The Twelve-Fingered Boy (28 page)

 

On the back of the article, in red marker, is a
Q
.

 

I hate it that something Quincrux has done could please me so much. That I have murder in my heart. But there it is.

Not everything my mother said about me is true. And not everything Quincrux said was false. I've inhabited the minds of so many people—and had my own mind invaded so often—that the walls between black and white have crumbled. I don't really know where to stand anymore. I am them and they are me. The good folks of the world. And the bad.

I have to keep my bearings. I have to remember the darkness.

But the world is a little safer today. I hope Elissa has regained her place among the living. That she's warm and surrounded by light and laughter. That the part of her that can love hasn't been burned away or left in that pit.

I unfold the letter. It's written in a clumsy script. All the extra fingers must be hell on penmanship.

Shreve,

I don't have much time to spare for writing—they keep us pretty busy here—but I wanted you to know that I am well and have found a place where I belong.

After what happened on the roof and we were separated, Quincrux got us to his car using what they call a glamour. Not like the fashion term. Like a spell or something, I guess. I don't really understand all the psi stuff. I'm purely telekinesis-track. Which is the equivalent of being a jock in high school, at least here. Can you imagine that? Me, a jock?

I'm sorry I can't tell you where I am. I want to … but I can't. I mean, I physically can't do it. I can't make my hand write the word on this paper. I know it, I can spell it out loud, and I can say it. But every time I try to write it, I'll find myself staring out the window or biting my fingernails or tying my shoes and there'll be nothing on the paper.

There are other kids here. And older folks, like 25 or 30. Quincrux runs everything, and he's still the same. Really polite and scary. His politeness seems rude, somehow. But he makes a big deal about being nice to me. That doesn't make anything better, I know. He tried to kill you …

There's nothing I can do. He tells me he's going to leave you alone, but I can't make myself believe him.

I don't know. My brain is always foggy around here. I can't remember things. Things I know I should remember.

But I'll never forget you.

Please consider coming to us. Quincrux says he can have you moved here, but you have to want to come. Because of your “notoriety”— his word —you've attracted the attention of undesirables.

Be careful, Shreve. The witch isn't here. I know something happened to her, but I can't remember exactly what.

Anyway, here's a picture of me —yeah, I know, I've put on some weight, but some of it is muscle! I'm a jock, remember? Ha!— and there's a number on the back you can call at any time, and someone will come and get you out of there.

Think about it.

Your friend,

Jack

 

The picture is a Polaroid, thick and yellowed at the edges. Jack and a girl stand in front of a small tree ringed by industrial—military, even—buildings. Jack and the girl are holding hands. He's filled out some, and his hair is long and hanging into his eyes. He looks washed-out and a little worn. I can't tell if that's because of the photo quality or something else.

The girl stares into the camera. She's a pretty brunette, slim and willowy, unsmiling, one hand raised as if in greeting or in a gesture to the camera operator.

She has six fingers on her hand.

At the end of the day Booth escorts me back to my cell, frowning. He wants to say something, but it doesn't look like he's going to be able to spit it out before we get there.

“What do you remember?”

“Huh? Whatdya mean?”

I sigh. “You've been brooding since I got back here.”

He stays silent.

“Listen, Booth. I don't know what he did to you. But it was real. It happened. And if you can … I don't know… sense things now, if you can pick up—”

“Pick up what?”

I stare at him. He's not manicured anymore. He doesn't glisten with pomade. His mustache isn't perfectly trimmed. His chest has lost its arrogant puffiness.

“Just try to remember. And when you have questions, I'm ready to answer them.”

We stand like that, looking at each other, for a long time. Then I can tell that something in him relents, and he nods almost imperceptibly.

I turn and enter my cell.

It was a good day, Saturday.

When she came into the visiting area, her eyes were red, as bloodshot as a vampire's, and it didn't take a mind reader to know she'd been drunk not long ago. But she was dressed as neatly as I can recall seeing her.

