The Impossible Coin (The Downwinders Book 2) (18 page)

There’s nothing here,
he
thought.
I’m just scaring myself. Like in the chute.

Whatever had been ascending the
stairs now fell onto the landing. He could hear it dragging itself along the
floor down the hallway. After it turned a corner, it’d be within eyesight. He
tried to increase his pace, moving from room to room more quickly. There
weren’t many more rooms to cover.

Then he saw it: an opening cut
into the ceiling, surrounded by a wooden frame, in a room near the center of
the house. The opening was covered over on the attic side by a large piece of painted
plywood. Winn studied it with his flashlight – he didn’t see any hinges, so it
didn’t look like a door.
The plywood might just be lying loose on top of the
opening
, he thought. He considered dragging some of the junk in the room
underneath it to make it easier to reach; instead, he tried jumping, and found
he could just barely touch the plywood with his hand, feeling it rise up as he made
contact with it.
He kept jumping, hitting at the plywood, sliding it a
few inches each time he made contact. After the twentieth jump, the edge of the
plywood had cleared the opening, and he could see through to the attic, which
looked black. He jumped at the plywood a couple more times until most of the
opening was clear, then he took a running jump and landed his hands up and over
the edge of the opening. He felt splinters enter the skin of his palms and
fingers as he pulled himself up and through it. Once inside, he removed his
hands from the lip of the opening, and tried to pull at the small shards of
wood that were sticking out from his hands. Then he looked around.

It was unlike anything he’d ever
seen in his life – in real life, or in a movie.

The entire room was in motion,
dark blue and purple streaks of fog and clouds, slowly spinning
counter-clockwise. There were no walls reigning in the scene – the vortex of
movement was large, well beyond the physical boundaries of the attic or the
house. The dark blue light illuminated dark shapes that were sitting in the
swirl of mist, causing the clouds to rise slightly or go around the
obstructions.  Some were below the surface of the fog, but others rose above it
a few feet. Winn couldn’t make out what the shapes were – they were too dark. It
unnerved him that they were all about the size and shape of humans.

He looked up, and saw stars – more
brilliantly displayed than he’d ever seen. He recognized the constellations –
everything was in its place. The vortex seemed to eliminate the sunlight,
providing a perfect viewing of the night sky.

There was something wrong with the
air here. Winn felt he couldn’t take normal breaths, just short ones, and it
smelled bad, as though there was some caustic chemical in the air. He knew he
couldn’t stay long.

He stood up and walked away from
the opening, his feet moving through the swirling blue fog. He switched on his
flashlight, but it wouldn’t light up. He hit it a few times, but nothing
happened.
Ida made it sound like once I reached the attic, the vorghost
would approach me,
he thought.
So far, nothing.

Winn walked to one of the dark
objects. It rose out of the mist a couple of feet, the fog slowly swirling past
it. As he approached he saw that it looked like something that had been
cocooned – wrapped up in some kind of dark webbing that didn’t reflect light.
There were facial features, but they were slight, the result of being under
layers and layers of some kind of dark thread. He reached out to touch it, and
immediately jumped back when the object moved under his touch. He heard a
muffled cry coming from inside.

There’s someone in there!
he
thought.

Hands off
, he heard. It was
a thin, wispy sound.

Instinct told him to drop into the
River, and the moment he did, he saw the face in the fog, several feet away,
watching him. It was just below the surface level of the mist, and it was twice
the size of a normal, human face.
A representation,
he thought.
Of
the vorghost.

He turned to look at the cocooned
object next to him, and was horrified to see that the dark webbing was now
translucent. He saw the wide open eyes of the person inside, staring at him. It
was a woman, and her mouth was covered with more webbing, making it impossible
for her to scream. Winn could see the horror in her eyes. She was terrified,
like she was pleading with him to find a way to release her from the strange
binding that held her.

Noticing movement, Winn turned
back to where he’d seen the face in the fog, and saw that it was gone. It
reappeared closer, now just feet away, still just under the surface of the blue
fog, its features half obscured.

I said: hands off,
he
heard, but this time it wasn’t a thin, wispy voice. It was low and deep, filled
with menace and threat. Winn took a step back from the trapped woman, her eyes
opening wider as he moved away, desperate for him to help her.

