Both of Me

by Jonathan Friesen

  Unbelievable. The air was thick, but the spirit was thicker. Hope and fear rolled into one. Voices. You could hear them.

  “Are we alone down here, Kenton?” I asked.

  “You feel them too? Sometimes I swear I do.” Kenton glanced about. “Sometimes. Sometimes they’re weeping. Sometimes they’re humming. Always there’s a hushing. Dads and moms telling their children to hush.” He lowered his head. “Once I heard a dog too. Plain as plain.”

  “But you keep coming down.”

  “Yeah.” His voice gained strength. “And here is the awesome part. How do you think they navigated this tunnel?”

  “Luck?” I asked.

  “No. Not luck. Look up.”

  I did. The spot from my beam shone on a brick ceiling.

  “What do you see?” Kenton jumped like a puppy.

  “Light.”

  “Exactly. Now, a lot of those escaping couldn’t read, but thanks to all those miles traveled at night, they could read the sky. Every exit point from down here corresponds to a star in a major constellation. That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m plotting all the exits. Gemini there. Two lefts and you reach the Leo exit. How cool is this?”

  “It’s fascinating but . . . So we came because of this story about Orion. Izzy or Elias said there would be trouble waiting in this town, but that we needed to follow Orion. Where’s that exit?”

  Kenton wiped his forehead. “Well, that’s the thing. If you’re really my neighbour, Orion’s belt exits up into your place.”

  I whipped around. No Elias.

  “Elias!”

  A hand slapped over my mouth. “The distance between here” — Kenton pointed up — “and the floors above is sometimes paper thin. No sounds. Besides, for a lot of reasons, we should backtrack to the Orion exit.”

  I ripped his hand off my mouth. “I need to find him. He’ll be fine, right? I mean, he can’t get in too much trouble down here.”

  “If his light goes out and he gets cold . . . Well, that won’t happen. Follow me.”

  We weaved back the way we came. At least it felt a tad like the way we came. “Slow here. Look straight ahead,” he said firmly.

  Wrong thing to tell me, and I glanced to the right. Large skeleton, small skeleton. I screamed, and again received a taste of Kenton’s smothering fingers. “Straight ahead. That’s not going to happen to Elias. Our station is just ahead. By that . . . light.”

  Elias. He sat cross-legged on the ground, staring at the brick wall, and the scratchings etched into the brick.

  “One. Two. Three. Three days or three weeks.” His voice was distant. “How long were they hiding down here?”

  I slapped his helmet hard, but he did not turn. “So much sadness in the past. Who knew this cancer was growing in the heart of Salem? The queen didn’t. The king doesn’t. We need to set this right. We need to find it and stop it . . .”

  The urge to shake him overpowered. If there was an evil Keeper, he had no power over the slave trade. Elias should know. But the Keeper was still the touchstone, the point where both of him came together. Even after my great embarrassment in the tower, I was more determined than ever to reconnect his dots. This Keeper; I wanted to see him as badly as I wanted my dad . . . I rubbed my face. The words, like a distant echo, sounded again. I want Dad. Hundreds of children sitting in the dark, hushed by their mums while their fathers checked out the next passage.

  I want my dad.

  I heard it stronger.

  I want my dad.

  It reverberated in my head.

  Dad, I love . . .

  No! I would not give him that prise. Never again.

  Pounding shook from above, and Kenton doused his light, gesturing for us to do the same. He quietly climbed the ladder, and I sat down next to Elias.

  “We need to help these people,” he said.

  “Elias, I don’t pretend to know my American history, but this happened over a hundred years ago. They’re all gone.”

  “Are they?”

  Kenton descended and whispered, “Police. Did you do something? Are you hiding something? Cops are searching your house. They’ll search down here. We need to move.”

  “Not without my guard,” Elias said.

  I stroked Elias’s head. “Think, Elias. Izzy’s not there. She’s smart. Why would they be looking if they found her?” I turned. “Kenton, help me. We need to find Izzy. If you were brave and arrogant, like Bonnie or Clyde, and mighty good with a shotgun, where would you make your last stand?”

