Ghosts of Rathburn Park (16 page)

For a long moment Justin just stared at him, and then he turned away toward the window, shaking his head and making strange meaningless gestures with both hands.

“Justin, tell me.” Matt jumped out of bed and hurried across the room. “What’s the matter?”

Justin shook his head hard and went on shaking it for a long time before he started to talk. “They’re in the hospital, both of them. Dead maybe, the paper didn’t say exactly.”

“Dead? Wh-who? Who’s dead?” Matt stammered.

“Lance. And Rocky. They went off a cliff. Last night on their way to the party.”

“Off—off a cliff?” Matt’s voice wavered and then almost disappeared. “How…? Who…?”

Justin collapsed on the window seat and Matt did too. For a long time neither of them said anything. Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, Justin stared at the floor, and Matt stared at Justin. It wasn’t until a kind of eternity had passed that Matt asked, “How did it happen? Did anybody see it happen?”

Justin shook his head. “Nobody knows. They’re still unconscious.” Shaking his head again, he said, “Lance is a good driver. It must have been the beer.”

“The beer?”

“Yeah. That’s what they…” He paused, blinked and swallowed hard before he went on. “That’s what
we
were doing at the park. Rocky showed up with three six-packs, and Lance didn’t want to take the stuff to the coast in the truck because the cops know him and they’re always stopping him, and if they found the beer cans…” Justin shrugged. “So he decided we’d stop off at the park and—get rid of it before we left.”

“Get rid of the beer?” Matt said. “Oh yeah, I get it. Get rid of it—that way.”

Then came another long spell of silence before Justin got up slowly and went to the door. He turned then and looked back at Matt. He was trying to do his cool one-sided grin, only both sides of his mouth looked kind of sick.

“Thanks again, Hamster,” he said. “Thanks for saving my life.”

“Anytime, kid,” Matt said.

T
HE NEXT FEW DAYS
were kind of up and down. Some good moments and some others that were pretty awful. Like Sunday, for instance.

On Sunday the whole family was talking about the accident, or in the case of Matt and Justin, mostly listening while other people talked about it. Both Mom and Dad had a lot to say to Justin on the subject, some of it where Matt could hear the conversation and some of it where he couldn’t. But the part he did hear made Matt feel really bad for Justin.

What Mom actually was saying to Justin was a lot of stuff about how sorry she was about what had happened to his friends, but how glad she and Dad were that Justin had had the good sense to change his mind about going with them that night. Matt was watching his brother’s face while Mom was talking and he could tell how miserable Justin was feeling. Mom must have seen it too, but she must have thought it was just because he was worried about Lance.

Sometime during the morning Mom called the Laytons to say how sorry they all were about what had happened, and how Lance and his friend were in their thoughts and prayers. And then during lunch she told everybody what Mrs. Layton had told her.

The news was that Lance was improving but that Rocky was still in a coma, and the doctors were afraid he might be paralyzed. Both of the boys had been tested for alcohol consumption, Mrs. Layton said. The results hadn’t been established yet, but she was worried about it because Lance was the one who had been driving.

When Mom told about the alcohol tests, Justin looked at Matt and went on looking. But what Matt saw in his brother’s face wasn’t a threat, or even a signal that he was asking Matt to go on keeping his mouth shut. The only thing Justin’s eyes seemed to be saying was how sick he was feeling, and a minute later he left the table without finishing his lunch. By the next day the news from the hospital was that Lance and Rocky were doing a little better, but that Lance was in serious trouble with the police because of the results of the alcohol tests.

The other thing Matt kept thinking about during the next few days was Amelia, wondering where she was and if he was ever going to see her again. And what would happen when he did? It didn’t really make a whole lot of difference where she was at the moment, however, because he knew without asking that he wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near his bicycle until…Well, until he got rid of the bandages, at least. It was too bad, though.

