Jason stepped forward, trying to get in between the two. “Get away from him!”
Zef stabbed two fingers at Jason’s face, his thumb up like a gun trigger. “You’ve ruined it. And you’re dead, too.” His wrist jerked up as if he’d fired. “I’m going to kill you for this. I am.”
As he turned away, his eyes found Joey lying on the floor. He winced and ran from the greenhouse.
Joey began to sob. Jason went to him and knelt by his side.
“Are you okay?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Talk to me.”
His voice was small and sad. “I’ve never told any boy I loved him before.”
“Come on, let’s get you—”
“I said,” Joey threw up a hand, warding Jason off, “leave me alone!”
Something struck Jason in the chest, lifting him and tossing him across the room. A heavy bag of potting soil had flown from the stack and body-slammed him.
“What the hell?” Jason shouted.
He and Joey looked at each other, puzzled.
A bag near the top of the stack burst open as if shot with a rifle. A stream of dirt poured onto the floor and the bag went flat. Another bag exploded, lower down, and spilled its contents. The tower of potting soil teetered. Two bags near the bottom blew out and the entire stack began to shudder, then tilt, then—
“Get down!” Jason shouted.
The whole stack tipped over, bags exploding, bouncing, flying into the air and bursting like explosive charges. Dirt struck the glass, the ceiling. The boys covered their heads. A wave of dirt scooped Jason up, tossing him onto his back. More dirt vomited out of the troughs, hit the ground and splashed, joining the growing ocean of dirt. Joey pressed both hands to his face, shielding his eyes.
The ocean became a stormy sea, then a hurricane. Jason tried to stand but the waves found his legs and tossed him onto his belly, where another wave caught him and rolled him over again. Dirt was in his hair, in his eyes, down the back of his jacket. It carried him around the greenhouse, bobbing and lurching with the waves. The whole room filled with dirt, leaping and collecting, crashing like waves at the feet of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
“Joey!” Jason shouted, trying unsuccessfully to stand, “Joey, stop it!”
“It’s the ghosts again!” Joey shouted, eyes wide. He hid under a table and beckoned. “Where’s the talisman? Quick!”
“There are no ghosts, Joey! There never were!” Jason fell on his ass and was carried several feet by breakers of dirt. “This is your Gift!”
“What?”
“You’re doing this!” A dirt-wave tried to bury Jason. He struggled through it and spit potting soil out of his mouth. “You’ve got to calm down!”
“What do you mean this is my Gift?” Another bag exploded like an artillery shell. “How can this be my Gift?”
Jason shook his head. “Dude! Think about it!” He chuckled despite himself. “I’m sorry. It’s not a singer’s Gift and it’s not an actor’s Gift. You got—”
Joey’s eyes went wide. “—a gravedigger’s Gift?”
All the dirt in the room shot into the air like a fountain and struck the ceiling, like a firework display of exploding earth. Jason crawled to his friend through the storm.
“Deep breaths, Joey. That’s it… that’s it…”
The dirt fell like a monsoon, then a cloudburst, then as a soft pattering of droplets. One last clod came down hard, struck Jason on the head, and bounced away.
Jason punched Joey lightly on the arm. “Welcome to puberty, kid.”
Joey laughed mirthlessly. He stood and brushed himself off, then without another word, walked out, still laughing at some private joke. Jason chased him across the snowy parking lot, shaking dirt out of his clothes.
“Joey? Joey! Talk to me.”
Joey went to Ladybug and fished for his keys. He was still laughing and shaking his head as he scrunched into the car and pulled the door shut.
Jason rapped on the window. He rapped for a long time, his own face reflected in the glass. He tried the handle, but Joey had locked the door.
“What is it?” said Jason. “What’s so funny?”
At last the window rolled down and Joey emerged into the light. A fine powder like cocoa dusted his face from one ear to the other, but tears had eroded two white rivers down his cheeks, like the makeup of a clown.
“Well, he did call me a dirty fag.”