  He relit his beam. “Follow me to Arcterus. You’ll see!”

  Twenty curved minutes later, we reached another set of stairs. “This is tricky. You’ll come out beneath a bright-red trolley set in the middle of town. Glass on all sides. She could see everyone coming from every angle.” Kenton swallowed. “But it would be a death trap. Wait. This is crazy. This isn’t some Wild West shootout. Nobody does that anymore.”

  Elias and I exchanged glances.

  “I’m not going up there with you,” Kenton said. “I can’t.”

  I nodded and kissed him quickly. “Your mum, she worries. She worries you’ve gone where she can’t go, and I see why now. I see it. But don’t leave her,” I said. “Please, don’t leave her. She just might need you someday.”

  “Maybe for another kiss I’ll consider letting her in on —”

  I granted his wish.

  He wiped his brow. “Yeah, I mean, what could be the harm in telling her, you know?”

  Elias nudged me. “Maybe for a kiss I would consider —”

  I slapped his helmet. “Not before we discuss the business that occurred in the tower.”

  He cocked his head, and I climbed the stairs. The rock above my head crumbled, but there was no opening. “Ever been out this way, Kenton?”

  “No. Just an educated guess. Here, use my hand pick.” Kenton removed the tool from his pack. “I knew it would come in handy one day. I’ll seal up the hole tomorrow.” He handed me the pick, and ten minutes later I stared up at the bottom of what must be a trolley. I pounded on the metal underside, and a shotgun blast sent a shell not one foot from my head.

  “Hold on! It’s Clarita! Come out! Come down. We came to get you out.”

  Distant sirens grew nearer.

  Izzy’s eye appeared through the hole made by her shell. “I can hold them off. I have great sight lines all around. You two go. It’s been a pleasure.”

  “If you think I put up with you this long just to watch you perish in a gun fight . . .” I crawled onto my belly, jumped up and ran around to the trolley door, and climbed in.

  I grabbed my bag and Elias’s pack and leaped back out, pitching them toward Elias’s waiting arms. Back into the trolley, I took hold of Izzy’s neckline and yanked. She broke free and shoved me onto the floor.

  “I swear, Clarita, I will shoot you myself.”

  “Oh, shut it! Go ahead.”

  Flashing lights screamed nearer, and Izzy lowered her gun, stared at the hole her shot had made, and grabbed her guitar case. “Okay, London. Lead me to the promised land.” She followed me out, and ten seconds later we were safely into the tunnel.

  “This is absolutely my most awesome escape ever!” Izzy pumped her fist. “I am definitely coming back —”

  I shook Izzy hard. “Are you raving mad? Is everybody here mad? Do you have some sort of death wish, or is this journey all a game, because I really need to know who I’m traveling with. That was all for show. I mean, you wouldn’t hurt a copper . . . would you?” No answer. “Or would you . . .”

  “We can discuss this later, Clarita,” Elias said. “Where’s the truck, Izzy?”

  “An abandoned farm outside of town,” she said cheerfully.

  Kenton exhaled. “Okay, well, that could be a problem.”

  Elias dug in his pack and brought out his star map. Kenton stared for a moment and swept his hand over the constellations. “So we’re here, Arcterus. We’ve come from Orion. We need to get you out of h
ere, out of Salem.”

  “No,” Elias said.

  “Yes, says the guide.” I smiled. “We need the easternmost station.”

  Kenton shrugged and pointed to a small constellation on the eastern horizon. “That should be here. I’ve not mapped it this far, but there should be a way up.”

  I grabbed the map from Elias’s hands and handed it to Kenton. “Carry on.”

  As we trundled forward, the lunacy of this whole experience struck. For days, I had silently mocked the craziness of following a star map, and yet here I was, following an eastern star. I placed all my hope in it.

  Reality did me no good. Not on this journey.

  The tunnel narrowed from five meters in diameter to four meters to three.

  Behind us, voices.

  “Police,” Izzy said.

  “I don’t think so,” Elias said. “Those voices have been here a long time.”

  Two meters.

