The Boys Are Back in Town (24 page)

Her throat went dry and though she wanted to, she could not close her eyes. When she swallowed, it hurt her.

“Do you . . . do you remember why?”

There was a long pause this time. At length, another whisper carried up to her. “I'm not alone, Ashleigh. I don't know if you'd want me to talk about it.”

She froze. “Who's there? Who's with you?”

“Brian.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion and she tried to get a better look out the window. She traced her fingers along the base of the screen, tempted to remove it, to thrust her head out and try to see them.

“Brian?”

Another voice, then. Not at all familiar. “Hello, Ashleigh.”

“Has . . . has something happened to you, too?”

“Yes. Yeah, I guess that's one way to put it.”

She was more than a little freaked out. Forget about closing the window; her mind had now moved on to the possibility of calling the police. But then it occurred to her that the question she had asked . . . that was one only Will would ever know. He would never have told anyone that story. No way.

“Brian. Can I trust you to cover your ears?” she asked. It was insane. It didn't even sound like Brian. How could she trust him? But the alternative—completely panicking—would be a bad idea if it turned out that something awful really had happened to Will.

“Yeah. I'll cover them. Got 'em covered now.”

“Answer the question, Will,” Ashleigh said. She bit her lip gently and her chest hurt. She did not want to talk about this, didn't want to remember.

“It was . . .” Will began hesitantly, “it was the last time your father ever took a drink. He forgot your birthday. He ate part of your cake. And he . . . he hit your mother. Your mom, she canceled the party, but you begged her to let me come over. I was the only one there with you, and . . .”

Ashleigh felt the edges of her eyes burn with unshed tears. “And you held me while I cried.” She covered her mouth again and then reached to begin removing the screen. “Will, what is it? What's happened to you? Come up. I'll help. Of course I'll help.”

He hesitated only a moment, and then he began to climb. Ashleigh saw the dark figure clutching branches, hauling himself up. Too broad in the shoulder to be Will. But different as it was, the voice was his. And only Will would have known . . . only Will had held her when her heart was broken.

A snapping of branches across the yard drew her gaze and she spotted it, that same dark silhouette, moving amongst the woods. The figure quickly darted deeper into the woods and then was gone.

“What the hell . . .” she began slowly, speaking mostly to herself.

From beneath her, climbing nearer the window, Will spoke. “Happened to me? You asked that already. The answer's simple, but hard to take.”

Ashleigh looked down and she saw him, his face illuminated by the glow from her bedroom. It was Will's face, no doubt about it. But different. Older. More rugged. This was not a boy, but a man.

“What happened is, I grew up.”

All the breath went out of Ashleigh's lungs. A spasm passed through her and dizziness made her stumble backward. Ashleigh believed that people only fainted in the movies, and so she did not faint. Instead, she said a silent, barely formed prayer as all the feeling went out of her legs and she collapsed, eyes wide with horror. She scrambled backward, sliding across the wood floor, and she began to hyperventilate.

Ashleigh pulled her legs up beneath her and hugged them to her, turning to face the wall, her back to the window.

But she did not wake up.

The nightmare did not go away.

“Ashleigh,” whispered this man . . . Will James. “Please.”

Her heart trip-hammered in her chest, but she could not deny what she had seen. That face. And what she had heard. His voice and his words and the truth that he had known.

He spoke to her.

And Ashleigh listened.

“You've got to be kidding me.”

Kyle stared at the place where Will James had been, a weird, manic grin spreading across his features and a mad little laugh bubbling up from his throat. His body went slack and he just sat there, smiling, running one hand through his hair.

“No way. No. Way.”

But his denials were only perfunctory. There was no doubt in his mind as to what he had just seen. Magic. As impressive as the flame-in-hand Will had brandished earlier had been, this was the big time. Serious mojo. Kyle was almost numb with amazement.
Holy shit,
he thought.
Unbelievable.

So much of his connection to Will James—the note and the book and all of that stuff—had been so creepy, even frightening, that this giddiness that swept over him now was a relief. He shook his head and gazed in admiration at the circle and symbols, all painted in Will's blood. The memory of Will slicing open his own hand was fresh in Kyle's mind, and he had to hand it to the guy, that move had taken more than a little faith and slightly less than all his marbles.

“Wow,” Kyle whispered.

The giddy sensation began to subside, and his smile disappeared as he thought about what Will had told him, about the purpose of this bit of sorcery. Silently, he wished the man luck. In all his life, nothing like this had ever happened to Kyle. And it wasn't just the magic. He played it cool because that was how a pale, lanky kid with orange hair had to play it to avoid being completely tortured by his classmates. But he had always had this sense that his life was going to be boring.

Ordinary.

There was nothing ordinary about this.

