The Jewel and the Key (44 page)

She tried to squelch the grin that threatened to spread from ear to ear. “Um, Whaley, doesn't that mean you can't enlist in the army?”

He shrugged. “Nah. It's just a misdemeanor. You can apply for a waiver. The guys at the enlistment center told me.”

“What about the money you owe?”

“My army pay will wipe out those debts pretty quick, if they let me in.”

Addie set her mouth in a determined line. “But didn't you say you'd work it off for Mrs. Powell by fixing up the theater? Didn't you promise?”

“Sure. But I don't expect her to pull a rabbit out of a hat and save the Jewel. Do you? I'm just going today for moral support. Mrs. Powells got my back; I've got hers. That's all.”

The pall that had hung over her when she woke up descended once more. They were almost at the cross street that led up to the south entrance of Volunteer Park. She felt a pang. Would Reg's name still be on the memorial? Or, if he hadn't rejoined the army, if he hadn't fought and died, would his name be gone? Last night, she'd been convinced this was the case. But somehow, all of a sudden, she didn't know.

She glanced at her watch. Only a quarter to eight. They had time. “Whaley! Go on without me. I need to check something.”

He gave her a bewildered look. “You're kidding. We've got a meeting to get to.”

“I know! I'll catch up to you.”

She crossed the street and headed up the hill, twisting past mansions hidden among vast, ancient trees. But as the water tower came into view, her feet dragged.

No,
she thought.
Whaley's right. I can't look now. We're in a hurry. We've got to get to the Jewel.

But she knew that wasn't the reason for her reluctance. She took two more steps toward the park entrance. Her hands were shaking and she had to force herself to continue.

The fog showed no sign of lifting. If anything, it was heavier than before. Even the tulips were dimmed, as if wrapped in gauze. Addie stopped halfway across the lawn, under the dark branches of a hemlock, remembering the last time she had been here, alone at night, when she had found Reg's name on the list of the dead.

All she wanted was to head back down to Tenth, to catch up with Whaley. Not to have to face this.
There's no point anyway,
she told herself stubbornly. Reg
had
been saved. She'd seen him leaving the city in Sam Sadler's car. Of course his name wouldn't be there.

For a second her spirits lifted. That would mean that she had changed things. That she'd somehow diverted that rushing stream.

Unless, of course, he'd come back from the peninsula and joined up anyway.

And what about Mr. Peterson? She'd had the thought before, that even though it was Reg's name on the cenotaph, it might not have been Reg who'd died. But it seemed too unlikely that Peterson would have stayed in the army and gone to fight under Reg's name. It was too risky. He would have gotten himself out somehow.

No, she told herself. She didn't need to look at the cenotaph.

But as she started back out of the park, a voice in her head echoed, clear as a bell,
Coward!

All right. She'd look.

She settled her bag on her shoulder, rubbed her chilly arms, and turned back a second time.
The name will be gone. Just be brave enough to look. Then you'll know.

She stepped through the opening in the hedge, dumped her stuff onto the grass, and threw down the raincoat. All her gear spilled out of the bag, and the coat landed on the ground, but she didn't bother to collect it. She forced herself to walk around to the front of the memorial.

“Addie!” Whaley's voice startled her, cutting through the silence. “Yo! We've got to go!” She turned and saw him standing over by the water tower, beckoning. When she didn't move, he set out toward her.

She stepped around the base of the fountain, crouched down, and scanned the list of names. There. She was looking. She couldn't make herself go directly to the
Ps,
but she was looking.

Barnard, Ben-Zackarias, Bolton, Bulasan...

Someone else's boyfriends.

Chen ... De La Cruz...

Someone else's dad and brother.
She knew how awful it was to think that way, but she couldn't help it.

Jacobsen ... Jones ... Lawrence ... Lindquist...

Powell.

The air she drew into her lungs was thin all of a sudden. So thin, it cut. She was high up on a mountain, cold as the snowfields and glaciers on Rainier.

She reached out and traced the letters with the tip of her finger.

Reg Powell? Or Gustaf Peterson?