  I removed my bag and dropped to my knees, shoving it in front of me. “Kenton? We can’t go on.” My voice muffled, even as those behind me grew louder.

  One.

  I pushed ahead, the faint grunting of Elias and the sound of men’s voices now all I heard. That and my breath. Loud. Forced. Desperate.

  Then, stars. Brilliant and bright. The world opened and the grass waved and the trees rustled in the blackness of night. I turned. The lights of Salem were bright behind us, but before us there was nothing.

  “Wow.” Kenton stood and brushed himself off. “So this is how they got out. Right out of town. You’ll be following a slave route for a while, I figure.” He handed the star map back to Elias. Izzy finally emerged, her guitar case scraping out of the cave-like opening.

  “Terrible.”

  “What? The crawl?”

  She shook her head and muttered. “Terrible. Terrible.”

  I rounded her shoulder. “Maybe we weren’t the only ones traveling through.”

  “I don’t believe in that stuff.”

  “You might soon,” Kenton said. “Over that ridge is the only abandoned place I know. Abandoned for good reason. And after I tell you the story, I need to leave. I forgot to reshape the pillows beneath my blanket.”

  Kenton pointed. “If you follow Salem Road east, soon —”

  “You arrive at a T, and the right turn looks like it’s headed back into Salem,” Izzy said.

  “So you went left, and it turned into gravel, and then there it was, a big, old vacant Civil War place. An entire family died in that house. It was brutal and sad. This was back in, like, 1940, but five of them lived there. Mom, dad, three kids.” Kenton breathed deeply. “Everything was going fine, right? But then this traveling shoe salesman blows in. He sets up a shop in town. Soon he’s having an affair with the wife. She says she’s gonna leave her husband, but then, suddenly, she changes her mind. A few days later, the whole family is found dead, and the drifter has moved on. But every once in a while people still see his car. Driving back and forth in front of the house. Maybe from remorse. Maybe from anger. Freaky stuff.”

  “And you hid our truck at that house?” I asked.

  Izzy’s hands raised to her hips. “I was not given the haunted history of Salem, Ohio, before I arrived.”

  “It’s all right.” Elias nodded. “We’re all here. We’re close to the truck, and we met Kenton, a fine citizen of Salem. We rescued Izzy and found our way through a very sad darkness, dangers that we knew from Izzy’s Orion interpretation would be waiting for us. We’re definitely on the right track.”

  I exhaled loud and slow. Maybe Elias found comfort and certainty from the events of this place. Not me. I didn’t discover anything. I lost what I had. In my lack of control in the tower; in the below-the-surface panic I so lightly put Elias through . . . I lost what little self-respect I owned.

  The Other One didn’t know about my failures, but what would my Elias think?

  “We should go,” Elias said.

  Kenton swallowed. “You really need to? I mean, you probably do, but it’d be cool to have you stay. I don’t care what you all did.” He scratched the side of his neck, lowering his voice. “It’s just me here. Me and these tunnels. My parents, they think I’m crazy . . . they’re perfect, you know? And I’m this freak.”

  The night fell silent, and Kenton continued. “Just nice to have a couple other freaks like me nearby, you know?”

  Izzy strode up to Kenton, reached up and gently held his face in her hands. “I get it.”

  The longer they stood, the smaller my earlier kiss became. Twice now, both in the tower and in the tunnel, I had given boys exactly what they’d always requested. But Izzy’s words were going somewhere my affections couldn’t reach. I felt such the fool.

  We all stood as statues, until Elias reached into his pack and removed a pencil and sketchbook. He looked at Kenton, and five minutes later gently tore the drawing from the pad. He handed it to Kenton, whose eyes grew wide.

  “Seriously?”

  Elias smiled. Kenton pressed it into his chest. “Okay, yeah, okay.” He started to cry, dirt on his cheeks smearing to mud. “I need to get back.” He carefully folded the gift and raised it in the air. “Thanks, Elias.”

  It was the time for my gentle gesture. Izzy and Elias had both extended a farewell moment to Kenton. But standing there, I suddenly felt the needy one. The empty-handed outsider. The shared freak who threw around kisses like currency.

