The Storyteller (20 page)

Not to get all philosophical, but that sort of thinking gets me remembering this day when I was eight and my brother—Neal is his name—was about thirteen and we did one of the stupidest things a coupla kids could've ever done. I'm guessing it was his idea, but I don't know for sure. I wouldn't put it past me to think up such insanity.

It was summertime, but we got dressed up in our winter clothes. Snowmobile suits, hats, gloves, the whole nine. Even ski goggles. Basically covered every inch of our skin. Like we were wearing armor. Then we went into the garage.

In the garage, there was a bucket of old tennis balls from when Ma took up the sport. She wasn't using them anymore because she learned pretty quickly that none of the other ladies in Thessaly were into games that make you sweat. So the bucket was sitting there, untouched, right next to the barbecue gear.

My brother and I took a can of lighter fluid and we sprayed a bunch into the bucket, all over the balls. Then we took a candle and attached it with a C-clamp to a sawhorse at the other end of the garage. Then we lit the candle.

This was gonna be a game. A competition. We were five years apart, but still very competitive. Boys will be boys, as Ma used to say.

The point of the game was to throw a ball soaked in lighter fluid through the candle flame and make it catch fire. For every ball that caught fire, the thrower would get a point. After each throw, we'd fetch the flaming ball and smother it. To be clear, we did have a hose nearby to keep things safe. That's also what all the clothes were for. To keep things safe.

Well, we started chucking the balls and having a great time. The game was to ten points, and after a few minutes, the score was something like four to one, with Neal in the lead. It was my turn and I had this perfect throw. Knocked the candle right from the clamp and set the ball ablaze. I woulda cheered too, but there was hardly any time to do a thing. 'Cause the ball came bouncing back lickety-split and landed right in the bucket. The whole thing went up like flash paper.

You do smart things and stupid things in the thick of a moment, and the first thing I did was pretty damn stupid. I kicked at the bucket to try to put out the fire. Doesn't take a genius to guess that this tipped the bucket over and sent flaming balls bouncing all across the floor. We started chasing them because we didn't have any idea where they might end up. Lots of flammable stuff in a garage, ya know.

In all the running around, Neal probably didn't notice that his pants leg caught on fire. I sure as heck noticed, though. There's that old rhyme about
liar, liar, pants on fire
. I don't know where that comes from, but I think about my brother every time I hear it. The flames were on his legs like ivy on a tree, creeping up and wrapping themselves around. Looking back at it, wearing a whole mess of winter clothes was probably the stupidest part of this stupid game. Sure, it protected our skin a little bit, but it also made us a lot more flammable.

With my brother on fire, I could have run away. I kinda wanted to. To be honest, it scared the dickens out of me. But I did what instinct told me, and instinct this time was smart enough. I jumped on top of him. These days they tell kids to stop, drop, and roll if your clothes are on fire. Not sure if they told us that when I was young. All I knew was that I had to smother the flames.

I was a big guy. A strong guy, even at eight. I managed to tackle Neal and wrap myself around his legs. It worked. The flames were out in a second or two.

But right away he pushed me away and started shouting, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Saving you,” I told him.

He looked down at his legs and he had to've seen the charred fabric. Impossible to miss. But he didn't thank me or say
sorry
or nothing. He jumped up and hurried over to the garage door and threw it open. Then he ran around the garage kicking the flaming balls out across the driveway into the front yard, where the grass was still wet from a sun shower.

When all the balls were put out, he pointed at me and said, “Why are you so stupid? Why'd you have to go and ruin a perfectly good game?”

I shrugged and said, “Because I'm an idiot.”

Not that I really thought I was an idiot, but he was my big brother and I hated disappointing him.

And that's when he spat on me.

Right in my face. Right on my cheek.

Which is the most disrespectful thing you can do to a person. Worse than even punching him in the nose. Even an eight-year-old knows that.

Neither of us said anything for a few seconds. Then Neal sneered and stormed off into the house.

I don't know if he ever thinks back on that day. Probably not.