Too bad because…Well, because he had a whole lot of questions he needed to ask her, and things to tell her about. One thing he really needed to tell her was what had happened that Saturday afternoon, because there was an important part of it that he couldn’t discuss with anyone else. And that was the part about Rover. No one else would believe for a minute that, if it hadn’t been for Rover, Matt wouldn’t have stopped to look around and notice the pickup way down there on the service road. And if he hadn’t, Justin probably would have been in the truck when it went over the cliff.

It was only a few days later that in spite of the powerful
No
votes, Courtney came home with a puppy. Matt didn’t know how she managed it, except he was pretty sure the tears had something to do with it. Anybody who could cry that hard and look that good while she was doing it could get around a whole lot of negative votes.

Anyway, Matt was sitting on the front steps when Courtney and the puppy arrived, and it was a pretty exciting moment. Courtney was—well, you can imagine what a person would be feeling like who had spent her whole childhood grieving because she couldn’t have a dog, and then suddenly could—and did. The grinning Greek mask didn’t even touch it.

The puppy, whom Courtney had named Dusty, was a few weeks old and he looked like no particular brand of dog that Matt knew about. His mother, Taffy, looked a little like some kind of spaniel, but the word was that Dusty’s father had been more of a terrier, and the result was something that looked like a small, lively haystack. Obviously a mutt, but a mutt with a pedigreed personality according to Courtney, and Matt agreed she was right about that.

Matt and Courtney went on sitting on the front steps while the puppy played on the lawn, chasing a tennis ball and running in circles and falling over his own big feet.

“And he has another special kind of pedigree,” Courtney told Matt. “A Timber City pedigree.” And when Matt asked what that was, she went on, “Well, according to Brittany’s mom, Taffy’s ancestors have lived in Timber City for a whole lot of generations. Like maybe ten or twelve. I mean just about every family who has lived here for a long time has owned one of Taffy’s ancestors. And even though they’re no special breed anymore, they’re all especially brilliant.”

It was just about then that the puppy started running in circles, chasing his tail. He went on chasing it until he ran headfirst into the gatepost and fell over. When he sat back up, he was looking kind of cockeyed and woozy.

“Yeah,” Matt said, grinning. “Real brilliant, all right.”

Matt and Courtney sat on the front steps watching the puppy for a long time that day. Every few minutes he would run back where they were sitting, and now and then Courtney would pick him up and hold him on her lap. Matt played with Dusty too, but Courtney asked Matt not to pick him up, at least not for a few days, because he was her dog and she wanted him to imprint on her.

“Brittany’s mother knows a lot about raising dogs,” Courtney told Matt, “and she says that when a puppy is first adopted, it needs to pick out one person to imprint on. And he
is
my puppy.”

Matt got the picture. But even if Dusty wasn’t actually his, it was still pretty cool having a dog in the immediate family after so many years without one.

As the days passed some things seemed to be changing for the better, at least for some people. Justin started playing baseball with the Timber City Tigers and he got to be a pitcher right away, just like back in Six Palms. Around home he’d started talking more too. Especially to Matt. He talked to Matt about baseball almost every day, like about his great new split-fingered pitch, and a couple of times he even talked about the book on Daniel Boone that Matt was reading.

And Courtney had a lot of new stuff to do too, like playing with Dusty, and going swimming and partying with people Brittany had introduced her to.

But for Matt himself nothing had changed all that much. There were still some sleepless nights and some lonely days, which he tended to spend staring into space while he thought about Rathburn Park and who and what he might, or might not, see the next time he was allowed to go there.

But finally, on a foggy Tuesday morning in late August, Matt’s last bandage came off and he got permission to ride his bicycle to the park again.

The weather had definitely changed. Halfway down the drive Matt stopped and went back for a jacket and it wasn’t until then that he remembered the key and locket. As he fished them out from under his socks and boxer shorts he told himself that if he couldn’t find Amelia he might at least be able to find a way to leave them where she would be sure to find them.

The fog became deeper and damper as Matt pedaled toward the park. Along the road, houses and barns and trees that had always been in plain view were now no more than vague shadows, and here and there ghostly white wisps drifted across dips in the road. Inside the park the change was even more noticeable. Swirling clouds hung low over the deserted parking lot, and all around it the treetops seemed to rise out of a foggy ocean. On the narrow path that led to the ruined church, a heavy mist almost like rain dripped on Matt’s head and trickled down the back of his neck.

