The Prophet of Yonwood (11 page)

She followed the passage that twisted through all thisit was like walking down a tunnel, almost, because the furniture was stacked shoulder-high. She moved toward the light.

She heard a scrape, and then a rustling sound.

She stopped, held her breath, and listened. Was someone in here? She bent down and peered through the forest of furniture legs, but it was too dark to see.

Something stirred over by the wall. Wood knocked against wood, a head rose from the jumble of furniture, and a voice spoke.

Pa? it said. Is that you?

No, said Nickie. Her heart jumped, but curiosity kept her from running away.

The head ducked down again. There was more scraping and rustling, and then someone crawled out from beneath a big table: a boy with cobwebs in his hair.

I know whoyou are, the boy said. He held his hands cupped together as if protecting something. The old guys granddaughter.

Great-granddaughter, said Nickie.

And whosthat ? He nodded at Otis, who was squirming in Nickies arms.

Its Otis, she said. Im taking care of him for somebody. Who are you? She couldnt see the boys face; the light was behind him. It cast his huge, blurry shadow onto a cabinet that leaned against the headboard of a bed.

Grover, said the boy. My pa is fixing your pipes.

But what are you doing down here?

The boy sprang toward her all of a sudden. Lying in wait! he cried. For unwary creatures to fall into my trap!

Nickie shrieked and then instantly regretted it, because he laughed to see that hed scared her.

I already caught one unwary creature, he said. He held up his clasped hands. Its a prisoner now, awaiting its fate.

What is it?

He stepped toward her and she stepped back. She couldnt help it. He might have a spider in his hands, and he might be the kind of boy who would suddenly throw it at you.

Ill show you if youre brave enough to look, he said. He stretched out his hands and opened them so she could see what he held. It was not a spider. She couldnt tell what it was. Something small and pinkish. Otis strained forward, sniffing madly. She put her hand around his muzzle.

An infant mouse! the boy cried. Theres eight of them in a nest down there by the heating pipe.

Let me see, said Nickie. Hold it in the light.

He did. It had hairless, almost transparent skin, tiny, twitching paws, and little blind eyes. It was about as big as a quarter. Why did you steal it? she asked him.

I need it, he said. For my snake.

What?

For my snake to eat.

She looked up at the boys face, which was framed in blond curly hair. His ears stuck out. She knew, suddenly, who he was.

You dont believe me? he said.

I believe you, she said. But I dont like it. She turned around and started back the way shed come.

He followed her up the stairs and out of the basement. She set Otis down, and he sniffed Grovers shoes with great interest.

Whered the dog come from? Grover asked.

Im just taking care of him for a little while, Nickie said. Hes a secretdont tell about him, all right?

Grover tilted his head upward and yelled, Hey, everybody, guess what, theres a

Nickie shouted, Stop it!

He laughed. Ill keep your secret, he said. Now you owe me a favor.

Are you really going to give that baby mouse to a snake? Nickie asked.

Yep. Grover stretched his mouth into a wicked grin. Because Immeeean andeeeevil, he said, and gave a maniac laugh. Worse thanhe lowered his voice to a gruesome whisperHoyt McCoy. Have you heard of him?

Nickie nodded, feeling a lurch in her stomach.

Well, Im much worse than him, Grover said.

You have spiderwebs in your hair, said Nickie. She turned and walked away from him, through the back door and into the house. What terrible luck, she thought. A boy right here where she could get to know himand he turns out to be the boy with the snakes. And on top of that, a kidnapper and murderer of baby mice. She couldnt possibly fall in love with someone like him.

She went upstairs again, planning to read until Crystal got home. She switched on the lamp and picked up her great-grandfathers notebook. On the floor beside her, Otis went to sleep and dreamed, making soft littlewip-wip noises and fluttering his paws. Nickie read:

1/2 Legs very weak and painful. Spent the day reading the scientific journals. Intrigued by this notion of extra dimensionsother worlds right next to ours? Had a chat with M but of course cant understand a word.