One of them had died.

She could still feel his hands touching her, still hear his voice.

Her gut said it was Reg, though her mind knew it could be either of them. And it was worse, a thousand times worse than when she had seen Reg's name the first time. Because this time she felt responsible.

Whaley's voice broke in on her. “Holy—!”

She spun around and saw him standing there, eyes wide with shock, the whites showing clear around the blue of the irises. He was holding her mirror, gazing into it one moment, and the next, turning to look over his shoulder.

His hand opened and the mirror slid out, striking the corner of the bench.

Addie dove for it.

Too late. It had already fallen to the ground.

With half a sob, she snatched it up. A thin fracture ran through the center of the glass.

She buried her head in her hands. Tears started in her eyes. Now she'd never return to Reg's time. This couldn't be happening.

She tried to tell herself that it didn't matter. The mirror might still have the power to open the door to that other world.

But she had just seen Reg's name.

Despair washed over her.

“What's
with
that thing?” Whaley demanded.

In anguish, Addie looked up at him. She could barely even register what he'd asked.

But the frightened look on his face shook her out of herself. She'd never seen Whaley frightened before.

“Did you—” Her voice dried up. She swallowed and forced herself to go on. “Did you see something? In the mirror?”

“A girl. She was standing right behind me.” Whaley glanced over his shoulder again, as if to catch a second glimpse, then looked back at Addie. “But when I turned around, she was gone.”

Addie tried to still the thoughts tumbling through her head. “Is that all?”

Whaley nodded.

“Thank goodness.” At least it wasn't some awful portent of doom like Reg had seen. No American flag on a coffin.
Oh, God...

“Just a girl?” She tried to sound normal.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you imagined it.” Oh, how she'd hate someone to say that to her!

“I didn't imagine it.” The familiar challenging look was back in his eyes, and suddenly he was sizing her up. “You know that. Otherwise you wouldn't have asked me what I saw. And you told me about that statue disappearing. Remember? So don't try to placate me.”

“All right!” Addie raised her hands as if in surrender. “I know. I got it.
Sorry
.”

“You've more than got it. Look, Addie, I haven't been so wrapped up in Whaley P. Price these last weeks that I haven't noticed how weird you've been. And it's this mirror.” He looked around at the monument, the ghostly trees. “And this place. When are you going to tell me what's going on?”

“I don't know.” Maybe it didn't matter anymore. Maybe she could just tell him, because it was probably all over. But it was too painful. She couldn't. Not yet.

Whaley studied her for a moment and then a note of concern crept into his voice. “It's changed you.”

“For sure.” Her voice cracked. She glanced back at the cenotaph, and the tears spilled down her cheeks. Then she turned her head away.

“Okay,” Whaley said. “Now I'm spooked. But whatever, we need to get going. Right? Ghosts or no ghosts.” He held out his hand. She took it and he pulled her to her feet.

“Right,” she said quietly, wiping her face. “Thanks, Whaley.”

As they walked slowly out of the garden, still floating and unearthly in the morning fog, she asked, “What did she look like? Your girl in the mirror?”

“About your age.” He considered. “Or—no. Maybe a few years younger. Freckled. Reddish blond hair.”

They turned the corner, quickening their pace.

“She was putting a bunch of flowers on the memorial. Poppies.” He paused. “Definitely poppies.”

Addie licked her lips, which had gone very dry.

“It was weird. She reminded me of someone. No one I know. But still familiar somehow.” He stopped. “And there was one other thing.”

“What?” Addie had to work to keep her voice steady.

“She was crying.”

They went on a bit in silence. At the bottom of the hill, Addie saw the Jewel looming. She hugged herself against the clammy mist. Then she said, “Whaley?”

“What?”

“What does the
P.
stand for?”

“Huh?”

“The
P.
Whaley
P.
Price. What's your middle name?”

He gave her an irritated look. “What does it matter? This isn't about my enlistment form, is it?”

“No. What does
P.
stand for?”

He rolled his eyes. “Peterson. So? Hurry up. We're going to be late.”