There
, Winn said in his
mind.
I’ve stepped back.

Are you prepared to give me
something in return?
he heard. He saw the lips moving on the face under the
fog, but they were so obscured he wasn’t entirely sure the sound had come from
them.

You know what I want?
Winn
said.

Only since you drove up,
he
heard.
Before that, no.

What do I give up?
Winn
asked.

It depends on what I want the
most,
the entity said. The face dipped from view, blue mist washing in
where the face had been. Winn saw movement under the fog, and he turned,
watching as the entity shifted to a new position.
I doubt you’ll miss what
I’m going to take. I expect you’ll hardly ever use it. Since I’m taking so
little, I want a commitment from you, as well.

What?
Winn asked, trying to
keep up with the movement under the fog. It stopped and surfaced again, not
more than three feet in front of him.

A future commitment, of my
choosing. If you’re called, you come, and do what I ask. If you fail to come,
your friend comes back, perhaps permanently, and I keep whatever I’ve already
taken. Those are the terms.

Winn felt a little cheated. If the
vorghost was going to take something from him, like he’d taken Ida’s control,
why should he also have to give up more for the same favor? It felt unfair, and
he felt like dickering.

What if I’m in the middle of
something? What if I can’t just drop whatever I’m doing and come here to you?
he asked.

You come, or your friend will
come back,
he heard.

And what are you going to have
me do if I come? Something dangerous? Something that maybe isn’t worth it?

I occasionally have things I
need done in the real world,
he heard.
You’ll do one of those things for
me. It might be dangerous, it might not be. Those are the terms.

Winn thought it over. It still
felt unfair – the vorghost hadn’t conceded anything. Ida had said it wouldn’t
be a fair trade. Still, he had to try.

I can’t have Brent’s return
looming over me my entire life,
he said.
That’s almost as bad as him
being around in the first place. How about we limit the time frame? You use up my
obligation to you within five years, and if you don’t use it in that time, I’m
free – it expires, no more commitment. Brent stays away forever.

Twenty years,
he heard.
As
long as you plan to honor your commitment, you should have no fear of your
friend returning. Only if you ignore my request will that happen; you have
control over that. Twenty years. I’ll send someone to you when I want you –
you’ll come back here and we’ll talk. No more bargaining, those are my terms,
take them or leave them.

Winn looked into the face below him
in the fog.
Alright,
he said.
I agree.

Do you have something of his? I
need something he owned.

Winn reached into his pocket, and
pulled out the nickel. He saw it shine with a blue hue, and he held it out to
the entity.
This was his,
he said.
I gave it to him. He was holding
it when he died. It’s the reason I’m here.

The face rose up and out of the
mist, enlarging as it left the swirling clouds. For a moment it had regular
features, but then its mouth opened and kept opening. It moved toward him, and
Winn realized it intended to swallow him. He closed his eyes as the mouth
descended upon him, and he felt suddenly light, as though he was floating,
anesthetized. He felt himself rotating backwards, floating in space, the stars
gone. He couldn’t move any part of his body, and his mind felt as though he
could focus only on one thing, the fact that he was still conscious. Everything
else felt numb. In the back of his mind he worried that in this state, the
vorghost could take anything or everything about him, and he was powerless to
stop it.

My soul is under the knife,
he remembered thinking, just as the tiny amount of consciousness he had left
collapsed into nothing, and he stopped being aware of anything.

“When I woke, I was in the
basement, and Marty was reviving me,” Winn said. “He’d been released, and right
after that, he saw me appear on the floor. I told him I made the deal, and he
ushered me through the basement window and back to his car. We drove back to
Tucson, and I told him the whole story of what happened after I went up the
chute. We went back home, and that was that.”

“So Brent was gone? He never came
around again?” Deem asked.

“No,” Winn replied. “The vorghost
was true to its word. I’ve had dreams that involved him, but no appearances
like before. Not a single one since I made the deal.”

“And the price you paid,” Awan
said, “was the part of you that made you a blank? Whatever that is?”

