Chapter Seventeen

David chews his fries with a slight grin, watching me absorb the impossible information.

“You’ve been born seven times?” I ask.

After a sip of his drink, he chuckles. “Don’t freak out on me okay? Are you alright?”

I can’t do much else than nod. He looks at my plate. “Why don’t you eat, and I’ll explain as much as I can.”

I pick up two fries. The physical rumble of my stomach competes with the appetite-reducing shock roiling through me. I blurt out the only four words pounding through my mind. “Did you kill them?”

My voice is louder than intended and carries through the restaurant. A few heads turn our way.

“Shhh,” David demands in whisper.

I don’t apologize, but I do lower my voice. “Tell me! Did you kill them? All those years ago in 1912…was it you?”

People are still looking our way, but I don’t care. I’m not the bad guy here. Though a pang of guilt sweeps through me because the only “killer” people are interested in today is the one who took the missing little girls and drowned one in the river. My fingers unlatch from the fries and they drop back onto the plate.

“Oh god,” I whisper. “Those little girls…”

David’s eyes widen. “What? You don’t think that I have anything to do with that, do you? Jesus, Chessie, who the hell do you think I am?”

“I have no idea who you are!” I snap back. “Did you kill them? Any of them…the Moore family, the little girls who are missing…did you do it?”

“No.” He leans forward and whispers, barely audible, “I have never killed anyone. Ever.”

I study his face—his eyes wide and pleading, his jaw set. “You said you were responsible for the deaths of the axe murder victims.”

He sighs. “Yes. I’m responsible.”

“Then you killed them!” I yell in a whisper.

“No!” He pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. After a few deep breaths, he clasps his hands together on the table in front of him and his voice softens. “Responsible yes, because I might have been able to stop the killings but didn’t. I’m responsible because I knew who killed them but didn’t tell anyone. I was there the night the Moore family was killed. I know who killed them because I was standing outside the house. I knew the family might be in danger, but I was too scared to stop it. And afterwards, I didn’t say anything.”

His gaze drops as he speaks, seemingly unable to look me in the eye as the truth spills out of him. It’s as if he’s unable to fully come to terms with what he did, even decades later. Minutes pass and we say nothing. The family with the crying baby leaves. Rhonda refills our drinks. The kids on the jungle gym pedal off on their bikes. Old Man Zach is now fully asleep, head hung down. Hopefully not dead.

I eat a few fries and take a bite of my BLT to feign normalness. It works and David takes a bite of his cheeseburger. We finish our meals and drain our glasses. Rhonda brings the check—a single check with our meals printed out as one final total. David digs a twenty out of his wallet, and I get out a ten out of mine. In his first communication in nearly fifteen minutes, he shakes his head at my money. I plop it down in front of him. He shoves it back my way. I crinkle it into a ball and throw it at him. It bounces off his nose and onto his lap. He laughs and chucks it back at me.

“Stop!” I say, smoothing out the wrinkled bill on the table. “Seriously, take this for my half, plus some for tip.”

“I can pay.”

“Take it,” I demand, “or I’ll stuff it in the tip jar at the hardware store someday when you’re not looking.”

He rolls his eyes and takes the ten dollars. “If you insist.”

I smile. He smiles. It’s as if things are normal between us, as if things are normal in the universe and there are no murder victims, no supernatural entities, or re-born boys. Except the three feet between us is a chasm—a wide empty space, thick with unease and fear. I’m fearful of what he is, who he is, and this vortex of shit I am wrapped up in. And he’s fearful of what he’s done, and probably scared that I’ll walk away and never look back just as soon as I get the chance.

And I’m considering it. I can leave Villisca, go back to Minneapolis and forget this summer even happened. Forget the voices and gray mist. Forget David. Just hang out with Kaylee, sleep in my own bed, and practice my clarinet like I’ve always done.

Or even if I stay in Villisca, I can ignore him. I can tell my grandparents something awful about him so that they keep him off the front porch. He’d be out of my life for good if Grandma thinks he’s bad news.

After paying, David and I walk over to the park, past the bench with sleeping Old Man Zach. David grabs the folded-up newspaper that’s about to fall off the bench and tucks it back under Zach’s limp arm.

We sit on the next bench and watch the trees move in the wind.

“I can explain,” David says.

“Explain how you’ve been born seven times?” I ask with more than a hint of snootiness. “Go for it.” My Minnesota-nice is virtually non-existent these days. Bad sleep will do that. As will the ghostly giggles of murdered children and boys with mixed messages.

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. The wind swirls in his hair, robbing it of its perfect part. “I knew the Moore family,” he says.

“In 1912?”

He nods.

“Just so we’re clear…you were alive in 1912.”

Another nod.

“So, you’ve been, like, reincarnated?”

He shrugs. “I guess you could call it that.”

“When were you born? The first time, I mean.”

He smiles a little. “1894. Right here in Villisca. I’m always born in Villisca. I’m always named David. And I always…” He picks at a hangnail as his voice drifts off in the wind.

I give him a moment before finally asking, “You always what?”

“I always die on my eighteenth birthday.”

My gut lurches at the words and I blurt out, “But you’ll be eighteen in only a few days.”

He doesn’t nod, but his silent affirmation of my statement rings clear.

“Are you seriously telling me that you’re going to die in a few days?”

He turns his head to peer over at me. “Yes. I’m going to be dead in less than seventy-two hours.”

The BLT trio of lunch ingredients shifts up my esophagus. “And then what?”

He shrugs. “I’ll be born again. Here in Villisca, next June fifteenth. And whoever my parents are next time, they’ll name me David…again.”

I stand up and spin around, facing him but unable to speak at first. The wind whips at my face and Old Man Zach lets out a stern snore. I look to David and he holds my gaze.

“Okay,” I say, holding my hands out as though they can calm the craziness in the air around me. “I’ll ask one more time…are you messing with me? Is this some kind of sick prank? Because if it is, it’s not fucking funny anymore.”

David’s eyes are kind, and he pats the bench next to him. “Sit. I’ll tell you everything.”