F. Wilson - Secret Histories

Teddy’s friend’s hands moved toward Weezy, as if to shove her aside.

“Don’t touch her!” Jack shouted.

Teddy spun, looked surprised, then grinned. Jack saw now that he was wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt.

“Wel , look who it is. What is it with you two—you find a dead body and suddenly you’re Guardians of the Universe?”

“Just let her take him home.”

Teddy, his expression menacing, took a step closer. “And if I don’t?”

Jack felt his heart racing, but with more anger than fear. And the anger was growing, quickly overtaking the fear, blotting it out.

“You lay one finger on her and I wil kil you.”

The cold way the words came out startled Jack. He sounded like he meant it. And at the moment, he did.

Teddy stopped and stared, then smiled. Jack wondered at that smile until he felt a pair of arms wrap around him, pinning his arms at his sides.

“Gotcha, squirt!” said Teddy’s friend.

Jack had been so intent on Teddy and Weezy he’d forgotten the friend.

Teddy’s grin widened as he cocked a fist back to his ear. “Let’s see who’s gonna kil who.”

Jack lowered his head as he struggled wildly to get free. This was going to hurt. He heard Weezy scream, quickly fol owed by a cry of pain from Teddy,

and another from the guy holding him. Suddenly he was free. He leaped to the side, raising his fist, ready to swing, but stopped.

Teddy and his friend were cowering and rubbing their heads. Between them stood a heavyset old woman brandishing a silver-headed cane. She wore

a long black dress that reached the sidewalk and had a black scarf wrapped around her neck. Like Walt’s gloves, she wore that scarf no matter what the

weather. Beside her stood a three-legged dog.

Mrs. Elizabeth Clevenger.

But where had she come from? Jack was sure she hadn’t been in sight when he’d come over here. How—?

“Damn you!” Teddy shouted.

He took a step toward her but stopped when the dog bared its teeth and growled. A thick-bodied, big-jawed, floppy-eared mutt—Jack thought he

detected some Lab and some rottweiler along with miscel aneous other breeds—it seemed al muscle under its short, mud-brown coat. He’d seen it lots

of times; the missing leg didn’t slow it down at al .

“That dog bites me my dad’l sue you for every penny you’ve got.”

“If I let him at you it won’t be for a bite—he’l have you for lunch. Al of you.”

One look at the dog’s cold eyes and big jaws and Jack believed her. So did Teddy, apparently, because he backed off.

Jack felt his heartbeat slowing but his hands felt cold, sweaty, shaky. He’d been awful close to getting his face rearranged. Too close.

“Bitch!” Teddy said.

“Don’t you dare speak to your mother like that!”

“You ain’t my mother!”

“Sadly, I am. But only because I cannot pick and choose my children. Now be gone.” She brandished her cane. “Off before I cast a spel on you!”

That seemed to do it. Teddy jammed his hands into his jeans pockets and started to move away.

“C’mon, Joey. Let’s go,” Teddy said to his friend.

“Wait,” Joey said, his eyes wide with disbelief. “‘Cast a spel on you’? Is she kidding?”

“Shut up, Joey. You don’t know nothin’.”

The two of them walked off, arguing, Teddy looking over his shoulder from time to time.

Clearly Joey wasn’t from Johnson. Otherwise he’d have known that old Mrs. Clevenger was a witch.

5

“Are you al right, Walter?” Mrs. Clevenger said, rubbing her hand along his upper arm.

He nodded. “Yeah. They just pushed me around some. I’ve been through worse.”

“I know,” she said. “Much worse.” Then she turned to Weezy. “That was a brave thing you did, child.”

“Not so brave.” She seemed to have trouble meeting Mrs. Clevenger’s eyes. “I was scared half to death.”

“The brave are always scared.” She turned to Jack. “I know why she helped Walter—he’s her friend. But why did you?”

Jack figured the reason was obvious. “Because she’s my friend.”

The old woman gave him a long stare, her green eyes boring into his, then nodded. “Friendship … there is nothing better, is there?”

“Nothing,” Weezy said, beaming at Jack.

The lady said, “Walter is my friend. I’m going to walk him home now, but first …” She looked past them to Weezy’s bike. “That box … put it back in the

ground where you found it.”

Jack spun and stared at Weezy’s bike. Only a little bit of the towel wrapping the box was visible in the basket, nothing more.

Weezy’s mouth dropped open. “H-how do you know about that?” Her brow furrowed. “Did Mister Rosen—?”

Mrs. Clevenger smiled, which added more lines to her already wrinkled face. “I know more than I should and less than I’d like to.” The smile

disappeared. “But hear me wel . That thing is an il wind that wil blow nobody good. It was hidden from the light of day for good reason. Return it to its

resting place.” With that she started to turn away. “Besides, you wil never get it open.”

“But we did,” Weezy said.

Mrs. Clevenger’s turn came to an abrupt halt, then she swiveled back to fix Weezy with her stare.

“We? Who is we?”

Weezy looked flustered. “Wel , not ‘we,’ real y. Just Jack. He’s the only one who can do it.”

She turned her gaze on him. “Not such a surprise, I suppose. But that does not change anything. Put it back where it belongs.”

Jack wanted to ask her why that wasn’t a surprise but she’d turned away again. She took Walter’s arm and the two of them began walking, her dog

close behind. Jack heard bottles clinking in Walter’s paper bag.

“Now, Walter,” Jack heard her say, “you’re overdoing the drinking. You must learn to pace yourself, otherwise you won’t survive to complete your

mission.”

Walter shook his shaggy head. “Not surviving … that doesn’t sound so bad. I hate this …” He glanced back at Jack. “Do you think he might be the one?”

“I can understand why you might feel that way. But no, he’s not the one you seek …”

And then their voices faded.

What were they talking about? Why was Walt seeking someone, and why could Mrs. Clevenger understand why he might think Jack was the one? Jack

wanted to trail after them and hear more, then realized that they were both sort of crazy. He couldn’t expect to make sense out of a conversation between

those two.

Weezy too was watching them go, but she had her own questions.

“How could she know about the box?”

Jack shrugged. “And where did she come from? Did you see?”

Weezy shook her head. “No. Al of a sudden she was there, swinging her cane.”

Jack looked at the Old Town bridge that spanned the narrow midsection of the figure-eight-shaped lake. On the far side of that creaky one-lane span lay

the easternmost end of Johnson, where it backed up to the Pine Barrens. The area included the six square blocks of the original Quakerton settlement,

cal ed Old Town for as long as anyone could remember. Nobody knew for sure when it had first been settled. Most said before the revolutionary war— long

before the war.

Mrs. Clevenger lived in Old Town. She must have come from there.

Jack reconstructed the chain of events: Johnson didn’t have a liquor store, so Walt must have been stocking up in Old Town. Some of the Pineys had

stil s, but instead of using corn they made their moonshine from apples. Every Wednesday and Saturday one or two of them would come in from the