Warmth spread down my arm. A good warmth. Wait, a seizure warmth? I quickly dropped to the floor just in case. “Crap. I gotta up my Tegretol. Two in a day? It’s not helping a bit.” The room spun and I closed my eyes. Shrieks and laughter invaded my dark, pressing so close, I felt the weight, the weight of a horror I didn’t recognize.
And one voice that I did.
Tres.
“See you soon, Jonah.”
I came to, aware I was on top of a bed. How I had traveled home was a mystery. I rolled over and wiped foam from my mouth and opened my eyes.
No.
Arthur sat staring at a chessboard, the chessboard inside Tres’s cell, the cell that now held us and only us.
“Why are we here and where is Tres and all that?” I cleared my throat and tried again. “Are we locked in?”
“It would appear so.” Arthur spoke, but did not turn. He was lost in the world of the game. Our incarceration was secondary.
I raised myself to an elbow, and then swung my feet over the edge.
“This can’t have happened. What happened? Arthur! Look at me.”
He rose from his kneel and rolled his eyes, as if releasing a prisoner was an acceptable outcome for the evening. He reached me a peanut-butter cookie, but I slapped it out of his hand.
“There’s no need for that.” He breathed deeply. “I had no choice. He told me I had no choice. He placed me in zugzwang.”
“Don’t start in with all that chess—”
“But I need to, because it explains our present situation.” Arthur sighed and started to rock. “I did wait in the gallery, but you didn’t come out, and didn’t come out, and so finally I came in, and you were balled up on the floor.”
“I know that part. I was occupied. But go on.”
“I ran to help, and I met Tres. He wasn’t at all like you described him. We talked for a while—”
“While I lay there jerking by your feet?”
“It’s not a picture I would have chosen, but what was I supposed to do? Tres showed me the chessboard on the dresser, and told me it was nailed down. So I told him the move, and he said I must have forgotten the scheme. He said that I could not legally make that move. Jonah, I never forget the field of battle.”
“No, I imagine you don’t.”
“But the pieces were too far away to prove it. He told me to come in and take a look. He told me there was a room where I could unlock all the cells.”
“And you gave no thought to the fact that a prisoner was inviting you behind bars? Your powerful brain didn’t think, ‘Wow, what kind of idiot does he think I am?’ or ‘Maybe I should wait and ask Jonah?’”
Arthur glanced down and folded his hands. A puppy returned to the pound. My shoulders slumped. “Okay, I didn’t . . . I really didn’t mean the idiot thing.”
“Yes, you did,” he said quietly. “And I’m not. But Jonah, he said I was illegal, and I wasn’t illegal. I would never be illegal.” Arthur wiped a tear, and continued. “I opened the cell and showed him that it was fair, but he didn’t care and quickly countered and then, well, he lifted you. All by himself, that old man lifted you gently onto that bed. Then he shut the door and left.” Arthur pointed to the game board, now lowered onto a stand. “It wasn’t nailed down.”
“No.”
“Maybe I am an idiot. Everyone says so. Even you.”
“Not true.” I tried the bars, and gave them a kick. “You are the most intelligent person I know. But we may be here for a time. Don’t imagine Dad will come by until late tomorrow, and Ma will think I left straight away.”
“That’s fine. It will give me time to analyze his hasty play. See, I took his bishop. But then he took mine. It’s a fool’s move. It’s a desperate move. He was winning. So now, with an exposed queen, he’s conceded. At least I think he’s conceded. Nobody that brilliant sacrifices a queen without cause.”
“Jonah?” Stormi’s voice echoed down the hall.
My heart leaped, and I pounded the bars. “Stormi! In here!”
“Is Tres?”
“No, he’s gone.”
Stormi’s footsteps neared, and she froze in front of the cell. She glanced from our pen to the foul one beside it.
“Where is the old guy?” she asked, her gaze flitting down the hall. “Tell me you moved him to another cage. Tell me he’s still in here somewhere.”
“He’s, uh, still in here somewhere.”
