with you?”

“No.”

I was hoping you’d have an all-you-can-eat buffet in the middle of your hotel.

“Okay, then. Finish what you’re doing and come on inside. I’ll show you where to clean up and where the dining area is.”

“Okay.”

I didn’t hear her mention any food, but I doubt she’s going to make me sit in the dining area with nothing to eat.

Maybe there will be guests? Special guests?

I finish cutting the wood and haul the remaining pieces over to the side of the cabin that now is almost entirely lined with a four-foot wall of freshly cut logs. I’m proud of my work and also know that come tomorrow I’m going to be aching all over.

I wonder if Iris saw my efforts, but I don’t say anything about it as I walk inside and she shows me where the bathroom is. I walk down a hallway lined with old black-and-white pictures of people. Strange-looking people.

I stop for a minute to look at one of the pictures. It’s of a man and woman standing next to a railroad car. It looks like it could have been taken close to the downtown area of Solitary.

The strange thing about this picture is the expression on the couple’s face, if they’re a couple. They’re smiling. No, they’re laughing.

Most of the pictures I’ve seen of people back in the old days, when pictures were still a new thing, showed people who looked serious and miserable. That’s what’s so strange about this shot. The people don’t look serious and creepy and miserable.

But maybe that’s the point. They’re delirious and delusional. Like they’ve been sniffing something funny and drinking moonshine and getting ready to howl at the moon.

“Hurry up, please,” a voice calls from behind me.

The bathroom is sparse, but something else surprises me.

On the back of the toilet is a small plate standing on a little holder. On that plate is a Bible verse:
Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. II Kings 6:16

I glance around to see if there are any more quotes or crosses or angel wings, but I don’t find any. The Bible verse doesn’t surprise me. Nothing surprises me around here. But it makes me curious to see if Iris is one of those kinds of people.

I go back into the main room where we sat with her that first day. She waves me on like a ten-year-old to a large open room with lots of windows filling it with a blanket of sunshine. There are half a dozen tables arranged in it.

“This is our dining room,” she says.

I glance out the window. It looks like we’re hanging over the side of the mountain.

“What do you like to eat?” Iris asks.

“I’m not picky.”

“I have a lot to choose from, so let me know.”

“Anything, really.”

“Chris?”

“Yes?”

For some reason I think of the Joker’s cheeks when I glance at the old woman. There are deeply etched lines on either side of her face, and I can’t tell if they’re from wrinkles or just from the sunken nature of her face.

“Please answer my question as specifically as possible. I don’t have time or patience to try to read your mind.”

“I like ham,” I say, not sure why. It’s not like I love ham or anything, but I’m slightly terrified by her straightforward statement. “And chips.”

“See, that wasn’t hard.”

“I could’ve brought my lunch,” I say to her.

“Part of working here includes meals. If you had come early enough, you could have had breakfast.”

I nod.

She disappears, and I move closer to the windows. There’s a door that leads to the deck outside, but I’m not going out there unless Iris asks me to. Still, I can see the deep bowl of a valley in front of us, with the tops of surrounding hills in the distance. When Iris comes back, I take my plate and thank her.

“Have you ever seen such a view?” she asks me.

“No.”

I’ve been skiing in Colorado, but those mountains are different from these. These seems rounder and softer and …

More romantic.

If the guys could only hear my thoughts. But it’s true. More romantic, but also more sad. More melancholy.

I take my plate of food and sit down at a table near the window. I just stare outside as I eat. Iris brings me a can of pop, which I thank her for. As I open it, I see a bluebird fly down and sit on the edge of the railing. I wonder if it’s the same one that greeted me by biting my hand the other day. It sits there and faces me, as if it’s watching me.

As if it’s watching and waiting for me.

Add
creepier
to that list of adjectives fitting these mountains.

I eat my lunch, and the bluebird just sits and rests and watches.

I’m not sure how long of a lunch break I have, so I eat my lunch in about ten minutes and bring my empty plate and can into the kitchen. As I come back out, hoping to see Iris, someone else walks into the dining room. For a second I’m a little freaked out, since I didn’t know anybody else was there. I wonder if this man works here or is a family member.

“Hello,” he says.

For a moment I feel my muscles tense up and my body start to shake. I say hi as I pass him by. He’s maybe forty-something and seems ordinary and friendly enough. I hear him go into the kitchen, and I’m glad that I don’t have to make small talk. Something about the guy makes me want to run away.

“Feel like cutting more wood?”

I turn to see Iris coming my way. She has an amused look on her face.

“Sure,” I say in a voice that wouldn’t convince anybody.

She laughs. “I think you’ve cut enough wood to last me through the winter. Just remember—be honest, or I’ll make your words come true.”

“Okay.”

“So, do you feel like cutting more wood?”

“Maybe not for another ten or twenty years.”

The smile I see on her face surprises me. Even though she’s ancient, there’s something very youthful about it. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so old smile such a nice smile.

Maybe I just need to be around old people a little more.

“I’ve got some work for you to do inside. That sound okay?”

“Sure.”

At the end of the day, after calling my mom and telling her that she can pick me up at five, Iris comes to me and hands me ten twenty-dollar bills.

“I hope you don’t mind me paying you in cash.”

“No.”

I can’t remember the last time I’ve held this much cash in my hand. Maybe never.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

“Sure,” I say again.

“Did you get tired of hauling those boxes of books down to the basement?”

For a second I’m about to give an answer that means nothing, then I remember what she told me earlier.

“They were pretty heavy.”

“Hardcover books tend to be that way. That room was once a library of sorts, and it’s become a bit unmanageable. We’re going to make it into another bedroom.”

“Okay.”

She smiles. “That’s we as in you and me.”

“Sounds good.”

She glances at her watch and tightens her lips. “We have fifteen minutes before your mother comes. Let’s sit for a while.”

It’s already dark outside, and there’s only one window in the main room. I sit on the couch, facing her.

“Tell me something, Chris. What do you believe?”

After a day of working with little communication with anybody else, the question is baffling. For a moment I don’t reply.

“Rather large question for simple chitchat while we wait, right?” she says.

“Believe about what?”

“About life and death. What do you believe?”

I clear my throat as I try to figure out an answer.

I don’t believe in anything. Not a thing. Not now and not ever.

“I don’t know.”

Those eyes look at me like I’ve done something wrong. They make me want to climb over the couch and hide behind it.

“At the end of every day, I ask myself what it is that I believe. And I think that the sad thing about so many people is that they can go their entire life without asking that question. Or fully answering it.”

I nod, nervous, wishing that Mom might be early, wondering if Iris is going to be all spiritual and holy with me every time I work.

“What if you knew you were going to die at midnight tonight?” she asks. “What would you do?”

“Maybe hold a big going-away party?”

“You don’t have to do that. Not with me.”

“Do what?”

“Use sarcasm to cover up the awkward feeling inside of you. It’s okay. Talks like this—talks of importance—usually make people uncomfortable.”