With the joke, Joey’s smile evaporated. Only sorrow remained. He shook his head and rolled the window back up, and the engine sputtered to life.
As Ladybug lurched and drove away, Jason watched her receding taillights, feeling helpless. When she disappeared at the bottom of the hill, he turned aside and trudged back to the party. He didn’t hear music as he neared the tent—just the voice of a man counting down.
The crowd had encircled the stage. The great antique clock had been lowered. Paul Usher stood just beneath it, his daughter at his side. Kate looked impeccably proper. Too proper. She was the ice sculpture now.
A knife turned in Jason’s chest. How had things gone so wrong? Zef stood some distance away, glancing back and forth from Kate, to his father, to Usher, to the door. The clock above ticked away the seconds.
“Ten… Nine… Eight!” Usher cried, leading the crowd.
Jason made a wish. You can wish on the New Year, can’t you? Can’t you whisper to Old Man Time and ask him to put in a word with the new kid?
“Seven… Six… Five!
Let things get better, new kid, please?
“Four… Three… Two!”
At least don’t let them get worse.
“One!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Midnight”
“Happy New Year!”
The crowd cheered and hooted. They raised glasses and blew noisemakers. The nets above broke and a cluster of red, white, and blue balloons fell. The Tom Yellen Orchestra sloshed into “Auld Lang Syne,” as tipsy and sentimental as mourners at a wake.
When he was a boy, Hadewych’s grandmother had preferred her own version of that song, alternate lyrics stolen from an old poem. He tried to recall them but couldn’t. He watched the kissing couples with pity; they didn’t know how things never worked out, did they? And then his eye fell on Jessica. She was laughing, playing slow-motion paddle ball with a red balloon. And that’s when the voice of his grandmother finally came, singing in the rude shelters of his boyhood, grateful to have survived another year:
Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,
and never thought upon;
The flames of Love extinguished,
and fully past and gone:
Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold
that loving Breast of thine;
That thou canst never once reflect
On Old lang syne.
On Old lang syne, my Jo,
On Old lang syne,
That thou canst never once reflect,
On Old lang syne.
Something caught in his throat. This was a very old memory. He didn’t like those, or the emotions they brought. He was a different person now.
Jessica was staring at him. She’d caught the red balloon and was holding it to her bosom. She walked right up to him, put her hand on the back of his neck, and kissed him deeply. Their bodies pressed together and the balloon burst between them.
“What was that for?” said Hadewych, staggering back.
“Curiosity.” She brushed the scrap of balloon from his jacket. “And it was just as good as I remembered.” Hadewych’s surge of pleasure paused at half-mast; she might not have meant it as a compliment.
Zef had seen them kiss. His face was confused and hopeful and—something else. Terrified? Well, that was natural enough for a man who was about to propose. Hadewych couldn’t wait to see Jessica’s reaction to that. Zef’s engagement would be her ultimate failure. She’d tried to hurt them both, thinking her ex-husband and son couldn’t survive without her. And,
oh, was she wrong. He controlled the Pyncheon fortune, and Zef would marry a senator’s daughter. Hadewych Van Brunt had succeeded completely as a father.
Chew on that, bitch. And after you’ve chewed on it, after you’ve seen your failure…
I’m going to kill you.
He forced himself not to look at her. To keep his distance and anger. But the kiss lingered on his lips, just the same. Why had she kissed him? He searched for a cocktail napkin. Her lipstick tasted like damnation.
Usher took the stage. “Friends, there’s no better way to celebrate a new year than with new love. I hear a certain young couple is itching to make an announcement. Let’s give them a hand.”
The crowd applauded. Usher beckoned. Neither Kate nor Zef budged.
Hadewych went to them. “That’s your cue, lovebirds.”
“Let it go,” muttered Kate.
Hadewych scowled at Zef. “What did you do?”
Zef’s face drained of color. He bolted from the tent.
Hadewych pursued and nabbed him in the foyer. “Where are you going? Don’t you walk away from me! You turn around and talk to—”
Zef shoved him away. “You had to push us, didn’t you? Didn’t you? You just push and push and push!”