“Whatever it is,” Winn said. “I
spent years trying to figure out what it had taken from me, and nothing seemed
obvious. I began to think it hadn’t taken anything, and my obligation to a
future commitment was the real price. But thanks to Lyman, now I know. There’s
some kind of blind spot inside me. It came into play with Ninth Sign. I don’t
know if it’ll ever impact anything else I do, because I just don’t know much
about it.”

“It was an asset with Ninth Sign,”
Deem said. “Strange to think that something it took from you could wind up
being a good thing.”

“It was only good because someone
else knew how to manipulate it,” Awan said. “It isn’t something you have
control over, is it? It takes other people to make use of it. It’s useless to
you.”

“You’re right,” Winn said. “I
didn’t know it was there. I still don’t. It isn’t anything I can identify.”

“Anything you can identify at the
moment,” Carma said, rising from her chair and walking to the dimmer. She
raised the light level a little. “You may be able to learn to manipulate it
over time.”

“Really?” Winn asked.

“The ability to keep an object
concealed, even around powerful creatures like Ninth Sign?” Carma said. “Yes,
I’d consider that a valuable ability! I’d want to explore it and learn how to
control it, to use it to my advantage when I need to.”

“How would he do that?” Deem
asked.

“I’m inclined to direct you to a
friend of mine who might know more about your condition. Someone who could help
you exploit it.” Carma began picking up the pie plates scattered around the
room. “With a little bit of guidance, you may turn what you think is a
deficiency into a strength. Just like your fine ability to tell a wonderful
story. You delivered it with great aplomb! It had suspense, drama, and a laugh
here and there. I told you I would like it, and I did! I want you to come by
and tell a new story every weekend.”

“Thank you, Carma,” Winn said. He
felt some heat on his cheeks, and hoped he wasn’t blushing.

Carma turned to take the plates
out of the room. “Let me help you with those,” Deem said, rising from her chair
and following Carma into the kitchen.

“What about Marty?” Awan asked
Winn. “Is he still alive? Do you ever see him?”

“He’s still kicking,” Winn
replied. “He and Ida have this thing; it’s kind of on and off. We don’t see
each other much, but we do talk on the phone every couple of months. He
actually sent me a six pack of lemonade for Christmas last year.”

“He’s like the father you never
had.”

“He is. When I think of him, I
always picture looking down on him from that treehouse, watching him putter in
his yard. That yard was tiny and in a shitty little trailer court, but it was
so important to him. He always tried to make it look nice, even though there
were transient trailers and people who didn’t care how things looked all around
him.”

“That sounds as good of a role model
as anyone ever gets,” Awan said.

Winn nodded in agreement. It had
been a few months since he’d talked to Marty on the phone. He resolved to call
him tomorrow and see how he was doing.

“And Brent,” Awan said. “He’s
still in your dreams?”

“Sometimes,” Winn said. “I still
feel guilty about it.”

“I’ve often heard guilt referred
to as a shadow,” Awan said. “Follows you, but you make it.”

“The shadow is a consequence of me
standing in the sun, Awan,” Winn replied. “I can’t turn off the sun.”

▪
▪
▪

Awan and Deem spent the night at
Carma’s. Once Winn was speeding down I-15 in his Jeep, he cranked his stereo,
blasting Def Leppard. He found that the older he got, the further back his
musical tastes went. His interests didn’t seem to go forward into current
bands, like when he was a kid. Older bands appealed more. He’d gone back to the
eighties now, and he found it just kept receding. He suspected Pink Floyd and
Jethro Tull were next.

It was a hot night with a half
moon when he parked his truck next to his trailer and slowly walked to the
door. He saw clouds boiling in the distance – heavy weather brewing. He
stopped, deciding instead to enjoy a cigarette in the chair by the cable
spindle table. He lit one up, feeling the smoke in his lungs, then exhaled,
looking at the stars through the smoke. They reminded him of that attic room, a
place that seemed out of time, disconnected from the world, but still residing
under the stars. He knew if he closed his eyes he could picture the blue
swirling mist with the dark objects, almost as vivid as if it had been
yesterday.

Who were they?
he wondered
again, for the hundredth time.
People who paid more than I did? Adversaries
of the vorghost? People who touched something they shouldn’t have touched?