What might that mean? She knew about three dimensionsup, down, and sideways. What were extra dimensions? Who was M? She read on:

1/4 Extraordinary experience last night: Went into the back bedroom to look for the scissors, thought I saw someone in there, over by the beddark-haired figure, transparent swirl of skirt. Dreadful feeling of sorrow hit me like a wave. Had to grab the doorknob, almost fell. Figure faded, vanished. Maybe something wrong with my eyes. Or heart.

He was ninety-three when he died. Maybe he was losing his mind a little bit, thinking he was seeing ghosts. She read on:

1/19 Brenda B. came by today. All worked up, trying to figure out what Althea is saying and what to do about it. Kept talking about how shes studying every holy book she can get her hands on, aiming to understand Gods word. I quoted St. Augustine to her: If you understand it, it isnt God. Gave her a cup of chamomile tea.

That was interesting. But then came another mystifying one:

1/30 String theoryM theory?eleven dimensionsgravity wavesalternate universes? Possible leakage between one universe and another? Amazing stuff. M says his research is very promising.

Maybe he thought hed slipped into an alternate universe in the back bedroom and seen a ghost, somehow. Which one was the back bedroom, anyhow? Nickie left the sleeping Otis and went down to the second floor, hoping to catch sight of the ghost herself. It was clear which one was the back bedroom: its window looked out over the backyard. She saw no ghost in that room, but through the window she saw Grover, who was probably waiting for his father. He was walking along the low wall that bordered the concrete terrace and crouching down every now and then to study the ground, maybe looking for more creatures to capture. She watched him for a minute. He was definitely good-looking. She liked the springy way he moved, and his floppy hair more or less covered up his sticking-out ears. She couldnt fall in love with him, of course, because of the snakes and the baby mouse, but she decided to go down and talk to him again anyhow.

When Grover saw her come outside, he beckoned to her, and she went over to him.

Listen, he said, in an urgent whisper. I want to show you something amazing. No human eye has ever lit on it before.

Nickie was wary. Is it about snakes?

No, no, said Grover. I told you, no one has ever seen this.

Not even you?

Not even me.

Well, what is it? Nickie said.

Grover reached into his lunch bag and brought out a small green apple.

Ive seen apples before, Nickie said.

Yeah, but watch this. Grover took out his pocketknife, pulled the blade out, and sliced the apple in half across the middle. He pointed to the insidethe white flesh oozing juice, the five little seeds in a star shape.

Ive seen that, too, said Nickie.

No, you havent, Grover said. No one has. Not a single person has ever seen the inside of this apple until now. It is a completely new sight to the human eye. He took a big bite out of one half of the apple and stood there chewing, with a wide, satisfied smile across his face.

Oh, you think youre so clever, Nickie said. She grabbed the other half of the apple out of his hand. She was annoyed at being tricked, but she couldnt help smiling a little, too. What hed said was true, after all.

An idea popped into her head. I know somethingyouve never seen before, she said. No human eye has ever seen it, or everwill see it.

That doesnt make sense, said Grover, munching on his apple.

Yes, it does. Ill show you.

But if you show me, then I will have seen it.

No, you wont, said Nickie. Just wait here. Ill go get it. She ran inside, went to her bedroom, and came back out clutching a piece of paper. She held it out. Do you know what this is?

Grover peered at it. Its some fake monster out of a science-fiction movie, he said.

Nope, said Nickie. Its a dust mite. In this picture, its magnified many, many zillion times. You will never see it in real life, because its smaller than the eye can see.

Hah, said Grover. He looked up at her and quirked an eyebrow. Whered you get it?

I cut it out of a magazine. I like strange, interesting things.

You dont like snakes, though, Grover said. Probably youre afraid of them.

I am not.

Youd never want to see a snake eat a mouse.

Maybe I would. As soon as she said this, she realized it was true. It would be a horrible thing to see, but interesting. And it might help her decide if there was something evil about this boy or not.

Really? Grover looked surprised.

Really.

I dont believe you. Youre just saying that to sound big.

This was somewhat true, but Nickie wasnt going to admit it. Just tell me when, she said. Ill come and see it.

So he said she should come the next day about three-thirty, and he told her how to get to his house. Just in time, she remembered not to say she already knew where he lived.

