Exit Point

by Laura Langston

  Is it enough?

  I don’t know.

  Then, because I sense Wade growing impatient, I wrap my love around Hannah. I tell her I will always be there for her. Remember our song, I say.

  You’ll be my Queen; I’ll be your King.

  Maybe my thoughts do have power, because Van Morrison comes on the radio and he is singing it: “And I’ll Be Your Lover Too.”

  I turn to go. When I look back at Hannah, she is smiling.

  “You said it would be tough; you didn’t tell me it would be impossible.” We are back in the park, Wade and I. The cheeseburgers have not erased my anger. Neither has the hot fudge sundae.

  “It’s not impossible,” he insists, “just difficult. I told you, the living have to be willing to see the signs.”

  I glare into his blue-and green-eyed gaze. “And the dead have to be able to make them.”

  He smiles back. “It takes time to master a new skill, Logan. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re still recovering from your death. Overall, you’re doing well. Your presence in Amy’s dream was excellent. You touched your mother and father. You even managed to get that song on the radio at just the right time.”

  “It’s not enough.” I flop onto the grass and stare into the milk-glow sky. Wade knows the words I have left out: It’s not enough to stop a rat bastard.

  “This isn’t a swim meet,” Wade says. “You aren’t going to lose if you’re two seconds late.”

  But Amy will lose if I don’t keep her away from Herb. And time is running out.

  I sit back up. “That reminds me, what’s with the time thing? Every time I go back, more time has passed. When I saw Amy at school, they thought I’d been dead a month. I’ve only been dead a few hours.”

  When Wade laughs, his frizzy hair bounces and his snake tattoos twist and turn. No wonder this guy gave me nightmares when I was four.

  “It’s not that funny,” I mutter. “What’s going on?”

  “Time’s relative.” He grins. “If you’d been paying attention in physics, you’d know that. What takes the blink of an eye over here can take days down there.”

  Leavenworth is next weekend. Does this mean next weekend is minutes away?

  “Relax,” Wade says. “Nothing’s gonna happen just yet.” Another hot fudge sundae appears in front of me. “Eat,” he says.

  I have to trust him. So I do.

  Wanting to hedge my bets, I enter into Hannah’s dream that night.

  Wade is annoyed with me. He doesn’t say so, but I can feel his disapproval. He thinks I need time away from the living.

  Hannah is thrilled to see me, but not surprised. She has been waiting. I kiss her and we talk, but when I tell her about Amy and Herb, Hannah does not want to listen.

  Hannah is so far from the dark side that she cannot recognize darkness in others. You have to protect Amy, I tell her. You have to tell my parents what’s going on.

  But when Hannah wakes up, I am afraid she won’t remember our dream.

  Next weekend is here.

  I don’t need to see it to know. I feel Amy’s terror, her panic that I am not there to protect her.

  At first I do not react. After Hannah’s dream, Wade called the robed ones back. They fed me colors and turned me fuzzy calm again. I needed to rest.

  But now Amy is in trouble. Her fear is an alarm clock going off in the pit of my stomach.

  I am with her in an instant, standing behind her, hands on her shoulders. We are in Susan and Herb’s driveway. The sky is blue; the ground shines with frost. It is Saturday, early December. Instead of rain, Seattle is in the middle of an unusual cold snap.

  I know all of it. Just like I know the horror that’s to come.

  My parents wave to us as they pull out. Dad has another brown Lexus. The insurance company settled. I know this too.

  Amy trembles; her shoulders shake beneath my hands. I wrap myself around her and hold her close. It is not enough but it is all I can think of to do.

  “Let’s get this weekend underway!” Herb claps his hands together and smiles his ugly wolf smile. My cousin Brad stands beside him, looking lost in the shadow of his father.

  It is the first time I have seen Herb since that time in the cockpit. It is hard to look at him. But when I do, I am relieved. His evil is weaker when there are good people around.

  Aunt Susan knows that Amy is unhappy. “We’ll run back to your house to pick up that social studies report, Amy. Your mom said you were upset that you forgot it.” She wants to make my sister feel better, but she misunderstands the problem.

