Hurt: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) (30 page)

103. Now We Are Free

You know that feeling you have when you think something’s about to happen, but it hasn’t happened just yet? That feeling you get, like a silent buzz going off all around you? If you were a superhero it would be your Spidey sense, but unfortunately you’re not exactly a hero and you’re really not super.

But you are ready.

Ready to take on the world, right?

That’s what the guy speaking to all you graduates is talking about. You’re thankful it’s not Pastor Marsh. That’s the absolute last thing you’d need right now: a motivational speech by that guy. Yet in your cap and gown, as you sit on a chair, not really paying attention to the Mr. Believe-in-Your-Dreams guy, you have a feeling that Marsh is somewhere behind you. You know Staunch is, because Gus is graduating. Staunch and Marsh are probably sitting together, playing hangman on the graduation brochure.

The letters spell out CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY.

The man talking about following your dreams doesn’t get that you want to get far, far
away
from your dreams. Because people die and get suffocated in your dreams. Nope, no dreams for you.

You glance back and see her, the lighthouse that never shuts off in this foggy sea. She catches you looking back and shines a smile your way.

It reminds you that so far, everything is good.

It’s May 19, and so far, everything is fine.

You haven’t decided what college to go to and you haven’t sold your soul to the Devil.

So far so good.

Your mom is sitting behind you too, waiting to see you walk across the small stage in this gym, the same gym you had prom in a week earlier. Your name will be called, and you’ll receive a piece of paper that tells you you’re finally free. Dad couldn’t be here, and it’s okay because this isn’t the important event he needs to be at.

Dad needs to be there when you and Mom get back home.

Back in Libertyville, you probably wouldn’t have felt so joyous. You would have been joking with the guys and planning how to celebrate. But now you feel like the guy at the end of
Gladiator
. No, not the main hero whose corpse ends up being brought out of the stadium, but his friend who talks about finally being free.

The kids around you don’t understand. Not even Kelsey.

Your parents have a slight understanding, but not really.

Marsh and Staunch—well, they might understand the most, but they don’t care in the least.

No, you’ve been a prisoner here for long enough.

Today you’re not just graduating.

Today you’re being set free.

You take that slip of paper but know that you’ve learned far more around these classrooms than inside of them.

You celebrate with the rest of the students, but not really.

When it’s finally time and you’ve said good-bye to high school, you do the thing that matters most.

You find Kelsey and hug her and stay at her side.

You’re going to keep doing this until May turns to June and then maybe, hopefully, if God allows it to happen, you will truly be set free when you leave this solitary place forever.

104. My Son

Aunt Alice seems permanently distracted, lost, always wondering where she happens to be. Mom picked her up and brought her over for dinner. This is the first time, and judging by how Aunt Alice is acting, it’s probably the last. She doesn’t eat much, barely responds to the things Mom says, and glances at me like I’m one of her mannequins.

After dinner, as Mom is cleaning up and I’m sitting on the couch across from Aunt Alice watching
Wheel of Fortune
, Mom makes a suggestion.

“Why don’t you show Aunt Alice the locket you found?”

I nod and go upstairs to get it. It’s in my little assortment of strange things I’ve found around Solitary. I bring it to her and then sit on the sofa next to her.

“I found this the other day. We were wondering if you know who this baby might be.”

I show her the locket in my hand and see her slow eyes move toward it.

I expect more of the same—the distant glance, the half-deaf ears, the barely spoken words.

But it’s like someone switched an
on
button. She blinks and then keeps blinking as if she’s thawing out.

“Indigo,” she says.

She hasn’t even taken it from my hand.

Bingo for Indigo.

Mom walks into the room, surprised that Aunt Alice said the name so quickly.

“Aunt Alice—have you seen this before?” Mom nudges for me to open the piece.

I do, and then something crazy happens to Aunt Alice.

She looks … scared?

No, not scared. Mesmerized. Shocked.

“Aunt Alice?”

“Where did you find this?” she asks Mom.