  Kenton disappeared back into the hole.

  “May I ask what you drew for him?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I wanted badly to know. I wanted him to draw something happy for me. I wanted to cry again.

  CHAPTER 22

  Haunted things. I never gave them much thought. Not because I had any strong beliefs either way, but because my life was filled with enough haunted places; I didn’t need more to consider. But Kenton’s story stuck with me — it seemed to weigh on us all — and we wandered slowly toward our truck, parked in the drive.

  With a Camry next to it.

  “I thought you said it was deserted.” I squinted toward the windows of the house. There were no signs of life.

  “The car wasn’t there,” Izzy said. “You think . . . I mean, it sort of sounded like Kenton knew what he was talking about. What kind of car would a deranged shoe salesman drive?”

  “Definitely a late-model silver Camry.” I slapped her arm. “But it doesn’t matter. We aren’t here to stay.”

  It was a quick load. The plane was intact, and our packs joined it in the back. The three of us squeezed in the front, with Elias in the middle, his star map open on his lap.

  Izzy again took the wheel. “So, you two still up for east?”

  “Stay in Salem,” Elias said.

  I punched in the word. “Salem. Salem, New York.” I leaned over the dash and peered up. Orion shone bright above us. “Still on Orion’s path.” I chuckled. And froze.

  From outside the truck, a scream. A child’s scream. From inside the house, candlelight.

  “Go. Go!” I shouted, and Izzy revved the engine and threw the U-Haul in reverse. Tires gnawed at gravel, and a cloud of dust surrounded us as we hurdled backward. She executed a tight turn in the road, and we accelerated.

  “We will return to Minnesota by a different route.” My heart pounded.

  “I should have helped the girl.” Elias sighed. “Whoever it was.”

  “And if it wasn’t a who?” Izzy asked.

  Elias slumped down. “Then I would have nothing to worry about.”

  I gently squeezed his shoulder. “Not everyone can be helped by a picture.”

  He silently reached back and handed me a new sketchbook. “Page one.”

  I slowly flipped open the cover, and my stomach sank.

  It was the third.

  Twice before, I had received sketches, dark and foreboding. Following the touch of Elias while in the tower, I had almost forgotten to be selfish. Now with the appearance of my next sketching, my other
motive resurfaced.

  The picture was the most grotesque of the three. Indeed, it was almost pure emotion, the subject recognizable only by its eyes. Horrified eyes affixed to a child’s body. He knew. Now, there was no doubt. First the storm. Then a figure slipping to the ground. Finally, the horror in my eyes as I stared down. Elias hadn’t been there. Just like the voices in the tunnel; they hadn’t been there either. Not really.

  But somehow Elias saw what he could not. He knew too much.

  “Does that sketching help?” Elias asked quietly.

  “Yes.”

  Salem, Ohio, reminded me of many things. How much I missed the real Elias. How strangely fond I felt toward my dad. But perhaps most of all, the tunnels, and Kenyon’s story, reminded me that the past never stays hidden. The closet never remains shut. The truth always leaks out.

  And that alone filled me with more fear than I’d felt in years.

  Elias alone saw my Great Undoing, London’s secret until now. He knew I was running. He had to. Why I ran, why I came, why, just why. Yes, it filled his sketches of me. But maybe he didn’t know it all. If not, and I told him, could he ever trust me? Would Dad have begged me to return if he knew?

  I glanced at Elias, who stared back at me.

  I would tell him all I knew. The next time the Elias from the tower returned, I would tell him.

  Though it might spell our Great Undoing.

  “Get some rest, Clarita.” Elias nestled stiffly into me. “We’ll need to sleep while we can and find a place to hide during the light.”

  “I got this,” Izzy said. “I know just the place, and we can spend the day.”

  I stared out the window, whispering to nobody in particular, I’m so sorry.

  Do you know how many late-model silver Camrys are on the American road?

  It turns out that there are quite a few, and as we chugged through the night, I spotted several.

  At the Shell station.