Neverworld Wake(36)

Martha stared at her. “Jim was reported missing Thursday morning. The police found him dead late Friday night. So when exactly did you hide the drugs in his guitar?”

Whitley glanced up, uneasy. “Maybe Wednesday?”

“Stop lying,” said Martha.

“I’m not.”

“Your story would have worked, if not for one little problem.”

“What?”

“I had Jim’s guitar.”

We stared at her.

“He lent it to me so I could practice my song for Spring Vespers. I had it in my room for two weeks. They made the announcement Jim was missing Thursday morning. Late Thursday night, I returned the guitar to his room. That means only one thing. You knew Jim was missing when you put the drugs in his guitar.” Martha looked at Wit, her face implacable. “You saw his disappearance as an opportunity to get out of the mess you’d made. You set him up.”

Whitley glared at her.

“The night he died?” I asked, my voice breaking. “Were you with him at the quarry?”

“No.” Whitley shook her head. “I swear. I swear, Bee. I loved him as much as anybody.” As she said this, she began to cry. “Okay, fine. I set him up. I put the stash in his room. I was scared. I thought he’d already gone to the administration and told them I was the White Rabbit. I did it to save myself. It was awful. But I had nothing to do with his death, I swear to God.” She stared at me, her eyes red. “You have to believe me.”

Abruptly, there was loud pounding on the door.

“Cannon Beecham, you in there?”

It was Moses.

“Please,” Wit whimpered. “I didn’t know anything about Jim’s death. I still don’t, I swear on—”

“Open up now. I got police with me.”

“This is Warwick Police! You’re trespassing on private grounds.”

The door rattled but didn’t budge.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Martha.

As the pounding continued, we sprinted to the opposite side of the pool, Whitley struggling to her feet and heading after us. There were bleachers. Girls’ and boys’ locker rooms.

No way out.

I was about to suggest we surrender and spend the rest of the wake at the police station, when Cannon grabbed the lifeguard chair and, spinning, launched it at the wall of windows. The glass only cracked.

“Open this door!”

Cannon picked up the chair again, hitting the wall a second time. I could see officers swarming outside. They were wielding flood flashlights. Another smash of the chair. Suddenly the glass shattered all at once. The five of us took off running, whooping and shouting at the top of our lungs, out into the night, exploding past the officers, their flashlights blinding us.

“Police! We command you to freeze!”

“Warriors!” whooped Kipling.

“Go to hell and back again!”

Somewhere behind me, Kip was howling. Whitley too. Cannon was singing. I ran blindly, weird, strung-out laughter hiccupping out of me as I willed the dark to swallow me. I could see one of the officers drawing his gun. I half expected him to shoot me out of sheer terror, thinking this was the beginning of some zombie apocalypse. I headed for the darkest part of the field, forcing my legs to go faster and faster, lungs tightening in pain, rain pummeling me. When I glanced back, I could see flashing red and blue police lights, figures swarming the aquatic center.

No one had followed me. I was alone.

I slowed to a jog, then a walk, rain needling my face. I realized I’d reached the edge of the woods. I crossed onto a hiking trail and headed down it. Soon my mind quieted and I was aware only of my footsteps and the mud. It was everywhere, gelatinous and black as tar.

Jim.

It was so dark, I could almost feel him here, strolling beside me.

I wanted so badly to scream at him, to demand the truth. Why so many secrets? Jim was the painting I’d always thought was a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. As it turned out, there were countless versions of the same work floating around, smaller watercolors and rudimentary pencil sketches, cheap poster reprints selling for ninety-nine cents in an airport gift shop. True, none of them had the beauty and detail of my painting, but they still depicted the same scene and thus rendered it a little less special. Vida had her version. Mr. Joshua his. Whitley hers. Even Martha—there had been something disconcerting about the way she’d announced it: I had Jim’s guitar. Her feelings for Jim seemed to rise to the surface strong and strange, barely controlled, before sinking back into the depths.

The rain fell harder, thunder growling.

I walked on. Now and then, with a wave of revulsion, I swore I caught a glimpse of the Keeper, dressed in his gardener’s slicker, hiking between the trees, but every time I stopped, my heart pounding, staring into the woods to be sure, there was no one.

Soon I could feel the leaden pull of the Neverworld taking hold, the now-familiar tingling grip starting at my feet, crawling up my shins.

The path had taken me to a clearing where there was strong wind and giant fallen trees all over the ground. Squinting, I saw a hulking oak teetering a few yards in front of me. Suddenly it fell with a deafening crack, the entire forest echoing with the sound.

I froze in alarm.

Another crack rang out right beside me. Turning, I realized it was another oak coming loose. I tried to move out of the way, only to realize my feet were stuck in the cementlike mud. I managed to wrench them free, blindly throwing myself forward as the tree thundered to the ground, missing me by inches, branches shaking and snapping, whipping my head.