  “We’ll do it when Brad’s at his soccer game,” Herb says to Susan. “I’ll drop you and Brad off. Then Amy and I will run over to the house for the homework. We’ll probably be back before the warm-up ends.”

  Susan smiles at my sister. “And we’ll go out for pizza after the game, okay?”

  Slowly, with great effort, Amy nods.

  I want to puke.

  Chapter Eight

  I did not know ghosts could run.

  But then, I’m not a ghost. Because ghosts can appear in front of people.

  And if I could do that, I’d appear in front of the rat bastard and scare him to death.

  As for the running thing, I’m not doing that either. Whatever I am doing, though, I’m doing it fast.

  Because I have to stop this madness.

  I go to my parents first. I sit in the car with them, and I yell.

  Turn the car around. Go back. Save Amy.

  Mom cradles take-out coffee in her hand and looks at Dad. “Maybe we should have brought Amy with us. She was really upset when we drove away.”

  “She was worried about her social studies report,” Dad says. “She’ll be fine. Susan said she and Herb have lots of things planned for the weekend.”

  I shudder and holler some more. Bad things. Horrible things. Turn the car around.

  “It’s only been six weeks since Logan died. Maybe it’s too soon to leave her.”

  Six weeks? How long did Wade make me sleep?

  “You heard the counselor,” Dad says. “The sooner things return to normal, the better.” He flicks on the radio, steps on the gas. He is not going back.

  I go to Hannah next. She is in bed, stretching under the covers, thinking of me, thinking of Amy. Amy called her last night. The conversation upset her. Something in Amy’s voice wasn’t right.

  Get up, Hannah. Go to her. Help Amy.

  Hannah tosses back her quilt, touches the St. Christopher medal at her neck. She thinks maybe the medal should go to Amy. After a minute, she reconsiders. It is her last physical connection to me. She does not want to give it up.

  Hannah disappears into the shower.

  The old Logan would have followed her. Or tried to. It’s tempting. For maybe a millisecond or two. But I think of Amy and nothing else matters.

  What am I going to do? Gran said I could stop Herb. How, Gran, how? I call out to her, but she does not answer. It occurs to me that Gran is disappointed. She knows I am going to fail. I am failing.

  I scream for Wade and I hear him inside my head, saying, Calm down and think.

  How can I think when Amy’s fear is choking my mind? When I know they are in the car, they are going to soccer, and soon they will be at our house?

  I sit on Hannah’s bed and I pray. I do not know what else to do. It is the first time I have prayed since I was a little boy. Even when I died, I didn’t. Now I ask God to quit dicking around and to please help Amy. Because Amy deserves to be helped.

  When Hannah comes out of the shower, I reach out with my mind and touch hers.

  Go to Amy, I say. Please, be there for her.

  That little seed of worry I planted in Hannah’s mind yesterday—weeks ago?—has taken root. She touches the medal around her neck. She decides to go to the house and take Amy for an Egg McMuffin.

  I follow Hannah.

  As she pulls into our driveway and parks her Volkswagen behind Herb’s navy blue SUV, she
figures Dad decided to replace the Lexus with something different. Nice color, she thinks as she heads up the sidewalk.

  Her knock on the door is unanswered. She frowns. She knows someone is home. She hears the faint stirring of music somewhere in the house.

  Kick the damn door open, I yell. Go find Amy.

  Hannah peers through the glass. Sees Amy’s coat on the floor. Two sets of shoes. Impulsively, she reaches for the doorknob and opens the door. “Hello,” she calls loudly, stepping into the hall. It is the first time she has been to my house since the service. For a second, she imagines I will walk out of the kitchen half-dressed and smelling of the after-shave she gave me on my birthday. Tears well behind her eyes; she swallows. Her sadness makes me ache. “Anybody home?”

  Footsteps sound above her. Amy appears at the top of the stairs. Her blouse is half undone. Her face is marshmallow white. Herb quickly looms behind her. “Oh, Hannah.” He is flustered. Red-faced. “Hi.”

  “Amy?” Hannah stares at my sister. Something isn’t right. “What’s going on? Where are your mom and dad?”

