76. Secret Meeting

I suddenly notice something that’s been scratching at the surface of my thoughts, waiting to get out.

There’s no sign of Christmas around.

No Christmas lights on any Christmas trees. No signs announcing Christmas sales or images of Santa and his reindeer.

As I walk through Solitary, which is slightly draped in a thin layer of snow, I realize that there’s no evidence of Christmas coming in this town. Neither fun, gift-giving Santa Christmas nor faithful, grace-giving Jesus Christmas. Either way, Solitary seems to have missed the memo.

It’s December 5. Back home they start advertising for Christmas by late September. Well, at least by November. By now Christmas would be draped over everything.

Here there’s nothing.

This has got to be the strangest thing I’ve seen here yet.

Even with the slight accumulation of snow I’ve managed easily to ride my bike into town. Mom said to come by the restaurant this afternoon for an early dinner. It’s about four thirty, yet it feels more like six. The town is busy, with cars parked all along the main buildings and across the street next to the bluff that separates the town from the train tracks. When I enter Brennan’s Grill and Tavern, I see a packed house and my mother looking busy.

“Hey, Chris,” she says as she dashes by me carrying some menus. When she comes back she gives me a hug. “Roads bad?”

“Not really.”

“It’s a lot more crowded than I thought it’d be. You want to give me another hour or so?”

I nod. “I’ll just go check out some of the stores. If they’re still open.”

“The library is.”

“Yeah, I can hang out there for a while.”

A few minutes later I enter the mostly empty library and wander the aisles. I sense someone following me, and glance over my shoulder.

Déjà vu.

Except this time it’s not in the bookstore but rather the library.

Jocelyn puts a finger over her lips and urges me to follow.

At the back of the library is a set of doors. We enter the last one on the right. A stark fluorescent light crackles to life, revealing a room where stacks of books either coming or going are piled like a child’s set of building blocks. The light helps the room resemble a jail cell. Or maybe one of those rooms where authorities grill you after you’ve been arrested for manslaughter.

“What are we doing?” I ask her as she shuts the door.

“Listen to me, okay?” She tugs at my arm.

For a moment I wonder if she’s going to hit me, her expression is so intense.

“Nobody is here, okay? Look at this room. It’s for storage. Nobody is here and nobody is watching. They don’t have this room bugged.”

“Jocelyn—look….”

Then she buries her face into my chest and holds on to me.

We hold one another for a long time without saying anything. I can feel her heart beating against mine. I want to kiss her soft lips and tell her it’s okay and let her know that she’s safe with me.

I want to do this and so much more.

“What is going on with you?” she eventually asks as she moves away and stares up at me.

“I don’t—”

“No, you tell me, and you tell me right this instant.”

“The other day at school somebody did the same thing to me that they did to my mother. They doped me or drugged me or something. I woke and found myself tied up in a cabin in the woods. They warned me—a voice warned me to stay away from you. To stop snooping around.”

“Oh, Chris.”

“I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t do anything. They’re watching anything I do. Everything I do. I don’t trust anyone. And I don’t want you getting hurt.”

She hugs me again, and I can feel her shiver.

“I keep thinking—we’ve gotta be able to tell someone.”

“No,” she says.

“I know. I haven’t. I haven’t even told my mother. But this is crazy. What happens when—what happens if they take you, and they take you for good?”

“There’s still time.”

“Still time for what?” I ask.

“Maybe because of everything that’s happened—maybe they’re too afraid of doing something to attract attention.”

“Who are we talking about here?”

“I don’t know,” Jocelyn says.

I tell her about the last note I received in my locker. “You didn’t write that, did you?”

“No.”

“What’s it mean? You think they’re talking about Staunch?”

“Maybe,” Jocelyn says. “Maybe it’s just a way to keep you from looking elsewhere.”

“We’ve gotta tell someone.”

“I’ve tried that before. Twice. Both times it backfired.”

“Who did you tell?”

Her eyes pull me in. Her skin is so clear and so soft. I want to scoop her up and slip away, far away from this place.

“Sometimes I think my aunt is with them,” she says.

“Why?”

“I told her about—about a few things. Not everything. She said I was overreacting, that Stuart was just a troubled boy who disappeared. But ever since, it seems like she’s been more careful around me. Like—I don’t know. Almost like she’s been avoiding me.”

The world seems to be spinning too fast, the reality too sharp to fully touch and comprehend.

“What if we left this place?”

“What do you mean?” Jocelyn asks.

“I mean—leave. Pack our bags and go.”

“Chris …”

“I’m serious. After school gets out. Just go.”

“Go where?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter? Somewhere outside of this place. If someone comes hunting for us, we can get help. This isn’t a Terminator movie. This is reality.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy.”

“Sure it is. You take your Jeep. We do it the day school gets out.”

“That’s crazy.”

“This whole thing is crazy.”

“I don’t know.…”

I brush my hand against her silken cheek and then I kiss her.

For a moment, the spinning stops.

For a moment, the world seems to be at ease.

For a brief, beautiful moment, the world is good and the world makes sense.

“Chris …” she says.

“We can go back to Chicago. We can go to my father. Not that I want to, but it’s a place to go. I know we’ll be safe there.”

“What about your mother?”

In my excitement and zeal and passion, I’m forgetting the obvious. She can see it on my face.

“You going to take your mom with us?”

“That might be a problem,” I say.

“We can’t just run away and leave her.”

“Then what do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s gotta be someone we can trust. What about Sheriff Wells? When he was at our house—I don’t know. He seemed trustworthy.”

Jocelyn looks skeptical. “I don’t know. You have to be careful.”

“Why?”

“Because—because I don’t want something happening to you.”

“Why are you so worried about me and yet you’ve almost given up on yourself?”

She shakes her head and looks away. “I better leave,” she says. “You stay here for a few minutes to let me slip out.”

“Where do we—how should we talk next?”

She smiles, for the first time in this conversation. God, is it a wondrous smile.

Guys would go to the ends of the earth for a smile like that.

“There’s a place I haven’t shown you yet.”

“What? Behind the falls? At an abandoned church?”

“No,” she says, still smiling. “Another place.”

“What’s so special about this place?’

“Nobody knows it exists. Or at least nobody cares that it does.”

I shake my head. “Every single thing has to be some big mystery, doesn’t it?”

She reaches over and touches my chest right above my heart, then dazzles me with her glance. “Not everything, Chris.”

With those words, she leaves.

Just like that.

I wait another ten minutes, then leave the library.

I ignore the scowls of the ladies behind the desk.