Shades of Simon Gray (12 page)

Liz sat cross-legged on her unmade bed surrounded by note cards and library books. Her smoky-gray cat, Pandora, was curled in her lap, warming herself in the late-afternoon sun that spread over Liz’s legs and the bunched-up comforter. Liz stroked the cat. She bent over and rubbed the tip of her nose in Pandora’s fur. The last thing she felt like doing was working on her history paper. Whatever had possessed her to write about Jessup Wildemere, for Pete’s sake? Whatever made her think she could find some undiscovered bit of information from some remote event that had happened more than two hundred years earlier? All she had to go on were the same stories her parents and grandparents and those before them had grown up with—stories told around campfires late at night, or at Halloween parties where the only light came from candles burning inside hollow pumpkins.

Everyone in Bellehaven knew how Jessup Wildemere, a scraggly, unsavory drifter, had stabbed Cornelius Dobbler so many times the blood had seeped through the crevices in the floorboards and stained the ceiling below, and how he’d been caught the very same night by some of the townsmen.

The hanging had taken place during the snow-blistering
winter of 1798, back when the town was still called Havenhill, back when food was scarce and the townsfolk couldn’t see sharing what little they had with some murderer locked up in the jail for what could be months before a judge ever came through and tried the case, if at all. So they took matters into their own hands, had a brisk, tidy trial in the local tavern with a preacher presiding over the proceedings, found Jessup Wildemere guilty as sin, and hanged him the next morning before the sun was up and before they’d have to feed him breakfast.

Jessup Wildemere was the only person ever to be executed in the entire county. And it wasn’t even legal.

Campfire ghost stories aside, Liz had begun to wonder if she would ever find any records of the case. No one seemed to know why Jessup had killed Cornelius Dobbler, although there was much speculation. Some claimed he had been drunk, others said it had to do with an argument, still others suggested he was flat-out insane. Pure and simple.

Liz had spent hours in the archives of the library and at the local historical society. So far she had turned up very little. Not only was the lack of historical evidence discouraging, but she had more or less lost her enthusiasm for the project when she’d learned of Simon’s accident. She could no longer think of the Hanging Tree—as everyone at school called it—without thinking of Simon.

The whole project, just the thought of anything to do with the Hanging Tree, seemed even more impossible since Devin had told her earlier that day how bad Simon had looked in the hospital. Devin’s words had been
nowhere near as revealing as the expression on her face, a look that clearly said she feared for Simon’s life.

Liz squeezed her eyes closed and tried to picture Simon as he was the summer when they were both thirteen and racing each other to the floating dock in the middle of Silver Lake—the summer she fell in love with him. She had been pulling ahead of him, digging hard at the water, determined to beat him, when she felt a hand on her ankle. It was Simon. With one swift yank, he dove beneath the water and pulled her with him. Liz had grabbed his hair, kicked her feet, and flailed her arms, trying to get to the surface.

Both of them had shot through the water at the same time. Waterfalls streamed from Simon’s joyous face as his mouth burst open in surprise laughter. His arms circled her waist as he lifted her into the air. And when he lowered her into the water, their faces were barely a breath apart. She would have kissed him right then and there, if he hadn’t suddenly pushed off in the direction of the dock, never once looking back. If he had, he would have realized that Liz, who remained exactly where he’d left her, stunned and treading water, had forgotten all about the race.

Carefully, Liz slid Pandora from her lap and went to the window, using her foot to plow a path between clothes, books, and food-crusted plates along the way. The sun had dipped behind the house across the street, leaving soft purple shadows on the snow. If she opened the window and leaned out far enough, she could catch a glimpse of a few of the top branches of the Hanging Tree,
a block and a half away. Even though the tree was on the same road as the high school, Liz had managed to avoid it by crossing to the other side of the street, going around the block to Greenwood Avenue, and then heading down to Edgewood. Now she wondered how she was ever going to write a paper on Jessup Wildemere if she couldn’t even bring herself to walk by the tree where he was hanged.

Liz glanced over at Pandora, who slid to the edge of the bed on her belly, slowly stretched out both front legs, and dropped gracefully to the floor. The cat sidled up to her and threaded herself in and around Liz’s legs.

“You’re right,” she said to the cat, as if Pandora had spoken. “I can’t spend the rest of my life avoiding that stupid tree.” She reached over, snapped up her jacket from the back of her desk chair, and headed downstairs.

Fortunately, despite the mounds of snow hiding the curb, the sidewalks were clear. It hadn’t occurred to her to put on boots.

As she neared the end of Willowbrook Road, her heart began to thump uncontrollably. On the corner was the Gulf station and across the street from it, the Liberty Tree. The icy wind whipped the branches of the old oak into a frenzy and brought tears to Liz’s eyes. She pulled the hood of her jacket over her head.

For a while, she stood on the corner and stared over at the tree. She wondered how it was going to survive with such a huge gash cut into it, a gash made by Simon’s Honda. The wound had been covered with pitch. But Liz had her doubts.

She stuffed her hands in her coat pockets and crossed the street, coming to stand only a few feet from the snow piled by the curb. The bronze plaque, she saw, lay bent and semiburied in the snow. Maybe a snowplow had hit it, but she doubted it. The people who drove the plows knew to keep their distance from the tree. More than likely it was Simon’s car that had damaged the plaque.

