The Miracle Stealer

by Neil Connelly

“Uh-huh,” he said. He yawned. “I’m hungry.”

  “Me too,” I told him. “We’ll eat soon. We have to wait here.”

  “Okay,” Daniel said without argument or complaint. “Andi, I got to pee.”

  I pointed toward the chained entrance gate, the parking lot, and the forest beyond it. “Nobody’s around. It’ll be fine.”

  I faced the park to give him privacy, and when he shuffled back over after he was done, he zipped his fly up and said, “How come those people were chasing us?”

  I thought about it. “Well, they were confused.”

  “They think I can pray miracles.”

  “That’s about the size of it. But listen. Me and you and Jeff, we’re going to play a trick on those people. On everybody.”

  Daniel looked at me, eager as always to listen. I’m not sure he understood everything I told him about the Anti-Miracle Plan, but he said he liked to pretend and he’d do what I wanted. To Daniel, it was all a game. Sweet, sweet boy.

  By the time Jeff returned, Daniel and I were standing in front of the Taj Mahal, using a stick to putt a pinecone through the hollowed-out onion dome. We all circled around a picnic table. From a Penn State backpack, Jeff pulled some sandwiches, a couple cans of Coke. When Daniel said thanks, Jeff did a double take and said, “Cat gave your tongue back, huh?”

  Daniel shrugged and bit into his ham sandwich.

  I cracked a Coke and reached for the sandwich Jeff handed me. “All we got to do now is wait for dark.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  An hour after the sun’s glow finally faded from the sky, Jeff ferried Daniel and me up the lake, idling the Jet Ski low and quiet. He stuck to the western bank, where we’d appear to anyone as little more than shifting shadows beneath the full moon. Because we were moving so slowly, I didn’t need to wrap my arms around my brother to hold on. But I did. For a while I even stretched forward enough to slide my hands along Jeff’s ribs. Then, beneath the rumble of the engine, I thought I heard someone calling my name from far off. At first I guessed it was Irene McGinley or my imagination, but then Daniel said, “Hey, Andi, how come Mom’s yelling?”

  Jeff killed the motor and the Jet Ski coasted to a stop, and together we listened to the silence. From far off, the noises of Paradise Days sounded tiny, like a festival of toys. Then a distant voice boomed, “Ann! Daniel!” My mother’s call rose from the blackness of the woods on the east side of the lake. As we turned in that direction, lights flickered a hundred feet deep in the forest. Bundower’s police cruiser slow-rolled around a curve in Roosevelt Road. My mother’s voice was broadcasting from the speaker on top of the prowling car. The spotlight attached to the Chief’s door shone like a tiny lighthouse beacon, casting trees into silhouette as it sliced through the forest, sweeping a white disk along the shoreline and out into the water. Jeff reached for the key, but I whispered, “No. They’ll hear the ignition.”

  He nodded, then a moment later tilted his head. Quietly he and I swung our legs over the seat and slipped into the lake, where the cool water felt crisp and good. “Get down flat,” Jeff told Daniel, who did as he was told.

  The searchlight swooped around us, but it never came all that near, and we hung together in the rocking water until the Chief passed. Down the lake, we heard my mother’s voice echoing over the water, growing weaker with each broadcast. Jeff and I waited a bit longer to be sure, then we climbed back aboard.

  “Why does Mom sound so sad?” Daniel asked.

  “She’s okay,” I said.

  Jeff added, “She doesn’t know we’re playing hide-and-seek.”

  “Just go, all right?” I told him. “The sooner we get on with this, the sooner we’ll be done.”

  Jeff faced forward and the seat beneath me shivered with the engine’s return. We started slowly ahead, but now I kept my arms around Daniel.

  I pictured my mother next to Bundower in his cruiser. Like Daniel, I could tell from the cracks in her voice that she’d been crying, and I wondered if Bundower had tried to comfort her, placed a warm palm over her clenched fist. I wished there were some way I could let her know that I’d come up with a way to fix everything.

  Across the black water, we passed by the waiting mouth of McGinley’s Cove and then, a quarter mile south of our compound, Jeff cut across the lake and brought us in close to the eastern shoreline. I stepped off into the murky crud along the bank. “Look,” I said, “I didn’t mean to snap.”

