by Brad Meltzer
Just a few more steps,” his mother said, giggling.
She was actually giggling as she cupped her hands over her young son’s eyes and walked him into the snow-covered backyard.
Of course, even at eleven years old, Marshall had known they were about to surprise him. He knew it earlier in the week when he caught his mom on the phone, whispering, “He’s here… gotta go…”
Kids aren’t stupid. Christmas was only a week away. And after eleven years of being the only kid in their small town with an unemployed father who also happened to be in a wheelchair, well… Marshall was accustomed to the extra thoughtfulness that came this time of year.
Five years ago, the town pitched in to redo the rotted wood wheelchair ramp that led up to their front door.
Three years ago, when his mom lost her job, they bought new clothes and a new backpack for Marshall to wear to school.
Two years ago, they bought Marshall a new bike to replace the one he’d outgrown.
This year? Had to be a dog, Marshall decided. He’d mentioned a dog a few weeks back. But the fact that they kept him at church… stalling him so long—and that he was now blindfolded and being led into the backyard—?
With each step, the icy snow snapped like fresh popcorn under his feet.
He could hear the buzz of dozens of imperceptible whispers. He could feel their… their energy?… their presence?… whatever it was, he could feel it against his chest. There was definitely a crowd here. But it was coming from…
Above.
“On C…” his father called out. “A… B…”
“SURPRISE!” the crowd yelled as his mom removed her hands.
Following the sound and readjusting his glasses, Marshall craned his neck up at the giant mulberry tree, where at least a dozen kids, plus a few parents, were out on the porch of the—In his head, he was about to use the word treehouse. But this—It looked like a real house, with a pitched roof and a porch. This wasn’t a treehouse. It was a—
“Welcome to the Watchtower!” Vincent Paglinni, a meaty eleven-year-old with furry eyebrows, shouted. “Get up here, Marshmallow! You gotta see this!”
“It was the pastor’s idea,” Marshall’s mom said, pointing to Pastor Riis, who was pushing Marshall’s dad in his wheelchair.
“Give it a whirl,” his dad added, looking prouder than ever.
Marshall darted for the ladder rungs that were nailed to the tree.
“No! Grab the rope! Take the elevator!” Vincent Paglinni yelled from above.
Following where everyone was pointing, Marshall headed for the thick rope that dangled down, a baseball-sized knot at its end. As Marshall grabbed the rope, he looked up and saw the pulley that was attached even higher than the roof of the treehouse.
“Ready for liftoff…!” James Wert, a heavy kid from his class, called out. Without warning, Wert leaped off the side of the treehouse and gripped the rope, wrapping his legs around it like he was sliding down a firepole.
The pulley began to spin; the rope pulled taut.
Like a bottle rocket, Marshall shot into the air, where a crush of hands grabbed him, tugging him onto the porch of…
“It’s the greatest damn treehouse of all time!” Vincent Paglinni shouted as the crowd of kids cheered.
Marshall knew he was right. This wasn’t something built by a dad. This was built by a town. Ushered inside, Marshall saw that the doorway had a real frame—and the way the roof was sealed so perfectly on all sides… No doubt, it was watertight.
“Lookit this!” Lee Rosenberg, who always wore Lee jeans, called out. “Beanbag chairs! Comic books! Foldout beds!” he said, pointing to two cots, which folded down from the wall. “There’s even working windows!” Lee added as someone pushed the large Plexiglas window that had a hinge on top and swung out like a huge doggie door.
“If it’s raining, you prop it open and still get fresh air,” Eddie Williams’s dad, who sold wholesale Plexiglas, pointed out.
“Plus… look! A carpeted floor!” Lee shouted, motioning at the pale blue carpet. “Carpets are the Cadillac of treehouse options!”
“No, here’s the Cadillac!” Vincent Paglinni interrupted, pointing to a bottle opener that was built into the wall. “For beer!”
“For orange soda and root beer only!” one of the brave mothers up there insisted as the whole group laughed.
