The Wisherman (18 page)

“What?” Oliver asked, as he stuck his hand into a bag of chips. His fingers wandered around the inside of the bag until they closed around the familiar
ruffled chip.

“I said, who are you going to call?”
Alex asked.

Oliver had felt his heart flutter when Matron Charlie had stopped by his room the night before. She had rather irritatingly told him that his bed was still to be made daily even though classes were not in session. As soon as Oliver had started to tune out, Charlie said the magic words. "....You'll have free phone calls as well, now, though I'm afraid you'll have to set up some type of schedule with the other boys
…" Robert had made a mad dash towards the door and Oliver had followed blindly behind him. When they rounded the corner on the phone room, they skidded to a stop, as every boy in the dorm was already there.

“I have no idea.” Oliver said, truthfully.
“You?”

Alex leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “My dad. He’ll want to know what I’ve been up to.” He said, softly.

“I might call a couple of the boys from the home.” Gabriel shrugged.

“The line is still down the hall.” Robert noted.

“The plan?” Malachi interrupted. He tapped the poster board with his stick, and Oliver almost laughed. It was good to be back.

“We have a problem.” Owen supplied.

“Right!” Malachi wrote the word “Problem” in black sharpie and underlined it five times. “Sabotage.” Oliver said.

“Let’s call an open meeting tonight. We’re getting too hot, and everyone needs to understand how dangerous this is. When things cool off, we can make some new plans.” Owen said.

Oliver looked around the room. “Let’s do it.”

~

The wind was particularly biting on this night, and Oliver pulled his coat closer to his body as he and the rest of the boys trekked out to the woods. They stepped into the clearing, and the chattering intensified like the buzz of one thousand angry bees. Oliver reconstructed his makeshift podium and looked out into the crowd. Most faces were blank, some were angry, with furrowed brows and deep frowns.

“Welcome back, everyone---Oliver began, and as soon as he had, the crowd dissolved into angry mutterings.

“It’s been long enough!” A boy shouted from the back.

“Is this even a thing anymore?”
A smattering of “yeahs” rose from various spots in the crowd. Oliver felt his heart skip a beat, and he looked over to Malachi for help.

Malachi
put his hands around his mouth and yelled “Quiet!” His voice was surprisingly loud and within seconds the amount of muttering reduced to just a few whispers towards the back of the crowd. Malachi stood on his tip toes, and cast a withering look towards the back, and soon silence settled over the group.

Oliver cleared his throat nervously and continued.
“It has come to our attention that our group is getting some unwanted attention from the administration.” The boys in the audience stared blankly at him. “With that being said, we have decided to cease all club activities for now.” The angry muttering returned.

“You can’t just take it all back.”

Oliver looked into the crowd to see a straw haired boy coming forward, the crowd parting as he did. “You started this movement for us. For all of us. You can’t just stop it now.” Tom was flanked by two friends who both crossed their arms and nodded in agreement.

Oliver suddenly felt helpless on his podium, and he froze. Suddenly, he was pushed to the side, and in his former place stood Owen.

“Everyone.” He said sharply. The crowd stood with rapt attention. “This isn’t about destroying something that we all hold dear to us. We---he pointed to Oliver, Robert, Malachi and the rest---want this too. I’ve never felt more like I belonged than I do now.” Owen said to the mass of softening faces. “But the fact is, is that we may be in danger. Someone has told the administration what we are doing. I don’t know why. But I don’t put it past the matrons to take any means necessary to put this down. We don’t know what they’ll do. Seniors. You know as well as I do what happens after graduation. I ignored it for a long time, because I didn’t want to face the truth.” Owen suddenly stepped away from the podium, the whites of his eyes growing red.

Oliver found his feet carrying him back to his spot. And, as if someone else was guiding him, he opened his mouth and words spilled out. “That’s why as of today, The Disciples has shifted its focus.
We will no longer just focus on banding together, but providing escape from Delafontaine. Good day, everyone. We’ll be in touch.” The crowd gasped, and Malachi’s attempts to calm everyone down again proved futile. Oliver looked back at his friends. Owen’s eyes were still red, but he wore the biggest smile Oliver had ever seen. Malachi, however…

~

“I’m really glad we discussed this Underground Railroad thing before you told everyone else.” Malachi stood beside the poster board in Owen’s room and tapped his foot. He glared at Oliver who only shrugged in response.

“
It felt like the right thing to say.” Oliver said, truthfully.

“But you lied.” Malachi quipped.
“How are we supposed to save everybody else when we can’t even save ourselves?” Oliver felt slightly dazed. Malachi was right, of course. He thought back to the words carved on the tree trunk, an image that was no doubt running through the minds of all the boys presently. He had somehow just managed to make a promise that he couldn’t keep.

“I think we could do it.” Owen said, softly. Everyone turned to him, eyebrows raised. Oliver had almost forgotten he was in the room, as he’d been so quiet the entire time.

“It’s never been done before.” Gabriel said.

“How do we know that?” Oliver was certain that everyone was picturing the tree now, but that no one had the gall to bring it up.

“Every class has one hundred students.” Oliver nodded, not sure where Owen was going with this. “That’s 100 seniors who graduate each year.”

“You mean disappear.” Malachi offered.

“Only the…peculiar ones, though.” Alex noted.

Owen slammed his fist down on the table. “I have a friend who did it.”

“Damien didn’t make it, Owen.” Gabriel said, and he looked down at his lap.

Owen swallowed, visibly.
“What if I can prove to you that he did?”

Owen reached under his bed and pulled out
a shoe box. He removed the top to reveal a stack of slightly yellowing letters.