Hadewych held up a palm, his voice became low and suspicious. “What happened?”
Zef made a choking, sobbing sound. “It’s over. Me and Kate. It’s over.” He shrank back, as if expecting an explosion.
Hadewych’s words were measured out in teaspoons. “What do you mean, over? What did you do?”
Zef’s hands went up, his face went white. Hadewych waited, but Zef just stood there looking helpless.
Now the explosion came. “What did you do?”
Hadewych struck Zef in the temple with a closed fist.
Someone behind them gasped.
Hadewych whirled.
“Get your hands off!” said Jessica, entering. “That’s my son.”
The sight of her infuriated him. “He’s my son. Butt out.”
She reached for Zef. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he was like this.”
Hadewych noticed a few guests listening in. He pulled the doors shut with a clunk. “I said butt out.”
“I’m leaving,” said Zef.
“Not without the car keys, you’re not,” said Hadewych.
“I’ll walk.”
“So dramatic. You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s happened.”
Zef looked at his parents, going back and forth between them. His face was red now. He whirled and fled the foyer, running up a stairwell.
Jessica stepped into Hadewych’s path before he could follow. “You never used to hit him.”
Hadewych grit his teeth. Who was this witch to criticize him? “Look who finally decided to be a mother!”
“Don’t take your anger out on him. You want to hit someone? Hit me. Go on, hit me.” They stared at each other. Hadewych seethed. He was so tempted to knock her teeth in. His fist was trembling, held so tightly it was like holding a ball of fire.
Jessica shook her head and broke away. “I shouldn’t have come.”
Hadewych let the fist open, reluctantly. “You shouldn’t have left.”
“No. I should have left. But I should have taken him with me. He’d be a lot better off.”
“Don’t even think about it.”
She softened. “What’s happened to you? Where did you go? The man I divorced was unemployed, self-pitying, jealous of everyone who had a little more. But that man was a good father.” She paused. “Now you’re a failure at that, too.” She turned. “Good night.”
“I am a good father. A better father than you were a mother.”
“I said good night.”
“And you didn’t divorce me, by the way.”
She sighed, turning back. “What?”
“I never filed the papers.”
Her face darkened. The words hung between them for an eternity.
“Repeat that?” she gasped.
He smiled. So… he’d given her a good punch after all. “You heard me.”
She spoke slowly. “Do you mean to tell me that we’re still married?”
He nodded. “I could never afford the fees. And I preferred to spend what little I had feeding Zef.” He shrugged. “Oops.”
She stared at him for a long time. “Oops?”
“Oops.” He grinned. “I just told everyone you were dead.”
Something fierce came into her eyes. Her lip came up in a snarl. “Goodbye, Hadewych.” She spun and marched into the tent.
“Go. Run away,” he muttered, chasing after her. “That’s what you’re good at! Fine.” He turned away, muttering to himself… “We’ll just see how good a runner you are.”
Hadewych slipped into David’s Den, the circular reading room. A ladder of crude rungs protruded from the wall, remnant of its days as a grain silo. He pulled himself upward, rung by rung, until the bookcases and sofas were far below. He paused, afraid he would slip, but he’d made the climb twice before with no trouble. Besides, even if he fell and died, he didn’t really care anymore. No. He did care. He couldn’t die yet; she had to die first. That would make their divorce final, if she wanted it so much.
Darkness enveloped him. He reached the top of the ladder and stepped off onto a catwalk of black mesh, lit only by the faint light of the four square windows that encircled the turret. He wiped a window with his sleeve. From this perch he could see the exit she would use. He could see the whole parking lot. She had come to the party late and must have parked far away. That’s why he’d sent her invite with the wrong time on it. So she’d have some distance to walk.
He smiled. She’d have to run.
He felt like an assassin, like Lee Harvey Oswald in the window of the Texas Schoolbook Depository. And that’s what he would be. Her assassin. But he wouldn’t use a rifle, no. Rifles leave evidence. Rifles can be produced in court. Rifles can miss.
