I have just spent an entire night in prison! On purpose . . . I have decisions to make . . .”
I slammed shut the door to the sweet shop and stared at Haller. He took off his glasses and set them on the counter.
“So that’s where you went. It’s a rough old jailhouse.” He shook his head. “Your crime must have been heinous.”
I squinted, shielding the sunlight with my hand. “Which crime? The long-ago one? The best friend one? The sister one? What if she doesn’t recover? How could I lose another? Then there’s the Elias issue.”
“I’m not sure of all your offenses, but I do know even prisoners get hungry and thirsty. I can take care of that.” He straightened. “Besides, sure sounds like your thoughts have been punishment enough.”
I’d actually done precious little thinking over the past day. I was too busy feeling, feeling as I hadn’t allowed myself to for months. Most criminals leave prison harder, tougher, but this abandoned jail had the opposite effect on me.
Haller gathered an assortment of chocolates and boiled sweets while I looked around the place.
It was cluttered inside, but cluttered in a manicured fashion. A red-and-white tablecloth hung smartly over a small table; behind it, plants and shelving and stuffed animals lined the walls. The Abominable Bumble from Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer guarded the calendar, and straight ahead was the most charming little ice cream shop/soda fountain I had seen.
“All hand-dipped in the back, mind you. You’ll not find a better chocolate, and you look like you could use a few.”
I stared at myself in the mirror. In the days since my arrival in Minnesota, I had narrowed, stretched.
I looked like Mum.
“Here you are.” He rounded the corner of the counter and lay out a row of candies. “An assortment of ten, no cost to you.” We sat at the table and I devoured the chocolates. “Where you from?”
“London.”
“Can’t say as I remember a Londoner in these parts.”
I continued stuffing. “It’s a peculiar story. This is Salem, right?”
“Technically. But like I said, this is only a remnant of Salem. The heart of it has died. The bustle. The railroad. Gone. Not many who remember what was.” Haller rubbed the stubble on his face. “So what’s this about an airplane?”
Elias.
“Blast, I should probably check on the lad . . . I need to go.” I pushed back from the table.
“You’re sure free to leave. I just can’t help wondering what’s gotten a girl like you in such a confusion.”
I pause. “Have you ever run from reality? Have you ever run because reality was too much, too suffocating, too . . . just too? And then you find a fiction. And the fiction feels more real than the real ever did. Have you ever felt like that?”
Haller took a deep breath. “No. No, I can’t say as I have. I do know that fiction . . .” He picked up an empty chocolate wrapper and tossed it into the trash. “It eventually becomes a mighty poor substitute for what’s real.” He popped the last chocolate into his mouth.
“I really can’t stay any longer,” I said.
“Off to it. Find your fiction.” Haller pointed to a picture on the wall, his eyes wistful. A woman. His love, I was sure of it. “Sometimes fiction is all you’ve got, and however long they stay, well, who am I to provide counsel on reality. Does this fiction warm your heart? Does he make you feel alive?”
I paused. “Half the time.”
“And the other half?”
“I’m using him to try and get information I want.”
He sighed. “Not so foreign after all. Young lady, as we say ’round here, looks like you’re in a heap a mud.”
“A heap of mud,” I repeated, pushing back from the table. “My heap is waiting.”
Twenty minutes later, I pulled up in front of the Antique Barn. The plane was gone, the property silent.
“Elias!”
I burst through the door, noted the “handshake” sign glued and returned to its original place. “Elias!”
I ran around back. “Mr. Kirby? Elias?”
It’s been too many hours.
“Follow the path, young lady!” A husky voice came from the woods.
I veered down the dirt road and into a shack, and there stood Elias and Kirby, with the aeroplane resting on the trailer; Elias’s face one big grin.
“I was hoping you’d come back soon. I’ve done all I can with parts from the shop.” Elias hopped down off a wing. “We owe Mr. Kirby another two hundred. Sorry, we shook on it, so it’s a done deal.”
