JESSE COULDN’T FALL ASLEEP, HIS MIND CHURNING THROUGH THE DAY’S EVENTS WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO STOP ANYWHERE SO HE COULD THINK.
It was a good thing that the next day was Columbus Day, and he didn’t have to think about dragging himself sleepless to school.
He was still worried about Volt. But he’d done what he could. And hadn’t Volt said he felt better? As though cold water had flowed through his body, which was what Jesse remembered feeling?
He was at last starting to drift off when Miss Myrna’s squawking startled him back to full consciousness. “Stop right there, you thief!”
He flung off his covers and grabbed the dagger from the dresser. In the hall, he flipped on the porch light and slammed out the door. The bottom windowpane in the outer door was shattered and the inside screen torn open. A heavy musky scent filled the air. Out of the corner of his eye, in the dim wash of light bleeding out into the night, he thought he saw a long low shadow slipping into the back bushes.
There was no sound from Miss Myrna.
Heart pounding with fear, he looked into the cage, where Miss Myrna huddled in the back. Opening the cage, he took her in his hands. He had no idea birds could tremble. She was frightened half to death.
Jesse knocked on the Mindells’ bedroom door, waking them. The sleepiness in their eyes vanished in an instant when they saw the back door. They called 911 to say the bird-murdering tramp had been back. Lizzie the dispatcher took down the information and said the patrolmen were busy with something on campus but would be around as soon as they could.
By now, Miss Myrna had found her voice, squawking as she darted around the porch, dive-bombing the space in front of the cracked glass. She was frenzied with the anger that hits after the scare of a lifetime.
Mrs. Mindell told Jesse to go back to bed. There was no sense in everyone staying awake.
He thought he’d have just as much trouble falling asleep as before, but he was out in seconds. And it seemed to be only minutes later when Mrs. Mindell was shaking his shoulder. Early morning light spilled into the room around the branches of the big tree outside, swaying to gusts of wind. “Jesse, the police are here and want to talk to you.”
He had woken so abruptly, his first disoriented thought was that the cops had found out he’d broken into Dr. Clarke’s office to steal the dagger. His second thought was that Mrs. Volter had decided to call them anyway. He hid the knife in the closet, put on his robe, and went out to the kitchen with as casual a yawn as he could fake.
It was Chief McMann himself in the kitchen, his bushy mustache coated with powdered sugar from the doughnut he was eating. “Care for one?” he asked, holding out the box.
“No thanks.”
“Have a seat. Understand you were on campus last night by Anderson Hall.”
“Using the steam room.”
“You signed in, yes.” He took another big bite, his mustache scraping away more sugar. “You see anything out of the ordinary on your way there?”
“Why?”
It took that doughnut and another for the chief to tell the story. A student janitor in Anderson Hall claimed to have seen a tiger in the building, the chief said. Jesse already knew this, but he kept silent. The janitor freaked out and went running to the campus cops, who after a quick check called in the patrolmen. The janitor admitted to being wired up on drugs to get him through his shift, and he might have taken just a bit too much. The cops dismissed his report as a hallucination but got interested in his drug supply.
Chief McMann started in on a third doughnut. Jesse relaxed. This had nothing to do with him.
But then a few hours before dawn, the chief said, something or someone got into the Keelan turkey farm and ripped up a few of the birds. Guts strung out everywhere, including the outside of Betsy Keelan’s bedroom window, blood painted on the wall underneath. Miss Keelan required sedation.
“I didn’t know turkeys were cannibals,” Chief McMann said. “The way the others were going at the carcasses, I think this Thanksgiving I’ll be eating ham.” He brushed his hands and reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a digital camera. “One of the dead turkeys was taken to the Turnbulls’ and stuck on the foot of Andy’s bed. Like the horse-head scene in The Godfather. You know it?”
Jesse nodded cautiously.
“Young Mr. Turnbull woke up to find himself tied to the bed with turkey intestines. Apparently they aren’t so easy to break, even for a strong young boy like him. The same kind of blood writing all over his football posters.” He turned on the camera. “I understand you and Andy got into a fight at school.”
“It was nothing,” Jesse said.
“Andy said you threatened you would get him.”
“He’s lying.”
Chief McMann flipped the digital camera around so Jesse could see the small LCD screen. “You recognize this shoe?”
The screen showed one of Jesse’s red sneakers stuck between two slats of the wooden fence. Jesse stared at it in silence. “Well?” the chief prompted.
“I think that’s mine.”
“Any idea how it got there on the Turnbulls’ back fence?”