Hadewych didn’t need a rifle. He pulled back a shroud of burlap and opened the cardboard box he’d stashed up here earlier that day. He reached into it and withdrew the only murder weapon—the only magic bullet—a Van Brunt could ever need:
The Horseman’s Treasure.
The gold lantern flashed in the moonlight. He held it up to the window.
One if by land… two if by sea… he thought, and then it’s time for a midnight ride. But it won’t be Paul Revere. No. Not Paul Revere at all.
A voice hissed through the darkness, just at his shoulder.
“The Hessian is coming. The Hessian is coming…”
Hadewych turned, gooseflesh rising, but he was alone.
He sat cross-legged with the burlap across his knees. He lifted the heavy relic, cradled it, and felt blindly for the vents. His fingertip brushed debris from the tiny holes, clearing a sludge of congealed blood that had clotted there.
He patted his pockets, searching in vain for the knife he’d stolen from the oyster bar. He couldn’t find it, and the reliquary hadn’t offered its spike, its sharp little devil’s horn. He feared for a moment that he’d have to improvise. Stab himself with his own car keys, perhaps.
Oh, if only I’d thought to invite Valerie tonight. I could rid my world of both bitches at once. But Valerie’s too smart for that. Valerie knows not to stay in the Hollow at night. Jessica’s the one with that lesson to learn.
He found the oyster knife at last. He lay his cupped palm sideways over the vent…
Don’t get blood on your Armani.
…and stabbed the blade into his palm.
He’d forgotten to bite down on something this time. A strangled whinny of pain echoed through the tiny space. The wound would heal quickly, within ten minutes, but the magic didn’t lessen the pain. Magic required pain. And he had plenty of it to conjure with.
The blood came hot, filling his cupped palm. He dripped it into the lantern, where the skull of the Horseman waited to sip it like nectar. So much blood, from
such a small wound. Maybe he would bleed out? Bleed to death? That would be fine. As long as she bled first. Bled for the sin of not having loved him enough. For having left him alone to become what he’d become. His blood flowed. Tears rose. Not tears of anger, but of regret. And what if such a teardrop were to fall into the Devil’s Lantern? What sort of spirit would rise up then?
A tiny figure caught his attention. A figure in the snow—in the field beyond the parking lot. A figure standing at the edge of the woods. The Horseman already? No. This spirit was bent, frail, female. It raised thin arms in fruitless supplication, waving as if to say, “No! No! Go back!” Was it the old woman, Eliza? Or Hadewych’s own beloved grandmother?
Oma? My sweet Oma?
“Don’t do it, Hadewych. Don’t kill again.”
He touched the window and the figure vanished. It had only been a tree. He cursed his foolishness. And now he’d managed to drip blood on his fine suit.
The reliquary glowed and an incantation in Old Dutch appeared, shining from within the metal. It was time. Hadewych bent and whispered into the vents.
“Rise headless and ride.”
The letters vanished and a cold white light burst from the thing. From below, Hadewych realized, the grain silo would shine like a lighthouse. He would be discovered. He twisted, trying to block the windows with his body, to hold up the burlap. But the smoky glass of the lantern cleared and the light dimmed. It was bearable to look upon now, though the thing inside was not.
The skull wasn’t just a skull anymore. It had… gestated. Capillaries clung to it the way fine hair clings to the crown of a newborn. A thick carotid artery moved with snakelike undulation, drinking blood from the pool at the base, pulling it upwards to circulate through scarlet vessels, through twisting coils—slurping the liquid greedily, the way little Zef used to slurp strawberry Nesquik through a crazy straw. The blood pulsed and pushed into the nose, into the eyes, into the hollow cavity within the skull. But was it hollow, still? Hadewych didn’t think so. He felt a mind growing there, something with a will to challenge his own. He fixed his gaze to the twin caverns of its eye sockets, speaking slowly and deliberately.
Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones Page 25