Despite the unsettling truths about the world he had learned in recent hours, for the first time Kyle Brody thought that perhaps his life was not going to be quite so boring after all. Perhaps it was this factor that caused him to approach his obligation to Will James with a gravity and maturity he had never exhibited toward anything else. Whatever it took, he would safeguard this place until Will returned, and not a word to his parents. This guy's life . . . and the lives of some of his friends . . . might be depending on Kyle. It had happened almost too fast for him to understand the weight of that burden, but now that he did, he could only accept it.

As he began to come down from the high of seeing magic performed, seeing a man slip through time, other concerns began to assert themselves. He was staring at the bloody circle, at those symbols, and it really sank into him what his parents would think if they happened to come into this cold, stooped little room and discovered Will's occult scrawl.

Minutes went by. Kyle stared at the spot where Will had disappeared, but it quickly became obvious to him that unlike in time travel stories he'd read, Will James was not going to pop right back up only moments after he'd left. Soon he grew anxious and started to bounce his heel on the concrete, his leg rising and falling incessantly. It was a nervous habit that drove his mother crazy, particularly when it signified his desire to leave the dinner table.

The complications of all of this began to present themselves. Will hadn't had a clue what to expect after he'd performed the spell. He'd left it all for Kyle to figure out, and the clock was ticking. His parents could come home any time now. They'd been out to Ken's for dinner with friends; if they lingered, or if they decided on another bottle of wine, they might be there for another hour yet. But if they didn't, they might pull into the driveway at any moment.

“Shit,” Kyle snapped, and he got up and hustled, hunched over, to the door. Leaving the light on he slipped onto the patio, ears attuned for the sound of his parents' car arriving.

As fast as he was able he slipped up the back porch steps and into the house. His heart had picked up a strange rhythm, a combination of fear and excitement and guilt. In the living room he paused to glance out the picture window at the darkened street. No sign of any cars. Kyle took several breaths, steadying himself, and then as if at the sound of a starter gun he sprinted down the short corridor and into his parents' bedroom. His mother had a long, squat dresser—what they called a lowboy—with a mirror on it. His father's was a tallboy. On top of the bureau were a nice steel-banded watch, a bunch of loose change, and some receipts his father had unceremoniously dumped from his pockets.

No keys.

His dad didn't keep the key to the storage area on the ring with his house and car keys but instead on a separate, flimsy metal ring that also had a key to the garage, which they never locked, and to the snowblower. Kyle could feel his pulse in his throat and the tips of his fingers as he rifled through the top drawer of his father's tallboy, where his dad kept rings and batteries and keepsakes, matches and—in a container that could have passed for a harmonica box—a small vibrator.

Kyle shuddered at the memory of his first discovering the vibrator. It was just too much damn information. But as his fingers brushed the box aside, the keys scraped the bottom of the drawer. He snatched up the small ring and quickly worked the key to the storage area off of it, then hid the ring behind a pack of playing cards and reorganized a few other things to keep the ring from sight. If his father was going through the drawer, he wouldn't notice right off that a key was missing if he didn't notice the ring itself.

A phone began to ring, but it was not the house phone. It was the trill of his mobile, which was still stashed in his backpack because he had not used it since coming home from school the previous day. He darted across the hall to his own bedroom, grabbed the backpack, and fished through it for the phone. He missed the call, but that wasn't really his priority at the moment.

Back in the kitchen, Kyle dialed his own home phone number, even as he grabbed a Coke from the fridge and a bag of pretzels from the cabinet. The house phone started to ring and he nodded impatiently, silently urging it on as though he had just instantly developed some kind of freaky telekinetic power that could cause the answering machine to cut in quicker. On the fourth ring, it picked up. He listened to his mother's voice on the machine.

“Hi guys, it's just me,” he said at the beep, trying to disguise the fact that he was a bit breathless. “I hope you don't mind, but I'm gonna spend the night at Ben's. We rented a bunch of horror movies and we're gonna have a gore-fest, with blood and popcorn. Mom, I know how much you love this stuff, so, y'know, come on over.” He laughed nervously and wondered if they would hear the falseness of it in the message. “Anyway, I'll call in the morning. See you tomorrow.”

He cut off the call, paused, and stared at the phone a moment, then clicked it over from ring to vibrate. He was going to be right underneath them. If they heard the phone ringing, that would blow the whole thing.

With Coke and pretzels in hand, Kyle left the kitchen and went quietly out the back porch door. Just as he was going down the stairs, he heard the sound of car doors closing out in front of the house. His heart beat like hummingbird's wings and he crept as silently as possible down to the patio. As he opened the door to the storage area he could hear his parents laughing about something as they approached the front door.

Too close,
he thought.

And he closed himself in for the night, too late remembering that he had no pillow and no blanket, and that it was going to be cold in the small hours of the morning.