  “No sweat. This whole thing is totally crazy.”

  “Okay,” I said, “I should be at your folks’ place in like twenty minutes, tops.”

  Daniel said, “I want to come with you.”

  “Stay with Jeff,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.” Earlier, I’d told Jeff to take Daniel to Gayle’s for the night if things did go wrong, and I tried to remind him with a hard look.

  I could see enough of his eyes to know he got my message, and he nodded. “All right then. You just get there. And be careful.”

  “No other way to be,” I answered. Then I turned to the black woods and he swung the Jet Ski back the way we came.

  In my soggy sneakers and soaked clothes, I bushwhacked through the forest, avoiding the trail. The darkness made my progress slow. I held my hands in front of me as if I were blind, keeping limbs from scratching my face too badly, but my feet kept snagging on roots and bramble, rocks and fallen branches. I tripped more than once, went down pretty hard in a prickle bush, came up with my palms bloodied a bit. If I were given to superstition, I’d have thought the forest was trying to hold me back. Still, I stayed clear of the well-worn paths since I didn’t want to wander into anyone else out looking for us. A few times I again thought I heard someone calling my name, but when I’d pause and try to focus, the voices would disappear.

  After fifteen minutes of shuffling and stumbling, I finally reached the edge of the compound and crouched behind a pine tree down by the salt lick. Up at the main house, lights glowed from the kitchen and the front porch, but I was pretty sure I was alone. Still, I crept along the woods and got what I needed from the shed. I knew where everything was by touch and piled it into a backpack. At my cabin, I changed into a dry T-shirt and shorts and traded my soggy sneakers for dry ones.

  When I snuck up the hill, I found the red scooter Volpe motors around town on. Since my mother was out patrolling with Bundower, Volpe must have been recruited to keep the home fires burning, in case we simply returned. I scanned the house but saw no sign of her. She had to be around somewhere, close enough to hear the Skylark’s engine for sure. I couldn’t stop her from knowing I’d been there, but I could keep her from telling anybody else. Without feeling too guilty, I eased the kickstand up on the scooter and guided the bike down to the shed. In case my mother had left her the keys to the truck, I deflated its two rear tires. Crouched by the rear bumper, I saw Volpe’s thin figure pass before a window in the kitchen. She was talking on the phone. Quiet as I could, I made my way to the side of the house, got ahold of the phone cord, and used my father’s pocketknife to slice it neatly. I sprinted up to the Skylark, climbed in, and turned the key. I heard the creaky screen door slam shut but didn’t waste time looking. Only after I was heading up the driveway did I spare a glance into the rearview mirror. Sure enough, there stood Volpe in the light of the front porch, skinny arms locked on her skinny hips. My best guess was that it would take her fifteen minutes to get to the nearest house to use their phone.

  Being in the car, successfully completing the first part of the Plan, made it all seem real in a way it hadn’t so far. You know, you think about a thing for a long time, but then it starts to happen, and it’s different somehow. The actual doing. But rattling south on Roosevelt Road, I didn’t wonder if my actions were right or wrong. I’d decided it was the only way to save Daniel, and so it was what I had to do.

  Just a few minutes after I left the compound, I pulled up in front of Jeff’s home. He and Daniel came scuttling up from the dock. My brother crawled up onto the big front
seat next to me. Jeff got in and I was backing out before he closed the door. It swung shut and he had to snap his hand back, so he shot me a look.

  “I ran into some company,” I said. “We’ve got to move.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I figured. On the dock we could hear your mom’s voice and see the light from the Chief’s patrol car. It passed below the dam and was moving its way up the far lakeshore. They had just about made it to the country club when all of a sudden it stopped.”

  Volpe’s cell phone. I’d forgotten about it. With the bridge out, though, Bundower would need to circle almost the entire lake. He wouldn’t know where to look for me, but if he drove straight through on Roosevelt Road, he could be at the cove in less than fifteen minutes.

  “What’s it mean?” Jeff asked.

  I accelerated and said, “It means we need to haul ass. Tell me again what you’re going to say later.”

  Jeff recited the lines we’d rehearsed back at the carousel. “Anderson said she was going to Canada, or Mexico, someplace far away that never heard of Daniel. I tried to talk her out of it but she said it was the only way.”