I do. More often than I'd like. I'm thinking back on it now as I finish packing up the truck. An alternate reality split off that day. But it wasn't the alternate reality where I let my brother burn. Where I ran away. Because that would've never happened, even if the thought had entered my mind.

The path was about what he did. It was about his choice to spit on me.

Life is a series of paths. To helping people. To hurting people. To leaving certain places and certain people behind. For better or worse.

That's what I'm doing now.

That's what I hope my niece did.

So I'm gonna go looking for her. She's too young to be out there alone, and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to find her. When I do find her, I'm gonna listen to her. Really listen. Try to understand her path. Which is maybe what no one has ever done.

 

S
UNDAY
, 12/24/1989

MORNING

Sorry, Stella. It's been a few days. I needed a breather. A time-out.

No one responded to Dorian Loomis after his … I'm not entirely sure what you would call it. I called it recollections, but maybe it's something different. In English class we read
Romeo and Juliet
, and in that play there's something called a soliloquy, where characters yap away for a few minutes even if no one is listening. Maybe Dorian's speech qualified as one of those. Whatever it was, I might have been the only person who heard it.

He drove off shortly after he said it. I was still sitting on the rock, though I'd taken off the walkie-talkie. I waved at him, which caught him off guard. He waved back, but it was an
Am I supposed to know who you are?
sorta wave.

Here's the thing: I probably didn't get it exactly right. I haven't gotten a lot of it exactly right. What am I talking about, Stella? Well, let's just say I've read books before. Nonfiction, they call it, otherwise known as “true stories.” But they'll have long passages of dialogue or speeches that weren't recorded or written down on the spot. So they're drawn from memory. Let's face it, our memories aren't perfect. We don't get anything exactly right.

Which is why when I wrote down
The Recollections of Dorian Loomis
, I know I didn't get it exactly right. How could I remember all of that? But I'm a storyteller, and it's a storyteller's job to take on other people's voices. To present as real a picture of things as possible. Every storyteller will write a different story. Ask Dorian's brother, Fiona's dad, about that day in the garage, and he'll tell you something different. Is one a better truth than the other? I don't know.

So are stories alternate realities? Jeez, I'm not sure I want to break my brain with that sort of thinking, but I guess they are in a way. And the stories they tell about Fiona, the things people in this town think might have happened to her, the places she might have ended up? Each is a different reality.

And look at me, I choose to believe the reality that puts her down the hall from me, somewhere inside the brain of my weird brother.

AFTERNOON

The last few days have been a slog. Glen and Mandy still aren't talking to me. Glen, I understand. I did bite the guy, which isn't exactly model girlfriend behavior. Our last day of school before break was Thursday, and today is Sunday. Christmas Eve. So I'm sure he's busy with family stuff, and it's not like there have been a lot of opportunities to run into each other. Still, I thought he might call, and the fact that he hasn't makes me think that maybe we're not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. I can't tell if that's a relief or not. It doesn't feel like a relief.

Mandy's silence is more puzzling, but of all the puzzles in my life, it's the one that can stay scrambled for a bit. Our friendship goes up and down. Not like a roller coaster, because the downs are fun on a roller coaster. Like a plane in turbulence, I guess. No, that's not right either, because that means the ups are bad too, which they aren't. I know I rag on Mandy a lot, but there are so many great things that she's done for me.

Like last year. I was going through a rough patch. Phaedra Moreau was giving me a lot of crap about my zits, which were in full bloom. She was stopping me in the hall and handing me Oxy pads and saying stuff like, “You know, it's all about the grease in your pores. Wipe off all the sweat and slime and say buh-bye to the constellations on your face. You can thank me later.” Or she'd come up to me after every social studies class and just say a number.
Six
, or
eight
, or
four
. No, she wasn't rating my outfits this time. She was counting my zits and telling me how many I had each morning.