“Chris found it. In the Corner Nook.”

Bony, spotted fingers take the locket in their grip and bring it up to her eyes.

“Aunt Alice, do you—”

Mom stops talking because she sees the tears coming down Aunt Alice’s face.

If I didn’t see them myself I’d never in a million years believe in them. I thought that Aunt Alice didn’t have enough of her left to feel whatever it is that she’s feeling.

Mom glances at me, and I look as amazed as she does, and then it hits me.

Indigo. It’s her baby.

“Alice?” Mom says.

I bet she’s not going to say anymore. I bet that this is going to be one of those many Solitary back stories that we never end up hearing—-

“Indigo was the son I gave birth to many years ago.”

She’s still looking at the picture inside the locket. Yet she also seems more awake, more
there
than she has since she walked through that door.

“You had a son?”

“A vile thing,” she says, shaking her head and almost spitting out the words. The tears are gone now. “A wicked thing.”

“Your … son?”

Aunt Alice strokes the locket and shakes her head.

“What do you mean?” Mom asks.

“What happened?” I ask.

“He’s old enough to know,” she says, looking at me. “He’s older than I was when it happened.”

“When what happened?”

“When that monster of a man called my father took me outside in the shadows of the towering stone and took away my innocence. Took away whatever good I had left in me. Leaving me with nothing but a hole. A hole and this. This.” Her shaking hand holds up the necklace.

Mom looks over at me in shock and surprise. She can’t say anything. I don’t have anything to say.

Kinner.

Something that Aunt Alice once said comes to mind. Something about Uncle Robert and me and hope. About putting an end to hope.

No.

I feel something deep inside. Not fear. It’s fearful, but it’s more like a sickening feel, a feeling of diving into something heavy and dark and wanting to go back up to the surface as fast as possible.

Aunt Alice starts rocking like a crazy person. She’s holding the locket like she’s rocking a child.

It’s an awful sight.

“I replaced evil with evil,” she says.

Mom looks pale as she says “It’s okay, you don’t have to—”

“I killed him.”

Mom knew it was coming and didn’t want it spoken out loud. Maybe she didn’t want me to hear it.

It horrifies yet somehow doesn’t surprise.

“I took him back to the place it happened. I took the baby back to that awful bridge, and I left him there. I let them have it. I let the baby go.”

Mom puts a hand over her mouth, and I see her eyes full of tears. She shakes her head.

“You can’t live with something like that,” Aunt Alice says. “Don’t matter if you didn’t know any better or if you were young and dumb. Don’t matter a bit. You take that with you the rest of your life. It eats away at you like a bird. Chipping away. Day. Night. Day. Night.”

Her aged Southern drawl is slow and haunting.

I don’t want to hear anymore.

“I thought it’d appease ’em, but it just got ’em more riled up.”

“Who? Who are you talking about?” Mom asks.

“Chris knows.” Aunt Alice looks at me and smiles to reveal her missing teeth.

Just like her missing mind.

I shake my head and act like I don’t have a clue, but yeah, I think I know the “them” she’s talking about.

“Heaven got no place for a baby killer,” Aunt Alice says, shutting the locket and then, surprisingly, giving it back to me. “Maybe you can give this to Indigo one day. I’d take it all back now, everything I done. I know that now.”

Mom wipes her eyes and then glances at me. There’s nothing to say. Nothing to do. At least not with Aunt Alice.

“I’m so sorry,” Mom eventually says, taking Aunt Alice’s hand in her own.

“Y’all think I’m the crazy woman with the house full of mannequins,” Aunt Alice says. “But I’d rather spend my days and nights around a family of fake faces than have to constantly see the face of the little one I let go.”

For a moment, maybe a whole minute, maybe an hour, I just sit there frozen in place. Unable to move or speak or do anything. And I think Mom is the same.

A house with a phony family to avoid the ghost of the real one haunting her.

My heart aches. Really and truly. It burns, and I need something to douse the stinging flames.

