Alison left the park with a heavy heart. She got in her car and drove aimlessly around town. She felt torn apart. She had pain hitting her from all directions. Her friend Fran was dead. They had to bury her on Monday. The murderer was still on the loose, composing fresh letters and tasks for them to complete. Then there was Tony, her beloved Tony, who treated everything she said with distrust and contempt. She couldn’t understand where his hatred for her was coming from. She had done nothing to him. She only wanted to live her life to the fullest with him still a big part of it. Of course, she had suggested they go to the police. It was the only rational thing to do. This Caretaker was not picking at their weak spots. He was going for the jugular, and he liked the taste of blood. Eventually Alison found herself heading for her house, more than thirty miles from the neighborhood where her friends lived. But when she reached her usual off-ramp, she kept driving. She couldn’t face her parents the way she felt. She needed to get away, to get out of the city. She stayed on the freeway, and when the turnoffs came for the mountain resorts, she took one. The ground rose in front of her, and the air cooled. She saw a pine, then half a dozen. The forest thickened steadily the higher she went. Soon she was driving through mountains of green.
She finally realized she was heading toward Big Bear Lake. She didn’t want to go there. It was a weekend, and the lake would be crowded. She spotted a sign pointing toward a Green Valley Lake. That sounded nice. She turned left off the main road. Five miles later she caught sight of a crystal-clear body of water. The valley was heavenly and appeared almost deserted. She parked and walked along the water. For the first time all day the lump in her throat began to shrink. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. She took a deep breath and picked up a stone and skimmed it over the glassy water. Five hops—she hadn’t lost her touch.
She wasn’t the only one skimming rocks on the lake. At the far end of the lake she could just make out a young man in blue jeans and a yellow shirt dancing his pebbles over the surface, too. He didn’t throw his rocks hard, but they went forever over the water. He had the touch. He noticed her watching him and waved to her. He seemed to be harmless, about her age, with a slight build and light brown hair that was in desperate need of a trim. He smiled as she approached, and a powerful sensation of déjà vu swept over her. Yet she had never been to this lake before. Certainly she couldn’t have met this guy before. She was sure of that—well, pretty sure.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hello,” she replied. She nodded to the rocks in his hands. “How do you get your stones to skip like that? I counted fifteen hops on your last throw.”
The sunlight shone in his hair and on his shy expression. “It’s all in the wrist.” He demonstrated for her, and the rock took close to twenty hops before sinking below the surface. Once more she was struck by the ease with which he threw them. “See, there’s nothing to it,” he said.
“For you maybe.” She looked around. They weren’t far from a grass meadow alive with blooming flowers in every color. At the far end of the meadow was a small wooden cabin. It, too, looked familiar to her, but not exactly. It was as if it had been thoroughly described to her, not a place she had ever visited. “Is that your cabin?” she asked, pointing.
“Sometimes I stay there,” he said, watching her. “You look tired. Would you like a cup of tea?”
His suggestion was a little forward, but somehow, coming from him, it didn’t seem rude. There was something disarming about the guy. Not for a second did she feel in danger. Quite the reverse—it was very pleasant to stand beside him in the warm sunlight among the trees.
“I’m just out for a walk.” She chuckled. “I couldn’t drop in on you. I mean, I don’t even know you.”
He let his rocks fall to the ground and offered his hand. “My name’s Chris.”
She shook his hand. “I’m Alison.”
“Ali?”
She smiled. “My friends call me that.”
“Ali,” he repeated to himself, and it seemed as if he liked the sound of her name. He turned in the direction of his cabin. “Well, I’m going to have tea. You can join me if you wish.”
She didn’t want him to be gone suddenly. “I think I will,” she said.
The inside of his cabin was sparsely furnished. He put an old black kettle on a wood stove. He lit a fire with a match scraped along the wall of the stove. “It’ll take a few minutes,” he said and stepped back outside onto the front porch, where there were a couple of chairs. He sat down and put his legs up on the railing. After a moment’s hesitation, Alison sat beside him. He scanned the nearby lake and sighed with pleasure.
“A day like this makes it hard to leave here,” he said.
“Do you have to leave? Do you have to get back to work?” She believed she had miscalculated his age. He didn’t look much older than she was, but he had an air about him that spoke of greater maturity.
“I’m only back here for a short time, Ali,” he said.
“Where are you from?”
The question amused him. He glanced back at the water. “Not so far from here—if you know how to fly.”
She laughed. “So you’re Peter Pan?”
He laughed softly, nodding. “If you like.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
He thought for a moment. “I’m a farmer.”
“Really? What do you grow?”
“Seeds.”
“No. Seriously?”
