Chapter #18Unearthing Mysteries by: Seuzz   "Do you have something you want to talk about, Will," your dad asks, and it is not at all in his usual impatient tone.
You bite your lip and shake your head, and are about to move off, when you are overwhelmed by an impulse to speak: "A lot of my friends were doing stupid things recently," you say. "I guess I just don't want you thinking I was doing stupid things too."
His face turns very grave, and he holds out a hand. You stumble forward, and the two of you embrace. "Son, to be perfectly honest with you," he says as he squeezes you. "You are always doing stupid things. And I don't know how you do it, but you always manage to walk away from them without a scratch." He relaxes his grip enough to look you in the face. "You can't trust to luck, and sometimes I wish you would get hurt, so you'd learn better. Maybe that's the reason I'm so hard on you. The world just does not want to smack you around. So I have to pick up the slack."
You can't help laughing a little, and he laughs too, and you hug him again. And that's all you have to say to each other.
* * * * *
Over the next week you continue to skip school with Frank and Joe's connivance. They take turns skipping so they can look after you, and you get to know them quite well.
Joe is the happy one, the bright one, the one who has to fight to keep a goofy grin off his face. A golden light seems to radiate off him, and his chatter somehow manages to sound both very silly and very wise at the same time. He can't sit still for very long, and in the small back yard the two of you evolve a complicated game of fetch
(rather than catch), with him playing the part of the dog: Under the rules, you throw the ball, and he retrieves it while attempting to run a series of bases before you can count down to zero. You feel blown just watching him, while his own breathlessness just seems like a prelude to more running.
Frank is much more solid and saturnine, and he has little say. He even puts you on housework and home repairs, though he throws himself into it as well. "Would you look at what that idiot brother of mine did with the croquet ball," he growls on his second day with you, and points to the ceiling, which is disfigured by a cluster of small dents. "We paid a deposit on this place, and we won't get it back if those things aren't patched." He buys some plaster and paint, and acts as a stepladder so you can fix them.
But it's not all work. On your third day with him he drives the two of you out to the Suffolk Wilderness for a picnic lunch, and leads you up and down the trails while filling the air with ardent (and surprisingly interesting) impromptu lectures on the plant life. "It's all starting to die back, because autumn is coming," he says. "But it will come back, which is amazing. And other things are just coming up. Autumn grasses and even winter blossoms. People think everything dies in the winter, and down in the city they try hanging on to it after it should have passed. But they only suppress the smaller, more intimate beauties. People, too, you know, used to have their winter rhythms." His eyes shine. "When the snows came, they would crawl into bed with each other, all in one bed, and sleep for fourteen or sixteen hours. And when they were awake they would talk and sing and fuck." You blink at the raw but unmannered verb; he catches your expression, and smiles. "A good winter fuck. Long and hard and continuous. You bury yourself in the warm, moist, dark places when the world is cold and hard and barren, or you take the thrusting seed, you pull it inside you, to nurture it. Under the snow, under the rot, so it can burgeon in the spring." You try not to let it show, but after that talk of dark places and burgeoning, you keep to your own side of the truck on the way back into town.
You don't hear from any of your schoolmates, since Joe and Frank have kept your phone, but they tell you that you haven't been forgotten. Several people have called to talk: Lisa Yarborough (which delights you even though it doesn't surprise); Yumi Saito and Lin Pol; Kim Walsh; even Geoff Mansfield, which really does bowl you over. Cindy Vredenburg also called. You ask how they have explained your absence from the phone. Joe gets a little embarrassed, and admits that he has been pretending to be you on the phone. "I can do a pretty good imitation of your voice," he says. "And I've been pretty good with them. You're not going to lose any friends," he assures you.
Still, after almost a week of being on ice, you are eager for some kind of return to normality. They can tell, and when they pick you up after church on a Sunday afternoon, they seem quietly pleased with themselves, and tell you that things are going to start moving.
"You won't want to know the details," Frank says as he ushers you into their house. "But we've been doing some digging. Literally." He takes you into the dining room and points to the table. Five blue masks are laying on it.
They say nothing as you pick them up and turn them over one by one: masks inscribed with the names of Carson Ioeger, Caleb Johansson, Sean Mitchell, Cameron Huber-- "My friend Keith was wearing this one," you say as you look up in alarm.
"We know," says Joe. "We visited them. Like you visited Sean." You pale. "It wasn't as hard for us as it was for you. Frank is good with graveyards."
"Tell me about Keith," you say, your heart hammering. You were hoping that the mask would--
Frank shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Will. Your friend was under that mask." His eyes twist up, and you're surprised to see that the very hard Frank seems close to tears. "He's not coming back."
"What about the others?" you ask.
"They were like Sean," Joe says. "Cold and white and hard."
"Keith was himself," Frank says. "He was in very good shape. The mask protected him from the physical impact of the crash. But--" He struggles for a word. "But mortality penetrates them."
You look at the masks. They are all identical, except for the names and the images they contain. "So why wasn't he changed?" you ask.
"We'd have to recover and study the Libra to answer that," Joe says. "But it suggests to me that they were ... transformed ... before the masks went on."
"Blackwell," you mutter. They nod.
You turn over the last mask, and rear back. "Taylor Mitchell?" you say, looking up in surprise. You look at the other masks. "And where's James's?"
"His coffin was empty," Frank says. "And the grave had obviously been disturbed. So had Sean's."
"I dug up Sean's grave," you say.
"Yeah, but you left that statute thing inside it," Joe says. "We checked it again, while we were at Taylor's. Sean's coffin is empty now as well. Blackwell is probably reclaiming them. We got to Caleb and Carson before he did. Or maybe he only wanted two."
"Why?"
"I don't know, Will," Frank sighs, and sits down at the table. He gently runs a finger along the edge of Caleb's mask. "We don't want to speculate."
You look at Taylor's mask. "So, was Taylor also transformed?"
"No," Joe says, and leans against the refrigerator. "That's another mystery. There was someone under it, the way Keith was, but it wasn't Taylor Mitchell. We think it was Scott Bickelmeier."
"Bickelmeier? The football player?" You look wildly between them. "But he's--!"
"Exactly," Joe says. "As far as the world knows, he is still very much alive."
"But how?"
"I'll get the yearbook," Frank says, and disappears toward the bedroom.
"Scott was another guy who worked at Salopek," Joe explains. "Him and Sawyer Harrison and Taylor Mitchell. All friends. They got fired the same day, not long before those accidents."
"Then the Scott Bickelmeier who is walking around at Westside is-- Is someone in a mask?"
"We don't know," Joe says. "But now we know we need to look in his direction." He chews on his thumbnail. "In fact, he's on his way over right now."
Silence falls across the table. When Frank appears, it is with a yearbook and a grim confirmation: It definitely was Scott Bickelmeier under Taylor Mitchell's face and occupying his grave.
* * * * *
The doorbell rings twenty minutes later. You start to follow them back out into the living room, but Joe suggests you hang back. "It'll happen quickly," he says. "You don't need to watch." You don't know what he means, and you sit fretfully at the table, jogging your leg up and down. Voices waft from the other room after the front door opens. And then they fall silent after the door closes. "Will!" Joe calls. Dreading you know not what, you swallow the lump in your throat and answer the summons.
Perhaps the sight that greets you shouldn't be a surprise. Joe is holding a mask in his hand. Frank is standing with his hands on his hips, lips pursed. And standing in the foyer is another statue. This one looks just like Sean, but it is surely his brother.
"Another dead end," sighs Frank.
Joe hands you the mask, and it feels hot in your hand. The other masks are of corpses only. But this one is alive. Surely it contains answers.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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