Edgewood Series: Books 1 - 3

THE EDGEWOOD SERIES

Karen McQuestion

Includes:

Edgewood

Wanderlust

Absolution

OTHER BOOKS BY KAREN McQUESTION

FOR ADULTS

A Scattered Life

Easily Amused

The Long Way Home

FOR YOUNG ADULTS

Favorite

Life on Hold

Edgewood (Book One)

Wanderlust (Book Two)

FOR KIDS

Celia and the Fairies

Secrets of the Magic Ring

Edgewood

Wanderlust

Absolution

EDGEWOOD

Karen McQuestion

For readers everywhere. You matter.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Text copyright © 2012 by Karen McQuestion.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 9781478349426

ISBN-10: 1478349425

One night that changed everything. If I’d known what was going to happen would I still have gone out walking after midnight?

Absolutely.

—Russ Becker

Remember tonight…for it is the beginning of always.

—Dante Alighieri

I couldn’t believe it was happening again. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep. It was a Monday night; school started the next day at 7:20 a.m., and I was exhausted, but my body didn’t care. I shifted in bed and punched my pillow into different shapes, like that would help, even though it never did before.

Finally, after midnight came and went, I dealt with it in my usual way—I got up. I got out of bed, threw on some jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, and tiptoed downstairs. When I got to the back door, I paused to pick up the Nikes I kept next to the mat and slipped out into the night. Once outside, I pulled on my shoes and headed out. Just me and the night air. I was never afraid to be out alone at night because I kept undercover. Even though I was a pretty tall guy, almost six feet, I was able to stay hidden in the shadows. I relished the time alone with my thoughts. But mostly I looked forward to getting back home when I was done with my walk so I could finally get some sleep.

The weather was cool and a little clammy. Not too bad, pretty warm for spring in Wisconsin, and there weren’t any mosquitoes yet. Our next-door neighbor had used his outdoor fireplace earlier in the evening and a faint smoky smell still lingered.

I walked around to the sidewalk in front. My house was dark except for the one lamp my mom always kept on in the living room to scare off burglars.

I didn’t stay there for long. I had a certain route I did every night and it didn’t involve roads. I preferred cutting through yards, fields, and parking lots. I told myself that if I just covered this route I could go home and go to sleep. It was a little psychological game I played, and it worked like nothing else did. I didn’t know it yet, but tonight was going to be different.

It’s amazing how many people are up at two in the morning. Driving or working mostly. There are others too, people like me who just seem to be awake for no reason at all, pacing in their houses, watching late-night TV, reading. They can’t sleep and I can’t sleep. It makes me feel better when I see them through their windows and know I’m not the only one.

That night started off the usual way. I did my route through a residential section on the other side of town. There were a few houses that were always lit up, occupied by people like me still awake at that hour. I’d pause by each house watching them through the window, feeling a sense of kinship even though they never noticed me lurking outside. After that, I headed for the strip mall three blocks from my house and wandered around behind the building before taking my usual path through the industrial park toward the old, boarded-up train station.

I was almost to the train station when I noticed a series of bright lights moving fast in the sky overhead. I stopped, trying to figure out what it was. It wasn’t a plane or a flare or any kind of reflection. More like a blur of shooting stars. Except that shooting stars were usually higher in the sky, I thought. This thing was heading downward and breaking apart as it traveled, almost like fireworks, but dispersing in a more random way. It looked a little bit like photos I’ve seen of an aurora borealis, but I was sure if something like that was going to happen I’d have heard about it.

I wished someone else was around to see this thing, to tell me what they thought it was. I sure couldn’t figure it out. Then I heard the rush of air as it arced in the sky. It seemed to be dropping down at a slower rate now, almost defying gravity, and broke apart, scattering sparks as it went. The pieces fell to the ground in a slow, lazy motion, like an artistic explosion. The whole thing landed close, maybe only a block away, on the other side of the train station. Despite the slow descent, when it finally hit, the whole mass came down hard. I swear the earth vibrated on impact. The soles of my feet tingled in a weird way, and I found myself moving toward the thing, whatever it was. I wanted to get a closer look.

I darted around a building that had once been a train station decades before. It was boarded up and there were signs warning people not to trespass. I walked over the tracks, now unused and in disrepair, over to the other side. The field beyond glowed with fragments of something, like someone had tipped over a charcoal grill the size of a water tower. The embers glowed blue and gold, beautiful like jewels. I got closer and noticed the glowing chunks were different sizes but that overall they formed a swirling pattern that covered the entire field. How could it have landed in such a perfect spiral?

Heat emanated off the field, but nothing was on fire or even smoking. So weird. I walked into the center of the pattern, thinking the temperature might drive me back, but it wasn’t as hot as I would have thought. What could have caused this? A meteor, a shooting star, a weapon, a fireworks display? Standing in the center of the swirl, it was so bright I could have read a book, but it wasn’t blinding, just glowing. I suddenly felt good and energetic, like I do after going for a run on a sunny day. Whatever this thing was, it was having a positive effect on me.