Jesse did have an idea, but it wasn’t one he was about to share. The chief needed to hear something reasonable. Which Mrs. Mindell provided. “Obviously the tramp took them,” she said.
“The guy must have a wooden peg leg. Jesse’s left sneaker is still out back there by the porch. Can I see your feet, Jesse?”
Jesse sat back in his chair and lifted them up. The chief held his right foot by the ankle and examined for scratches and cuts Jesse might have gotten if he’d lost his shoe a mile from home. “Did you know you’re going to have a long life?” he said, dropping Jesse’s ankle. “Your second toe is longer than your big toe. That’s what my grandmother always said.”
When Chief McMann asked to see Jesse’s socks, Mr. Mindell said, “You don’t think Jesse had anything to do with any of this, do you?”
“Just doing my job. Dotting i’s and crossing the t’s. I’m going to have to ask Jesse to come with me to the station and make a statement.”
Jesse could feel walls closing in on him.
“Is that really necessary?” Mr. Mindell said. “You know the precarious situation Jesse is in with Homeland Security.”
“You’ve already had his statement,” Mrs. Mindell added. “He was asleep here the whole time. I can vouch for that. Go look for that tramp.”
Chief McMann brushed a finger across his mustache. Clumps of powdered sugar drifted to the floor. “Let’s be fair here, all right? There’s policies and procedures to follow. I can’t just wing it. We need an official statement.”
Mr. Mindell put a hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “Not until we talk to our lawyer. And he’s away on vacation until next Monday.”
The chief thought about that and then sighed deeply. “When he gets back, then.” He pointed at Jesse, just the faintest touch of humor to his deadpan expression. “In the meantime, I’m going to have to ask you not to leave the country.”
After lunch that Jesse didn’t have much appetite for, Mrs. Mindell took him shopping for a new pair of shoes.
Jesse had this fear that Chief McMann would come back to search his bedroom, so he took the knife with him. He stuffed it in the bottom of his daypack, underneath his jacket and scarf, and put his camera over that.
A cold wind punched down the streets and shook leaves from the trees. Even with the car heater on, Jesse was glad for the warmth of his lined Windbreaker. Mrs. Mindell drove to Budget General. “We’ll get you a good pair later,” she said.
In the store, he tried on a pair of black sneakers while Mrs. Mindell poked about in the sale bins. The next aisle over, by the women’s products, Jesse overhead a couple of ladies talking to each other about the terrible things that had happened at the Keelan turkey farm. One of their cell phones chirped out the opening notes of “Amazing Grace.” The woman read the text message and said, “Oh my goodness, Jane Volter’s son is in Community Hospital with aggressive pneumonia and needs all our prayers.”
Jesse took that like an uppercut to the jaw. He stood by the register in a daze as Mrs. Mindell paid for the new sneakers he was still wearing.
As they walked out to the car, he asked Mrs. Mindell if they could stop by the hospital. “Volt’s sick,” he said.
“I know. The clerk told me. Pneumonia. Poor Jane must be beside herself. I’ll go see her, too. It’s time to stop this silly feud.”
Community Hospital was next door to Golden Oaks Manor, the old folks’ home that provided many of its patients. In the airy hospital foyer, the receptionist, a chubby guy with a Disney smile plastered on his face, made a phone call and cheerfully told them, sorry, Volt wasn’t allowed any visitors. Doctor’s orders. “However, Mrs. Volter is in the third-floor lounge if you wish to convey your good wishes,” he said.
Mrs. Mindell nodded. “Thank you, we will.”
The way Jesse was sinking in Mrs. Volter’s esteem, he wasn’t so sure conveying his good wishes to her was such a great idea, but he followed Mrs. Mindell to the elevator. In the lounge beside the nurses’ station, Mrs. Volter stood in a circle of people, all holding hands, their heads bowed in prayer. Jesse was relieved to see Kellie in the circle, holding Mrs. Volter’s left hand. Mrs. Volter’s pastor was on her other side, praying for God’s healing touch.
Mrs. Mindell waited respectfully, but Jesse inched toward the closest room, where a hand-lettered sign saying august volter had been slipped into the door’s plastic holder.
The pastor rolled out a deep amen, and Mrs. Volter sniffled into a handkerchief. Jesse peered through the small window in the door. Volt looked so small in the big hospital bed, tubes taped to his nose. He spotted Jesse and gave him a weak wave, which blunted some of Jesse’s fear.
“What are you doing?” It was Mrs. Volter, bearing down on him. Her voice sounded as if it was tottering on the edge of a cliff. “Get away from there.”
Jesse backed away from the door.