More of that typical Phaedra BS. I knew then, like I know now, that I should've ignored her, but Phaedra is impossible to ignore. She's magic. Like a warlock. Like a ponytailed leprechaun. Only her power is the power to annoy the piss out of you. That's not an exaggeration either. She makes me so angry sometimes that my body clenches up and I have to run to the bathroom. I know, Stella. Gross. What do you want? I'm being honest.

And honestly, I don't think I could deal with people like Phaedra without Mandy's support. During the zit incidents, Mandy would sit with me and plot intricate revenge scenarios that always involved Phaedra's running naked from the locker room covered in spiders while her clothes hung from the school flagpole. We never followed through with the plans. The planning was enough.

I'd also sleep over at Mandy's house sometimes. Apparently, I'm a bit of a sleep talker, and Mandy would hear me grumbling about Phaedra at night. So she'd sing to me to calm me down. I'd wake up hearing her off-key voice whisper-crooning a wacky song. Sometimes I wouldn't even let her know I was awake. I'd listen with my eyes closed.

Don't you know you're beautiful?

Don't you know you're a shining star?

Don't you know you light up the room?

In whatever place you are.

Shooby dooby, bow wow wow.

Dooby shooby, wow wow bow!

The lyrics were always different, always composed by Mandy, always silly, sappy, and exactly what a friend is supposed to say to you when you're feeling awful. They helped.

In short, Mandy paid attention to me. Paying attention matters. That's all I can say about that. So the fact that she isn't paying attention to me now worries me a bit, but, yeah, there are plenty of other things to worry about too.

EVENING

It's Christmas Eve. Which means certain things. In our neighborhood, it means everyone puts out luminaries at the ends of their driveways. Yep, luminaries. As in the plural of luminary. Which is one of Dorian Loomis's CB nicknames. Another coincidence? They're hardly worth mentioning anymore.

As for these luminaries, they're basically white paper bags with jars and candles in them. When you light the candles, the bags glow in the dark. Very beautiful, actually, and my family usually goes for a walk to check them all out. It's always best when it's snowy, and it's been snowy for the last few days. As I write this, there's at least a foot on the ground.

Be jealous, all you surfers out there in sunny California and Hawaii. We don't have to dream about a white Christmas here in Thessaly. Pretty much guaranteed. Sometimes there are white Halloweens and white Easters too.

As far as my parents are concerned, things are getting back on track for Alistair and therefore back on track for our family. At least that's how they're acting. We went out for our Christmas Eve walk after dinner and Mom hummed carols and Dad chucked snowballs at me and Alistair.

Alistair seemed to enjoy it. “I've missed this,” he even said, which I guess meant he missed being a normal family. We all miss that, but I'm not sure we're a normal family again. I'm not sure we ever were one.

Mom was leading the way and she was careful to steer clear of the Loomis and the Dwyer houses, which was ironic, because when we were rounding the corner by Hanlon Park, we ran into them walking down the plowed street.

Mr. Dwyer and Mrs. Dwyer, with Kyle in the middle in his wheelchair.

Snow starting falling as soon as we saw them. If Dad wasn't there, the silence might have lasted for hours, but he's allergic to silence. “Merry Christmas,” he said in as close to a jolly voice as he could muster.

Mr. and Mrs. Dwyer nodded in response.

“Right back atcha,” Kyle said, and he reached up and pretended to doff his cap, even though he wasn't wearing a cap. Snow was dusting his dark, slicked-back hair, and go on and strike me with lightning, but I'm gonna be honest again. Cleaned up and sitting down, by the light of the moon, the streetlights, and the luminaries, Kyle Dwyer looked cute.

“I'm sorry,” Alistair said to no one in particular. To the entire Dwyer family, I suppose.

Kyle shook his head and started to reply. “Buddy, don't even worry about—”

But Alistair cut him off. “No. I'm sorry for everything that you're going through. All of you. I'm doing whatever I can to help get Charlie back.”

A sour look swept across Mr. and Mrs. Dwyer's faces, and Mom leaned over and whispered something about “what Ms. Kern said” into Alistair's ear.