Once Beyond a Time (24 page)

Your mind can come up with all kinds of stuff if you want something bad enough.

At least I know Digger wasn’t killed by the ax murderer that killed
those people over in Asheville. There was a big write-up in the paper yesterday about how the guy was found hiding over in the Tennessee mountains. Yeah, his cousin, some bottom-of-the-barrel lowlife living in a dirt-floor cabin over there, was playing host to the ax murderer. The two of them were drop-dead drunk on moonshine when the cops pulled the raid that nabbed them. Figures. Two of the south’s finest, now behind bars. The killer’s name is Lloyd Drucker, and his cousin is Ernest Drucker. The thing is, Ernest claims Lloyd has been with him for more than two weeks, and he had no idea ole Lloyd had gone around killing anybody. Said he’d have turned Lloyd in himself if he had known, though he’s probably just trying to make himself look like he wasn’t harboring a fugitive. Who knows, but that’s not what I care about anyway. The thing is if Ernest is telling the truth, then Lloyd was in Tennessee when Digger disappeared. So there goes that theory of Digger being taken by the ax murderer, and I’m glad to be rid of it.

At school, I see the way the other kids look at me. They’re afraid of me. I’m a freak now, the girl with the missing brother, and everybody’s thinking it better not happen to them. Gail walks with me everywhere like she’s my bodyguard, and she’s ready to beat up anybody dumb enough to say anything stupid. Not that everybody’s being weird about Digger. Some of the kids are real nice and go out of their way to say nice things. And I have to admit the teachers have been pretty cool through this whole thing, telling me they understand if my assignments are late and things like that. I’m not going to take advantage of it though. I’m trying to stay on top of my work and not use Digger as an excuse. I mean that’d be like dancing on my own brother’s grave, and the thought makes me sick.

I can’t believe they’ve got that Richard Nixon guy who’s running for President on
Laugh-In
saying “Sock it to me” and looking like he has no idea where he is or what he’s doing, like he’s landed in some sort of loony bin. And now, Goldie Hawn is talking about looking that up in your Funk and Wagnalls, and the audience is laughing, and maybe the whole world
out there is laughing right about now, but I don’t think any of it is funny at all. I don’t think I’ll ever laugh again.

I get up and turn off the TV and walk around with my hands balled up into fists, and then I’m crying so hard I’m sobbing. I beat my fists on the couch and bury my face in the cushions and cry till I’m exhausted. Then the house is quiet, and I know I should get up and finish my homework for school tomorrow, but I don’t want to get up. I want Digger to come home. I want life to be the way it was before.

“Linda?”

Oh great. Dad’s here. I don’t want to lift my head to look at him. “What?” I mutter.

“What’s the matter?”

It isn’t Dad. I sit up, brushing tears away with the palms of my hands. Austin is sitting in the chair beside the couch.

“Austin!” I say. I sniff loudly, wishing I had a tissue. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

He shrugs. He leans forward, looking at me intently. “Why are you crying?” he asks. “What happened?”

“Digger’s gone!”

“Gone?”

I nod. I’m crying again. “He just disappeared into thin air. We can’t find him.”

“You can’t find him? When did he disappear?”

“Ten days ago now.”

“Ten days?” His eyes widen. We both know ten days is too long. Who can hold on to hope after ten days? “Has anyone searched the mountains for him?”

“Of course. Plenty of people. The police, Dad and Uncle Steve, volunteers. No one can find anything. Not a clue.”

“What do you think happened?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. Nobody knows. But if I had to guess,
I’d say he’s probably been kidnapped. Just taken by some crazy person, you know?”

I can’t say anymore. Austin holds out a hand to me, but it dangles in mid-air. He looks at it and lets it fall back in his lap. We both know he can’t touch me.

He stands and starts to pace the room. He runs a hand over his hair, and his fingers are trembling. He’s mumbling something I can’t understand.

“What are you talking about, Austin?” I ask.

He stops abruptly and turns to me. His eyes are shining like he’s about to cry. “I can’t believe this happened, Linda,” he says. “I feel so helpless. I can’t move ahead fifty years and do something to help you.”

For a minute, I can’t say anything. What I really want to do is throw my arms around him and thank him for caring enough to want to help. And I’d like to have him hold me while I cry out all the terrible feelings inside because I think if anyone can help me feel even a little bit better, it’s Austin. But I can’t touch him, and he can’t hold me. Finally, I just say, “No one can do anything anymore, Austin. I think it’s too late.”

He swings one fist into the other and starts pacing again. While his back is turned to me, he rubs his face with both hands and sniffs loudly. Then he turns around and says, “Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe you’ll still find him, or he’ll find his way home. Maybe … ”

As much as he wants to comfort me, and as grateful as I am, he’s clutching at straws, and we both know it. No little kid is going to survive in the mountains for more than a week. And if he’s been kidnapped—I don’t even want to think about that.

I wipe at my own eyes again and take a deep breath. “Well,” I say, “you know what it’s like to lose a brother, don’t you?”

“I do?” He looks puzzled.

“Yeah, well—” Then I remember. It isn’t 1919 there yet. Mac is still alive. I’m afraid I’ve crossed the line, and Austin is going to disappear, but nothing happens except he goes on staring at me, waiting for me to
say something. “No, I mean, I’m thinking of somebody else. Not you. Sorry, Austin, I’m not thinking straight.” I stand. “Listen, I’m going to step outside and get some fresh air. Want to come with me?”

He hesitates a moment. He takes a deep breath like he’s trying to calm down. Finally he says, “All right.” He follows me through the kitchen and out to the backyard. We stand close to the big rock where Digger used to play.

