Jake’s mind was still reeling as he hauled himself into his canoe. Have to talk to Leonard. He glanced frantically around the little cove, among the reeds, anywhere the old man might be. Nothing. Always here? Every morning? Then why not today?
After ten more minutes of futile searching, Jake headed for Leonard’s house. Jake found him forty minutes later sitting in a lawn chair, staring at his garden. A second chair sat next to Leonard. Obviously he’d been expecting Jake.
“You weren’t there this morning.”
“Nah. Something in my gut told me you’d need a chance to calm down before we talked. That your visit wouldn’t be the most pleasant. I thought the paddle back would give you a chance to clear your head.”
“It’s still a mud pit.” Jake sat and gripped the arms of his chair hard. “Which is why I’m here.”
“Then we’re both here for the same reason.”
“You told me the promise of the corridor comes with a price. And my time to pay is coming. What did you have to pay, Leonard?”
Leonard’s eyes grew misty as he gazed up at the clouds. He held the position long enough for Jake to wonder if he’d decided to stop talking. But he finally brought his head back down and fixed his eyes on Jake.
“I was married for fourteen years to my third wife, but this time it was different. This time my marriage was a sappy, stupid, fairy-tale marriage where we never fought and loved each other more each day. She was light and life all bottled up in a concentrated form so potent that a few drops a day were all I could take. Any more and I would have died of happiness.”
Jake frowned at him in surprise and Leonard waved his hands as if he could wipe the look off Jake’s face.
“I know, I sound like a moron. Or like a chatterbox from a little-girl movie.”
“No. You don’t. You sound like you had a love as rare as gold.”
Leonard turned away and Jake guessed the old man was wiping the tears off his cheeks. When he righted himself, his face was stoic again. “Go ahead, I know you want to ask what happened to this pink-cotton-candy-puffy-cloud bliss.”
“I do.”
“Pretty simple. Same thing millions have been through. She started coughing one day. Lasted long enough to go to the doctor, who told us if she was lucky she’d live a year. She died three months later.”
Leonard gripped the sides of his chair and his arms shook.
“I came here to Willow Lake a year after she passed away. All I wanted was to be alone. But as fate would have it, I talked to a local who told me a fairy tale about the lake, and for reasons I still can’t explain, I became obsessed with seeing if the legend was more than a folk tale.
“I didn’t believe, but it gave me something to do to put a salve on my broken soul.”
“Because the thing you wanted most in the world was to see her, be with her again.”
Leonard’s glare seemed to ask why Jake wasted the air in his lungs to make such an obvious statement. He dropped his gaze and Jake thought he might not start up again, but after an age, he scuffed the sod at his feet and continued.
“I knew it was impossible to see her again, truly see her again. She was gone and wasn’t coming back. And I knew there was no chance of there being a path anywhere on this earth that would take me to the place where she would be.”
Leonard’s head swung slowly back and forth. “But I searched the end of the lake like I was searching for my own life, like if I didn’t find the path to the field, I would die.
“That impression grew till I had no doubt the corridor was real and I had no doubt I’d find it. Only a matter of time. I still didn’t think I’d find Anna on the other side, but that didn’t slow my search in the least. It gave me a purpose, a passion, an obsession really.”
Leonard lifted his head and peered at Jake from under his brows.
“But when you finally did find the corridor, to your utter astonishment, you found her as well.”
“Baw!” Leonard waved his hand at Jake as if swatting flies. “You can’t find the corridor. You can only put yourself in a position for it to find you.”
So true.
“Was she there?”
“Yes and no.”
Again, Leonard paused and seemed to vanish into a world inside his head. Jake imagined his elderly friend was revisiting moments experienced forty years earlier.
“Even now I don’t know if she was really there or if what I saw was a vision or just a figment I made up in my mind or an angel who looked like her. Did it matter to me?”
Leonard drilled his gaze on Jake as if he truly wanted an answer to this question. Jake gave a tiny shake of his head.
“You’re right, it didn’t matter, because whatever it was, it was real and it was her. We talked about things only she and I would know. We walked around that meadow full of the thickest grass I’ve ever seen, around that pond of crystal water, and I allowed myself to sink into the greatest joy I’ve ever known before or since. I was blown to bits in the hurricane of her presence.