Liz shifted her gaze from the plaque to the branches above her head, branches, like most trees in Bellehaven these days, laden with crows. She wondered which branch had supported Jessup Wildemere’s body. But most of all, she wondered how she was ever going to get to the truth of what had happened in this place. Both times.

Simon was walking down the hospital corridor next to Courtney. He could hardly believe it. A few minutes before—or maybe hours or days, he could never be sure—he’d thought he heard her voice. It had floated down to him, echoed off stone walls, as if he lay at the bottom of a well. He tried to answer, as he lay there in the cold dark, tried to see some light, some indication of how far down in the well he might be, tried to gauge how long it might take before someone found him.

And now here he was, walking beside his sister, wondering how she’d managed to pull him out of the well and whether she’d come to take him home. Except, like everyone else in the hospital, she didn’t seem aware he was there. Simon opened his mouth to ask her what had
happened to him, to ask why he was in this place, but no words came out.

Before he could decide what to do to get her attention, he felt the clammy gray chill. Fully expecting to be pulled back into his body, he wasn’t prepared to find himself outside, standing beneath the Liberty Tree. Worse yet, he was still in his flimsy hospital gown. Instinctively he reached behind him to make sure the ties were knotted securely. The snow covered his ankles, yet he felt no icy sting on his legs or bare feet.

The base of the bronze plaque had been bent all the way to the ground, and the plaque itself was half hidden beneath the snow, as if someone had plowed right into it. The sun had already dropped behind the trees, but Simon could still make out a gash the size of a huge beach ball. The wound had jagged edges, as if a
T. rex
had taken a bite out of the lower part of the ancient oak. Someone had painted thick globs of tar over it.

Chills rippled along his spine. The sight of the gash disturbed him, although he didn’t know why. Nor did he know why he had come to this place. One minute he’d thought he was on his way home with Courtney, and the next …

For the first time since he’d appeared in this place, Simon noticed a young man, his body hunched forward, sitting on the Neidermeyers’ split-rail fence on the other side of the sidewalk. The man studied him with curiosity. Behind him, the evening sky had begun to turn a midnight blue. Simon realized the man actually
saw
him. The only other person to see him had been Stanley Isaacson. Simon
grabbed the back of his gown, held it tightly closed. But if the man noticed anything odd about the way Simon was dressed, he didn’t let on.

Simon, however, was acutely aware of the man’s clothes. They were like nothing he’d ever seen, except perhaps in history books—black breeches, knitted stockings, worn dusty black shoes with large buckles, an off-white shirt, and a tan vest. On this unusually bitter cold day the man wasn’t even wearing a coat. His long dark hair was pulled back and tied at the base of his neck with a black ribbon. On his head he wore a tricornered hat.

The man nodded but said nothing. He slid from the split-rail fence, landed solidly on his feet, and strutted over to the base of the tree. He walked with an easy gait, as if there weren’t a half foot of snow on the ground, and leaned one shoulder against the bark. If he saw the tar-patched gash, he didn’t mention it. Folding his arms, he looked straight at Simon.

Just then, Mr. Neidermeyer came out of his front door and began to sweep snow from the steps of his porch. A plaid wool scarf, wrapped about the lower part of his face, covered his gray beard. His wool cap was pulled down so far, all Simon could make out was the glare from the porch light glinting off the lenses of the old man’s glasses.

Simon waved and shouted hello. This was a test. He wanted to see if the rules here by the Liberty Tree were the same as in the hospital. And apparently they were because just like the doctors and nurses, Mr. Neidermeyer never looked up, didn’t even hear him.

But when Simon turned back to the stranger, the man
stared at him as if he’d completely lost his mind. “Who are you shouting to?”

Simon looked back at the Neidermeyer house to confirm what he saw. Certain he was seeing what he thought he was, he said, “Mr. Neidermeyer.”

The man shook his head, obviously bewildered. “I see no one in that pasture.”

What was he talking about? Pasture? There was no pasture. There was only the Neidermeyer house and front yard. Simon tried to wrap his mind around the inconceivable. He was beginning to realize this man couldn’t see the Neidermeyers’ house, couldn’t see Mr. Neidermeyer sweeping the snow from his steps. He had no idea how that could be. “You don’t see a house there?” Simon asked him.

A brash wind shook the branches overhead, thrust clumps of snow to the ground. Simon jumped back to avoid getting clobbered, but the man didn’t seem to notice the snow or the wind. Loose strands of his hair, Simon saw, didn’t even move. But then, neither did Simon’s own hair or his hospital gown. Yet all around them branches rattled like brittle bones.

“A house?” The man turned to look again, then shook his head.

“You were sitting on the Neidermeyers’ fence,” Simon said, pointing to the split rails.

“You mean Joseph Alderman’s fence. And a fine job we did on it, too. I spent most of the summer helping him.” The man pulled at his chin, looking thoughtful. “Though
this drought makes for poor grazing. Joseph will likely lose some of his cows before winter.”

Simon stared down at the snow and back at the man. “You don’t see the snow, either, do you?”

The man let out a surprised laugh. “Snow? This time of year?”

Simon’s heart had begun to beat faster. “What time of year is it?”

“Don’t you know your seasons, lad?” The man spread his arms skyward. “It’s late summer, of course.” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Where do you hail from, friend?”

“From right here,” Simon said. “Bellehaven.”