The Night Visitors(64)

But just in case. If we’re apart I want you to look at the stars and think about me. I know how much you love your constellations.

No more than I love you, Frank Barnes. And then I kissed him, before I could feel embarrassed for telling a boy I loved him. Before he could feel awkward and think that he was supposed to say it too.

But I didn’t need to worry. I love you too, Matt, he said.

Somehow we ended up in the backseat. All summer we’d been exploring the fringes of this feeling, the boundaries of skin and clothes and lips. But up here among the stars it didn’t feel like there were any boundaries. He slid his hand under my bra and I unclasped it. I started unbuttoning his shirt and he pulled it over his head, shedding a button on the cracked vinyl seats. But when I touched the metal button on his jeans he stopped me and leaned back.

We don’t have to, he said. You’re two years younger than me. I can wait.

Who said I could? I asked, drawing him back down to me.

I have always felt grateful that Chief Barnes found us after. We were dressed again and climbing back into the front seat. And I’ve never regretted what we did that night. Not even after what it brought down on both of us. How could I regret that Frank was my first? How could I regret Caleb?

The only thing I regret, looking down at the face of that boy, is that I never had the courage to make Frank see that. And now I never will.

I gently close Frank’s eyes. Then I lift my head to call out to Alice and Oren.

There is a boy standing in front of me.

At first I think it’s Oren, but this boy’s hair is light like Caleb’s. But it isn’t Caleb either. This boy is six years older than Caleb will ever be. It’s Frank, aged sixteen, looking exactly as he had that last night, wearing the same Led Zeppelin T-shirt under a flannel shirt that’s missing the button that came off when he tore it over his head.

I cover my mouth with one hand and reach for him with the other. He holds out his hand too, but not for me. A wash of cold moves through me but it’s not a bad cold. This is the cold of the water in the hollow and the first cold snap at the end of the summer. It smells like woodsmoke and apples. I can even see a bit of smoke curling around me, forming into another boy, who reaches for Frank’s hand and then turns to look at me.

Caleb smiles at me and then turns to Frank. They smile at each other, my two lost boys. They turn away from me, then, but Caleb looks over his shoulder one last time and mouths two words.

Bye, Matt.

They walk toward the open barn door, where the snow is swirling around like a million stars. They step into that spinning galaxy and become part of it, their shapes dissolving into shining atoms, each atom a star in a new constellation that someone, looking up into the night sky, might see and make up a story about: a story about a father and son and mistaken identities and missed chances and vengeance so terrible that they were pursued by terrible furies and a goddess had to step in and say, Enough! In the play my father told me about that goddess renamed the furies of vengeance the Kindly Ones. That’s what they’d call that constellation. But I’d call it Forgiveness.





Chapter Thirty-Three


Alice


IT TAKES OREN and me a few minutes to put the ladder back in place and climb down, and then hand in hand we walk gingerly toward Mattie. I press Oren to my side, shielding his face, not wanting him to see the wreck of the man’s face. But when I look down I see that Frank Barnes must have been turning back toward Mattie when the hook struck him. His face is intact, and whatever happened to the back of his skull is concealed in Mattie’s lap. When I look at Mattie’s face I find another surprise: she looks strangely peaceful. She is looking out the barn door, and though I aim my flashlight there, I see nothing but swirling snow.

When I turn back Mattie has settled Frank’s head down on the barn floor. As soon as she is free, Oren rushes to her and throws his arms around her. Mattie holds him to her, patting his back. “There, there,” she says, “it’s all right. All the monsters are gone. We’ve defeated them, haven’t we? The rebel alliance has won.” Over Oren’s shoulder she looks into my eyes and mouths a silent question: Who?

Who what? I wonder, and then I realize she means who operated the pulley—Oren or me? How can I tell her it was neither of us? I point to myself. Me. I’m the one who did it.

Good, she mouths back, then holds her hand out to me. I think she means for me to help her up but she pulls me down instead and folds me into her arms. The moment I sink into her warm, soft flesh, I begin to sob. She holds me tight.

I’m not sure how long we stay like that. I want to stay in Mattie’s arms forever, but when I feel her shiver I pull back. “We need to get back to the house,” I say, “before we freeze to death out here.”

“Good point,” Mattie says. “Oren, be a good boy and help your mom help me up. I’m afraid these old bones have gotten a chill sitting here.”

Oren pops up right away and takes Mattie’s left hand while I take her right. She grunts and groans as we pull her up, but I have a feeling some of that is for show so that Oren feels good about helping her. Once she’s on her feet she’s steady, and the arm she puts around my shoulders is strong. Your mom, she’d said to Oren, even though she knows that isn’t true. But it felt good.

At the barn door we find a wall of snow up to my thighs. Whatever force scoured the path before is gone. We’ll have to tunnel our way back to the house. I think of that boy who froze to death two feet from home. “Maybe we should stay in the barn,” I say to Mattie. “Start a fire to keep warm.”