Deadwood (24 page)

His mom had seemed all right when they'd video chatted the night before, but Martin didn't feel any better. Just because she looked and sounded fine didn't mean she was. Crap, he probably looked and sounded fine, but he was lying. He wasn't fine. He was alone here. And seeing his mom over a video screen wasn't enough.

He wanted her to tousle his hair and straighten his shirt collar before school. He wanted her to grill the steaks while he made the salad on Sunday night. He wanted to run next to her, to show her how fast and strong he was, to hear her heavy breath and know she was really alive, not pixels bouncing off a satellite somewhere. Not just a video avatar, like some character in
Dragon Era
.

He could tell Hannah was trying to get his attention, but he just stared at his hand as he drew a ranger in battle to rescue a sorceress from the Arlithean and Worlinzer mercenaries. The hordes were vaguely grotesque, but this time Martin made sure the sorceress looked like his mother—small and strong, short dark hair cut to her jawline, kind eyes that were looking at something else, as if she didn't want to be rescued and didn't even know that he was trying.

Mr. Michaelson stood in front of the class, cleaning his glasses. Martin turned his notebook to a blank page.

He didn't glance at Hannah again until two periods later, when he slumped over his cafeteria tray. He would have ignored her then, too, but she ducked her head into the space between him and his food, giving him no choice but to look at her.

“Martin,” she said, turning her earring, brownish-gray eyes wide, “I need to talk to you.”

“What? What do you have to say? Are you breaking up the project?”

“Are you kidding? No,” she said, straightening up and taking a seat next to him. Their shoulders nearly touched, and when he saw her freckles up close he became conscious of the blackheads in the corners of his own nose. He backed away. “I found out something else. So much. We have to interview Jake. We've got early dismissal today, so we should be able to catch him before football practice. Come with me.”

“You're not still stuck on that guy, Hannah, are you? You pretend to be so logical, Sherlock Holmes Barbie, but you're just guessing. And you're usually wrong.” Some other kids were staring at him now. He had been shouting without meaning to.

Hannah's smile had wiped away. Then she said in a whisper that was louder than yelling, “Well, I deserve anything bad you can say to me. But you can't just walk out now.”

“You're the one who walked off! You're the one who's back with Waverly.”

“Only because I listened to you!” Hannah was really yelling now. “It's your turn to listen. You can't go backward, Martin. Not after everything that's happened to all of us. If you're just waiting for the year to end and everything to go back to normal, you're out of luck. There's no such thing as normal! There's just the way things are.”

He shook his head. “I don't care about normal. I don't care about the tree, or Lower Deadwood. This isn't my town. I was doing this for
her,”
he said, his voice breaking at the end. He couldn't bear to say “Mom” aloud.

Hannah's eyes, blazing a minute earlier, softened. Her hand twitched, and he thought for a moment she was going to reach out to him, and all his anger ran out. He wanted her to understand. “I wanted to protect her,” he began, faltering. “I wanted to save her from a curse, from everything. What a dope I am. I can't even protect a tree.”

“Look, I wanted to break the curse so that Nick would win a stupid football game,” Hannah said, as if it embarrassed her now. “At least you had a decent reason for getting involved. And maybe it even worked. Your mom got hurt, but she's going to be okay. She's going to come home and take you away from this and you'll never have to see us again—not the tree, Lower Brynwood, Jake, or me.”

He listened, and he didn't know what to feel. He missed his mom so much it hurt, but Hannah mattered, too, whether he wanted her to or not.

“Before you go, we have to save the tree,” she said. “Not because it's going to do anything magic for us, but because we
should
. We can do it, Martin. The Spirit Tree wouldn't have called us otherwise.”

“It called us because we were there,” he grumbled.

“So what? We were there because we were the right ones.” Her voice got quiet again with those last words. Martin's face had never felt hotter, but he wasn't angry. He wasn't even embarrassed, even though he knew half the cafeteria was eavesdropping. Most of these people had never noticed him before this moment—he didn't care what they thought of him. But he did care about Hannah.

She glanced around, noticing for the first time that everyone was watching. Then she leaned in so that no one else could hear. “I know I don't know everything, Martin. I need your help. Last night I found a seventh sigma in the carving, and do you know what that stands for? The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Executives.”

Martin jumped.

Hannah continued, “And do you know who talks about that all the time?”

“Junior Junior Executives of Tomorrow!” Martin said. Everything clicked into place. He had known it from the very first meeting—there was no way that weird motivational crap was anything but evil.

Hannah gasped. “No! Jake Laughlin. Are you saying Junior JET talks about it, too?”

“Practically nothing else. Holy crap, I knew they were creepy all along.”

“And I knew Jake was involved with the tree, even if he's not in charge. This is bigger than him. He's just a tool. Martin, you have to come with me to interview him. The curse is getting stronger. Look at this.”

She pulled out A.J.'s map of Lower Brynwood. “See these Xs? These are trees dying all over town. There are broken sewers and power lines everywhere, too. And look!” She pointed out the site where the Happy Elf Bakery had stood before the fire. “The curse destroyed the factory. Gone, off the face of the earth. Brynwood Park Mall is sinking into the pit left behind. Anything in town could be next, not just the Spirit Tree.”

She took his hand, more like she was shaking it in agreement than she was holding it, her fingers warm on his. He glanced around. The cafeteria had nearly emptied while they were talking. Everybody was out in the sunny courtyard now, and the bell would ring any minute for the end of lunch. He didn't want it to.

“Come with me after school,” Hannah said. “Just one more period to sit through after lunch, then we have work to do.”

He stared at the map of Xs, not answering, but he shook her hand slightly. He knew he'd follow her. He'd probably follow her off a cliff if she asked.

