But he was sure it wouldn’t. The water his body desired so desperately was in the other bottle, the one putting off that faint glow and gathering ice in a seventy-degree room. This version, this sane version, would do nothing.
Then his breathing began to steady. That was the first perceptible change; he could fill his lungs once again. A few minutes after that, he felt the nausea subside, and then the headache dulled and he was on his feet again, splashing cold water on his face from the bathroom sink. He stood there with hands braced on the counter and lifted his face and stared into the mirror.
It was working. Anne’s water. What did that tell him? Well, for one thing, the Pluto Water was involved in whatever was happening to him, was part of it. Part. He couldn’t believe it was the sole cause, because Anne’s water didn’t have any of the same bizarre properties as Alyssa Bradford’s. And yet it had quelled the agony that came from Alyssa’s water. Whatever had been put into his system seemed satisfied now. Content.
As if it had just been fed.
How he’d slept so long on a rock ledge, Josiah couldn’t imagine. No pillow for his head, even, and still he’d managed to sleep past sunset. When he opened his eyes, the treetops above him were a rustling mess of shadows, and when he sat up with a grunt, the pool of water far below was no longer visible. Full night.
Two of the beers remained warm and unopened at his side. The gulf gurgled down below, and he got to his feet stiffly, thinking about the dream and unsettled by it. Wasn’t often that Josiah dreamed when he slept, and he couldn’t recall ever having the same dream twice, or even a variation of it.
But this one had returned, this dream of the man aboard the train. Strange.
He’d ordinarily hike back the way he’d come, but he had no flashlight and it was a difficult trek in the darkness even if you knew where you were going. Too many roots to stumble over and holes to turn an ankle in. Taking the road would be longer but easier.
He left the ledge and climbed to the top of the ridge and found the trail that led to the gravel drive the state had put in. From there he came out to the county road as a dog barked in the distance and the moon and stars glittered and lit the pavement with a faint white glow. To the right he could see the white sides of Wesley Chapel gleaming against the dark, and a few pale orbs surrounding it, the stone fronts of the monuments in the old cemetery also catching the moonlight. He turned left, toward home.
Not a single car passed. He hiked south, open fields on each side of him for a spell, then into the woods of Toliver Hollow, and there the road curved away and he walked east for a time before leaving it for another road and moving south once more. A half mile farther and he left the paved road for a gravel one. Almost home. He’d taken no more than twenty steps on the gravel when he pulled up short and stared.
The moon was three-quarters full and bright in the periods between clouds, and it was glittering off something just down the road from Josiah’s house.
A windshield.
A car.
Parked on the Amish farm property. Last time Josiah had checked, his Amish neighbors didn’t have cars.
He hesitated for a moment and then left the road and went into the weeds as he continued on. As he got closer, he could tell it was a van. Funny place to leave a car, and funnier still was that it was parked in one of the few locations where Josiah’s home showed in the gaps between the trees. He could see the outline of his house from here. The Amish barns were visible, but not their home. Just Josiah’s.
Someone had run out of gas or had engine trouble, no doubt, pushed the thing off the road and left it till daylight. Nothing to trouble his mind over; Josiah couldn’t give a shit whose car it was. Had nothing to do with him.
That was his thought for another fifty paces, until he saw the glow.
A brief square of blue light inside the rear of the van was visible for about five seconds and then extinguished. A cell phone. Someone was inside that van. In the back.
He felt something dark spread through him then, a feeling he knew well, his temper lifting its head on one of those occasions when it would not be denied, when fists would surely be swung and blood drawn.
Somebody was watching his house.
There was nothing else to see from there. Nothing but fields and trees and Josiah Bradford’s own home.
A memory hit him then, a flash of something seen but ignored-the blue minivan that had been pulled off the road near Edgar’s house when the man from Chicago and the black kid left. Josiah had driven right past it, had seen that it was parked off the shoulder and in the grass. Just like this one was now.
Son of a bitch was following him.
This would not be tolerated.
He dropped the beer cans he’d been carrying into the grass, then slipped down off the road and into the weed-covered ditch and picked his way along in a crouch. The van was parked facing the cattle gate, both sides exposed to the road, but its occupant was in the rear, and odds were he was watching the house and not the road.
It took him a long time to work his way down until he was directly across from the van. Twice the blue light appeared and disappeared, and he decided that whoever was inside was checking the time. Impatient, wondering where the hell Josiah was. Waiting on him.
Ideas tumbled through his mind, endless options. He could walk right up and knock on the door, call this son of a bitch outside. Could pick up one of the large loose stones from the ditch and use it to bash the windshield in. Could sneak home and get his shotgun. One way or another, he’d get this asshole out and answering questions.
That should have been his desire, at least. Find out who this was and what in the hell he was doing following Josiah. Funny thing was, Josiah was having trouble bringing himself to care. Those questions he should be asking, they didn’t seem to matter anymore. All that mattered was the fact that someone was here watching his home. The hell with answers-Josiah wanted punishment. Wanted to crawl under the car, puncture the gas tank, set the thing on fire. Watch it blow this nameless son of a bitch sky high in a cloud of orange flame, teach him there were people to be fooled with and people not to be fooled with, and Josiah Bradford was absolutely of the latter set.
He dropped his hand into his pocket at the thought and wrapped his fingers around his cigarette lighter, actually tempted for a minute. But no, those answers were important, and if he blew up the van before the questions had been asked, he would surely regret it. So the dilemma was how to get the man inside the van out of it and willing to talk. Well, the cigarette lighter might help with that after all.
He pulled off his T-shirt and felt around the bottom edge of it until he found one of its holes. Worked his fingers in and tugged and then the cheap cotton tore, the sound loud. He went slower, quieter, tearing again and again until he had five separate strips of fabric. When he had the shirt torn up, he crammed the strips into his pockets, patted around the ditch with his hands until he found a large stone-felt like the broken-off corner of a cinder block-and then dropped to his belly, the weeds and gravel tearing at his skin as he crawled up onto the road and toward the van.
Slow, patient going, stopping occasionally to catch his breath and adjust his position. The ditch on the other side of the road was deeper, and it came to an end right where the van was parked, had a steel culvert that ran from one end of the dirt farm lane to the other. It was packed with dry leaves. Josiah waited for a moment, hearing nothing, and then he slid right under the van.
He left the cinder-block chunk behind, pushed across the gravel on his stomach until he was beneath the front of the van, and put his hand back in his pocket and took out the strips of T-shirt and the lighter. Then he sparked the lighter’s wheel and got the flame going and held it to the end of one strip of cloth and then another. When he had them both going, he reached out and tossed them down into the ditch, which was filled with leaves and grass and was dry from days of sun and wind. Wouldn’t do anything but burn itself out, but all it had to do was burn.