  “They went to Leavenworth for a night.” Amy launches herself down the stairs and into Hannah’s arms. “They left me with Auntie Susan and Uncle Herb.” My sister is shaking, and she is very, very cold.

  “Amy forgot her homework.” Herb comes down the stairs behind her. The air grows heavier, oilier. I move closer to Amy and Hannah, stare into the pale blue eyes of the stranger who was my uncle. “When we got here, she complained about a rash on her chest so we were upstairs having a look,” he says.

  Hannah doesn’t recognize the lie. She doesn’t even notice Amy’s quick little breath when Herb says it. But Hannah notices Herb’s pants. Or more specifically, his fly.

  It is undone.

  Somewhere at the heart of her, Hannah remembers our dream. And she knows there is no rash.

  Gently, she tilts Amy’s face up. “Are you okay?” she asks softly.

  My sister doesn’t answer. She looks away, buries her head in Hannah’s chest. But not before Hannah sees the truth in Amy’s eyes.

  “She’s fine,” Herb bluffs. “I can’t see a rash myself, but you know how kids are.” He slips on his shoes, grabs Amy’s homework from the hall table. “I’ll get Susan to have a look when we get back. Come on, Amy. Grab your coat. We have to get to Brad’s game.”

  Don’t let him take her, I yell to Hannah. Keep her safe.

  Hannah’s mind clicks over with gear-like precision. She is thinking of what she should do, whether to call my parents, what she will do if she can’t find them. She smiles at Herb. “Amy and I had a breakfast date, didn’t we, Amy?”

  Amy nods. She won’t look up.

  Herb’s eyes narrow. “Barbara and Robert didn’t say anything about that.”

  “They probably forgot,” Hannah says breezily. “It’s a standing thing, every Saturday since...you know.” It is a lie, but she is counting on Herb being made uncomfortable by the unspoken reference to my death. He is. When he doesn’t respond, Hannah continues. “We’re usually gone about an hour and a half.”

  Herb wants Amy with him, where he can make sure she stays quiet. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think—”

  The pizza flyer interrupts him. I send it scuttling across the floor, flipping and turning on the breeze. Herb watches it land on top of his shoe. Flustered, he wonders, How did that happen? The air is dead calm.

  I grin. No it isn’t. Not with me around.

  “Don’t worry about it, Captain Underwood.” Hannah uses his title deliberately and then widens her smile as much as she dares. “I’ll bring Amy back to your place by noon.”

  Herb wants to resist, but his blackness is no match for Hannah’s goodness. He drops his eyes, bends to pick up the flyer. “By noon,” he repeats.

  My parents are back by 11:30. They sit in Hannah’s living room, perching uneasily on the edge of the sofa. Amy is curled up in Mom’s lap. Hannah and her father sit across from them.

  “So you didn’t actually see anything?” Dad asks Hannah for the third time.

  “Amy’s shirt was undone,” Hannah repeats. “And Herb’s fly was down.”

  When we first stop the rat bastard, I am crazy happy. I follow Amy and Hannah to McDonald’s, and I don’t even care that I can’t eat the food. But now my happiness has dissolved.

  “These are serious charges,” Mr. Sinclair, Hannah’s father, says mildly. He is a lawyer. In spite of that, I like him. I know he believes Hannah. He is just trying to protect her.

  “Yes.” Hannah nods. “And Amy said Herb touched her and she didn’t want to go back to his house.”

  Mom and Dad exchange glances. Mom is thinking, This can’t be happening. Dad is thinking, Hannah has always been melodramatic. My sister is thinking, Now he’ll slice me in half like Pookie.

  “Amy?” Mom asks softly. “Did Uncle Herb touch you?”

  Amy is silent.

  Dad tries. “Is there anything you want to tell us, princess?”

  Dad! I cry. Of course she doesn’t want to tell you. She doesn’t want to believe it happened.

  My sister’s voice is muffled in the folds of Mom’s sweater. “I don’t want to go back there,” she says.

  As Mom reassures my sister, Dad looks at Hannah and Mr. Sinclair. “I appreciate you calling us. We’ll take it from here.”

  Chapter Nine

  He thinks he is going to get away with it.

