Chris Grabenstein - The Crossroads

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Thank You

About the Author

Copyright Page

for Meghan, Sam & Rachel

Have you ever seen a face hidden in the bark of a tree and known that the man trapped inside wanted to hurt you?

That’s what Zack Jennings had always wanted to ask his father, but he never did, because he was afraid his dad would think he was just letting his imagination run wild again.

Except this time Zack was pretty certain he had seen a man’s face hidden inside this huge gnarly tree over in the small park ringing the American Museum of Natural History.

Other kids might’ve seen lumpy bumps and knotholes. Zack saw angry eyes and a snarling mouth.

But Zack never did ask his father. Instead, he asked Mrs. Donna Schlampp, the librarian at his school, if she thought reincarnation extended to plants as well as animals. Could people come back as a tree or just as cows or some kind of bug? Mrs. Schlampp (who had a graduate degree in comparative theology but never got to use it except at dinner parties) said that, yes, some religions believed tormented souls could become trapped inside the elements of nature—most especially trees.

So according to one adult who’d been to college, the oak in the park could, indeed, have an anguished soul trapped beneath its bark.

Thanks a bunch, Mrs. Schlampp.

Fortunately, Zack and his dad were leaving New York City pretty soon. They were moving up to Connecticut right after his dad got married again.

That tree in the park? It wasn’t coming with them.

But maybe Mrs. Schlampp could go visit it from time to time.

Billy O’Claire was doggy-dog tired.

He’d been trying to fix the toilet in the brand-new house for over six hours and the weather outside was extremely hot and muggy, especially for the Friday before Memorial Day.

Billy was sweating up a storm. Since nobody lived in the new house yet, they hadn’t turned on the air-conditioning. His work shirt was a soppy sheet of wet cotton with full-moon stains oozing down below both armpits.

It was nine p.m.

He tightened one last nut, then gave the trip handle on the toilet a flick. Instead of the customary whoosh of water swirling into the bowl, Billy heard a roaring gurgle. The toilet was working backward. He raised the lid and saw a commode burping up chunks of brown gunk. Leaves. Dirt. Twigs.

Nothing else, thank heaven, because nobody had actually used the toilet yet. This woodsy debris had to be seeping in from a cracked sewer line, and Billy realized they might have to rip up the newly sodded lawn to fix a drainpipe ruptured, most likely, by tree roots.

But that was a Monday-morning kind of problem.

Fortunately, it was Friday night and Billy was finished working for the week. He cranked the shutoff valve behind the toilet and went out to the driveway, where he had parked his pickup, the one with O’Claire’s Plumbing painted on the door over where it used to say O’Claire’s Painting and, before that, O’Claire’s Satellite Television Repair.

Billy sat in the cab and drank half a gallon of water out of a glugging plastic jug and aimed two of the truck’s air-conditioning vents up at his armpits.

It felt good. Real good.

He yawned and thought about grabbing a quick nap. Instead, he slammed the transmission into reverse and backed out of the driveway, not realizing that something wicked was lurking a little ways down the road—just waiting for the next doggy-dog-tired driver to come along.

A flashing red stoplight hung suspended over the intersection where County Route 13 crossed Connecticut State Highway 31.

A gigantic oak tree stood near one corner, and its highest branch—as thick around as the trunk of any ordinary tree—suddenly started to move. No wind was blowing. No sports car zooming past had sent up a swirling wake. But the massive limb began to bend and rotate. It sensed an easy target approaching and, longing for a little fun, tore against itself—slowly at first, then with gathering speed. When the final strands ripped free, the bough broke off and fell like a two-ton truck, tearing down the blinking beacon.

Then the tree stopped moving.

Billy O’Claire remembered that there used to be a flashing red stoplight hanging over the intersection of 13 and 31. Tonight, however, there wasn’t one.

Good.

Billy didn’t want to stop. He needed to find a bathroom. Bad. Chugging half a gallon of water straight from the jug will do that to you. And he preferred a bathroom where the toilet didn’t gurgle back at him. He pressed down on the gas pedal.

“How dry I am,” he crooned off-key. “How wet I’ll be, if I don’t find…”

Suddenly he saw someone standing in the middle of the road.

A cop.

A motorcycle cop—holding up his hand and commanding Billy to stop.

So Billy slammed on his brakes and the pickup skidded sideways. Tires screeched, the truck swerved, and he almost hooked on to the bumper of a car he hadn’t even seen coming. He spun around and wound up on the far side of the intersection—backward and straddling a ditch.

Billy wasn’t injured, just totally dazed. He could see the taillights of the car he had nearly hit as it zoomed up the highway. Glancing at his rearview mirror, he saw the cop standing next to his motorbike, which was very weird-looking—it had a moonfaced headlight and chrome fenders swooping up over its tires.

It’s from the 1950s, Billy thought. An old Harley Softail. Billy liked old motorcycles. Wished he had one right now so he could hightail it out of there before the cop came over and started hassling him. Then Billy realized: The cop’s uniform and hat looked old-fashioned, too.