I stared at the plane, patched and fixed to the trailer. It had a fresh coat of paint, and for a one-winged craft, it was actually rather beautiful.
“Turns out Mr. Kirby is quite a guy. Comes from a family of ten.”
“A mighty strong ten.” Kirby straightened. “Ah, shoot, your boy won me over. Nobody can call me unreasonable, and watchin’ him slave alone? Well, the whole brood pitched in to move the thing.”
“Clara, there’s something you need to see.”
Elias took my hand and led me toward the back of the fuselage. “I told Mr. Kirby that Bessy sounded too bovine. I needed something wild and free. He hand-painted it.”
I quietly mouthed the words:
Clara
A Light in the Sky
“She’s not quite as pretty as you, but maybe when I’m done with her . . .”
I walked over to Elias and hugged him. It was true; I was stuck in some deep mud. But this mud did feel soft and warm.
Marna will pull out of it, whatever it is.
The thought did not soothe.
Elias stepped out of my arms and frowned. “What happened? You look so tired.”
“I’ll just leave you two alone.” Kirby stepped out of the shack.
I gently took hold of Elias’s head, squeezing it between my palms.
“We’re chasing wind. We’re going to a place you can’t name in search of something you can’t find. It’s not real. None of this is real. A Lightkeeper? What is that? You don’t know. Either of you. Especially the Other One, the you who calls me Clarita and wants me to read the stars. That’s crazy. This is crazy. And at home, things are happening. Real things. Real . . . things.”
Elias swallowed and stroked the plane, his fingers pausing on my name. “You should leave. You’re right. Everything you say is right.” He took hold of my forearms and pulled free, his strong hands clutching mine. “I’m presently of sound mind, and I release you from any promise you ever made to me or Mom or . . . the Other One.” He forced a smile, and sighed. “You should go.”
I lifted up my arms, and let them flop at my sides. “That’s not what I’m asking for! Can you give me anything more? A purpose for this trip. A reason.”
Elias climbed slowly back inside the plane. “Have you ever felt safe? Completely and utterly? That’s what I feel when I think of the Lightkeeper. I have no fears. I just know everything’s all right. I don’t feel that at any other time, except maybe a little with you.” He glanced around at his creation and hopped down. “I don’t know the reason the Other One is looking for this Keeper.”
I stepped nearer. “The Other One thinks it’s your enemy.”
“No. Not true. Can’t be.” Elias shook his head. “I would like to find out.”
I stood for a moment. “When did you get sick?”
Elias folded his arms. “Guess I won’t be needing the trailer.”
I shoved his chest, but it had no effect, and I tapped my finger on his skull. “Stay with my question up here. When?”
“I can get myself home. It’s 20,005 bumps in the road until we’re through Wisconsin.”
“Answer my question!”
“When.” Elias sighed. “Eight. It’s what Mom says.”
I started to pace. “Think about that. Both you and the Other One share a memory. A word. A phrase. Some impressions. It’s the same memory, before the one of you became two. Good for you, horrifying for him, but the same memory. If anyone knows how to set your mind to rights, it would be this Lightkeeper. Maybe this Lightkeeper can . . . reconnect you, and you’ll be just, shall we say, you. That’s a reason not to quit.”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“But maybe?”
Elias grinned. “It would be medically impossible, miraculous maybe.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “An unheard of; miraculous maybe. That’s hope enough. Let me get the car.”
I walked away from the shack swelling with optimism. Why hadn’t I seen it before? The existence of a unifier before Elias’s split meant that unifier was more than a key to his recovery . . . On it rested the hope of his entire quest. Stars and Salem — all that talk was foolishness. But this memory was real, and worth the search. Medically sound reasoning? No. But at least logical to me. Whatever I had to do to discover the memory’s origin, I would do.
To heal a boy with a sick mind. To bring him back to life.
It couldn’t take away my shame, but if Little Thomas were here, he would have approved.