Gabriel flew from his chair
. “You had these all along?” He asked.

Owen looked up. “I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone. He said not to.”

Owen brought the letters over to the table and scattered them around before picking up one dated two months prior. He passed it around the table, first to Gabriel who grabbed onto it for dear life. “This is the last one he sent me. He told me that he found a place, but he can’t say anymore.”

“How did he get out?” Malachi asked. He stood up and returned to the poster board, sharpie at the ready.
Alex held the letter now, as Gabriel thumbed quickly through those in the stack.

“It says…” Alex squinted
in confusion. “It says the library. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Malachi scribbled on the poster board.
“He never told you anymore?’

Owen shook his head. “I didn’t know if the administration was reading my letters or not.
I didn’t even know he’d gotten out until he sent me the letters.”

“He wrote you letters.” Gabriel said, suddenly.
Malachi’s eyes darted back and forth between Gabriel and Alex, as if he were unsure of whether to note their exchange.

“If he escaped through the woods, who wrote that message?” Robert piped up. He held one of the letters in his hand, examining the handwriting.

“Maybe…” Oliver sat up straight in his chair. “Maybe the message wasn’t for us.” Robert scratched his head. “Yeah.” Oliver said, gaining steam. “Maybe he wanted to seem like he was in trouble.”

“I guess that’s possible.” Robert said, looking troubled.

“He wrote you letters.” Gabriel said again, this time louder than before. “I told you, it was a secret. Gabs.” The tension in the room was so thick, Oliver thought he felt it slide over him like a heavy blanket. Robert looked around the room, his dark eyes wide. Owen and Gabriel stared at each other, as if daring one another to speak first. Owen’s face was placid, but Gabriel’s bottom lip trembled uncontrollably.

“But how did he get away? The woods around here go on for hundreds of miles.
Delafontaine has eyes in town, too, I bet.” Malachi rapped at the poster board, although his voice was a bit gentler than it usually was. Gabriel’s face fell.

“There must be a way.” Owen said, looking rather relieved that the focus had finally been taken off him.

“Let’s say there is a way. How do we get people out?” Oliver asked.

“Who goes first?” Robert said.

The tension returned to the room quicker than icicles
formed on a wintery New England night. “I think seniors should go first.” Owen said, and he looked around the room, daring anyone to challenge him.

“What if it fails, and only seniors are able to get out?” Robert asked, and his words hung in the air for far longer than was comfortable.

“We’ll get out.” Oliver said, finally. Robert looked at him skeptically. “We’ll get out.” He repeated, keeping his voice as steady as possible, because inside he was anything but calm. “We’ll get out.”

They adjourned the meeting on the account of Robert running back from a bathroom break and shouting “The phone is free
here!” From there, a mad dash to the phone booth that found Oliver behind Alex in line.

“I’ll only be five minutes.” Alex said, but after he’d held up his index finger for the fifth time and mouthed “Just one more minute”, Oliver slid to the floor and got comfortable.
When Alex finally hung up the phone, Oliver nearly jumped for joy and rushed into the phone booth the second it was vacated.

He looked down at the number pad, and he realized he’d forgotten his mother’s phone number. It took several more minutes before he was able to piece it together, with the help of a rhyme he’d learned in nursery school. He remembered it suddenly and hummed it to himself while punching in the numbers. The phone rang three times before Oliver heard the click of the receiver. There was muted noise in the background, and for a moment, Oliver was afraid he’d dialed the wrong number. “
Donovan residence.” The voice was sharp, and so definitively not his mother’s.

“Uh, I’m looking for my mother. This is O-Oliver.” He stuttered, and he cursed himself for sounding so unsure.

“Yes, this is
Ms. Donovan’s nurse. Oliver, who?”

Oliver recoiled. “I’m her son.
Melissa Donovan. She’s my mother.” He said. There was silence for a moment, then rustling on the other end.

“Oh,
yes,
Oliver. I’m her nurse. I will leave the message with her.”

“No!” Oliver yelled. “I want to speak with her.”

“Oliver…” The nurse began, hesitantly. “Are you aware that you mother has fallen very ill?”

Oliver’s hand began to shake so violently that he almost dropped the receiver. “No. No one told me that!” He felt like his stomach had
turned inside out.

“Well, your mother is very sick. She has asked that all callers leave messages, instead.
We are in the process of transferring her to a facility better equipped to treat her.” The nurse said, apologetically.

Oliver couldn’t
believe what he was hearing. Everything was white noise. His mother’s voice would be the only frequency he understood.

“Put my mother on the phone, right now.” He said, with every ounce of
strength he could muster. The other end went silent again, and Oliver’s heart began beating rapidly. Distant shuffling began, and he clutched the phone closer so that he could hear every last sound. Low, muffled voices came through, and Oliver strained his ears listening for one that sounded like his mother. Finally, the receiver clicked again, and the voice that came on next was one that he knew intimately.

“Hello?”
She said.

It was his mother alright, but her voice sounded dazed and far away.

“Mom? Mom? You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel right now.” Oliver laughed weakly. A cough came in response. At first it was soft, like the kind of fake cough he used to do to get out of class. But then it continued, a hacking, then a rattling, and then silence. Oliver was going to ask her why she hadn’t called, but he suspected he now knew the answer.

“Mom?”

“I’m here.” She said, faintly, and Oliver felt, if possible, his stomach squirm even more. “How are you?”

           
Oliver felt there something a bit perverse about that, his mother asking how
he
was. “I’m---Did he tell her the truth, that he’d been sent to a school that had no good intentions for him in the future? No. “I’m fine.” He said, finally.

           
“Good, good.” She coughed again. “Are you doing well in your classes?”