Maybe he’d ask the next time he was
at the house outside of Flagstaff. He knew the lay of the land now, how it all
worked. He’d met with Maynard in Toquerville, filled in all the holes in Ida’s
story and his own memory. He’d get all the answers he still needed the next
time he went back, including the answers that might help him figure out if he
wanted to do the same thing – become a vorghost in his next life. Start
preparing to become whatever that was. Until then, he’d just have to wonder.

Actions have consequences.

He crushed out the cigarette and
walked into the trailer, happy that it was nice and cool, unlike the days he’d
enter his mother’s trailer. He’d sold her trailer the week she died, not
wanting to live in it anymore, wanting to have his own. It was an easy way to
wipe away memories, but not all memories. Some didn’t wipe away so easily.

His clothes felt sticky, so he
stripped them off, turned off the light, and laid down on the couch, naked,
enjoying the cold air.

Brent could still come back,
he thought. Ida had been wrong about the vorghost obliterating Brent. Of all
the interesting things he’d learned while talking to Maynard, this was the most
disturbing. The threat to bring him back if Winn didn’t show up when the
vorghost requested his return suggested that Brent was still somewhere, waiting
for a chance to resume his haunting, held at bay by whatever power the vorghost
employed.

Is the vorghost’s strength
contingent upon the vortex?
he wondered,
or a result of it? If the
vortex were to dissolve for some reason, would Brent be released?

Maynard didn’t think he would, but
still Winn wondered. If it might cause his release, that could be a good reason
to help out the vorghost when it called him. Not just an obligation, but a
necessity.

He closed his eyes, feeling a
slight rocking of the trailer as the wind picked up. It could get pretty windy
in Moapa. He’d sunk spikes years ago, and had hurricane straps he could use if
it looked particularly nasty. Normally when he felt the trailer move, he’d get
up and check the forecast, just to see if setting up the straps was a good
idea.

Today he didn’t feel like it. He
decided instead to remain on the couch, ready for sleep, feeling the gentle
rocking. In response to his decision, a strong gust jostled the structure.

The consequence of not
strapping down the trailer might be an overturned trailer,
he thought. He
exhaled. Then he got up and pulled on his pants, heading to the back where he
kept the straps.

If I had known the coin would
do that to Brent, I wouldn’t have given it to him when we were sleeping on that
platform up in the tree,
he thought as he rummaged for the straps,
irritated that he couldn’t find them quickly, and that the story he told in
Leeds was still alive in his mind, plaguing him.
But we’ve been through this
a hundred times, haven’t we? If I had kept it, they would have taken me instead
of Brent to the cave, and slit MY throat to feed the cave spirit. My bones
might still be down there, undiscovered. The whole situation was impossible.

“We were doomed the moment we
crawled in there,” he said aloud while he searched through a drawer for the
straps. “I didn’t want to go in. I said we shouldn’t. He went in first. He
decided to go in. There were consequences for his actions, too.”

The straps weren’t to be found,
but he saw the envelope, the one he’d tucked away years ago, up against the edge
of the drawer. He opened it and let the coin drop out and into his hand. He
turned it over, looking at the date and the mint and the etching of Thomas Jefferson.
He held it between his finger and thumb, hoping it might come to life and produce
the thrill it had done years ago.

Nothing happened.

“Why’d I keep you?” he said to the
coin. “Why did I decide to keep you? You’re useless. And now you’re just a reminder
that I lost my friend.”

He slammed the drawer shut and
walked to the trailer door. As he opened it, the wind ripped it from his hands
and it slammed back against the side of the trailer with a bang. He stepped
outside, dirt kicking up from the ground, swirling around him. He thought for a
moment about his mother, then he walked across his driveway and into the brush.
He reared his arm back and threw the nickel as hard as he could into the wind,
and he saw it glint for a split second as it traveled up, near the stars, and
then back down again, many yards away, somewhere in the desert.

“Hunting for the mine was your
idea, Brent,” he said. “I didn’t kill you when I gave you that coin. You killed
yourself when you crawled into the cave. There are consequences, Brent. Not
just for me.”

He half believed what he was
saying as he stood in the wind, the temperature slowly dropping, feeling the
sand sting his face. He turned and walked back into the trailer, pulling the
door shut. He wanted to sleep, but he knew he had to find the straps and secure
the trailer before he’d be able to close his eyes.