For Marshall, that was the best part. Not the beanbag chairs, or the working window, or even the bottle opener. It was the laughter. And not at him, for once. With him.
Sure, he spotted friends like Beecher in the corner. And Jeff Camiener, who he always ate lunch with and was the only one who never called him Marshmallow. But most of the kids here were kids he never talked to… who he was too afraid to talk to, like Vincent Paglinni, who usually focused his attention on what rock concert shirt he’d wear the next day. But there Paglinni was, as excited as the rest. They were all thrilled for him. Like friends.
“Check it out, Mallow! The pastor’s looking up your mom’s skirt!” Vincent called out as the mob of kids rushed out to the porch to see Marshall’s mom climbing up the tree’s ladder rungs, with the pastor right behind her.
The pastor looked down quickly. He wasn’t looking up her skirt.
Still, the kids were laughing. So was Marshall. They were all laughing. Together.
Forget the treehouse. For Marshall, this sense of belonging made his chest swell so large, he thought it would burst open. To have so many friends, their mouths all open with laughter…
This was the greatest day of his life.
Even as he looked out the Plexiglas window and saw his father, in the wheelchair, looking up at him—even that couldn’t ruin it.
“You gotta see this!” Marshall called out, pushing the Plexiglas outward and letting in a wisp of cold air.
“Already did!” Marshall’s dad called back, pumping a fist in the air.
“Awesome, right!?” Marshall shouted, not even catching his dad’s lie.
No matter how well the treehouse was built, there was no way his father would ever make his way up there. Not today. Not ever.
But at this moment, surrounded by so many new friends, Marshall wasn’t being naïve, or insensitive. He was just being eleven years old.
He smiled and pumped his fist back at his dad.
From this height, Marshall could see over his house, over the telephone poles, over everything.
Nothing could ruin a day like this.
18
Today
Crystal City, Virginia
Marshall’s silent the entire ride down.
But as his SUV moves deeper and deeper down into the underground garage, what’s far more discomforting is this: If Marsh is really the one who killed that rector last night—if he’s the one carrying around old playing cards and thinking he’s John Wilkes Booth—why’s he taking me inside?
And more important, why am I letting him?
For both questions, I tell myself it’s because he’s clearly not a murderer. I know that Marshall used to have Muppet sheets on his bed. I remember thinking his house smelled like werewolf. And I remember, when we were twelve, being at his mother’s funeral, right before his dad moved them out of town.
But as the SUV curves down another level, I keep glancing over at him, waiting for him to say something. He never does. I try to play it cool, but I can’t stop staring, especially at his face.
In the mugshot, his face looked shiny, like it was coated with putty. But up close, even in this bad light, the lumpy texture of it makes his forehead and cheeks look like a melted candle. His skin isn’t red, it’s pink. Whatever happened, it was years ago. But he was burned badly. His nose is square at the tip from whatever surgery put it back together. His eyebrows are tattooed on. His black hair covers what’s left of his ears. I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s been through.
I try to say something, but the only thing I can think of is just how much I don’t know this person anymore.
>
As Marshall continues steering the curve of the ramp, I try to picture the chubby kid with glasses from the treehouse. He’s not there. Today, the new Marshall’s posture is perfect, his shoulders square and unmoving. Even through his wool peacoat, I can see he’s compact, but all muscle. And somehow, there’s an ease about him, like a poker player who already knows the order of all the cards in the deck.
The thing is, as I notice his flat grin, something tells me that even if he didn’t know the order of the cards, he’d still be just as confident. No matter how much I was trying to surprise Marshall, it feels like he always knew I was coming.
“So how long have you lived here?”
Marshall stares straight ahead.
I’ve lived in Washington long enough to know what people do with silence. The CIA uses it as an interrogation technique, knowing that the longer you stay quiet, the faster you get people to talk. Reporters do the same. So if that’s the game Marshall’s playing, he’s about to learn that there’s no one more patient, or more comfortable in their own silence, than an archivist.