Vig was holding her hand, smiling and hopping up and down.

I hugged them both, and my heart grew and for a moment I felt like I was moving out into the wide blue yonder, knocked out of my body by pure joy. I thought I was going to blubber like a titty-baby, but Vig grabbed my shirt and tugged.

“Lemme see the scar, Shree! Lemme see! Did it hurt when she stabbed you?”

And I never believed it would be possible, but at the thought the Dubrovnik woman had done something that might bring me closer to my family, I could hardly contain myself. I laughed.

We're born into pain. We live in it, our constant companion through life. And when, finally, we shuck off this prison, we're free of it. For a while, at least, until we're reborn into the world.

But there are times of joy. Times of lightness and happiness. For now, I'm content being incarcerado. I'm content with Casimir, and Booth, and my cell.

Going to the mattress, I lift it up, dig underneath. When I first returned, I thought they tossed the cell, but all my stuff was here, exactly in its place. I've got a sneaky suspicion it's courtesy of Assistant Warden Horace Booth. I remember when he said, so long ago, “
That means I'm your daddy
,” and pointed at the
Parens patriae
engraving above the Commons entrance.

It takes a moment, but eventually my hand finds the glossy surface and I withdraw the comic. Run my simple, five-fingered hand over the cover, the beautiful floating woman on the cover, shooting arc lighting from her eyes.

I climb up onto the familiar springs of my prison mattress, and I try to imagine Jack sleeping in the bunk below, his breath rising and falling in time with mine.

The air-conditioning kicks on. The vent near my head hisses and gives a hollow hush, and the black blows out, covering me like a shroud.

I sleep.

And dream of Maryland.

As always, I want to thank my wife for supporting me through the good days and the bad. I would also like to thank my children for being so happy for me and interested in Shreve, Jack, and Mr. Quincrux, who have all assumed monumental proportions in their minds. Most likely because I won't let them read this book until they are old enough not to emulate Shreve's attitude. I fear I'm already too late on that score.

Of course many thanks go to my agent, Stacia Decker, for having such a fine sense of the saleable. And fashion. But the saleable pays the bills. The fashionable is just easy on the eyes.

When we were shopping this book around, Stacia informed me that Andrew Karre, head of Carolrhoda Lab and this book's editor, wanted to have a telephone conversation with me regarding
The Twelve-Fingered Boy
. After chatting with Andrew, I hung up the telephone with huge a sense of excitement for the possibilities of this book. And I knew this was the best home for it. I'm truly blessed to get to work with so many incredible people in my career and very glad that Andrew was there to help me take Shreve and Jack to where they needed to go. This book wouldn't have been the same without him and the rest of the great team of folks at Carolrhoda Lab and Lerner Publishing Group.

I'd like to thank all my buddies who did so many wonderfully stupid things at Pulaski Heights Junior High, especially Craig Hodges and Stephen Reasoner.

I'd like to thank all of those pre-readers who gave me encouragement upon reading this, my first young adult novel, especially Erik Smetana and C. Michael Cook, who've both been staunch supporters ever since we were stomping the boards at Zoetrope together. I also want to thank Kate Horsley and Julie Summerell for being wonderful ladies and fantastic pre-readers.

The Casimir Pulaski Juvenile Detention Center in this book (and all its staff and wards) is purely a figment of my imagination. When researching this novel, I realized very early that I wanted my juvie to resemble something more like a penitentiary than anything else, and, so, verisimilitude and the story soon parted company. Don't take this at a literal representation of how the juvenile rehabilitation system works here in Arkansas. In many ways it's better, though in some ways, it's worse.

And thanks, Mom and Dad, for always being there for me.

John Hornor Jacobs is the author of two adult novels:
Southern Gods
, which was short-listed for the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel, and
This Dark Earth
, which award-winning author Brian Keene called “quite simply, the best zombie novel I've read in years.” Jacobs lives with his family in Arkansas. Visit him at
www.johnhornorjacobs.com
.