“What did I tell you last night? Didn’t I tell you to stay away?”
“Jane,” Mrs. Mindell said, but that was as far as she got before Mrs. Volter swung on her. “Did you bring him? Then take him away. Now.”
The pastor murmured something in Mrs. Volter’s ear. Kellie shepherded Jesse back into the elevator, with Mrs. Mindell following.
“How rude was that!” Mrs. Mindell exclaimed as the elevator doors closed. “That woman should be exiled to New York.”
“She’s distraught,” Kellie said. “Her only child, after all. It’s wonderful you came, Jesse. Let’s just give Volt all the rest he needs.”
“How sick is he?”
“He’s getting the best possible care.”
Everything was all of a sudden too much for him. “Kellie, I need to talk to you. Mrs. Mindell, do you mind? I’ll walk home.”
There were too many people in the noisy cafeteria, so Kellie found a quiet bench in the warm roofed portion of the strolling garden, big plate glass windows letting in light but keeping out the wind. One man pushed a walker along the path, muttering to himself with gummy lips and glaring out the windows at the mottled sky.
Jesse stared at the guy without really seeing him, wondering where to start, and then everything just gushed out, like a broken hydrant. He told Kellie about Honor and the Rangda mask and the old priest he kept seeing and Honor’s curse on Volt and the keris he’d stolen. He told her about his shoe and Chief McMann’s suspicions and how he’d been sick too after seeing the Rangda mask and how the old man had touched his keris to his head and how Jesse’d snuck into the Volter house last night to do the same but apparently it hadn’t worked and he was so afraid Volt was going to die.
Kellie listened with her complete attention, her gaze never leaving Jesse’s face.
“And this priest, this spirit traveler or whatever he is, says I’m the one who’s supposed to be stopping all this and I don’t know anything. What am I supposed to do? I think I’m going crazy.”
His hands were all twisted up around each other. Kellie reached out and disentangled them. She held them in her own cool soft palms, and some calming peace stole into him. “Jesse, I’m going to get angry at you here. What did I tell you? I told you to leave this stuff alone, to stay away from it. Didn’t I tell you that?”
She was angry, but it was a good kind of anger. It made Jesse realize that others were on his side, that he didn’t have to do all this all by himself. He took a deep quavering breath. “What do I do now, then?”
“The first thing you do, you take that knife, what do you call it—”
“A keris. This thing.” He took it out of his pack and showed her.
She smiled a little. “Goodness, that’s hardly King Arthur’s mighty Excalibur, is it?”
Jesse smiled crookedly too. “Hardly.”
“What you do, Jesse, is you take that back to Dr. Clarke and say you’re sorry for stealing it. That’s the first thing you do.”
Jesse’s cheeks burned at the thought, but he knew she was right.
“As for the imaginary old man,” she said, “next time he shows up, tell him to go away. Confront your fears head on. You’d be surprised how well that can work.”
“So you think he’s imaginary? What about that cigarette?”
“Jesse, I can’t give you detailed explanations for everything right this moment, but one thing’s clear. Your situation with the government authorities—well, you’ve been under constant stress for months, more stress than you realize. Your mind plays tricks.”
“What about Volt? He’s sick, for real.”
“Yes,” Kellie said patiently. “People do get sick. We have doctors taking care of Volt. We have people praying for him. You can pray too, if you want. There’s a bigger power out there, bigger than you. This is not your burden. You can let go of it.”
Jesse took another deep breath. Already it seemed to be slipping off him.
“And by the way,” she added, “I have a date this very evening with Chief McMann. He’ll bring me flowers, and he’ll be as nervous as a boy in some awful suit. I’ll put in a good word for you, don’t you worry about the police.”
Her wink drew a grin out of him.
The old man with the walker shuffled up to them.
“Weather’s gonna go south,” he said. “My hip’s a hurtin’ me and it don’t say wrong. Last time it were this bad we had those tornadoes bowlin’ all through the gol-darned county…” He squinted at Jesse, leaning forward over his walker. “Why, you that foreigner, what they say, the terrorist boy. You messin’ with our weather, boy? Huh, you the one messin’ with it?” He picked up the walker, aimed its four legs at Jesse, and charged in a slow-motion stumble. Kellie jumped to her feet. A private-care nurse barreled out of the side lounge and got her charge all settled down again.
“Sorry about that,” the nurse said. “He’s been as cantankerous as a mule ever since the doc took his pipe away.”
The old man cricked his neck and squinted up at the sky. “Somethin’s out there,” he muttered. “Somethin’s waitin’. I hope God takes me afore it comes.”