Just as he’d been warning himself to expect, no one answered when he called from the side entrance of the church. Called Amelia, and then Rover, and then Amelia again. No answer. So what next? On the one hand, he would be breaking his promise again if he went in, but on the other, he had a pretty good excuse this time. Two excuses, actually. The first one concerned finding a good place to leave the locket, and the second one could be about needing to get in out of the rain. Rehearsing how he could explain very quickly if Amelia happened to show up, he slithered in along the wall, pulled open the door and once again stepped into Old Tom’s cabin.

This time there was a change, an important one, and Matt noticed it the moment the door closed behind him. The trunk was unlocked. The lid was closed, the latch was down, but there was no padlock. The moment he saw it, even before he crossed the room and squatted down in front of the trunk, he knew the difference was an important one. Important, and somehow threatening. Wishing he didn’t have to, but knowing he did, he reached out and raised the lid.

The trunk was empty. No hats or dresses. Nothing except a tiny wisp of a peacock feather that had once been attached to a fancy old hat. Picking up the wisp of feather, Matt knelt there staring at it for only a minute before he knew what he was going to do next. Knew, not
why
exactly, but only
what.
He was going to go to the Rathburn Palace to look for Amelia.
Why
he was going to do it was a question he’d have to find an answer to later.

Slamming the door of the cabin behind him, he almost stumbled into the booby trap pit as he hurried around the wall. Then he ran in an uncomfortable crouch through the drizzly tunnel path, and continued to run, at top speed now, across the parking lot and the ballpark. He didn’t slow down until he reached the edge of the swamp.

T
HE SWAMP. AS HE
stood on the slimy bank looking out at the murky water, its scattered reedy islands barely visible in the thick fog, Matt tried to remember not Frankie and his awful fate, but Amelia’s assurance that it was easy if you just remembered to keep moving. Then he was moving, jumping from one squashy clump of reeds to the next, and on again, without pausing even for a second. And very soon he was clambering up the other bank and stopping for only a moment of self-congratulation before making his way to the gate that led onto the Palace grounds.

Still feeling unusually confident because of his easy triumph over the swamp, he was halfway through the overgrown garden before he stopped to look up. Up to the clutter of fancy towers and balconies, and then down to where, not far away now, a broad stairway led up to the wide veranda and the Palace’s grand double-doored entryway.

What did he think he was doing? Was he really planning to march right up and ring the doorbell? And then what? When someone came to the door, would he ask to see a girl named Amelia—a girl who, according to Mrs. Hardacre, didn’t exist? Or if she did exist, maybe not in the way most ordinary people did.

Turning back, Matt scooted into the underbrush, squatted down and began to give the matter some serious thought. It didn’t take long to decide that the grand front entrance would not be a possibility. Instead—what? A few minutes later he was making his way around the house to where a broken basement window could be easily opened if you had been shown, and remembered, how to do it.

Matt did remember how, but it wasn’t a very easy thing to do with no one to hold the window open as he scooted through. It was with a scraped knee and a slightly banged head and elbow that he finally made his way down to the basement floor—and complete darkness.

He’d forgotten about that. Forgotten the darkness—but fortunately… Fishing in his pocket, he brought out a key chain that held his house key, a small screwdriver
and
a tiny flashlight—the kind that is supposed to give you just enough light to find a keyhole on a dark night. But not really enough, he soon discovered, to light your way through a maze of underground storage rooms. Bumbling along, bumping into chests, boxes and barrels, Matt tried not to recall the nightmare he’d had about being in the Palace basement and stumbling over the bodies of dead and almost dead animals.

He made his way through several rooms that he vaguely remembered. The one that smelled of aging wine, and the ones where large pieces of furniture sat around covered by ghostly white sheets. He had just passed what looked to be a large sheet-draped armoire when, with no warning at all, rough clawlike fingers reached out from nowhere and grabbed him by the shoulders.