The Book of Joby (73 page)

“Mud’s pretty soft here,” Jupiter suggested uncomfortably. “Maybe that helped.”

There were two deep indentations in the mud where Sky’s knees had been, but Joby still couldn’t trust such luck. “Don’t stand up yet,” he said, moving around to put his palms on the bottoms of Sky’s feet. “Press your legs very lightly against my hands. If it hurts at all, stop.” Sky did so. “Try a little harder, but just until it hurts.” Joby pressed.

Sky pushed harder, and shrugged. “I’m sorry I scared everyone, but I’m really okay.” He shook his head. “I really thought that rock was in there solid.”

“Well, that’s the damnedest luck I ever saw,” Joby said. “Not that I’m complaining.” He helped Sky up, still warning him to take it slow, but when the boy had gained his feet and started back for the trail, walking as easily as ever, Joby finally accepted that, for once, he’d gotten what he’d prayed for. “Okay, let’s try to stay alive just a few hours longer,” he said grimly. “No jumping off cliffs, swan-diving over waterfalls, or using handheld explosive devices ’til you’re back at home, and it’s your parents’ problem. Got it?”

Everyone meekly reassured him, and trudged off looking at their feet, as if Sky had died. Joby followed them feeling so tired that he hoped they wouldn’t have to carry
him
to the truck before they’d finished.

Dear Mom and Dad,

A letter from your son. Can you believe it?

I have no idea how to do this, so I’ll just plunge in. I’m sure you’ve
known I was hiding from you all these years, and I guess I’ve always known, deep down, how much it must be hurting you to let me do it. That’s one of many reasons it’s so hard to write this even now when I have only happy things to say for once. I suppose there were things I thought I should protect you from, or that I was just afraid to tell you, but I’m not going to fill this letter with excuses. I just hope that you’re both well, and that, if you can forgive all these years of silence, you’ll let me come out of hiding now, at last.

I am doing unbelievably well here. In Taubolt, I have finally found a place that feels more profoundly and wonderfully like home than I ever dreamed possible. I am teaching English in the high school here, and helping out at the Primrose Picket Inn, where I have a very cozy room. The innkeeper, Mrs. Lindsay, has been kind beyond all explanation. Everyone is kind here. It’s like a completely different world. And I’ve become a completely different person. I end each day happy now, and grateful. I’m even in way better physical shape than I ever was before. I don’t ever want to leave this place. I love everything about it and everyone I know here—especially the kids—more than I know how to say. I love you guys too. And for the first time in far too many years, I’m not afraid to tell you so. I’m not sure why I ever was.

You should come visit me. Mrs. Lindsay says you can stay for free here at the inn. She’s an amazing cook! I want you to meet my friends, and I want them to meet you. I have so many, many great stories to tell you, but I’d rather do it face-to-face over one of Mrs. Lindsay’s delicious dinners. Do you think you could come? Pretty please?

Love,
Your prodigal son, Joby

 

P.S. You’ll never guess who I found living here as well! Remember Laura Bayer? How’s that for “small world”? She has an amazing son named Arthur, though everyone but her just calls him Hawk. Sadly, her husband left them just over a year ago. (I am trying hard not to seem too happy about that.)

Expecting a tantrum of historic proportions, even by Hell’s standards, Kallaystra managed not to cringe as Lucifer finished reading, and let the boy’s letter flutter down onto the conference table. Not a breath was drawn by any of the assembled throng as the unnerving silence stretched and
stretched, while Hell’s master stared down at the document outlining the unraveling of all their efforts.

When the suspense became unbearable, Kallaystra took her life into her hands and murmured, “At least it was intercepted before reaching them.”

Lucifer just went on staring, no longer at the letter, but at the empty air between himself and it.

“Love,”
he mused at last, “is a
many-splendored
thing, is it not?”

Everyone stared in confusion, as unable as Kallaystra, it seemed, to imagine what this abstract utterance might portend.

Lucifer turned to Kallaystra with not half the ire she’d been braced for, and said, almost cheerfully, “See that it’s delivered.”

“The
letter
?” someone in the crowd blurted out stupidly.

“The boy’s clearly put considerable effort into its composition,” Lucifer answered mildly. “It seems rather peevish to waste all
his
work just because we can.”

The gathering’s confusion became as palpable as their dread had been.

“Bright One,” Kallaystra said carefully, “it seems that you’ve conceived of some new plan the rest of us are failing to perceive.”

“Ever the diplomat,” Lucifer said with a predatory grin. “Surely I am not the only one who sees it.” He looked around as if expecting some response.

“I fear you are,” she said, well aware of how he savored such chances to make them all look stupid. “May we beg enlightenment?”

