Neverworld Wake(48)

“Kipling has something to tell us,” announced Martha as we all assembled in the library. “Whitley brought this to my attention late last wake, and I think it could help us.”

“You didn’t,” Cannon said angrily to Whitley.

“I had to,” she answered.

He glared at her, livid.

“Oh, please. Stop the policeman act. You want to get out of here, don’t you? I mean, don’t you want to find out what really happened to Jim?”

“It wasn’t your secret to tell,” he hissed.

“If it affects our ability to change the wake, it is.”

“It’s all right,” said Martha, placing a hand on Cannon’s shoulder. “You can tell us.”

That was when I noticed Kipling. He was crying. Truly crying, in a way I’d never seen him before—the kind of crying that was more of a wringing out than normal tears. He was seated on the couch, head in his hands, tears streaming down his chin.

“I call it the Black-Footed Sioux Carpet,” he blurted suddenly, staring at the floor. “It’s a form of self-harm. ‘An unsuitable attempt to solve interpersonal difficulties.’ That’s what the shrinks all call it. Momma Greer invented it. She coined the term from some crazy-lookin’ rug she’d filched from an antiques store. We did it together. Mother-son bondin’. Sometimes we did it multiple times a week. She’d drive me out to a country road on a Friday night when she decided there was nothing good on TV. The first time I was five. We’d lie down in the road side by side, holdin’ hands, waiting for a car. ‘Roll out of the way when I say bingo,’ she told me. ‘We’ll see how much God likes us. If he wants us to live. Cuz I’ll only say bingo if God tells me to. That’s the deal.’?” Kipling shuddered. “I pissed myself I was so scared. I hadn’t said my prayers. Good God. I mean, did God even know I existed? Did He like me? He couldn’t like me that much if He’d given me this face to go through life with. This body. I’d squeeze Momma Greer’s hand. She was my lifeline. Then the car. You always felt it first in the pavement underneath you. It’d take Momma Greer a year to yell bingo. But it always came. I’d squeeze my eyes shut and roll out of the way. The tires would miss me by centimeters. By the time I opened my eyes Momma Greer would be up dancin’ on the side of the road, whooping and hollerin’, yankin’ off all her clothes. ‘See that? God loves us. He loves us after all.’ She was always in a good mood after that. If I was lucky, it lasted a whole week.”

He fell silent a moment, rubbing his eyes. I could only stare. While I had known Momma Greer was dangerous, this was by far the most terrifying thing I’d ever heard she’d done.

“It became an addiction,” Kipling went on. “The rush of it. I never stopped. Every few months, whenever things got out of hand or hopeless, I’d find a way to do my Black-Footed Sioux Carpet. I’d sneak off campus. Immediately felt better. I did a big one junior year, right before Christmas break, when Rector Trask told me I couldn’t return next semester. I was kicked out. I was the sort of student—how did he put it?—who needed an environment with ‘less vigorous expectations.’ Like, he thought I’d do better in Sing-Sing. My Black-Footed Sioux Carpet after that nearly got me made into an egg-scramble sandwich by a Folger’s truck.” He glanced up, sniffing. “It certainly would have given new meanin’ to their slogan ‘The Best Part of Wakin’ Up.’?”

I gazed at him, speechless. Kipling had always been a rotten student. While I knew there had been cliffhangers at the end of every school year as to whether he was passing, I’d never known he was actually kicked out. His poor academic record had changed senior year, when he managed to focus on his studies. By the time we graduated, he had done well.

“It was Cannon who saved me,” Kip said with a faint smile. “He saw what I was tryin’ so hard to hide.”

“You weren’t that good at hiding it,” said Cannon, grinning. “You were walking with a limp and winced when you sat down.”

Kipling looked at me. “Remember how I missed two months of school due to a ‘family emergency’?”

I nodded. Vaguely I remembered him telling me a vibrant and long-winded story about his aunt’s heart condition.

“It was all lies. I was at a treatment center in Providence, doin’ tai chi, watercolorin’ fruit bowls, and developin’ a middle path to manage my unrestrained patterns of thought. It was Cannon who checked me in. Cannon who came during visitin’ hours. Coordinated with the shrinks on my progress. Lobbied Darrow to give me one last chance. He helped turn my grades around. Got my college applications ready. Sat up with me all night helpin’ write my essay about Momma Greer. ‘Mommy Bipolar.’ Otherwise known as ‘How to Survive in the Custody of a Complete Lunatic.’ That got me into Louisiana State. I’d be encrusted right now in the front tire treads of a UPS truck if it weren’t for Cannon.”

My mind was spinning. I thought back to senior year, and though I recalled Cannon as always quite busy, coming and going abruptly with his backpack and an armful of textbooks, never had I suspected what he was up to. But it made sense. He was the silent problem solver. “The steady trickle of water that always finds a passage,” Whitley used to say. Still, I felt hurt that they hadn’t wanted to confide in me, that there had been an entire history happening right before my eyes about which I’d had no clue.