Jewelweed (48 page)

“Mother always leaves some for you,” said Ivan. “You know that.”

“You're right, I do, and I'm going to see what it is, if you'll excuse me.”

He stood up and headed for the door. Before going out, though, he looked out the window. “There's a light blinking on and off out over the pond.”

By the time the boys got outside, Wally was already on the dock next to the boat.

“Ivan, you and August help Kev down here, and hurry,” he said.

It was dark, and the air felt heavy and still, as if it were listening. Across the pond, the flashlight was still signaling, its light-lines flashing across the water.

“Easy there,” said Wally in a low voice. “Easy does it.”

The boat rocked back and forth as the boys climbed in. Somewhere far away two dogs started barking. August untied the rope and tossed it into the front of the boat. Then he climbed in and pushed them away from the dock.

The oars slid into the dark water quietly, and Ivan rowed toward the blinking light.

Wally lit a kerosene lantern and set it in the front of the boat.

“What if he attacks us?” whispered Kevin.

“If he does, he'll be sorry,” replied Ivan.

“He could kill us all if he wanted to,” said Kevin. “If he thought it was time for us to die, nothing could stop him.”

“Kevin makes a point,” said August. “There are several unsettling reports of alligator snappers. One gator actually ate a small chicken—after it was dead.”

“What?” Ivan asked.

August said he'd read about a farmer in Louisiana who caught an alligator snapper in the swampy land around his farm. After lugging it home, he decided to make it into a gumbo stew for his hungry family. He cut off the turtle's head and it rolled onto the ground. Then a young chicken came over to investigate and the severed head bit it.

“Wait a minute,” said Ivan. “How could a head bite something?”

“Deep reflexes,” said August.

They pondered that silently for a while. The boat drifted a little, and Wally had to remind Ivan to keep rowing.

When they reached the inner tube, August snapped off the flashing light. For some reason that seemed to make everything grow even quieter. They could hear the dark water lapping against the boat.

“Who wants to do the honors?” asked Wally.

“I'll do it,” said Kevin. Wally helped steady him as he stood up. August held up the lantern.

“Is it heavy?” asked Ivan, staring down the string and into the water.

“No,” he said, and pulled up a gray-white fish head.

He pulled up the other strings too. The fish had been eaten. Even the eyes were gone.

“What a ghastly sight,” said August.

“Do you think he's underneath us?” asked Ivan. “Right under the boat?”

“He's nearby,” said Kevin. “I can feel him.”

“Me too,” offered Ivan.

“Me too,” said August and Wally in unison.

They thought about this while the dark water rocked the boat, and then Wally said, “Well, boys, we've got his attention. What's the next step?”

“I've got an idea,” said Kevin.

“What?” asked Ivan.

“We'll bait the strings again, but this time with the tube closer to shore. And the time after that we'll put it even closer to shore. Then we can start setting dead fish out on the bank, and he'll have to come out of the water to eat them.”

“Excellent,” said August.

“That's very good, Kev,” said Wally. “We can even get one of the security cameras from the construction company, set it up with motion detectors, and record him when he comes out.”

“Should we bait the strings tonight?” Ivan asked.

The others nodded, and Ivan rowed back to the dock. Kevin and Wally waited in the boat while August and Ivan ran off to the pole shed for more dead fish.

“Now this is impressive,” said August, looking down into the freezer.

“No kidding,” said Ivan, and they chipped four of the dead fish off the top and carried them back to the dock.

After they'd moved the tube closer to shore and tied four more dead fish onto the strings, Wally said he was ready to go to bed. Ivan rowed back and he went inside.

Kevin, August, and Ivan got out of the boat, sat on the dock, and talked. Kevin told them about a time when the turtle pulled a goose under the water and ate it. August asked Kevin why he thought the turtle was the devil, and Kevin said that when August saw it for himself he would feel the same way.

“The devil wants to kill me,” said Kevin. “It's the reason he's here.”

“The devil doesn't usually do that,” said August. “I mean, in Christianity the devil is supposed to make us repent. That's his only job.”

“Right,” Ivan agreed.

“Why do you need extra oxygen?” asked August, changing the subject.

“I have a congenital defect that makes it hard to get enough. Nature made a mistake with me,” offered Kevin.

“I don't believe that,” said August. “Nature doesn't make mistakes.”

“It did with me.”

“No it didn't,” said August. “The way you are is the only way you could be made. There was no better way for you to be just like you are.”

“That sounds stupid.”

“It's not, though.”

“August is right,” chimed in Ivan. “Nature doesn't make mistakes. It can't.”

At that point Amy came out. She said Kevin's tank was getting low. It was time for him to take more medication. The two of them went back to Kevin's room.

August turned to Ivan after they were gone. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Ivan.

“Something is wrong,” replied August. “I can tell something is bothering you.”

“Let's go back outside,” he continued.

“You go ahead. I'll be out in a minute,” said Ivan.

August went out and Ivan went to find his mother. There was a light on in the living room, but he didn't see her anywhere. She wasn't in her bedroom, or the bathroom either. He finally found her sitting in the little kitchen, in the dark.