To change the subject, he asked, “So, what do those circles mean?”

“What circles?”

“The different-colored Xs form concentric circles. Look.” He picked up a pencil and connected the Xs, drawing a circle through the black Xs, then concentric circles through the blue, red, and gray. The center of the circles was the Spirit Tree—the eye of the storm.

Hannah's eyes widened. “A.J. used a different color pen to mark the downed trees each day. It's a pattern. Whoever the bad one is, this curse is killing more and more things.

The Happy Elf factory is on the inner ring, the first dead zone. And here's the football field, where Coach Schmidt got sick. With the trees dead, the bad one has to destroy more and more. Causing bad luck isn't enough. Causing pain isn't enough. It needs more fuel. Look.” She pointed to a blue X on the map.

“What is it?” Martin said.

“That's where my mom works—right next to the factory. Brynwood Park Continuing Care. Mom's patients have been fading, even dying, and it's right near the center of the map. They're the weakest people in town, and something is draining the life out of them. Anybody there could be next, unless we save them.”

Martin felt himself growing angry again. He didn't try to squelch the feeling. What was happening was wrong. His mom never needed his help—she was strong, and so was he. Lower Brynwood had so little life left, just like those people in the nursing home. Who was so greedy that they would steal the last crumbs of life from a starving person? The bad one was a monster, whoever it was.

Martin's anger hardened into steel. “Even if nobody in Lower Brynwood knows it, we're going to save them all. Starting with the Spirit Tree.”

The bell rang, but he was ready for it.

Hannah hefted her bag across her body when she saw Martin waiting at the south exit, closest to the high school in the Lower Brynwood municipal complex. It was a cruddy collection of rinky-dink buildings.

“My dad works in there,” Hannah said. “Or used to. He always said the fate of the town depends on what happens there. Hard to believe.”

“Harder to believe it depends on us,” said Martin, half a smile crooking one corner of his mouth.

Hannah heaved a big sigh, then a smaller one. After a moment she gave Martin a sideways smile and nudged him, shoulder to shoulder.

“Race you to the high-school gym?” she said. “Just watch your step in the recycling center. I've heard there are rats as big as pit bulls.”

“Let's walk, then,” Martin answered, grinning. “Conserve energy in case the rats come after us.”

Martin wasn't used to walking, and the pace made talking easier—almost obligatory. Too bad his tongue was still tied in knots around Hannah.

“How do you know Jake will see us?” Martin asked after a moment. They skirted along a razor wire-topped fence protecting empty garages that smelled like they housed trash trucks, a fragrant blend of hot garbage and exhaust fumes. What was the point of razor wire? Who'd want to break in there? Maybe the rats needed to be shielded from burglars.

“We'll walk into his office in the Lower Brynwood athletic department, whether he invites us or not,” Hannah said. “A.J. says he knocks off work early, using the time to map his masterful football offense. Or something. And Nick told me where to find him.”

“Just because we track him down doesn't mean he'll tell us anything,” Martin said, although he doubted anyone could resist Hannah.

“He will. He barely recognizes my face, but I've known him for seven years. He likes to talk. He loves himself. He's riding high on the stadium and the coaching job—he won't be able to shut up.”

“So, how do we get into the high school?” he asked as they approached the sprawling brick and steel building. It had an odd, gap-toothed look from the variety of mismatched replacement windows.

“High school's in session, and security won't let us in without a good reason. The doors are all locked, but you can still open them from the inside—fire codes. Nick says that the door nearest the gym is where kids escape when cutting last period. It has the worst security camera coverage. Someone will come out sooner or later, and that's how we get in.”

They stood, shifting from foot to foot like street-corner criminals. After five minutes, two girls fell through the door, stifling giggles. They shut up when they saw two people lurking in the alley, but laughed harder when they realized it was two middle-schoolers. Hannah stuck her foot in the open door.

“The athletic offices are this way,” she said, gesturing with a toss of her ponytail.

“Are you sure?

“Nick and A.J. both play basketball, too—I've been coming here since I was five.”

Jake was in his office, dressed in the same sharp suit he'd had on at the game, studying a desk full of diagrams. He looked up when they knocked, but didn't seem to recognize them.

“Coach Laughlin?” Hannah said. “It's Hannah Vaughan, Nick and A.J.'s sister.”

He lit up. “The Spirit Tree girl,” he said. “Props for steering me toward that fund-raising idea. That was money, literally. Take a load off.”

“Thanks. Coach, you remember my friend, Martin,” she said as if he did, but Jake showed zero sign of familiarity as he sized Martin up. Hannah sat down, her back straight, and nudged a chair toward Martin with her toe. The chair screeched, but he wouldn't sit. “He's my partner on the project.”

“I thought you were working with those two cute little girls who are selling the tree.”

Martin sniffed. “Waverly and Libby? No way.”

Hannah craned her head around to glare at him, then turned back to Jake. “We're doing the history side of the project—how the carving of the Spirit Tree started, what the messages mean. Could we ask you a few questions? We've found your name written there a couple times.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I plan to get those sections lacquered for myself. They'll look great in my office.”

Trophies hung on his wall like the head of a dead lion—Martin felt like screaming.

“That would be some kind of statement,” Hannah said. “But I'm wondering if you remember when they were carved.”

“Sure, I remember. I was a senior, coming off my junior champion season—the best year of my life. I didn't know it was going to end. The Spirit Club thought of carving the tree to celebrate the first football game. To pump us up,” he said, looking thoughtful. A light went on behind his eyes. “You know, I didn't even realize it until now, but the person who started the carving was the same person who got me involved with the Brynwood Estates Community Association.”