I’ve come to realize there is only one who can do that. Over and over and over again.

105. How You Carry On

“Well, that was a real … bummer.”

This might be the most understated thing I’ve ever said in my life.

Mom just got back after taking Aunt Alice home. I’m sitting in the same place on the couch as I was when she left.

“Have you started packing?”

“No.”

I still don’t really believe I’m going to be leaving this place. It still feels like a nice dream, a fantasy that looks great and sounds great but definitely won’t happen.

“You have a week left,” Mom says as she goes into the kitchen.

One might interpret that statement in a lot of ways.

One week left, buddy. Breathe in life, because in seven days it’s going to be choked away from you.

Mom and Dad decided that we would move back to Illinois the day after Memorial Day. For a while I was hoping Dad was going to come down and spend the last week with us, but he still has some classes remaining. Plus he has a commitment at his church. Some kind of charity work.

“Any last words from Aunt Alice?”

Mom shakes her head. I know she’s probably thinking she could use a good drink right about now. She’s probably thinking that, because I’m thinking it. Anything to try and forget about the conversation we just had.

“I’m sorry you had to hear all of that,” Mom says, sitting next to me and letting out a sigh.

“I’m just sorry that it happened.”

Mom pats me on the leg and stares at the television in a far-off, distant way. “Such a crazy world.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry for ever bringing you here, Chris.”

“You’ve already said that.”

“I know, but I’ll say it again and keep saying it. This place—this is a wicked place. They just need to come in and bulldoze it over.”

“How about
after
we leave?”

She laughs. “Yeah. Okay.”

I turn down the volume on the program I wasn’t really watching anyway. “Remember that first time we visited Aunt Alice? When we got in the car and couldn’t stop laughing?”

Mom nods.

“Now I feel—well, like totally bad.”

“I feel sorry for her,” Mom says. “And for my mother.”

“At least we know why Aunt Alice is—that way.” I say this not trying to be mean, just stating the obvious.

“Everybody carries hurt in their heart. Some more than others. But all of us carry some. Part of growing older is realizing this. But, Chris—it’s what we do with it that counts. It’s how we move on in life with it. I don’t believe it ever goes away, not fully. Even if we try and give it over to God. There are scars and remainders of pain that will always be there. But how you carry on—that’s what defines your life.”

“Wow.”

Mom looks surprised by my comment. “What?”

“That was pretty powerful.”

“There were a lot of good things that came out of going to rehab. It’s one thing to stop drinking. It’s another thing to start living.”

“Yeah.”

What I want to say is
Yeah, Mom, and way to go and I’m proud of you
.

What I want to tell her is
Yeah, Mom, you’re finally living again and I love you for being brave enough to do it.

But I just say “Yeah,” which seems okay for Mom. She adds one last thing.

“Don’t wait until you’re forty to start really, truly living.” She glances at me. “Nah—I don’t have to worry about that happening with you.”

106. Tick of the Clock

I get my first FedEx package at the cabin the Wednesday before Memorial Day. This actually excites me because I think it’s from my father. It’s a regular-sized box, not too heavy. The cabin is empty, since Mom is working her last few days at the tavern.

I open the package and pull out something that at first looks like a black blanket. Then I examine it and see that it’s no blanket.

It’s a robe.

A piece of cloth falls to the ground. It’s a hood with openings for eyes.

Whoever sent this might as well have sent me a pumpkin with a knife stuck in it and the word
You
scrawled over its top.

I look back at the box to see who it was from, but there’s just an address I don’t recognize. Then I see a note tucked away inside the box.

Suddenly I can feel my heart pounding away.

Chris:

Show up at the new building for New Beginnings Church at 8:30 p.m. this Monday.

Take Heartland Trail past the old church, and you’ll see where it used to dead-end. There’s a newly built road that will take you to the church.

Bring this robe with you. I’ll be there to meet you.

Further instructions will come when I see you.

Don’t tell anybody. Don’t bring anybody. Don’t play any games.