When Ivan went over to her she didn't look up.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“The light's off,” said Ivan.

“I'm resting my eyes. Where's your friend?”

“He's outside.”

“You'd better go out, then.”

“That turtle ate the dead fish.”

“That's nice. Go on, Ivan. Your friend is waiting.”

“Should I turn the light on before I leave?”

“Leave it off. I'm resting my eyes.”

When Ivan turned it on anyway, she just sat there and didn't look up. Then Ivan turned it off and left.

He found August down at the dock again, looking over the water.

“What's the matter?” he asked.

“Something's really wrong,” said Ivan.

“I wish we knew what it was,” replied August.

“You want to see where I like to sit at night? It's up here.”

They crawled under the deck. August agreed that this spot offered a good view of the dock, the pond, and anyone coming and going out the back door. It felt safe and totally fortified.

“Do you come out here a lot?” he asked.

“Sometimes.”

“Does anyone else know about this?”

“Nope.”

Just then they heard a loud splash.

“Did you hear that?” asked August.

“Yes,” said Ivan.

“What was it?”

“I don't know. Could be anything. A jumping fish, frogs, raccoons washing food, deer pawing.”

“Maybe we'll hear it again.”

They waited and listened.

“Maybe a limb fell into the water,” whispered August.

“There aren't any limbs that close,” replied Ivan.

At that moment a dark shape walked up from the edge of the water.

August pointed at it. Ivan swallowed and nodded.

The shape looked human, and it stood for several minutes without moving, just at the bottom of the landing below them. It stood there as if it were listening, then walked over to the side of the house. It stopped, continued to where the two parts of the house came together, and moved into a shadow.

August and Ivan stayed quiet, knowing it had to come out sooner or later.

Then the shape climbed out of the shadow and up to the house, slowly, quietly, higher and higher.

“Cripes, do you see that?” whispered Ivan.

“Of course I do,” said August. “This is probably the most curious event I have ever seen in my whole life.”

The shape reached the roof window on the third floor, stood on the roof, crouched down, and climbed through the window.

“Cripes,” said Ivan again.

Kevin opened the back door and came out on the deck. His feet were right above them.

“Psssst,”
Ivan whispered. “Down here.”

“Where are you?”

“Down here.”

When Kevin found them they told him about the shape. Ivan expected him to be scared out of his wits, but he wasn't.

“I knew something like this would happen,” he said.

“How?” they asked.

“I've been hearing things for a couple weeks now.”

“What kind of things?”

“Sounds that don't belong in the house at night,” he said. “When I try to find where're they're coming from, I always end up on the third floor, and then nothing.”

“Shh,”
said August.

The shape came out on the roof again, climbed down the side of the house like the phantom of the opera, walked over to the pond, and continued along the far edge until it disappeared.

“It's the devil,” said Kevin. “I knew he was in the house. I could feel him.”

“Where's your oxygen tank?” asked August.

“Sometimes after someone beats on my back and I breathe that medication, I can do without it for a while.”

“So you think the devil's coming into the house—the turtle shape-shifting?”

“I'm sure of it,” said Kevin.

D
id you finish turning out the wagon shaft?” asked Jacob. He was looking for a half-inch bolt three-quarters of an inch long, fine threaded all the way down. The old oil pan with the shop's premium supply of used bolts, washers, and screws appeared to have every other imaginable size.

“Over there,” said Blake from the workbench.

“Did you write up the tag?”

“It's over there too.”

“We have the four-puller, two riders, and a haybine to get out of here before the truck comes in on Tuesday.” Jacob found a suitably sized bolt, poked it through a lock washer, and turned it into the brush hog's threaded hole, pulling tight a loose castor.

“I know it,” said Blake. “Is it always this busy?”

“Every summer gets worse. We need a bigger shop.”

Winnie's car pulled up outside. She and August came in.

“I have to run over to the church for a couple hours,” she told Jacob. “And August wanted to spend some time here.”

“Fine,” said Jacob, wiping grease from his hands and checking his watch.

“I'm late,” said Winnie. “I'll be back.”

She climbed into her car and drove off, the small engine discharging a large volume of sound through the lower gears.

“We better get a muffler on that,” observed Blake.

“I know it,” said Jacob. “August, can you work with Blake while I pick up some parts in Viroqua? They've been waiting down there almost a week.”

“Sure,” said August.

Jacob left.

Minutes later, four motorcycle riders rode up to the shop, parked, walked around the lot looking for something to be interested in, and then came inside.

“Hey,” said Blake, not recognizing any of them. Two were in their early to mid-twenties, in T-shirts, torn jeans, and tennis shoes. The shoes looked like the kind worn for jogging, but neither of the men could be imagined running or moving quickly in any other way, at least not in their current glassy-eyed state. The others were older, heavier, in bulky clothes; one had a shaved head, the taller one had long stringy hair that kept getting in his face.

“Hey,” said the man, brushing hair out of his eye with one hand and unbuttoning his jacket with the other. “You work on motorcycles here?”