Michael felt a moment of sheer, bottomless panic: there was nothing to say, nothing he could say.
“Michael, hey, I’m glad you called. Listen to me. I’ve been frantic—we’ve been worried about you.”
Michael registered the “we” as a very sour note.
“Michael, are you there?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Tell me where you’re calling from.”
No, Michael thought… that would be a mistake.
“Well,” his father said, “are you all right? Is your mother all right?”
“Yeah. We’re okay, we’re fine.”
“Has she given you any reason for dragging you away like this? Because, you know, that’s very strange behavior. That’s how it looks to me.”
Michael thought, You don’t know the half of it. He said, “I just called to hear your voice.”
I called because I want to go home. I want there to be a home.
“I appreciate that. Listen, I know this must all have been very hard for you to understand. Maybe we didn’t talk about it enough, you and I. Maybe you blame me for it. The divorce and all. Well, fair enough. Maybe I deserve some of that blame. But you have to look at it from my point of view, too.”
“Sure,” Michael said. But this wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear You and your mother come home, everything’s fixed, everything’s back to normal—some reassurance for the ten-year-old in him. But of course that was impossible. The divorce wouldn’t go away. The Gray Man wouldn’t go away.
“Tell me where you are,” his father persisted. “Hell, I can come and get you.”
And suddenly the ten-year-old was vividly alive. Yes! Come get me! Take me home! Make it be safe! He said, “Dad—”
But suddenly there was another, fainter voice, sleepy and feminine: “Gavin? Who is it?”
And Michael thought, No home to go back to.
The ten-year-old was shocked into silence.
His father said, “Michael? Are you still there?”
“It was nice talking,” Michael said. “Listen, maybe I’ll call again.”
“Michael—”
He forced himself to hang up. He looked at his watch. 4:15.
Chapter Twelve
1
Michael understood that it was his job to be the man of the family, which involved protection and standing guard.
The routine at the Fauves’ house was that Willis would wake up early and Jeanne would fix him a big breakfast. Then Willis would head off for a day or a half day at the mill and Michael and his mother and aunt would venture downstairs. Nobody yelled “The coast is clear!” or anything, but that was how it felt—they would wait for the thud of the big front door, for the sound of Willis’s feet on the porch. His old Ford Fairlane would rattle out of the garage, and then the house was safe.
Grandma Jeanne insisted on cooking. Her breakfasts were heroic—cereal, toast, eggs, mounds of bacon—and Michael was always turning down second helpings. This morning she let him get away without protest, though, and he noticed the absentminded way she circled from the table to the counter, the odd looks Karen and Laura gave her: something was up.
He was only vaguely curious. He knew why Aunt Laura had brought them here and he was grateful that she was, maybe, beginning to get somewhere with it. He understood that this was necessary, sorting things out from the beginning, but he had already guessed it was not the whole job. Not by a long shot. Because there was still the problem of the Gray Man.
The Gray Man could find them anytime.
Michael bolted a big helping of scrambled eggs, considering this.
The kind of move they had made from Turquoise Beach would throw the Gray Man off their trail, but not indefinitely. He had followed them before and he would follow them here. It was only a question of time. And Michael’s mother and his aunt were preoccupied, so it was up to Michael to stand guard.
Grandma Jeanne took his plate and rinsed it under the faucet. His mom put a hand on his shoulder. “Michael? We’d like to talk to Grandma Jeanne privately.”
He nodded and stood. Grandma Jeanne would not face him; she stared into the foaming sink. Aunt Laura nodded once solemnly, telegraphing to him that this was important, he had better clear off.
“I’ll be out,” he said.
“Stay warm.” His mother ruffled his hair absently. “Stick close to the house.”
He was careful not to promise.
The temperature outside was still below freezing but the wind had let up. The sun was out, melting snow off the sidewalks; Michael’s breath plumed away in the winter light.
He followed the same route he had followed the day before, along Riverside Avenue and out beyond the southern margin of the town, up the snowy hillside until he could see all of Polger Valley mapped out in front of him. He felt the power most clearly in high places like this.
In town, among people, it was blanked out by a dozen other feelings. Up here he could just listen to the singing of it, like some quiet but important song played on a radio far away. He felt it like an engine deep in the earth, humming.
It occurred to him how much all this had changed his life. Not too long ago his main worries had been his term exams and the logistics of enjoying Saturday night when you couldn’t drive a car. All that was gone now—all washed away. But, Michael thought, it never really was like that, was it? He thought, You knew. You knew it before Emmett got you stoned that day in Turquoise Beach. You knew it before Dad left. Knew you were special, or anyway different: singled out in some way. Michael felt the power in him now and guessed he had always felt it, just never had a name for it. He had been timid of it, the sheer nameless immensity of it, the way you might be afraid of falling if you lived on the edge of some canyon… but he had loved it, too; secretly, wordlessly. He remembered nights coming home from some friend’s house, winter nights many times colder than this, and he would be shivering in an overstuffed parka and the stars would be out and there would be an ice ring around the moon, and he would be all alone out on some empty suburban street; and he would feel the future opening up in front of him, his own life like a wide, clean highway of possibility. And there was no reason for it, no reason to believe he was anything unique or that his life would be special. Just this feeling. Time opening like a flower for him.
Still opening, he thought. He remembered his dream of the night before, the cities and prairies and forests he had seen. The vision had come across a great distance. He wondered whether he could reach it— whether he would ever be able to summon it back. Maybe it was too far; maybe it was out of his grasp, never more real than his dreams.
But he had seen it, and he felt intuitively that it was a real place. Maybe he could find his way there— somehow, someday. Maybe that was where his life was headed.
Maybe.
If they could deal with the Gray Man.
Walker, the Gray Man had said. Walker, stalker, hunter, finder …
Michael thought, He almost took me with him. That day before we left Toronto. Had me hypnotized or something, had me following him back down some ugly back door out of the world.
He remembered that place he had almost gone. He remembered the feel of it, the taste and the smell of it. And unlike the world he had dreamed last night, it was not very far away at all… Michael was certain he could find it again if he wanted to.
It might be necessary one day. It might tell them something.