I stared into her eyes and bit my lip. She already knew. “I didn’t see it happen, Stormi. Honest. Old Rickety came and Arthur, well, it doesn’t matter how Tres got out. But it would be really nice if you could open this cell.” I quieted, searching as young men do for words, though words will never do. “It’s good to see you.”
Stormi threw back her hair and boot-kicked the bars. Once and again. “I can’t believe you let this happen. Always trusting. Don’t you ever use that crazy brain of yours? Does it, like, think? Like complete thoughts? Ever?”
Did my shoulders sag a little more? Did my heart shrivel? Of course, she was right, and I slinked back down onto the bed while Arthur told Stormi how to unlock the unit.
Five minutes later, she returned. Though my heart was no longer set on release, I slumped out and leaned against the wall across from the cell. Arthur hadn’t moved. He scratched his chin and muttered at his game.
“You should have come to the old farm right away.”
“I started to, and was unexpectedly delayed . . . You know what, forget it. You’re right.”
Stormi’s face tightened. I’d never seen her cross, at least not with me. “We need to leave now, before daylight. And we can’t go to the farm anymore, it’s too nearby, what with the old guy loose. Do you know some place far away where we could disappear?”
We. She said we. She was furious and I had been stupid, but she still wanted to be with me. I stood and straightened, well, as much as possible.
“Yeah, disappearing is probably best. Wait. What? Disappearing from Gullary? For how long?”
Stormi said nothing, but reached her hand toward me, eyes pleading.
I stared long at her gently beckoning fingers. My friend needed me, and for no other reason that should have been enough, but it wasn’t. My hand balled, grasping familiar, anxious thoughts. Will I seize today? Tomorrow? My heartbeat quickened. Vanishing was all well and good for Stormi; what daily battles did she fight?
How little I knew.
I opened my hand too slowly, and Stormi’s flopped to her side. “I need you, Jonah.”
“Oh!” Arthur shot up and tossed me a balled-up sheet. “Tres told me to pass this on. He said it’s his next few moves.”
“I’m kind of in the middle of a moment. Besides, I doubt he’s coming back.” I tossed the paper back.
Arthur unfolded the paper and scowled. “Guys?”
“We need to leave.” Stormi stomped toward the red door, pausing to cast me a hopeful glance before disappearing into the gallery.
I sighed and gestured to Arthur. “A little speed. I have to lock—”
“There’s a problem.” Arthur adjusted his glasses. “It says, ‘Truth with three hats and suits. Avoid Q to prevent more loss. Suggested next moves: J3 and S1 to Bishop.’”
“So what’s the prob—Wait, three hats and suits? What color are you playing?”
“Black.”
Black.
“Okay, so make his move, and what would be your next logical play?”
“That’s the thing. I can’t follow his directions.” He stepped out of the cell. “There are no chessboard squares labeled J3 or S1.”
I rubbed my face and shook my head. “I, uh, have to let this craziness go. Stormi is waiting on me and—”
“But, I do have some friends with those names,” Arthur said quietly. “J3: Jonah the third. S1: Stormi the, well, the first, I guess. Looks like Tres wants you to go to Bishop.”
“Bishop, Oklahoma? That’s hundreds of miles away. In the panhandle.”
&
nbsp; Stormi poked her head through the door. “Jonah!”
“Coming.”
Arthur and I walked briskly down the hall. He paused to press the captured black bishop into my hand. “So what’s your play?”
I glanced at the piece. “Are you ever afraid?”
Arthur frowned, and I waved him off.
“She said we need to disappear, someplace far away . . .” I tucked the bishop into my pocket. “I never would have thought of it myself, but now I think I know the place.”
CHAPTER 9
Stormi was beautiful when angry.
Beautiful, but not quiet.
I was the recipient of a strange peace. Stormi’s yellow pick-up sped west out of Gullary, and miles quickly separated me from the oddness of the funeral and Tres’s escape. The anxiety that plagued me seemed somehow connected to the fabric of Gullary, and the more I ripped free, the less weight remained to smother me. Stormi’s mind clearly found no similar rest, racing in bursts around the same chaotic track. Fits of rage gave way to nervous chatter, followed by lengthy pauses. Rage, fear, repeat.