Just do as I say, and nobody you love will get hurt.

JM

I haven’t been to New Beginnings Church for a while, but it’s still surprising to hear about the new road. I think of the last time I was there, the time Poe and I hiked through the woods. The church with the gravestone devoted to its founder, Solitaire, front and center. The one with the strange French saying.

Maybe Marsh will tell you what it means.

I pick up the robe again and then throw it to the ground.

All this time and all these secrets and all this buildup just to get back to the place I ended up stumbling across. Some ceremony with a bunch of crazy people in robes.

I recall the people in the robes when Jocelyn died. They were wearing red robes. Why do I get a black one? Were they running low on my color and size?

What if you’re the sacrifice?

That’s a nice thought. But I doubt it.

I read the note again.

Don’t tell anybody. Don’t bring anybody. Don’t play any games
.

If the old Chris had been told this, he wouldn’t have listened. He would have nodded and said fine and then proceeded to tell someone and bring someone and definitely play some games.

I might be totally different from the guy who ran and found Jocelyn dead, but I’m still Chris Buckley.

Seeing this robe and thinking that they actually expect me to wear it … it really does something to me.

It angers me.

I put it back in the box and hide it under my bed, then I get on my bike and head out.

To find someone I trust.

It isn’t Kelsey I’ve come to see.

Nope, there’s no way I’m telling her what’s about to happen. Kelsey is leaving on Friday to go to Columbia, South Carolina, for the weekend, and I’m delighted.

No, the first person I go to see is one of the first people I got to know at Harrington High.

He hands me a tray that holds a hot dog, fries, and a drink.

“That’s six thirty,” Newt says.

I remember Gus swatting him like a bug and how outraged that made me feel.

Even if that incident had not happened, I know I would have had run-ins with Gus. But who knows if I ever would have gotten to know Newt.

Maybe he would have been one of those people giving me messages without my knowing about it.

I hand Newt money. He sorts the bills and then sees the folded piece of paper in the middle of them. Like a 00-agent or a member of a
Mission Impossible
team, Newt simply puts all the bills in the register while casually placing the note aside. I make small talk but deliberately act like someone is watching me.

I eat the hot dog and fries and then leave.

Two hours later, Newt shows up in the place I marked on the note. I figured he would be working through lunch, so it’s two thirty when we meet. I chose the slope of seats facing the football field at Harrington High. It’s empty of course, but the gates are always open to go practice on the track or field. From here it’s easy to see if anybody is around watching you. It’s a random place that probably isn’t monitored, especially for secret covert meetings like this.

Our conversation is brief. I tell Newt everything he needs to know and then I ask him if he can help me.

I have a plan, but I’m still not totally sure about it.

The plan or really anything, to be honest.

“Yeah, sure.”

I nod and thank him.

I scan the stairs descending to the stadium below. For a moment, it reminds me of a scene in one of my favorite television programs, one that Newt loves as well.

“See you in another life, brotha,” I say in a horrible attempt at a Scottish accent.

Newt instantly gets it and laughs. “I sure hope not.”

It’s nice to see the serious-looking guy ease up a bit.

When I leave Newt, I have two more people to contact.

I meet up with Brick at a graduation party where the smell of pot is thick and almost makes it difficult to breathe.

I ask him, and he nods and says yes.

I ask if he’ll remember me asking, and he says yes.

I’m not really sure I believe him, but it’s enough.

If he shows up, he shows up.

The last person is someone I simply write.

Dear Mr. Meiners:

If you don’t see me the day after Memorial Day, then go check out my former locker at Harrington. Everything I know about what is happening is written down and waiting in an envelope.

Give it to someone who can help.

If there is anyone who can help.

Chris

The notes would never make a set of books but they might at least provide some answers.

I just hope Mr. Meiners won’t need them.

I hope I’ll have all the answers and that I’ll still be carrying them. Alive and ready to leave this place.

But I don’t know.

I’m getting the feeling that I’m really on my own here.