“I mean it,” Archer said. “You’re obviously upset by this. But it’s wonderful. I mean, here’s this mundane little house in the woods, one more shitty frame house out along the Post Road—pardon me—then suddenly it’s more than that. You know the quote from Kipling? ‘There was a crack in his head and a little bit of the Dark World came through…’ ”
Tom winced. “Thanks a lot.” Kipling?
“Don’t misunderstand. I would be disappointed,” Archer said, “if you were crazy. Craziness is very common. Very—” He struggled for a word. “Very K-mart. I’m hoping for something a little classier.”
“You’re enjoying this too much.”
“It’s my hobby,” Archer said.
Tom blinked. “It’s what?”
“Well, it’s hard to explain. The supernaturaclass="underline" it’s like a hobby with me. I’m a skeptic, you understand. I don’t believe in ghosts, I don’t believe in UFOs. I’m not that kind of enthusiast. But I’ve read all the books. Charles Fort, Jacques Vallee. I don’t believe in it, but I decided a long time ago that I wanted it to be true. I want there to be rains of frogs. I want statues to bleed. I want it because—please don’t repeat this —it would be like God saying, ‘Fuck Belltower, Washington, here’s a miracle.’ It would mean the asphalt down by the car lots might break out in crocuses and morning glories and tie up traffic for a week. It would mean we might all wake up one morning and find the pulp mill crumbled into sand. Half the town would be out of work, of course. But we could all live on manna and red wine. And nobody—absolutely nobody —would sell real estate.”
Tom said, “When I was twelve years old I used to pray for nuclear war. Not so that millions of people would die. So that I wouldn’t have to go to school in the morning.”
“Exactly! Everything would be rubble. Life would be transformed.”
“Life would be easier.”
“More fun! Yes.”
“Sure. But would it? I’m thirty years old, Doug. I don’t pray for war anymore.”
Archer met his gaze. “I’m thirty-two and I still pray for magic.”
“Is that what we’re talking about here?”
“Something extraordinary, anyhow. Unless you are crazy.”
“It’s a possibility,” Tom said. “Crazy people see things sometimes. I had an aunt Emily who used to talk to Jesus. Jesus lived in the attic. Once in a while he’d move over to the bedroom and they’d have a chat while she combed her hair. Everybody in the family thought this was terrifically funny. Then one day Aunt Emily sliced open her wrists in a warm bath. Her landlord found her a week later. She left a note saying Jesus told her to do it.”
Archer reflected on this a moment. “You’re saying there are serious things at stake.”
“Either way, it seems to me. My sanity. Or sanity in general.”
“Screw sanity in general.”
“My own in particular, then.”
“You want me to take this seriously,” Archer said. “Okay. Fine. But I don’t know you. You’re somebody I sold a house to. Somebody who was a year behind me at Sea View Elementary. You seem like a fairly reasonable guy. But let’s be clear, Tom. You called me because you want credentials for your sanity. I want more than that.”
Tom leaned back in his chair, considering this. Obviously time had not much tamed Douglas Archer. Maybe it was important to remember you could pull a jail sentence and a stiff fine for throwing stones at Buicks, especially if you were old enough to know better. Tom had no love for Belltower, but neither did he especially want to see morning glories tying up traffic down by the car lots (though it would piss Tony off no end).
Still, there was something seductive about Archer’s attitude, especially after a night of nervous hysteria. He said, “You know some of the old trails up through here?”
Archer nodded.
“Let’s scout the territory behind the house.” Tom stood up. “Then we’ll talk about what to do.”
They followed an old, nearly overgrown foot trail into the dense woods behind the back yard.
Tom had forgotten what it was like to walk through these big Pacific Northwest pinewoods, this density of moss and fern and dripping water. He followed the broad back of Archer’s checkerboard shirt along the trail, bending under branches or stepping over small, glossy freshets of rainwater. The sound of cars passing on the Post Road faded as they climbed a gentle slope westward. All this talk of magic—his own and Archer’s—seemed much more plausible here.
Archer said, “There were Indians living in through here a hundred years ago. Used to be an old totem pole in among the cedars, but they dragged that off to the town museum.”
“Who uses this trail?”
“The Hopfner kids down the road, but they moved away a long time ago. Hikers sometimes. There are trails all the way up from the housing development along Poplar. It’s mostly overgrown down by your place—I don’t suppose anybody goes through that way these days.”
He paused behind Archer where the trail banked away through an open meadow full of thistles and fireweed, past an old tin shack overgrown with ivy: someone’s long-abandoned store of firewood, Tom guessed, the structure obscured and sagging moss-thick to the ground. Archer pushed ahead into the deeper forest and Tom followed until the tree shadows closed around him again.
They hiked for more than an hour, uphill through pine forest until they reached a rocky knoll. Archer clambered up the pinnacle, turned back and extended a hand to Tom. “We’ve come up a good height,” he said, and Tom turned back and was surprised by a sweeping view not just to the Post Road but all the way to the coast—the town of Belltower clustered around the bay, the pulp mill lofting a gray plume of smoke.
“This is why people come up here,” Archer said. “It’s not a well-known trail. If we’d followed the other branch we would have ended up in some serious swamp. Up this way, it gets nice.”
“Is there a name for this place?”
“Somebody must call it something. Everything’s got a name, I guess.”
“You come here a lot?”
“Once in a while. I come for the perspective. From here— on a nice day—everything looks good. The fucking parking lots look good.”
“You hate this town,” Tom said.
Archer shrugged. “If I hated it, I’d leave. Though from what I’ve seen I doubt I could find anything significantly better. Hate is a strong word. But I dislike it a whole lot— sometimes.” He paused and looked sidelong at Tom, shading his face against the sun. “I do admit to wondering what brought you back here.”
“You never asked.”
“It’s not polite. Specially when someone obviously doesn’t want to talk about it.” He turned back to the view. The sunlight was intense. “So are we still being polite?”
“My wife left me,” Tom said. “I lost my job. I was drinking for therapy.”
Archer scrutinized him more closely now.
Tom said, “You’re wondering whether an alcoholic can be trusted when he sees strange things at night. Fair enough. But it’s been more than a month since I touched any kind of liquor. As an explanation, a good case of DTs would be almost comforting.”
“How long were you drinking?”
“Seriously? Since the job fell through. Maybe three months.”
Archer said, “I can think of a couple of tough questions.”
“Such as?”
“Lots of people lose their jobs. Lots of people go through divorce. They don’t all jump down a bottle.”