I hoped for a moment that Stormi might return to herself, to someone I knew. I hoped and sat silent. What do you do when the rock in your life turns buoyant and starts bouncing in the waves? You hunch forward to relieve the pressure on your vertebrae, lean hard against the door, and wait.
At least that’s what I did.
“. . . Jonah! Are you even listening to me?”
“Okay, yeah.” I straightened, sort of. “I’ve been lost in thought. Sorry. But definitely listening to you while I was lost in the thoughts.” I rubbed my temple, urging away an oncoming headache. “Are you okay? I mean, I can’t remember you ever losing it like that.”
“You made me lose it!”
“I was writhing on the floor. You can’t cut me a little slack?”
“You want sympathy.”
“No, I just don’t think I deserve all the blame.” I folded my arms. “Maybe two percent, two percent of the blame.”
Stormi opened her mouth to speak, then closed her lips.
“I’d go as high as six percent,” I said.
“Six percent,” she repeated and shifted, and for a moment her anger ebbed. “There are things I haven’t told you, Jonah.” She glanced down, and the truck swerved. When we regained the road, Stormi had all but lost her voice. “A lot I haven’t said.”
It was my turn to get upset, and I really tried. After all, I told Stormi everything . . . well, except for my postal felonies. She took my secrets and she held back. Thief! Liar! But none of those accusations worked. I felt no betrayal. I glanced at her face, and a new shade had taken over, one not seen in all my years of studying and yearning.
She seemed frail, broken . . . human. I wanted to touch her—not for the fantasy it promised me, but for the comfort it might give her. Somehow, her being human made me more human too.
“You could tell me a secret or two now, if you wanted. It’s just us.”
Nothing.
“Or you could ignore the Deformicus beasticus at your side—”
“Shut up.”
“Or you could verbally abuse the deformed beast at your side.”
Stormi slammed the brakes and swerved onto the shoulder. She turned and stuck her finger in my chest. “You aren’t a beast.” She poked harder, her nail discovering soft tissue. “You never were.” She fisted up and smacked my shoulder, deadening my arm. “It’s me. I’m the beast. Can’t you see it?”
None of what she was saying made a lick of sense, but I kept my tongue planted.
She collapsed into my chest, and I awkwardly placed my arms around her. Such foreign territory. I had nothing to offer. There had been strange moments before when she’d requested closeness, but it never felt like I was required. I was simply the nearest armed creature.
But not here. No other set of headlamps was in sight, and with the wind shuddering the truck and an odd fear filling her words, I felt suddenly as though it was me she wanted. No one else. The idea was strangely warming.
“I can’t see anything, Storm. You know that. You said that.” I buried my face in her hair. “Besides, I’m six percent responsible for this mess. I’m the gullible one, remember, the crooked painting that’ll never hang straight. But you, you’re the beauty, at least that’s how I figure it.”
She tensed in my arms, but did not pull away. “Promise me that when you find out, you won’t leave me.”
“Find out what?”
“Promise me.”
“Yeah, I promise.”
She scooched away, and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. She reached forward and gently lifted my chin. “Jonah, you are gullible.”
We eased back onto a different road, me and the stranger beside me, the one who looked like Stormi but who spoke in confused tones like mine. Confused words. Unhinged words.
Morning came, fled, and we sunk deeper into the dryness of afternoon. Although it was still spring, the horizon shimmered in the heat. With no AC in the truck, it was too hot to talk, and the distance between us lengthened. Another hour passed, and the heat flat-out baked away whatever affection Stormi’s midnight embrace revealed.
“I’m going to pull off for gas,” Stormi said.
“Yeah, I could use a stop.”
Stormi looked at me with questioning eyes. Our relationship was changing, but I couldn’t figure how.
The Wanaka exit fast approached. Wanaka consisted of one Shell station, Wanaka Liquors, and Jethro’s Antique Emporium, and we sidled up to the lone gas pump. Another truck was mid-fill on the opposite side, and Stormi exhaled hard.
“You pump, I pay, or . . .”
“Naw, I need the facilities inside.” I pushed out. “I’ll cover it. Put in thirty.”
“Be quick,” she called with urgency.