Addie stared at Whaley's strong guitarist's fingers, roughened by carpentry work, and remembered Gustaf's cut and crosshatched hands. Guilt cut through her like a knife. Was it Peterson, then, who had died?

And Frida ... she could see her standing in the backyard under the Douglas fir last night, waving as Sadler's car disappeared from the alley. She heard her say to Reg,
Where's Papa? Why are you here and not him?

“Addie? Come on. Don't you want to get to the theater?” Whaley's eyes were resting on her, and all of a sudden, she could see Gustaf and Frida in him, as strong and clear as the sunbeam that had just cut through the fog.

“I know what you're thinking,” he said as they descended the winding street back to Tenth Avenue. “That there's no reason for us to rush to get there when those folks are just going to turn Mrs. Powell down anyway. But—”

“No,” Addie said slowly. “That's not what I'm thinking.”

There were threads she couldn't even begin to connect, but here, she felt, was a chance at some sort of reparation. She tried to keep hold of what she actually knew. One of them had died. And though she now felt it was Peterson, she didn't actually know. But whether it was him or Reg, she did know one thing for sure. The only way to make reparation for death was through life.

She was determined to save the Jewel. She had to. Whaley could make his own decisions from there.

They reached Tenth and turned toward downtown.

Frida and Meg
would
have hidden that newspaper. She was sure of it now. They would have held on to it forever, because of that death. But they hadn't hidden it at the Jewel. Nor in an archive. Nor had anyone turned it into digital signals and loaded it onto the Internet. But it had to be somewhere else. Somewhere she hadn't thought of yet.

She pulled herself up very straight, grabbed Whaley's hand, and squeezed it fiercely. “Wait a second.” A conviction had entered her.

“Wait for what?”

“There's one more chance.” She looked toward downtown, to where the theater waited, but saw only the rolling rise of the street ahead of her. In the foggy distance, two headlights were approaching, with a row of lights high above them. A bus, heading north.

Abruptly, she reached into her purse and fished out Gustaf's union card. She held it out to Whaley. “This is for you.”

He took it and looked at it curiously. “IWW?” He held it closer and a startled expression swept over his face. “Gustaf Peterson? Are you kidding? He's my great-great grandad. Where did you find this?”

There was no way to explain it. “At the Jewel,” Addie sa id.

“But why would it be—”

“Whaley. I—” If she didn't cross the street this instant, she'd miss the bus. “I have to run!” She darted away from him, flying across the middle of the road.

“Wait, Addie! You have to explain this!”

“I can't now! But I'll get to the theater soon! Tell Mrs. Powell—” The bus pulled up, blocking him from view. She jumped on, paid her fare, and grabbed a seat, watching as Whaley got smaller in the distance, still studying the IWW card she'd given him. The card that had belonged to his great-great-grandfather. That belonged to Whaley now. Her heart thumped as she sank into her seat and headed back home.

Almaz was standing outside the bookstore, scribbling a note on a scrap of paper. Her sports duffel was on her shoulder, and she was wearing her team sweatshirt, shorts, and shin guards. She glanced up. “I was going to stick a note in your mailbox to say come to the game at Hale.” She gave Addie a severe look. “I've scored four goals in two weeks and you haven't even been there to cheer.”

“I know.” Addie swung an arm around Almaz's shoulder for a second and then let go. “I'm sorry. I'll come to the next one.” She pulled out her key and opened the door. “Can you help me for a few minutes? If you've got time before the game?”

“Help you with what?”

“I have to find something.”

“Why are you in such a hurry?” But Almaz stepped inside behind her.

“Because I have to find it before a nine o'clock meeting at the Jewel.” Addie shoved aside a pile of bills on Dad's big desk and sat down on it. She glanced at the Victrola on the shelf by the window. Dad had left one of his 78s sitting on the turntable. In her ear the shimmering notes of the piano piece Reg had played for her sounded faintly. Dad had put the Ethiopian posters back on the wall—the bright-colored saints carrying their swords and shields—and underneath, Addie imagined, she could see the turquoise walls of Meg's living room.