Crystal got back around five. She came in the front door, her cheeks red with cold and her eyes sparkling, talking and talking about the lovely scenery in the surrounding hills. This really is a gorgeous area, she said. I hadsuch a wonderful time.

Good, said Nickie, not really listening.

And Len told me some interesting things about Yonwood, Crystal said. A woman here has had some kind of religious experience, apparently. People think it means Yonwood is a sort of chosen place, and theyll be safe even if theres war.

Nickie started paying closer attention. Does Len think that?

He doesnt know what to think, Crystal said, flinging her coat on a chair. He was in school with this Prophet person. She was a shy, bookish little girl, he said, not the type to grab for attention. So he thinks maybe what happened to her was real. Have you heard anything about it?

A little, Nickie said, trying to look uninterested.

Tomorrow, said Crystal, Im going to have my hair done at the local beauty shop. Ill probably come out looking like a dandelion, but at least thatll be better thanthis mess. She swatted at her bangs.

Good idea, said Nickie, though she thought Crystal looked fine as she was.

After that, Crystal went on, Im going into Asheville for some shopping. I dont suppose you want to come.

No, Nickie said. I dont want to come.

What are you going to do?

Oh, nothing much, Nickie said. She didnt think it was a good idea to mention snakes or mice.

Youre such a good girl, Crystal said. All this time on your own, and you never get bored or get into trouble. Its amazing.

Nickie just smiled.

CHAPTER 15 ______________

Up to the Woods

A few times during the next day, which was Monday, Grover found himself thinking about Nickie as he sat in his desk at school. He wasnt thinking about her in a boy-girl sort of way. The notion of being in love never entered his mind. He was thinking about her in an interesting-person sort of way. It wasnt often that he met anybody, especially a girl, who cared about things like dust mites. He was looking forward to showing her his snakes later on, after school. It would be fun to see if she was scared after all.

But first he had to do some hunting. Just before two oclock, he filled in the last answers on his English test and then staged a highly realistic coughing fit. Cant breathe! Nurses office! he gasped, and he staggered, choking, out of the classroom. Then he slipped out a side door and trotted up Fern Street to the path that led into the woods.

The forest was his second home. He knew all the trails that threaded up the mountainside. He knew the creeks and the outcroppings of rock and the places where salamanders were likely to be hiding under rotting logs. In the summer, he spent hours up here. Sometimes he scrambled through brush and waded down streams, but other times he just found a good spot and sat still. He had learned that if he sat without moving for a long time, he would see things. Animals would come out from their hiding places and potter around in the open, not realizing he was there. Once, at dusk on a summer evening, a spotted skunk walked past him, so close he could see the long, curved nails on its front feet.

Today he was after some dinner for his red belly snake. The milk snake would get the baby mouse, which he was trying to keep alive so that Nickie could watch it being eaten. For the red belly, a few good-sized slugs and maybe a small salamander would do. Actually, he could get these in his own backyard pretty easily. But hewanted to go into the woods. He hadnt been for a while, because of homework and bad weather and working on jobs with his father. He missed it.

He was aware that people had been talking lately about someone lurking up there, maybe a terrorist planning dark deeds. But Grover wasnt worried about him. He didnt think about him much. Talk about terrorists and war was the sort of talk that just slid off his brain. He was too occupied with his own concerns to pay much attention to it.

He started along a steep uphill trail, which would take him, in fifteen minutes or so, to a place where a stream rushed between shallow banks. He could get down to the waters edge easily there and find a few of the things that liked living in damp places. Hed brought a plastic jar with him to take them home in.

The rhythm of his steps said, Happy to be here, happy to be here. Rays of sunlight shot between the clouds, making spots of light like polka dots on the ground. On either side, the woods were thickeverything close in, dense, stickery, twined with vines, here and there a bare-twigged mountain ash with red berries like decorations. The whirr of bird wings rushed up from bushes as he passed. He was always looking beside the trail, which grew narrower as he climbed higher, for the holes and burrows that an animal might be living in. Holes, rotting logs, sun-warmed rocksall those were places favored by snakes and therefore favored by Grover.