“I grow them, and then I harvest them when the time is right.”
She couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. She didn’t mind if he was. His whole air was so sweet. He was quite enchanting. He brushed a lock of his brown hair aside and stared at her once more. He was waiting for her to speak.
“Where is your farm?” she asked.
“Near here.”
“In the woods?”
“In Los Angeles,” he said.
She laughed again. “I’d like to see it in the middle of the city. What do you grow? People?”
He continued to watch her. “Yes. You have grown up, Ali.”
She stopped, confused. “What do you mean?”
“What I said. You are growing up swiftly. That’s why you suffer so much. Sometimes the faster you run, the more you trip and hurt yourself. But the sooner you’ll reach your goal.”
Now she was totally lost. “How do you know anything about me? I’ve never met you before. Have I?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Not long ago. Don’t worry. You won’t remember me.”
Alison leaned back in her seat and felt her breath slowly go out of her body. It was true—she had no memory of this guy. Yet she knew him. She didn’t understand how both things could be true at the same time.
“What am I suffering from now?” she asked carefully.
“Lack of love. It’s always the cause of suffering.”
She thought of Tony and their unfulfilled love, and her heart ached. “That’s true,” she whispered. Then she shook herself. “Who are you?”
He removed his legs from the porch rail and sat up. “I’m a guide. I’m here to guide you.”
“To what?”
“You know what.”
She bit her lower lip, but she didn’t taste blood. She tasted cold water. Her whole body had suddenly gone cold. “You know about the chain letters?” she gasped.
He shrugged. “The letters are not important. It’s what they represent.”
“And what’s that?”
“A chain,” he said seriously. “An unbroken chain. It’s very ancient—not a happy thing. But it can be broken.”
Alison’s head was spinning. She had come to this spot by chance. She had only met this guy by chance. Yet he knew of her worst fears. . . .
“How can we break it?” she asked.
“With love,” he said simply.
“I don’t understand.”
The guy’s green eyes were penetrating, yet gentle still. It was as if she stood fully exposed before him, her thoughts and everything, but it was OK because he understood her. And appreciated her. That’s why she felt so comfortable with him. He radiated unconditional love.
“You do understand, Ali,” he said.
“But I love Tony. I want to help him. I want to help the others, but they won’t listen to me. Tony won’t even talk to me.”
The guy raised a finger. “That doesn’t matter, either. You have asked for help, and someone will come. Trust this person. But beyond this you must trust what’s in your heart. The letters come from a place where there is no heart. There is only pain. None of you must go to that place.”
Alison was frightened. “Where is that place?”
The guy hesitated. Alison didn’t understand why she didn’t think of him as Chris. Then she realized it was probably because it wasn’t his real name. It was just something he made up so she could understand. But understand what? Who the hell was this guy?
“It is not far from here, either,” he said.
“But this Caretaker has already killed one of us,” she said. “How can I stop him from killing more of us?”
“Dying is not so bad as being put in the box.”
“What happens when you’re put in the box?” Her voice trembled. “Do you go to that place?”
“Eventually. Unless you can get out. But it’s difficult to get out once you are inside. Most people never do.” The kettle began to whistle inside the cabin. The guy seemed to listen to it for a few moments. Yet he could have been listening to something far off. His gaze focused on a place she couldn’t see. He came back to her after a minute, though. “I’m afraid you won’t have time to stay for tea,” he said, and there was a hint of sorrow in his voice.
“Why not?”
“It is time.”
“Time for what?” She stood. “Please, you have to tell me what’s happening here. Who are you?”
He stood, too. He didn’t say anything but only hugged her, and his arms as they went around her were of great comfort. She felt a warm glow in her chest that spread through her after he let go. But her heart was still in anguish.
“I am your friend,” he said. He reached out and touched the hair that hung beside her cheek. “I am your greatest admirer.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“You will. You will act in love. You will do what has to be done.”
She began to cry. “I’m afraid. Can’t I stay with you a few more minutes?”
He shook his head and turned for the front door. “You have to hurry. Go to where it all began. There are two places, you know. Find them and you will reach the end of the chain.” He smiled at her one last time before stepping inside. “Goodbye, Ali.”
“But—?”
“Hurry,” he said and vanished through the door.
Alison stood for a minute staring at the closed door before opening it and peeking inside. He must have gone out the back way. She saw no sign of him. The whistle of the kettle had stopped. It sat on the wood stove as if it had sat there undisturbed for years. There was no sign of the burning logs. It was as if she had dreamed the entire encounter. She turned and walked back to the lake, toward her car. His words rang true, whoever he was. She had to hurry, even if she didn’t know where she was going.