  But he won’t. Not if I can help it.

  I am in our kitchen with Amy. In the living room, my parents are telling Susan and Herb what Hannah has said.

  Amy knows that in a few minutes she will be called out, and she will have to face him. She sits on the edge of the chair, head forward, brown hair curved around her cheeks, staring into her chocolate milk. She wonders how she can make the badness go away. Hannah was supposed to be her friend. Hannah has made things worse.

  No she hasn’t, Amy.

  I blow a breeze across the top of the milk, creating tiny bubbles.

  Amy doesn’t even smile.

  The time for smiles is over.

  Amy is still afraid. In fact, she is more afraid than ever. I make her think about truth, and how important it is to be truthful. But Amy believes it is safer to lie.

  The air in our kitchen shimmers and flickers. Amy can’t see it; I can. My senses are changing, getting sharper. I am more aware of the other side, the side called death. And how it connects with the living.

  My body is changing too. When I first died, I looked solid, real. Now when I look at my hands and legs, I see smudgy shadows. It’s like I’m slowly dissolving.

  Wade is here somewhere. I feel him. I feel Amy’s guides too. They are trying to comfort her and give her the courage to do the right thing.

  But my sister...my sister is so young. And this is the hardest thing she has ever gone through.

  Witnessing her terror makes me feel as scared and as helpless as I did at my funeral.

  I cannot watch.

  “You know I would never hurt Amy.” The rat bastard leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. He keeps his wide blue eyes on Mom and Dad. To the living, he is the picture of innocence. Being dead, I see the evil that rides on his shoulders like a spare arm. Like a claw. “I love that kid.”

  He sits in the green wingback chair; Susan sits in the chair beside him. Mom and Dad are on the couch opposite. Someone has made coffee. Four full cups sit untouched on the coffee table between them.

  “Hannah says Amy’s shirt was undone.” Dad runs a hand through his hair. He is so sick about this, he feels nauseous. “And your fly was too.”

  Herb’s grin is a touch embarrassed. “I’d gone to the john. I was in a hurry to check Amy’s rash and get back to Brad’s game.” He raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know why Hannah would be looking down there.” He pauses just long enough to suggest that Hannah was the one in the wrong. “But if she says my fly was undone, then I guess I forgot to do it up.”


  You animal, I scream. You lying bastard.

  There are nods all around. Everyone wants to believe him. They need to believe him. If they don’t, they will be forced to admit there is a monster in our family.

  Mom’s voice quavers. “Amy told Hannah you touched her.”

  “Of course I touched her,” Herb says. “I was looking for the rash.”

  The air in our living room swirls with truth and lies, goodness and evil. Others are here. I sense them crowding around me, watching this horror, yearning for justice.

  “I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding.” Aunt Susan’s eyes flicker nervously. She is yellow with fear.

  When they bring Amy into the room, she tucks herself into a tiny spot between Mom and Dad. She will not look at Herb. I think it is a good sign. She is going to rat him out, I tell myself. That’s why she won’t look at him.

  Aunt Susan is the first to speak. “Amy, you know we love you and we would never want to hurt you.” Amy nods. “If something is wrong and you don’t want to come to our house, we want to know why so we can fix it.”

  Amy says nothing. She stares at the ground. Pookie can’t be fixed, she thinks. And Uncle Herb will fix her too, if she tells.

  I don’t like where her thoughts are going. I crouch on the floor in front of her. Tell them, Amy! It’s okay. He won’t hurt you anymore.

  “Did something happen with Uncle Herb?” Mom asks.

  I hold my breath.

  Amy nods.

  “Did he touch you?” Dad asks.

  Amy nods a second time.

  Yes!

  But then Herb says, “Tell them why, Amy.”

  Nobody else hears the threat in Herb’s voice. But I do. And Amy does too. It takes her a long time but she finally says, “Because I was itchy and I thought I had a rash.” Her voice is so soft, Mom repeats the words.

  Dad lets out his breath. “I’m sorry, Herb.”

  “Hey, it’s okay.” Herb’s lips stretch into a slithery grin. “When it comes to your kids, you can never be too careful.”