“We lay down together, backs up against a gnarled apple tree, and I fell asleep in that field. When I woke, she was gone.” Leonard shook his head as his chin drooped again to his chest. “She was gone.”
“And?” With his eyes, Jake begged Leonard to continue. “What then?”
Leonard looked up and glared at Jake with narrowed eyes. “You like this, don’t you, Jacob?”
“What?”
“Seeing me wallow in this sickening sorrow.”
“No.”
“Sure you do. You want answers and you’re willing to drag regrets from an old man.” Leonard jabbed a finger at him and his voice grew louder. “Well, you’re going to have to work for the answers. You’re going to have to face the crucible yourself. Because if you don’t, you’ll end up like me.”
By this time Leonard was shouting, and it took all of Jake’s focus to stay calm. Whatever choice Leonard had made years ago had been eating his soul from the inside ever since. Finally his words petered out. He settled and seemed to shrink at least three inches into the lawn chair.
The truth was so obvious Jake scolded himself for not figuring it out earlier. “You can’t get back, can you?”
Leonard didn’t answer. Didn’t move. Just stared at Jake with those steel-gray eyes. He didn’t have to answer.
“That’s why you’re there every morning after all these years. You’re trying to find the corridor again. But you can’t. You’re locked out somehow. You got what you wanted most in the world—you found her, talked to her—but then something happened that blew it all apart. Something that has kept you from getting back in all these years.”
“Maybe you’re not so stupid after all.”
“Then give me the gift of a full education.” Jake leaned forward, his heart thumping. “What choice did you make? What did you do or not do that shut you out?”
Leonard’s gaze roamed the sky as he spilled out the rest of his story.
“After Anna vanished, I waited two days for her to return. Then a man appeared in the meadow. Called me by name. Claimed I knew him, and that he knew me. He stood on the other side of the pond beckoning me to join him. So I did.
“Something about him was so familiar I was instantly drawn to him. A bit older than me, midforties by his look, knew things about me only God could know. I was wary—something about his eyes—but I listened to him because the things he said boggled my mind.
“Then he showed me things that stretched my beliefs further than I thought possible. It didn’t take me long to figure out he was not a man, but a spiritual being of incredible power. And that’s when he began to crawl under my skin. I saw things in his eyes I didn’t like.
“The next day I came again, and again Anna wasn’t there, but the man was. His talk was still full of honey, but at certain moments I saw his eyes grow so cold I was frightened. But even so, I asked where Anna was and if I would see her again that day. The man’s answer was sharp. ‘Tomorrow you will have the chance to fully grasp what you want most.’
“Of course I returned the next day, found the corridor as easily as I had the first three times, and when I met the man, I naturally asked when I would be united with Anna.”
Leonard stopped talking and watched a dragonfly land on the apple box next to him. It seemed the dragonfly was looking at the elderly man, wanting him to continue the story, and when Leonard spoke again, it was to the dragonfly and not Jake.
“The being I called Arthur answered with a wave of his hand. Instantly Anna stood behind him, her eyes wide with fear. Arthur pulled two long knives out of his belt and laid out the rules quickly.
“ ‘A blade for you, a blade for me. We fight to the death. If you win, Anna is yours. If I win, she is mine, and you will be gone from the meadow forever.’
“I tried to tell myself it was a joke, but Arthur leaped forward and sliced his blade through my forearm. Not deep, he was only sending a message about how real this battle would be, and how serious his declaration was.
“I’d never learned how to handle a knife, but I didn’t see much choice. The fight was over minutes after it began. There I was, kneeling on the ground, trying to stop the blood seeping from my wounds. As the ground beside me darkened with my blood, I staggered up and tossed my blade at his feet.”
Leonard pulled up his sleeves. Long, thick scars ran up and down his arms. He ran his finger along the longest one, glanced at Jake, then returned to the story.
“ ‘Is that all you have?’ Arthur mocked me with scorn in his voice. ‘Where is your courage? Your valor? Will you not die for the one you love?’
“ ‘I’ll be back,’ I shouted to Anna as I staggered toward the corridor. But before I could push aside the willow branches, Arthur called out in a voice that haunts me in my dreams.
“ ‘If you leave here now, you’ll never return, and you will never see Anna again.’
“I didn’t believe him. I’d been to the corridor every day for four days in a row. I knew I could find it again.” Leonard sighed.