For several minutes he sat on the concrete, breathing slowly. Then he took out his cell phone again and quietly dialed Ben's number.

October, Senior Year . . .

“You
know
you're not supposed to fuck around with the time stream. It's in every movie.”

Will stared through the screen at Ashleigh. She looked so young to him it was hard to imagine this was their senior year. There was something precious about her, something she lost as she grew older. Of course, he suspected that was true of all of them.

“It wasn't my idea,” he replied, his voice just loud enough for her to hear him over the music she had put on to cover their conversation so her parents wouldn't hear. “I hate magic. I told you the whole story already.”

Ashleigh studied his face. “Yeah. You did. And I get it, Will.”

He was in awe of her, and it must have shown on his face, for she became self-conscious and lowered her gaze.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked.

Will laughed softly. “Please. Like you weren't staring at me? I'm just amazed that you're taking this as well as you are.”

A slightly hysterical giggle bubbled from her lips and she clapped one hand over her mouth. Over the top of her hand her eyes were more than a little crazy and she breathed as though she feared she had forgotten how.

“Ashleigh, what . . . I didn't mean to—”

She waved him to silence, at first staring at him and then tearing her gaze away. She pulled away from the window and paced the bedroom in her white tank top and blue cotton sweats. Will could not tear his eyes away, but there was nothing prurient in his interest. Or very little, at least.

With her back to him she first lowered her chin, her ponytail sliding off her shoulder to hang beside her face. At length she threw her head back and took a deep breath. Will was gravely concerned for her. The girl had freaked out when she had first gotten a look at his face but she had not screamed, had not called for her parents or the police. Once she had calmed down enough and the strength had returned to her legs, she had gingerly approached the window and in hushed tones had demanded that he explain, that he make her believe in the impossible, in magic.

He had thought she was taking it all very well indeed.

Now Ashleigh turned toward the window again, still hugging herself. She glanced at her CD player, as though expecting it to perform some strange action. Then she shook her head again. Her eyes narrowed and abruptly she strode across the room. Will watched the decisive expression on her face as she worked the screen free and removed it from the window. She turned and slid it under her bed.

Will was confused. The last thing he wanted was to upset her more. Did she want him to come inside? Before he could ask, Ashleigh came over to kneel in front of the window in her bare feet, her sweatpants gathering dust from the hardwood floor.

“Don't move,” she instructed him.

The plea in her eyes at that moment broke his heart. Will loved his friend Ashleigh DeSantis, professional woman, wife, and mother of twins. But only now, in this moment, inches away from this sweet, clever, baby-skinned high school kid, did he realize how much he missed Ashleigh Wheeler, the girl next door.

Her right hand fluttered up as though out of her control, but then she seemed to recover herself, for she reached out through the open window. Her long, slender fingers traced his features as though she were a blind woman. Will flinched at her touch and another rush of emotion filled him. He had told Ashleigh the facts, the sequence of events, but only what she absolutely had to know. That people would be hurt. That people would die if he and Brian did not do something to stop it. He hadn't told her what could happen to her . . . or what her life would be like if he couldn't prevent that.

Ashleigh ran her fingers over the stubble on his chin.

“Let me see your hand,” she said.

Will raised his left hand, resting it on the windowsill.

“No. The other one.”

He clung to the branches of a tree he had climbed hundreds of times as a kid, yet his hip hurt where he leaned against the exterior of the house, and his right arm was slung over a thick branch at an angle that made his armpit hurt.
I'm twenty-eight,
he thought.
Jesus, what the hell is fifty-eight going to feel like?
Not that he expected to be climbing trees then.

It took some doing to twist around so that he could switch hands. When he reached up with his right hand, she took it and held it in both of hers. Her fingers traced his palm and then turned it over. With her index finger she seemed almost to be trying to tickle him, and Will frowned and glanced up at her face. So intent was she upon her work that she paid him no attention at all.

Her fingertip paused upon the fleshy web of skin that separated his thumb from the first finger of his right hand.

“It really is you,” she whispered, so quietly that he could barely hear her over the music playing in her room.

Will frowned and looked down, and then he realized what it was she had found. There upon his skin was a tiny, pale circle of scar tissue. The scar was so small and so old that he almost never thought about it, yet he could still remember the circumstances of his receiving it very clearly. Will had been seven at the time and his parents had taken him to visit his uncle Harry, at the site where the architectural firm his amiable uncle worked for was constructing a new library. Will had been given a hard hat to wear, which he'd thought was just about the coolest thing ever.

Uncle Harry smoked.

As they stood together gazing up at a crane that was lifting a steel beam high into the air, Uncle Harry let his hand dangle by his side, a lit cigarette between two fingers. The burning tip accidentally brushed Will's hand and the ash had come off, clinging to his skin. Searing. Scarring.