F. Wilson - Secret Circles

“God! Did something die out here?”

“Is it a skunk?” Mrs. V called from inside.

“No. I‟ve smelled skunk and this is no skunk.”

Jack shrank back as the man came down the steps and began walking around his yard.

Don’t come over here!

But he did just that.

As Mr. Vivino approached, Jack looked frantically about for an escape route but

had none. Couldn‟t go through the hedge—too much noise. Couldn‟t run—no cover. No choice but to stay put.

So he crouched in the deep shadow at the base of the bush and wished he

had a hole to duck into. He tried to make himself as small as possible, curling into a tight fetal position with his forehead down against his knees. The starshine didn‟t offer much light and Mr.

Vivino had just come from indoors. His eyes wouldn‟t be adjusted yet.

Jack tensed as he heard footsteps approach. His bladder wanted to empty. If Mr. Vivino found him here, no telling what he‟d do. He outweighed Jack by an easy hundred pounds. If he lost that temper of his …

But worse than a beating would be what would come after: caught with a camera outside someone‟s home. Everyone would think he was a Peeping Tom, he‟d be labeled a perv—

The footsteps stopped on the other side of the bush, not two feet away. Jack held his breath and watched the shoes turn this way and that.

He heard Mr. Vivino sniffing the air. The odor had faded.

“I‟ll be damned,” he muttered.

“Did you find anything?” Mrs. V said from a second-floor window.

“No, not a thing. Maybe just a cloud of stink passing through from the highway.”

“Do you think it was dangerous? I mean, toxic?”

“Nah. Didn‟t smell chemical, it just smelled … ripe .”

Ripe … perfect word for it, Jack thought. Now turn around and go back inside.

After a couple of seconds, Mr. Vivino did just that.

But Jack didn‟t move. Even after he heard the front door slam he remained curled up.

And while he hid there he thought about the exchange he had just heard between Mr. and Mrs.

Vivino. They‟d sounded so normal, so much like a regular couple that Jack wondered if he‟d imagined the violence he‟d seen.

No, he hadn‟t imagined anything.

So … could that be the way they were? He gets mad and beats on her and whacks and yells at Sally, and then in the times between they‟re just Mr. and Mrs. Average American Family?

Very strange.

But what ever, he‟d had enough to night. More than enough.

The rumble of thunder in the distance only underscored his need to be gone from this place.

He uncoiled slowly and sniffed. No stench. He checked the front yard: all clear. Same with the back—

He took a second look. Hadn‟t he seen a pink beach ball between the two lounge chairs before?

No biggie. A breeze probably rolled it away.

He squeezed through the hedge into Mr. Rosen‟s yard, found his bike and headed toward the safety and sanity of his own home.

And it was pretty sane, wasn‟t it. Talk about the Average American Family. He had a rock-steady father who worked hard but always made time for him, a stay-at-home mother who volunteered at the hospital and called him her “miracle boy”—and though he hated the term, he recognized the love behind it. Two parents who hardly ever argued—or if they did, kept it out of earshot.

He would have liked to live in a bigger town, one with at least a movie theater and a McDonald‟s within bike distance. But on the upside, Johnson was a town with no crime, where most folks never locked their doors.

They weren‟t rich and he didn‟t have everything he wanted—like a rifle—but he didn‟t lack for anything meaningful, including a great sister. The only fly in the ointment was his jerk brother, but nothing was perfect. And Tom was away at law school, which made him almost bearable.

Whatever family bumps Jack had encountered along the way had been minor—certainly nothing like a death or even a serious illness to contend with.

He felt like he lived in a peaceful bubble. He wondered if it would ever pop.

Never, he hoped.

WEDNESDAY

1

Jack, Weezy, and Eddie walked through Old Town toward the lightning tree. After more rain last night, the lake was way past its banks now. It would be leaking onto the streets soon, and then into people‟s basements. Because Old Town sat uphill from the lake, the water would flow west. Jack‟s house was blocks away, but who knew where and how fast the water would flow once it hit the streets?

“Something‟s got to be done about this,” he heard his mother say.

She, along with Mrs. Connell and a few other ladies from town, was walking behind them, all headed to volunteer in the big Cody Bockman search.

“We should talk to the Freeholders about pumping it out,” Weezy‟s mom said.

Pumping it where ? Jack thought. Into the Pines? That‟s going to take a monster pump and one long, long hose.

One thing was certain: If it kept raining, someone was going to have to do something.

Lots of cars were parked up and down Quakerton Road. The locals were turning out in big numbers. After crossing the bridge and walking through Old Town, he was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of hundred people of all ages gathered around the police cars near the barkless, burned-out trunk of the lightning tree.

He saw Walt and his sister, Mrs. Bainbridge, Jeff Colton from Burdett‟s Esso station, Mrs.

Courtland, one of his lawn-mowing customers, plus Professor Nakamura and his wife.

He glanced at Weezy and saw her glaring at the professor. They‟d left the pyramid in his care to be examined by experts, and had never seen it again.

“Come on, Weez,” he said in a low voice. “I know you‟re ticked at him, but let‟s keep this morning about Cody, okay?”

She glanced at him, then nodded. “Okay. Yeah. You‟re right.”

Even blubbery bully-boy Teddy Bishop and his pal Joey had shown up—Jack figured they were here more for the day off than out of any concern for Cody.

Many in the crowd were drinking coffee or sodas and munching donuts or breakfast

sandwiches—the Krauszer‟s down on the highway must have done a land-office business this morning—and most were talking, smiling, some even laughing.

Come on, people, he felt like saying. This isn‟t a picnic. We‟re here to search for a kid who‟s most likely dead.

He noticed a couple of arms waving in the air from the far side of the crowd and recognized Karina and Cristin. Karina was wearing her engineer‟s cap again.

His spirits lifted at the sight of her. As Jack waved back, Eddie said, “I think she‟s got the

haaaaahts for you, Jack.”

“Hots?” Weezy said, straightening and looking around like a dog that just heard a strange noise.

“For Jack? Who?”

“Karina Haddon.” Eddie pointed. “Right over there.”

Weezy looked and said, “Oh. She‟s on our bus.” She frowned at Jack. “She doesn‟t look your type.”

Swell.

“What‟s my type?”

“I don‟t know,” she said, looking a bit flustered. “I just didn‟t think it would be a hippie.”

“She‟s not a hippie.”

“Well, she dresses the part. Remember what you told me about me being a goth because I liked black—”

“And Bauhaus and Siouxsie.”

“‟If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck …‟”

“I hardly know her.”

“But do you like her?” The answer seemed important to her.

Could she be having the same reaction to Karina that he had to Carson?

Jealousy? he wondered.

Most likely not. But something close. A queasy, off course feeling that things might be changing between them, that they might lose the special bond they‟d shared for so many years.