  “That’s good,” I told him. “Lay it on thick.”

  “I want to go to Mexico,” Daniel said.

  I ignored him. “Make me sound crazy, all right? And later on, if nobody catches on right away, don’t crack too soon. Give it a couple days at least until you come clean and rat me out.”

  We sped the last mile in silence, and as soon as I pulled the Skylark over at the Lookout, we climbed out. I grabbed the hacksaw from the trunk and handed it to Jeff. Together we turned to the metal guardrail near the edge of the cliff. I told him, “Work on the middle post till we get down. I’ll signal you with the flashlight.”

  “But you said we should cut through all three.”

  I shook my head. “There’s no time.”

  “You get far out on those rocks,” Jeff said.

  I saw the care in his eyes. “Be sure the steering wheel’s straight. Give it an extra shove.”

  We knew we had a lot to say to each other, but the clock was ticking. Daniel said, “Is it time to play our trick on everybody?”

  I nodded and handed him the flashlight. “You be in charge of the lightsaber, okay, young Jedi?”

  He gripped it tight with both hands and sent the tiny ball of light playing across the shifting grass. I led my brother to the side of the Lookout, where we started down the steepest trail in Paradise. “Small steps,” I told him.

  Behind us and above, Jeff said, “Yo, Grant. Good luck.”

  I looked back and couldn’t see him in the night. So into the pitch darkness I said, “Yo, Cedars. Same to you.”

  As Daniel and I descended, I heard the grating hush of the hacksaw working against the metal. I stayed in front of Daniel on the slope so that if he did slip, I’d block him from tumbling too far down. I eased my feet one step at a time, grabbing hold of a branch here or there for balance. Now and then we had to slide on our butts for a few feet. But really, it wasn’t nearly as treacherous as it had been in my memory. Every minute of the descent, I waited for the high whine of Bundower’s siren.

  When we reached level ground, I was surprised that I could feel the sharp bite of the rocks even through my sneakers. We passed the cave, and Daniel shone his flashlight in, but the blackness swallowed the beam. Then he turned it onto the rocks ahead of us and found a crushed washing machine on its side. We both looked up the straight cliff face.

  “Who did that?” Daniel asked, and his words echoed off the walls that surrounded us. I’d forgotten about shouting out curse words here when I was a kid. Since the cove’s shaped like a horseshoe, any loud sound gets bounced out onto the lake.

  I took Daniel’s hand and whispered, “I don’t know. We have to hurry now.”

  I led us a safe distance out onto the stony beach, a good hundred feet or so from the base of the Lookout, practically to the lake’s edge. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out the plastic tube of fake blood. While Daniel watched, I poured some into one hand and went to work, sliming the stinky red gush all over my neck and my bare arms as if I was applying suntan lotion.

  “How do I look?” I asked my brother.

  Daniel gave me a once-over. “Like it’s Halloween.”

  “That’ll work. Your turn.”

  I tipped the bottle to my hand again, making a puddle in my palm. I knelt down on the rocks and rubbed the blood into my brother’s scalp. “Let’s start off with a massive head wound,” I told him.

  The mixture oozed as I massaged it into his hair. Then I smeared his face with the phony blood, telling him to keep his eyes closed tight so none spilled in. It reminded me of when I used to give him his baths and I’d cover his eyes with a wet face cloth to keep out the shampoo.

  “All right,” I announced, “you look bad enough.”

  He reached up and touched his bloodied hair, then sniffed his stained finger. “Smells funny.”

  “Don’t worry about the smell,” I told him. I lifted the flashlight from him and said, “C’mon now. Slide around.”

  Still on my knees, I pulled him behind me, so I’d be between him and the crash. He crouched low and set his hands on my shoulders.

  I aimed the flashlight toward the top of the Lookout and thumbed the switch two or three times. In the darkness, I couldn’t see Jeff, and since he had no flashlight, there was no way I could be sure he got the signal. I thought I heard the Skylark’s ignition, but I wasn’t sure.