My ears pop as the ramp dumps us on the fifth level underground. As we pull into one of the many open parking spots, I don’t know why he took us down this far. Whoever else is in this building, most of them are gone.
Still silent, Marshall hops out, his pale, bumpy face peering back at me through the car’s front window. I follow him in silence as he shoves open a red metal fire door, and we enter a fluorescent-lit concrete room with a dull metal elevator. He’s got his back to me, but now that we’re both standing, I see he’s shorter than I am.
I remember him always being a few inches taller. It messes with the perspective of my memories, like when you go home and see how tiny your childhood room looks.
“How did you know I was looking for you?” I ask as the doors of the elevator stretch wide.
He doesn’t answer as we step inside. He waves his hand in front of the small black rectangle that’s set just above all the elevator’s call buttons. He’s got a key fob in his hand that allows access to the building.
The button for the twelfth floor lights up automatically, and we rise quickly.
“Marsh, I asked you a—”
“I go by Marshall now,” he interrupts, forcing his grin back into place.
“Marshall,” I correct myself, making note of the sore spot. “Listen, Marshall—I appreciate the Clint Eastwood silent thing you’ve got going, but c’mon… how often do you get drop-in visits from people you haven’t seen since puberty?”
He laughs at that one, making the waxy skin on his neck wriggle.
His peacoat is open now. I notice how his burns continue down his neck, into the collar of his pristine white dress shirt. Is he burned all over his body?
I look down at his hands, and for the first time realize he’s wearing gloves. A small pool of sweat fills the dimple of my top lip, and I wonder if the decision to come here was one of the stupidest of my life.
“You’re staring, Beecher.”
I don’t look away.
“If you want to ask about my burns, just ask.”
I pause, staying with him. “How’d you get burned?”
“By a fire,” he says, his eyes narrowing into a grin.
“I just want to know how you’re doing, Marshall.”
The elevator doors open, but we’re not in a hallway. It’s a small entry with a single wooden door. This is a private elevator, in a very private building.
With another wave of his key fob, there’s a click, and Marshall pushes the door open, revealing a long and narrow loft. There’s a slightly outdated white Formica kitchen on the right, overlooking a sparse and just as outdated 1990s-era IKEA living room. On the left, an open door reveals what looks like a bedroom.
Stepping aside, he pats me on the back, motioning me to go first.
He’s still grinning as I step inside.
19
Eighteen years ago
Sagamore, Wisconsin
Listen, here’s an even better one…” Beecher said, tucked into the treehouse’s worn beanbag chair, his nose deep in the newspaper. “Guy’s name is Albert “Alby” Eliopoulos. Died at the age of seventy-two. And according to this—oh my jeez, listen to this—it was his unit that raised the flag at Iwo Jima, but they did it without him! Two days before, Alby broke his collarbone and was sent to some hospital unit, missing the whole thing! Mallow, you listening to this?”
“Of course I’m listening,” Marshall insisted, lying back on one of the foldout beds and flipping through the thick stack of bra ads that he’d collected from over six months’ worth of newspapers. It was summer for the two twelve-year-olds, but with the Plexiglas window open, the treehouse still got a good cross-breeze. “Some guy was at Iwo Jima. Sounds galactic.”
“He wasn’t just at Iwo Jima. He missed Iwo Jima! By two days! He’s part of one of the most famous units of World War II… but he pops his collarbone, and it’s like… it’s like you’re about to be selected for the biggest moment of your life, but instead you’re sitting on the can, so you miss it. Can you imagine being that close to history and it passes you by!? How do you ever come back from that!?”
Marshall was silent.
“Mallow, you paying attention, or you still drooling on the bra ads?” Beecher asked from behind the newspaper.
“Beecher, why do you come here?”
“Whuh?”
“Here. To the treehouse. Why do you come here?”
