One rose, unopened, stood in a vase on Caroline's table. Eric's mind had jumped again, and Tristan knew he had been in this memory before. The picture window, the brewing storm outside, Eric's intense fear and growing frustration were all familiar to Tristan. Just as before, the memory ran like a piece of damaged film, frames spliced out, sound washed over by waves of emotion. Caroline was looking at him and laughing, laughing as if nothing in the world could be funnier. Suddenly he reached for her arms, grabbing her, shaking her, rocking her till her head flopped like a rag doll's.
"Listen to me," he said. "I mean it! It's not a joke! Nobody's laughing but you. It's not a joke!"
Then Eric groaned. It wasn't fear that rippled through him now. It wasn't frustration and anger burning out of his skin, but something deep and awful, despairing. He groaned again and opened his eyes. Tristan saw the book of trains in front of him.
The book looked blurry, and Eric passed his hand over his eyes. He was awake and crying. "Not again," he whispered. "Not again."
What did he mean? Tristan wondered. What didn't Eric want to happen again? What didn't he want to do again? Let Gregory kill? Let himself get out of control and do Gregory's killing for him? Maybe they had each done some of it and were tied together in a guilty knot.
Tristan struggled hard to remain conscious and stay with Eric through the rest of Monday morning. He had slipped out of Eric's mind the moment he was fully awake but accompanied him to school, guessing that the memories that haunted Eric would lead him toward some kind of confrontation with Gregory. He was caught off guard at lunchtime when Eric moved quickly through a crowded cafeteria toward the table where Ivy sat alone.
"I have to talk to you."
Ivy blinked up at him, surprised. His pale hair was matted. Over the summer, he had grown so thin that his white skin barely seemed to cover the bones of his face. The circles under his eyes looked like bruises.
When Ivy spoke, Tristan heard an unexpected gentleness in her voice.
"Okay. Talk to me."
"Not here. Not with all these people."
Ivy glanced around the cafeteria. Tristan guessed that she was trying to decide how to handle this. He wanted to slip inside her and shout, "Don't do it! Don't go anywhere with him!" But he knew what would happen: She'd throw him out just as she had the last time.
"Can you tell me what this is about?" Ivy asked, her voice still soft.
"Not here," he said. His fingers played nervously on the tabletop.
"At my house, then," she suggested.
Eric shook his head. He kept glancing left and right Tristan saw with relief that Beth and Will were carrying their lunch trays toward Ivy's table. Eric saw them, too.
"There's an old car," he said quickly, "dumped about a half mile below the train bridges, just back from the river. I'll meet you there today, five o'clock. Come alone. I want to talk, but only if you're alone."
"But I-" "Come alone. Don't tell anyone." He was already moving away from the table.
"Eric," she called after him. "Eric!" He didn't turn back.
"What was that about?" Will asked as he set his tray on the table. He didn't seem aware of Tristan's presence. Neither did Beth or Ivy. Maybe none of them saw his light because of the sun flooding through the cafeteria's big windows, Tristan thought.
"Eric looks kind of crazed," Beth said, taking the seat next to Will and across from Ivy. Tristan was glad to see a pencil and notebook among Beth's clutter of dishes. Through her writing, he could communicate with all three of them at the same time. "What did he say?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"
Ivy shrugged. "He wants to talk to me later today."
"Why doesn't he talk to you now?" Will asked.
Good question, thought Tristan.
"He said he wants to see me alone." Ivy lowered her voice. "I'm not supposed to tell anyone."
Beth was watching Eric as he made his way toward the cafeteria doors. Her eyes narrowed.
I don't trust him, Tristan thought as clearly as possible. He had guessed right: Beth and he matched thoughts, and a moment later he was inside her mind. Then he felt her pull back.
"Don't be afraid, Beth," he said to her. "Don't throw me out. I need your help. Ivy needs your help."
Sighing, Beth picked up the pencil next to her notebook, and stirred her applesauce with it.
Will smiled and nudged her. "It'd be easier to eat with a spoon," he said.
Then Ivy's eyes widened a little. "Beth's glowing."
"Is it Tristan?" Will asked.
Beth dried her pencil and flipped open the notebook.
"Yes," she wrote.
Ivy frowned. "He can talk to me directly now. Why is he still communicating through you?"
Beth's fingers twitched, then she wrote quickly. "Because Beth still listens to me."
Will laughed out loud.
Beth's hand moved toward the page again. "I'm counting on Beth and Will to convince you-don't take chances with Eric!"
"Counting on me?" mumbled Will.
"It's too dangerous, Ivy," Beth scribbled. "It's a trap. Tell her, Will."
"I need to know the facts first," Will insisted.
"Eric asked me to meet him at five o'clock, by the river about a half mile below the double bridges," Ivy said.
Will nodded, tore the tip of a catsup packet, and spread its contents evenly on his hamburger. "Is that all?" he asked.
"He said to come alone and to look for him by an old car that's back a little from the river."
Will methodically opened a second catsup packet, then a mustard one. His slow and deliberate actions annoyed Tristan.
"Tell her, Will! Talk sense to her!" Beth wrote furiously.
But Will would not be hurried. "Eric could be setting a trap for you," he said to Ivy thoughtfully, "maybe a deadly one."
"Exactly," wrote Beth.
"Or," Will continued, "Eric could be telling the truth. He could be running scared and trying to give you some important information. I honestly don't know which it is."
"Idiot!"Ú Beth wrote. "Don't do it, Ivy," she added out loud, her voice shaking. "That's me telling you, not Tristan."
Will turned to her. "What is it?" he asked. "What are you seeing?"
Tristan, inside her mind, was seeing it, too, and it shook him just as badly.
"It's the car," Beth said. "As soon as you mentioned it I could see it, an old car sinking slowly into the mud.
Something terrible has happened there. There's a dark mist around it."
Will took Beth's trembling hand.
"The car's slipping into the ground like a coffin," she said. "Its hood is torn off. Its trunk… I can't see-there are lots of bushes and vines. There's a door partway open, blue, I think. Something's inside."
Beth's eyes were big and frightened, and a tear ran down her cheek. Will wiped it away gently, but another ran over his hand.
"The front seats are gone," she continued. "But I can see the back seat, and there's something…" She shook her head.
"Go on," Will urged softly.
"It's covered with a blanket. And there's an angel looking down on it.
The angel is crying."
"What's under the blanket?" Ivy whispered.
"I can't see," Beth whispered back. "I can't see!"
Then her hand started scribbling: "I can see only what Beth sees. The blanket can't be lifted."
"Is the angel you, Tristan?" Ivy asked.
"No," Beth wrote. Then she grabbed Ivy's hand. "Something terrible is there. Don't go! I'm begging you, Ivy."
"Listen to her, Ivy!" Tristan said, but Beth's hand was shaking too hard to write it.
Ivy looked at Will.
"Beth has been right twice before," he said.
Ivy nodded, then sighed. "But what if Eric really has something important to tell me?"