An odd command, as one has limited control over a bladder’s demands.
Odd commands. Stiff red flags I rarely ignored.
Rarely.
I strolled through the door, pausing to stretch my spine, before tracking down the bathroom. I slumped inside. It’s a mindless affair, standing before a urinal after hours of languishing in a truck. Thoughts drift over the miles, and this trip provided little to latch on to. Stormi had come strangely unglued, which unnerved me, yet not as much as I would have thought.
Business done, I washed and power dried and wandered out toward the bubble-gum-chewing kid behind the counter. He couldn’t have been older than me, and he certainly paid me no mind, lost as he was in his Superman comic book.
Two scruffy guys jostled around the freezer, and I suddenly felt sick, strange sick. Like I was in a scene from a movie sick. It wasn’t the scruff—I was familiar with dirt and wear from a life in Gullary—no, it was the volume. No-goods who possessed the decency to hush their antics, well, there was rarely much harm in them. It was the others who, like Connor, felt no shame and broadcast their no-goodness. That’s who you had to fear.
In that instant, I thought to check on Stormi, but I was hypnotized, my gaze captured by a couple of idiots laughing and shoving.
“What you staring at?” The older one turned and took a step toward me.
I broke free. “Nothing. Staring spell. Go on back to whatever.” Eager to be out and done, I glanced at the counter and the door, and was once again captured.
Posted smack in the middle of the glass, right above the Sorry, We’re Closed sign, was a poster the size of a newspaper, a Wanted poster.
Though hastily printed off by a machine badly in want of toner, the three faces were frighteningly recognizable.
The largest mug belonged to Tres. Tres Cantor. The warning stretched beneath his name.
Considered armed and dangerous. Do not attempt to apprehend. Call Authorities immediately.
Beneath Tres, side by side, Stormi and me.
“Stormi Pickering. Granddaughter of the above. Jonah Everett III. Friend of the above.”
I backed away from the count
er, and glanced over my shoulder at bubble-gum boy still lost in his comic. I quietly removed the poster and pushed outside. “Stormi! You’ve got to see—”
Stormi was pressed up against the pump, arms pinned above her head, a defiling knee wedged between her legs. The guy from the other truck moved against her, his head performing such acts with her neck that to think of them still makes me wince.
Thoughts flew through my head. The no-goods would soon be here, making escape impossible. Bubble-Gum couldn’t see, didn’t want to see, any of this. Rage filled me.
“Hey!” I lurched toward the scuffle, scanned my options, and grabbed the nozzle from Stormi’s truck. I yanked the rear of the Defiler’s jeans with all the authority I owned, and jammed the pump nozzle down deep into the back of his pants.
Words I will not record flew from his mouth. He spun, first to swing at me, and when I ducked, he fought and clawed at his backside.
“Go! Go!” I hollered, and Stormi raced around to the passenger’s side of the truck, while I leaped his wildly swinging gassy tail and pitched myself into the driver’s side. From the building, voices exploded as the other two raced out, shouting.
Ignition. Gas pedal. Our tires spun in the gravel as the Defiler finally extracted the hose. Treads caught and we fishtailed forward. I checked the rearview. Bubble-Gum was jogging toward the three, all of whom pointed in our direction.
I drove. Kept driving. My breath fought out, while my heart beat wildly.
“I can’t believe it! Stormi, I couldn’t hear you. I didn’t hear your scream, or I would have been there quicker, I should have . . . I got lost in there, and then there you were . . .”
“I didn’t scream. Did you pay for the gas?” Stormi asked quietly.
“What? Gas? No. Who cares? Are you okay? That guy, I mean those guys would have, you know, he didn’t look like stop was on his mind.”
“He wouldn’t have been the first.”
I knew what she meant. And then I didn’t. “Wait, he wasn’t the first to try, you know, or he wasn’t the first . . . period?”
“Look at me,” she said softly. “What do you think?”
There was a right answer. I knew there was. I also knew this was a time for listening and being there and all that crap you learn in psychology. I should have been thinking only of her, of what she went through, but anger brought out the ugly and twisted all goodness. My eyes stung.
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