I get a thought. “You know, Mac and Digger used to play together. Digger didn’t tell Mac anything, did he?”

“Like what?” Austin asks.

“Like, he didn’t say he was going to run away or anything, did he?”

Austin thinks a moment, then shakes his head. “No, Mac hasn’t said anything. I mean, I knew he’d met Digger, but he hasn’t talked about him in a while. I was assuming he hasn’t seen him for some time.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess he hasn’t. None of us has. That’s the problem. The police say there’s usually some clue left behind, something that gives you a lead to work with. But with Digger, there’s nothing. Except for his stuff still in the house, it’s like he never existed.”

Austin frowns and looks up at the sky. We both just stand there a long time, lost in our own thoughts. Finally, Austin says, “Holy cow. That’s one huge star up there.”

I follow his gaze. I’m used to the star by now. “Yeah, it’s really weird. It’s been there every night since Digger disappeared.”

“It has? I haven’t noticed it before tonight.”

I nod. “It’s been there, all right. I’ve seen it every single night, and I’ve been wondering what it is. It reminds me of the star you see on Christmas cards, you know? The star of Bethlehem.”

“Oh?” Austin is quiet a moment. “It’s got to be a bunch of stars lined up, or a star and a planet or something.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s how my dad explained it. But since planets move through the sky, how come it hasn’t moved out of the path of the star?”

“Maybe it’s just moving really slow.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s got to be some explanation. We just don’t know what it is.”

“I guess so.”

“An astronomer would know. Science can explain everything.”

“Yeah. I guess so,” I say again. “But I wonder whether science could explain this?”

“What?”

“You and me talking to each other.”

“You mean since we live in different times?”

“Yeah.”

He thinks a moment, then says, “I guess science hasn’t gotten that far yet. But it will. Someday. What about that physicist over in Germany, the one who writes about relativity … what’s his name?”

I raise a hand to my lips in thought. “You mean Albert Einstein?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Does he have a theory on time?”

“He might, but if he does I never heard of it.”

“Well, maybe he will. Maybe he’ll figure out how people can talk between different times.”

“I don’t think so. He died before I was born. If he had some sort of theory about this, it seems to me everyone would be talking about it.”

Austin rises up on his toes and goes down again. “Well, if Einstein didn’t get to it, then somebody else will figure it out. That person probably just hasn’t been born yet.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. Someday science will give us all the answers we need.”

I think about that. After a minute I ask, “Even about where Digger is?”

His eyes get small. He doesn’t say anything.

Saturday, September 28, 1968

T
HREE WEEKS
, O Lord.

Three agonizing weeks, and every night I drop to my knees and ask you to bring my son home, but you are silent. If ever I’ve needed an answer, the time is now. And so I kneel here beside the bed, fingers twined, forehead pressed firmly against the quilted bedspread, waiting.

The words of the prophet Habakkuk come to mind. How can they not? It’s my own prayer now, the only one I have.
O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!

The silence is all-encompassing. There is nothing besides the silence.

Angrily, I push myself away from the bed and begin to pace. The search has been called off. Everyone has given up. But I’m his father. How can I not go on looking for him? I’ll drive the same back roads again if I have to. And again and again, hoping the car’s headlights will catch a glimpse of something. In the morning, I’ll walk again into these hills, calling my son’s name, hoping for an answer. I’ll—

“Sheldon?”

I whirl around. Gavan is sitting at the desk. I realize I’ve been waiting for him to show; I have longed to speak with him these past three weeks.

“Digger is missing,” I say.

He nods. His face is impassive, telling me nothing.

“But then, you know that, don’t you?” I take a step toward him, notice that small blinking line on his machine, the computer.

“Yes,” he says. “I am aware.”

Another step. “You are like God. You know the future.”

He moves his head slowly from side to side. “No, I know the past and the present. My present. That’s all.”

“But your present is my future, isn’t it?”

He looks at me but doesn’t answer. I feel another surge of anger swelling in my chest. I lift a hand to the computer. “Can you look in that machine of yours and tell me where my son is?”

His eyes become tender with sorrow. “No, Sheldon. I can’t do that. I’m not allowed. You know I’m not allowed.”

I drop to the bed and put my face in my hands. The frustration is greater than any pain I’ve ever known.

“Tell me this one thing, then. Should I resign myself to his death?”

He puts his hands together and lifts them to his lips, as though in prayer. “Sheldon—”

“I know. That too is somehow against the rules.”

He sighs and drops his hands. “I wish someone could tell me my wife will come home. I long to know she comes home safely, but that’s something God alone knows. God alone, Sheldon.”

I think about that, and I remember what Meg said when we first learned the legend of the house. “The Alpha and the Omega,” I say quietly. “The one who knows the end from the beginning.”

“Yes.” Gavan nods.

Still, I long to tap into Gavan’s mind, to siphon out what he knows about Digger. “Gavan?”

“Yes?”

“Can you tell me anything at all about my son?”

He frowns. He picks up a pencil and taps the eraser on the desk. “I can
tell you honestly that I don’t know what happened to your son. That is, I don’t know in the sense of understanding. I
can’t
understand.”

“You can’t understand?”

“No. I’m not sure anyone can.”

I tremble. I take a deep breath. “Can you give me any hope?”

Gavan nods, but almost imperceptibly. “I can tell you this: God is with Digger. And if Digger is dead, he is with God.”

Ah yes, I remember now. That is how he lives with his own uncertainties. “Either way,” I say, repeating his earlier words, “God is there.”

“Yes,” he says quietly. “And so we trust the one who knows what we can’t know.”

I rise from the bed and once more pace the room. “Still, under the circumstances, it doesn’t seem enough. There must be more. More I can know. More I can do.”