“Part of me did believe him. But I convinced myself I could get back with my shotgun and kill Arthur and be with Anna forever. I looked at Anna and told her I loved her and that nothing would stop me from coming back for her, then pushed through the branches. I never saw her again.”
Jake didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Simply waited for the revelation to settle. It all made sense now. Why Leonard seemed to have a love-hate relationship with the corridor. Why he seemed to want to help Jake one moment and thwart him the next. His friend was shattered by what he had done, or what he hadn’t done. Part of Leonard wanted to see Jake find what he wanted most in the world; another part believed he would be sending Jake to his destruction. Destruction no matter which path he chose.
“She was my prize, the one I lived for. I never figured out how someone so beautiful, so kind, so perfect would love me. But she did. And I gave up on her. Gave up on us.”
“Could you have beaten him?”
“My mind says no. Logic shouted it would have been impossible. I was bleeding out. Cut in six different places. The doctors said if I’d gotten to the hospital any later I wouldn’t have made it.”
Leonard let out a bitter laugh. “They asked if I had cut myself. That was of course the only explanation for what happened. Apparently I was incoherent. Kept babbling about the corridor and the meadow where I’d seen my dead wife and fought a man with knives.”
Again, Jake let the emotions of the moment subside. He handed his blue water bottle to Leonard. Leonard took a long drink before handing it back.
“But there’s only one thought that I’ve never doubted. For forty years now I’ve never wavered in this belief.”
Leonard peered at Jake with haunted eyes. “I should have stayed, Jacob Palmer. I should have continued to fight. Maybe I could have beaten him, figured out a way to win. At least I would have tried. At least I wouldn’t have had to live these past forty years wondering what if? I should have realized Arthur was telling the truth and if I left, I would never return.”
“How could you have realized that?” Jake said. “You didn’t even know what the place was. Didn’t know what kind of powers you were dealing with. Didn’t know—and don’t know—if what you and I have both experienced is all inside our heads. You don’t know if those scars on your arms and legs came from your own hand. But you do know one thing. You knew that dying there in that meadow back in 1976 wouldn’t have accomplished anything. And—”
“Oh, I know that, do I?” Leonard glared at Jake with fire in his eyes. “I know that it would have done nothing? Let me tell you something, boy. Let me describe for you what I do know for certain: I know that if I hadn’t given up, if I’d died that day in that field on the other side of the corridor, I wouldn’t be sitting here in a battered old-man body, drowning in a lake of my own regret day after day after day.”
They sat in the silence for more than five minutes. Maybe longer. The sun continued to creep up their bodies, and the warmth of it somehow sparked hope inside Jake. But hope for what?
“What should I do, Leonard?”
“You can beat him, Jake. I believe it with everything in me. I don’t know how, and I can’t even start to explain why I believe that so strongly. But I do, right down here.” Leonard patted his stomach and clenched his jaw.
“I don’t think you’d be let into that place just to end up dead. I know that’s not a lot to go on. It’s almost nothing to go on. And I know I’m the one who never went back, who stayed on the sidelines. But I’ve had a lot of years to think about what I didn’t do, and I’m not going to let this drop till I tell you how I feel and what I think your choice should be. Couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t, you understand?”
“How do I defeat a being that is obviously stronger than me? He’s in control of what goes on inside the corridor, can bend reality to his will . . . how can I win?”
“I don’t know. But I have to believe there’s a way. I think you want to believe there’s a way as well. Ultimately it’s your choice to return, but let me ask you something.”
Leonard stopped and peered at Jake for so long, he wondered if his old friend had decided not to ask the question.
“Even if you do die in there, and Ryan wins this war, what will you regret more? Giving up the shot to have your legs and stomach back, staying nice and safe and cozy in the life you’re now living, or facing whatever this final test is and letting your chips fall where they may?”
“How do I even know that Ryan told the truth when he said there were rules he had to follow? How do I know he wasn’t lying when he said that if I pass the tests, my restoration will remain?”
“You don’t. Of course you don’t.”
For the first time since Jake had met the old man, Leonard leaned over and placed both his hands on Jake’s shoulders and squeezed them tightly.
“But I think there’s a piece inside you, a small piece way deep down, that knows what Ryan has spoken to you is true. And I think among all the Jake Palmers you’ve tried to be in your life, the real one wants this battle, whatever it is, more than anything he’s ever wanted.”