Confused, Beecher peered over the top of the newspaper. Marshall was cleaning up, tucking the stack of bra ads back into the Lucky Charms cereal box that he kept in a milk crate under the bed.
“You don’t like the obituaries as much as I do, do you?” Beecher asked. He didn’t take it personally. He’d been reading the obits since he was almost four, when his dad died. Since then, he loved reading the stories of all those lives of people who, just like his dad, he’d never see. Lives that could’ve been.
“I mean it, Beecher. Why do you come here? I mean, I like you coming here, but… All these years, it’s not like we really talked much… or even ever. We don’t even eat lunch together. We just—I didn’t think we were friends.”
“What? Of course we’re friends.”
“We are?”
“Mallow, if we weren’t friends, why would you sit here every day and listen to me read from the obituaries?”
“I dunno,” Marshall said with a shrug, leaning back on his bed. “Sometimes it’s just—I kinda thought you’d stop coming here if I didn’t listen.”
Sitting there, frozen in the beanbag chair as the newspaper floated down to his lap, Beecher stared across at the chubby kid he forever knew as Marshmallow. “Mallow, tell me this: What do you like?”
“Like for what?”
“When you’re bored… when you’re sitting around… When no one else is looking, what do you like?”
“You really wanna know?”
“I do. I want to know.”
Marshall’s mood shifted in a split second, tumbling from confused, to shocked, to a cautious smile. Excited to answer the question, he pointed toward the Plexiglas window, at the stars that lit the black sky. “Space.”
“Y’mean outer space? Like Star Wars?” Beecher asked. “Time out. Is that why you always say that things are galactic? Because you like Star Wars?”
“Star Wars is fiction. Imagine if you could do it for real.”
“Yeah, I can totally picture that. You’d be a perfect astronaut.” Beecher laughed. “Haven’t you had like every eye disease known to man?”
Pushing his glasses up on his face, Marshall kept staring out at the sky. “But imagine, Beecher. To go that high… to escape everything… Don’t you ever wonder how far we can go?”
Beecher sat up in the beanbag chair, suddenly excited as he waved the newspaper. “No, I know! That’s exactly why I like obituaries! When you see what people have accomplished… They’re proof of how far we can go—of what w
e’re capable of on our very best days.”
“I guess,” Marshall said, thinking it over. “But obituaries are weird.”
“You wish. Outer space is weird.”
The two boys looked at each other. For a moment, the treehouse was silent.
Hopping off the bed, Marshall raced for the treehouse door.
“Where you going?” Beecher asked.
“To fart. My mom said it’s rude t—”
“How old are you? Six? Fart here! No one cares!”
Standing there, Marshall kept his hands at his side and did exactly that.
It was a quiet one.
“You do realize,” Beecher said, leaning back in the beanbag chair, “it’s conversations like these that make people not wanna hang out with us.”
Marshall laughed at that. A real laugh.
“But with space, and the obits, it’s also why we will escape,” Beecher added. “From here… from Wisconsin. We’ll be the only ones who get out of here.”
“I’m not worried about getting out of here,” Marshall replied, sitting on the edge of the foldout bed and glancing down at his house below them. “I’m just worried about who’ll take care of my dad.”
Beecher fell silent, but not for long. “I bet we can find someone to take care of him too.”
In that moment, as Marshall focused his attention back on the treehouse… as he scooched back on his foldout bed and thought about how many people had been packed in here just eight months ago… as he looked past the Plexiglas window and the super-cool bottle opener, Marshall Lusk realized that when it comes to treehouses, the only thing you really need… is a friend.
“I just farted again, Beecher.”
“I know. I can smell, dumbass.”
20
Six days ago
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Sometimes, when the stress felt overwhelming, Clementine would imagine—would practically feel—her chubby ginger cat making figure-eight loops around her ankles.
She was doing it now as she drove back along the highway. In her lap, she had the file that Palmiotti had given her, propping it open and letting it lean against the steering wheel.
