F. Wilson: Secret Histories

Weezy did just that. The three of them clustered and watched as the image slowly took shape. There stood Jack, his head cut off by the top of the photo

frame. The Phil ies logo on his T-shirt was perfectly legible, but resting in his hand was a …

Blur.

He felt a chil run over his skin.

Beside him, Eddie said, “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.”

Jack couldn’t have agreed more.

But Weezy … she looked like she’d just found the Holy Grail. Her eyes shone as she clutched the photo and stared at it.

“We’ve found one!” she whispered.

“One what?”

“A secret … a secret object.”

Eddie groaned. “Your Secret History of the World again?”

She turned on him. “You like to make fun of me and that’s okay. Why should you be different from anybody else? But there is a secret history. We think

we know what’s happened in the past but we don’t. Most history books don’t even get the events right, and they haven’t a clue as to what was going on behind those events.”

Eddie snorted. “Oh, and you do?”

“I wish I did. But I know something’s been going on. Secret societies and mysterious forces are out there pul ing strings and manipulating people and

events and everyone wants to believe they’re in charge of their lives but they’re not because we’re al being pushed this way and that for secret reasons

and we don’t even know it.”

She was talking a hundred miles an hour, like she’d had a box of Cocoa Puffs and a couple of quarts of Mountain Dew for breakfast. She took a breath

and continued.

“There’s too many coincidences out there. Something’s going on— has been going on throughout human history. And this—” She held up the pyramid.

“We weren’t supposed to find this. We’re not supposed to have it. Because it’s proof that not everything is as it seems. I mean, why can’t we photograph

it? Answer me that.”

Eddie shrugged. He looked a little cowed by Weezy’s outburst. “I dunno. Maybe the camera’s broken.”

Weezy tilted back her head and screeched at the ceiling. “Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there. Look at those pictures!

It’s staring you in the face but you don’t see it because you don’t want to see what you can’t explain because it wil upset yours and everybody else’s

comfortable little worldview that we’re in control. Wel , we aren’t!”

She stopped, breathing hard. Eddie didn’t speak. Neither did Jack. He’d never seen Weezy like this. Sure, she got hyper at times and had al sorts of

strange theories about everything from the Kennedy assassination to Charles Manson, but this was kind of scary. Someone had pushed her hyperdrive

button.

She turned to him. “What about you, Jack? What do you say?” She held up the pyramid. “Something wrong with the camera or something wrong with

this?”

He remembered how clearly he could read his T-shirt in the last photo, yet how blurred the pyramid was, even though he’d been holding it against his

chest.

“The pyramid.” He quickly held up his hand to cut off another speech. “I’m not saying it has anything to do with secret histories—could be it’s made of

something that does tricks with light—but I don’t think it’s the camera.”

She sighed and fixed him with her big dark eyes. “Thank you, Jack. That means a lot.”

Even though he’d witnessed her mood changes before, her sudden calm jarred him. She’d dropped from pedal-to-the-metal to cruising speed in the

blink of an eye.

“I want to know what it is,” he said.

She nodded. “I’ve got to know what it is.”

“Wel , we won’t find out sitting here.”

“Right,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Let’s go see Mister Rosen.”

3

Eddie had decided that defending the Earth in MissileCommand would be more interesting than listening to whatever Mr. Rosen might have to say. He

talked of beating the world-champion score of eighty mil ion points. Fat chance.

Jack and Weezy could have walked but figured bikes were faster. Neither wanted to wait any longer than necessary. Jack led the way as they pedaled

west, the morning sun warm on their backs.

Funny, he thought as they rode, how he’d lead the way around town, but Weezy tended to take the point whenever they entered the Barrens. Almost as if

something in Jack knew the Barrens were her turf and made him take a step back when the pines closed in.

As they headed for downtown, Jack noticed people in passing cars slowing to stare and point at them.

Thosearethekidswhofoundthebody.

Cal ing it “downtown” was kind of a local joke. It consisted of eight stores clustered around the traffic signal at the intersection of Quakerton Road and

Route 206, a rutted, patched stretch of two-lane blacktop running from Trenton to the Atlantic City Expressway. Johnson didn’t rate a ful traffic light, just a

blinker.

As Jack had heard it, Quakerton was the town’s name until 1868, when President Andrew Johnson, maybe trying to get away from the impeachment

proceedings in Washington, spent three nights in the town’s one and only inn, now long gone. Seemed no one had liked the name Quakerton—after al ,

not a single Quaker had ever lived there—so they changed the name to Johnsonvil e. By 1900 it had been shortened to Johnson.

The traffic-light cluster consisted of a Krauszer’s convenience store, a used-car lot, and Joe Burdett’s Esso station—the company had changed its

name to Exxon better than ten years ago, but old Joe had never changed the sign. Back east along Quakerton sat Spurlin’s Hardware, Hunningshake’s

pharmacy, gift, and sweet shoppe, the VFW post, and Mr. Rosen’s place, USED. The sign used to say USED GOODS, but the nor’easter of 1962 ripped

off the right side and Mr. Rosen never replaced it.

The store had two large display windows on either side of the front door. Mr. Rosen had told Jack they’d been peopled with naked mannequins when

he’d bought it back in the 1950s from a wedding shop that had gone out of business. Now they were ful of what some people cal ed junk but Jack had

come to see as treasures from the past. USED was his personal time machine.

A bel atop the screen door tinkled as they entered. One step inside and the odors hit him—old wood, old cushioned furniture, old paper, a little dry rot,

a little rust, and a lot of dust. He loved the smel of this place.

“Mister Rosen?” he cal ed. “Mister Rosen?”

A painful y thin, elderly man with a stooped posture, pale skin, and gray hair wandered into view from the rear.

“Al right, already,” he said with a thick accent that sometimes sounded German and sometimes didn’t. “I’m coming, I’m—” He stopped when he saw

Jack. “Wel , if it isn’t the Finder of Corpses.”

“You’ve heard?”

“Heard? Who hasn’t? Probably al over town before you got home.” He studied Jack. “You okay? You want the day off maybe?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Good. They know who it is yet?”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

The old man glanced at the gold-and-glass Jefferson mystery clock on a nearby shelf. “At noon you’re due.”

“I know.” Jack stepped up to the counter and motioned Weezy forward. “But we’ve got something we’d like you to see.”

Mr. Rosen slipped on a pair of glasses as he moved behind the counter. “Something maybe to sel ?”

“No way,” Weezy blurted. “I mean, we’d just like your expert opinion.”