  Up on the Lookout, nothing was happening, and I tried to imagine what was going on. How long could it take to drive back up the hill, put her in neutral, and get out of the way? I listened closely for the engine, and it’s funny, but I never heard it, maybe because of the shape of the cove or something. Whatever the reason, I was getting worried that Jeff had been caught and was starting to stand up when the soft shine of the crooked headlights beamed over the edge of the cliff. The Skylark rumbled out into the air, and I spun around and crouched, covering Daniel with my body.

  But there was no crash.

  My tense muscles relaxed and I let go of Daniel, then looked over my shoulder. Two hundred feet up, the Skylark’s front end leaned out into the abyss, but its belly rested on solid ground. It wasn’t going to fall.

  “Shit,” I said, regretting it right away because Daniel was there.

  I stood up and stared at the sight. In any other situation, it would have been comical. The front wheels turned slowly, as if groping for a road, and the whole car seemed to tip slightly forward. Jeff’s silhouette appeared at the side of the car. He was waving his arms, though I had no idea what that meant. “Stay here,” I ordered Daniel, and I hustled across the rocks.

  By the time I got closer to the base of the cliff, Jeff was gone. I cupped my hands around my mouth and whisper-shouted “Yo!” High above, the Skylark seemed to hear me. Like eyes glancing downward, the headlights peered slightly in my direction and the square grille grinned my way. For a moment I was sure this was just my imagination, but then I figured out where Jeff was. He’d gone to the back of the car and was rocking it gently, gaining momentum with each teeter-totter. The nose of the Skylark dipped once, rose, then dipped deeper.

  My legs didn’t wait for my brain. I was charging back toward Daniel when the car came over the cliff, so I can’t report if it did a nosedive or a full flip. All I know is that I was sprinting toward my brother, screaming for him to stay down, when something smacked me in the back of my leg, driving me onto the rocks.

  The next thing I knew, Daniel was rubbing my hair, kneeling over me. Above him, all the constellations spread across the sky. I’d never seen so many stars. But then I smelled the smoke and I came back to where I was. Daniel said, “Your car crashed really good.”

  Remarkably, the Skylark was performing a kind of headstand on its own crumbled hood. Orange and white flames licked along the passenger side. Out by the lake, a hundred feet away, a tire stood on its end, perfectly still.


  When I sat up, pain shot through my right leg. At first I thought I’d pulled a muscle, but when I reached down, I found a metal shard lodged in my calf like shrapnel. The blood flowed down and soaked my sock. I tugged my belt off and wrapped a tourniquet around my thigh.

  Daniel asked if I was okay, and I told him everything would be fine. I almost believed it. Together we watched the fire engulf the Skylark, and the crackling flames rolled and whipped. A reddish glow spread up the walls of the cove.

  A great sense of relief settled over me. The most dangerous part of the Anti-Miracle Plan was done. The burning wreckage would be seen across the lake. The explosion itself had no doubt been heard for miles. When people arrived at the Lookout, they’d survey the scene and come to the conclusion I wanted them to: In my reckless dash to escape, I’d killed us both. No one could survive a two-hundred-foot plummet.

  Then we’d step out into the strobing light of emergency vehicles, bloody but whole. Word of our miraculous survival would spread like a well-fed fire. Within hours, the Pilgrims’ faith would rise to a fever pitch. Volpe would call the folks at WPBE. Reporters and Pilgrims would surround St. Jude’s, scanning the curtained windows for a glimpse of Daniel. They’d pelt Dr. Ghadari with questions. When you washed the blood away, did Daniel really have no wounds?

  The only variable in the plan was how long it would take to uncover my hoax. I thought maybe the Chief or Dr. Ghadari would suspect something pretty quick, but they wouldn’t go public right away. If after a day or two no one had stepped forward, Jeff was primed to point the finger. Plagued by a guilty conscience, he’d confess that he and I had tried to trick everyone. At first, I’d deny it all, but under pressure I’d finally give in too, surrender the hacksawed guardrail and the tube of prop blood as incontrovertible self-incrimination. All the Pilgrims and true believers would look like fools. People would suspect every grand act ever attributed to Daniel, all the way back to when this started. Nobody in Paradise or anywhere else would dare risk the embarrassment of believing in him again, and the Pilgrims would leave our town with their heads low, never to return. My brother’s days as a miracle worker would be forever ended. This was my absolute goal.