A scattering of fragments fell all around me, but I wasn’t worried about getting hit or burned. The sensation was pleasant, like the feeling of the sun coming out from behind a cloud on a gloomy day.

The pieces on the ground sparkled.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
…

You know how sometimes you stop to look at something interesting and then after a few minutes, you’re done looking and you move on? Well, this wasn’t like that. I could have stood there forever, that’s how I felt. I walked until I was right in the middle of the swirl pattern and planted myself, content to stand there and take it all in. I didn’t leave until the light of the embers had faded to a soft glow. Finally, when I realized how much time had passed, I reluctantly headed for home, still not sure what I had experienced, but confident that it would be on the news tomorrow.

Something that incredible didn’t happen without the world noticing.

For the past few months, there have been nights when I can’t sleep, no matter what. I’m tired, exhausted even. I close my eyes and wait for it, wait to slip into blissful slumber, to go into a sleep coma, to fall into unconsciousness. I’m always ready for a visit from Mr. Sandman, but the bastard never shows up.

When I first had developed this problem, my parents took me to a psychiatrist, Dr. Anton. Nice guy, Dr. Anton, burly and kind, with a little goatee, always suited up with a tweed jacket and gray pants. He wore a bow tie. I thought it made him look goofy, but my mom said it gave him a “snazzy” look, whatever that means.

Dr. Anton specialized in pediatric sleep disorders. He was a good listener, I gave him that much. When I talked he tilted his head to one side, and the expression on his face showed he really cared. “We’re going to get through this, Russ,” he said, like we were in this thing together. “I’m going to teach you how to send your body cues that it’s time to sleep.” He suggested dimming the lights, drinking warm milk, and not going on the computer or playing video games too close to bedtime. Unfortunately for me, he was opposed to sleeping pills. “You just need to retrain your body’s circadian rhythm,” he said.

I tried all his suggestions and more. I exercised to tire myself out, ran a fan for white noise, and visualized lying in a hammock on a deserted beach. I took melatonin for a few nights and nighttime cold medicine after that. Nothing helped. I stopped going to Dr. Anton after a while because I felt like such a failure. I lied and told him I was all better, sleeping like a baby now, which was actually the truth since babies are up all night long. My parents were relieved I’d outgrown my insomniac phase.

At some point I figured out that walking was the only thing that helped. After an hour or two, I was able to come back home and zonk out. I was still tired during the day, but it was almost the end of the school year and soon enough it wouldn’t make a difference.

I didn’t inherit this problem from my parents. Every night they tried to stay up for the late-night news, but they usually didn’t make it. It was so easy for them. My dad could even fall asleep in his recliner with the TV on. I’d look at him with his head tipped back and mouth open, making snorting noises, and I wished some of that would rub off on me. Not the noises, but you know what I mean.

The first few times I went out at night I thought for sure I’d get caught, that my parents would hear the back door open and close, or check my bed and worry that I was gone. I even left notes in the beginning—
Couldn’t sleep. Went for a walk. Be back soon.
But the notes weren’t necessary, as I soon found out. No one woke up. No one wondered where I was. Ironically enough, my folks slept right through my insomnia.

Being outside at night was cool, even in the beginning when there was still snow on the ground. I got a thrill from being where I wasn’t supposed to be. If the cops ever stopped me, I’d be in big trouble for violating curfew, but I was careful and darted into the bushes whenever I spotted headlights in the distance.

After the first week or two, I found myself going the exact same way. I always started out walking behind the strip mall. Sometimes I found interesting stuff by the dumpsters. The grocery store in particular threw out lots of perfectly good things, dented canned goods and bananas that didn’t look too bad. Someone, somewhere, would have been glad to get that stuff, but instead it was thrown out. What a waste.

After going past the strip mall, I went through the industrial park, three blocks of small factories. I wasn’t really sure what went on inside the buildings—welding and machines for molding rubber parts was my best guess, based on my observations. When I came by, I saw men hanging around the back loading docks, working sometimes, but other times smoking. Occasionally, I lingered and listened to them talk. They had this sort of easy back and forth trash talk that was funny. Razzing each other about their beer bellies and who lost the latest bet. I knew Bruno’s booming voice, and Tim, Mike, and Dougie by sight. I felt a sort of kinship with them. When they handed out cigars because Tim’s wife had a baby boy, I wished I could step out of the shadows and join them in slapping the new father on the back. Just one of the guys.

My favorite part of the route was the houses. I stayed out of my own neighborhood—that would just have been creepy. Instead, I went to a section on the edge of town, Old Edgewood. It was the complete opposite of where I lived,
New
Edgewood. Clever, huh?

The houses in Old Edgewood were smallish and close together like mine, but that was the only similarity. Mostly brick with big porches, they had more character than the houses in New Edgewood. The thick tree trunks were good camouflage. I could stand on the sidewalk, and as long as I was behind the trees I could watch without being seen. I know that makes me sound like some kind of perv, but it’s not like that, really. I was just interested in how they handled being up at night, and after a while I felt like I knew some of these people. At least I knew their nighttime habits, what they did when they couldn’t sleep.