“But it’s so obvious!” He smiled. “Everything the boy has ever desired is right there in Taubolt! Everything he
loves
! Everything that loves him! In one convenient location.” Lucifer smiled craftily. “How desperate must our Master be to cheat so clumsily? Shortly after I blew the whistle on my lately exiled brother, the Creator condescended to assault me with a lecture on
love
and
compassion.
To be sure, a rather self-serving admonition from One so soon to be in need of both from me. But I found the ploy rather more instructive than He’d intended, for it, and this lovely letter, have provided precisely the key I’ve been waiting for. It seems we’ve been
pulling
on the rope when all the while we should have
pushed.
”

Seeming to realize that he wasn’t getting through, Lucifer exclaimed, “Don’t you see? The Enemy’s entire strategy is founded on the assumption that
love
will save the boy from himself! I’d have seen it far sooner if I’d been looking for anything so stupid. He’s virtually handed us the whole enchilada!” He beamed around the table, clearly expecting some response, but Kallaystra was as lost as everyone else.

For the first time during their meeting, Lucifer seemed truly displeased.

“This,” he growled to no one in particular, “is why
I’m
in charge here.” He turned his back on all of them and began to pace. “At very least, we can hope his parents will answer that letter and initiate some regular correspondence.” He directed a baleful gaze at Kallaystra. “The boy, himself, is doing more to keep us informed than you have so far. Your timid efforts to flood that town with mortal operatives had better be trebled.”

“Bright One,” she said, biting down on her frustration, “I’ve done everything I can without—”

“Then do everything you
can’t
!” he snapped. “
Pay
them to relocate if necessary. I don’t give a fig for subtlety anymore. We’ve only six years left! Bring more attention to the place. Bring attention to
us
if you have to!” A sly look crossed his face. “We’ll fix that afterward. Right now, I want those idyllic streets drowned beneath a tide of vice and conflict fierce enough to drive that Cup clear off the continent!” He took a few deep breaths, and resumed his pacing. “If it takes a year or two to gather them in, perhaps that’s not as much a problem as you thought. No harm in giving our boy time to fall even more deeply in
love
with all of it. I want the hook set irretrievably. Let’s see that sentimental despot lecture me once He’s been defeated by His own
greatest invention.
”

“Here they come,” Joby announced, half-shouting to be heard over the crowd noise and the approaching blare of brassy instruments.

The last dry heat of summer shimmered off the pavement of Main Street, bearing scents of golden grass and ripening blackberries, tanning lotion, sweat, and popcorn into the bleached September sky. Taubolt’s idea of a marching band led the festivities—a baker’s dozen of musicians, no two wearing the same costume, playing the same instrument or, perhaps, even the same tune; the noise of so many cheering or jeering onlookers made it difficult to tell. Taubolt’s First Annual Labor Day Parade was one in a growing list of tourism incentives invented by the new Chamber of Commerce.

Despite the heat, Laura backed farther into Joby’s embrace, pulling his arms more tightly around her waist for comfort. The crowd of strangers pressed to the curb around them felt more restive than festive, as if the parade were not something they’d come here to watch, but an unexpected obstacle on their way to other destinations.

“Where do they all come from?” Laura wondered aloud.

“What?” Joby asked, his chin bouncing against the top of her head.

“How do so many people even hear about a thing like this?” she asked more loudly, tilting her face up to help him hear.

She felt him shrug. “The Chamber’s doing its job, evidently.”

The Chamber,
she thought again unhappily. A school board, the Historical Preservation Council, the Parks and Recreation Board, even a
local art’s committee,
for heaven’s sake! Taubolt had gotten along marvelously without any of them for centuries, it seemed. Why did it need them now all of a sudden? Tourists and urban-flight refugees outnumbered Taubolt’s original population three to one these days. Admittedly, she and Joby were fairly recent arrivals themselves, but they had come quietly to embrace Taubolt as it was, not to change it all into the very things they’d fled here to escape. Laura didn’t even try to find a parking space within blocks of the post office anymore, much
less the meditative solitude in Taubolt’s streets that she had once so treasured. How had this many people found such an isolated place in just two years? In her opinion, whatever that Chamber of Commerce was doing should be outlawed.

“Hey, down there,” Joby said, leaning around from behind her to grin and give her a squeeze. “This isn’t s’posed to be a funeral procession. Why the long face? You okay?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling apologetically. “I’m just missing the old Taubolt.”

His grin twisted ruefully. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “You wanna leave?”

“No. We’re here.” She shrugged. “I’ll get into it. We’ve got to celebrate your last gasp of freedom after all. What better way than a parade?”

Joby nodded. “Hard to believe the school year’s already here again, isn’t it?”

“Hard to believe this will be Arthur’s last one,” she replied. “Seems only yesterday I wondered if he’d ever graduate at all.” She turned in Joby’s embrace to smile at him. “Then you came along, Sir Joby, and turned him into an honors student.”

“Aw. T’weren’t nothin’, ma’am,” he drawled, looking down, abashed, to scuff a shoe on the pavement. “Any ol’ knight woulda done the same.”

She leaned up to kiss him on the lips. The kiss he gave her in return was, as always, perfect. Perfect lingering length, perfect tenderness, followed by a perfect smile. Just like the kisses he had given her in high school.