All Hallows' Eve (16 page)

It is night, and the boy is in a room whose ceiling has caved in and is open to the sky. There is broken furniture and debris, great gaping holes in the walls, and stains of both fire and water—evidence that the firefighters came, though obviously not soon enough.

Harlan very much doubts that this room exists anymore, in either world. It is more a state of mind.

The boy is sitting cross-legged in a space in the rubble, a position very similar to how Harlan had just been sitting, but without the cat.

The cat, fickle friend, has abandoned Harlan to face on his own whatever is coming.

"Helloooo," Harlan calls, trying to sound friendly.

Sometimes the boy seems able to hear him, sometimes not.

Harlan can never hear the boy.

The boy shivers, which may or may not mean that he has heard Harlan.

There are dark circles under the boy's eyes, and he rocks back and forth, his arms tight around himself as though his stomach hurts.

Harlan wishes there were something he could do to ease the boy's pain, but there is not.

"It's all right," Harlan tells him. "Don't be afraid."

Harlan knows he has no idea what he is talking about. Things may or may not be all right in the boy's world. For all Harlan knows, the boy may have every reason to be afraid.

During previous visits, not much more than this has ever happened:

• Harlan sees the boy.

• The boy is in distress.

• Eventually the boy fades away.

Sometimes the boy has broken down and cried, great wracking sobs, more heartbreaking for the fact that Harlan cannot hear the slightest whimper. Once, the boy had picked up one of the pieces of charred wood, a section of ceiling beam or wall brace—thick, but no more than a foot or so long. To Harlan's horror the boy had smacked the wood against his own forehead, repeatedly.

"Stop!" Harlan had shouted at him. "Don't do that!"

He didn't think the boy had heard him.

The boy had stopped, finally, worn out, blood streaming down his face. Then he had curled himself up into a tight ball and stayed that way, unmoving, until his image had faded away.

Now, there's a fevered look in the boy's eyes that reminds Harlan of that day, and he hopes not to see that awful scene reenacted.

The boy reaches behind himself.

Harlan is cringing, but it isn't a piece of board the boy brings forward; it's a backpack.

A backpack is such an ordinary thing that for one moment Harlan dares to believe all is well.

The boy opens the pack and takes out a rope.

There is no instant of confusion or doubt for Harlan. No search for an alternative explanation. Though he's never seen this before, Harlan knows what the boy plans to do with that rope.

"Stop!" Harlan shouts at him. "There's no reason to end your life!"

The boy flings one end of the rope around a beam, which extends jaggedly partway across the ceiling, and secures that end; then he makes a noose of the other end. He finds what's left of a chair. The red plastic seat has partly melted, then solidified, but the boy is able to stand up on it. He passes the noose over his head and around his neck.

Harlan knows there is a heaven, but he doesn't want to see the boy take that step. "Stop, stop, stop, stop!" he yells.

He suspects the boy might hear a whisper of this, for the boy claps his hands over his ears.

Then he steps off the chair.

The rope goes taut.

The boy's arms instinctively jerk out as though to break his fall.

And he does fall—but it's all the way to the floor, because the beam has broken beneath his weight.

The boy crumples in a heap, the rope landing around him, the piece of beam the other end is fastened to smacking him on the back of the head.

For a moment, as the boy lies motionless, Harlan wonders if he
has
succeeded in killing himself—except by blunt-force trauma rather than by hanging.

But apparently he has just had the wind knocked out of him. He stirs. He raises his hand to where the chunk of wood struck his head. He moans.

He moans, and Harlan can hear.

For the first time in eight years, Harlan can hear the boy.

He doesn't know if it's that synchronicity, after all this time, of their ages, or if it has something to do with the boy almost—though not quite—dying.

But Harlan steps forward and suddenly finds himself going through that barrier of cold that separates their worlds, and into that room with the singed and water-damaged wallpaper that hangs in dusty, smoky sheets.

He kneels beside the boy. His hand passes through him, but Harlan feels something—like a slight electric tingle.

The boy whips around on the floor and looks at Harlan in terror. Even though he was about to take his own life, now he's afraid, and he cringes and backs away from Harlan.

Harlan can hear his slight gasp. He can hear the scrape across the wooden floor of one of the metal studs on the boy's jeans pocket.

Since the rules appear to have changed, Harlan says, "I don't mean you any harm."

The boy goes to wrap his arms around himself, and feels the rope. He looks down at the rope, then at Harlan, then he looks up at what's left of the broken beam by the ceiling. Then back at Harlan.

"I know who you are." The boy's voice is a whisper, but clear.

Harlan says, "Fine. I know who you are."

The boy reacts as though Harlan has slapped him. He puts his face in his hands—as Harlan remembers, again, that time the boy sat here rocking and hitting himself in the face. Harlan realizes he's seen, without noting, lines—scars—on the boy's forehead.

"I'm sorry," the boy says. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

He keeps on repeating this until Harlan can take it no longer. He puts his hand out. If they were two living people, he would be resting his hand on the boy's shoulder. It's a sensation like trying to hold on to a handful of water.

"It was an accident," Harlan says.

"It was an accident," the boy agrees.

Harlan says, "You didn't mean it," at the exact moment the boy blurts out, "I didn't mean it."

The boy says, "I only wanted a glowing jack-o'-lantern, like I'd seen in pictures. Not just a hollowed-out pumpkin."

Harlan says, "I understand."

The boy says, "My fault, my fault, my fault." But he lets go of that thought before Harlan has to intervene again, and continues, "My mother said a candle was too dangerous for a seven-year-old to play with, but I never wanted to play with it; I just wanted to make the pumpkin glow. I took a candle from the dining room table, and her lighter, and after she'd tucked me in, I got up again and set the candle in the pumpkin and lit it, and it looked just like I hoped it would. Then ... then..."

Harlan knows what the "then" is, but waits for the boy.

"Stupid," the boy says, "stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. The candle was too tall, and the pumpkin lid wouldn't fit on, and the curtain touched the flame—just the tiniest edge of it—and the next thing I knew, the curtains were on fire and there was this awful loud alarm, and there was smoke everywhere, and my mother was picking me up and carrying me out of the apartment." He looks at Harlan with eyes of wonder and horror. "We didn't know you were home in the upstairs apartment. Your parents' car wasn't in the driveway, and we thought you were with them."

Once more, the boy starts repeating, "Stupid, stupid..."

Harlan interrupts him, saying, "I don't hold this against you."

The boy doesn't believe him. The boy says, "You keep coming back."

Harlan corrects him: "You keep calling me back."

The boy thinks this over. The image of the burned room quivers, like a heat mirage, as the boy loosens his hold on it. He asks, "You don't hate me?"

Through the moonlit, burned bedroom, Harlan can make out another room—a basement. This is the room the boy is really in; the bedroom, the room where Harlan died, is only a memory. Harlan sees that what the boy's rope has really pulled down is not a burned beam, but one of the furnace's heat runs. There
is
a ceiling, but no wallpaper, no charred remains.

"Live a good life," Harlan advises him.

Sometime during this brief exchange, the cat has come back, and Harlan scoops it up and carries it back where it belongs.

Where they both belong.

"Lead a good life," Harlan repeats to the boy, and never looks back.