“Who were the other two?” Blake Baker demanded. “Were they Chad Jackson and Jared Woods?”
“Since I didn’t actually see them doing anything, I’m not sure there’s any real point in naming them,” Lambert said mildly. Another flash of lightning flared across the sky, and once again the building trembled under the thunderclap that instantly followed. “Now, I suppose we could have Zack come in here and try to explain what happened last night one more time, but I’m not sure what that would accomplish. Frankly,” he said, standing up and coming around the end of the desk, “it seems to me that the best thing is to do what Seth apparently did — simply go home. By tomorrow I suspect that most of whatever went on between Seth and Zack last night will have blown over, and in any case, I can assure you I’ll be keeping a careful eye on both of them.”
“But what about Angel?” Myra Sullivan fretted. “If she’s been gone since noon…” Her voice trailed off.
“We take attendance in the homerooms in the morning, Mrs. Sullivan,” Lambert explained. “If someone doesn’t show up in a class later in the day, the teachers assume the absence was reported in the morning. The only other way we’d know about it is if one of the other students reported it.” He uttered a hollow chuckle. “Needless to say, the incidence of one student reporting that another is cutting classes isn’t very high. In fact, most of them cover for each other.” He moved toward the door. “So why don’t we all call it a day, and see what happens tomorrow, all right?” He offered Blake Baker a reassuring smile. “I wouldn’t worry too much about Seth — these things usually blow over pretty fast.” He pulled the door to his office open and stepped out into the anteroom, where Zack Fletcher was sitting uneasily on the plastic chair that was the only piece of furniture in the room other than Stacy’s own desk and chair.
As not only his father, but his aunt and Seth’s father, came out of the principal’s office, he rose to his feet. “Did they tell you?” he asked his father. “I’m right, aren’t I? Seth jumped me last night, and Angel was with him, wasn’t she?”
Ed Fletcher searched his son’s eyes, trying to see something, anything, that would give him a hint as to whether Zack was telling the truth or not, but there was nothing. “Seth and Angel aren’t even here,” he said. “So everything’s on hold till tomorrow. Come on — we’re going home.”
Zack shook his head. “I have football practice.”
Now it was Ed Fletcher who shook his head. “Not today you don’t — not with that bandage on your head, and the rain pouring down. I’m taking you home and you’re going to take it easy, and then tomorrow we’ll see how things stand.” His eyes fixed first on Blake Baker, then on Phil Lambert. “We’ll see how things stand with everything, right?”
Blake Baker seemed about to say something, then apparently thought better of it.
Phil Lambert smiled. “Not to worry, Ed — in all the years I’ve been doing this job, I’ve never yet seen a problem with the kids that couldn’t wait until morning. And you’d be surprised how many times the problem that seemed huge one day has completely vanished by the next.”
Chapter 42
NGEL HAD LISTENED IN SILENCE AS SETH TOLD HER what happened after she left that day and why he decided not to wait around until the last bell rang.
“But what are you going to do tomorrow?” she asked when he finished.
“I don’t know — I guess I’m hoping that by tomorrow Zack won’t be as mad as he was this morning.”
Angel rolled her eyes. “Like that’s going to happen.”
“Maybe I’ll just cut school.”
“For how long?” Angel shot back. “I mean, what are you going to do, hide in your house for the rest of your life?”
Seth couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “Didn’t you ever wish you could do that?”
Angel was silent for several long seconds, then shook her head. “Not anymore. Now I wish I never had to go back to my house. I wish I could just stay here.”
Seth glanced around the tiny cabin. With the fire burning on the hearth, the tiny chamber was almost too warm, but even with the heat, he could still feel drafts coming in from the cracks in the front wall and the gaps in the shutter over the window, and there was practically a steady breeze coming through the gap under the door. Only the light of the small fire brightened the gloom, and though most of the smoke from the fire was streaming up the chimney, enough of it curled out of the fireplace so that his eyes were burning, and he kept feeling like he had to sneeze. Yet he knew exactly what she meant. “So what are we going to do?” he asked.
Angel reached out and turned the ancient book of recipes so he could read the page to which it was opened. “I think we should make this.”
Seth bent down and peered at the page, which was barely legible in the dim light. Only when Angel tilted the book toward the fire could he make out the ornate print:
Seth read the strange verses through twice. “Have you figured out what it means?”
Angel shrugged uncertainly. “I’m not sure. I mean, I’m pretty sure the first line means we have to put in some blood from a live toad.” She shuddered at the thought, but Seth was too engrossed in studying the verse again to notice.
“I bet the ‘weeping tree’ part means a weeping willow. There’s one at the edge of the clearing, right where the trail comes out. But what are we supposed to use? The leaves? Or maybe the bark?”
“I think it has to be the sap,” Angel said. “It says ‘It also yearns for blood from thee.’ So wouldn’t that mean we need the sap from the tree? I mean, isn’t sap sort of like blood?”
“It’s exactly like blood,” Seth said. “So what does this second part mean? Aren’t we supposed to drink it straight from the kettle like we did with the other stuff?”
Angel shook her head. “I think we’re supposed to wait until the fire goes out, and then add some of our own blood to what we’re going to drink. I put my blood in mine, and you put your blood in yours.”
Seth read the verses one more time, then looked up from the book. “What do you think it does?”
“I think maybe it sort of turns things around. So whatever someone tries to do to you turns back on them.”
Seth repeated the single word printed above them. “ ‘Reckoning.’ ” He looked at Angel. “You think maybe it’s like a day of reckoning, when everything evens out?”
“What else could it be?” she asked.
“But how would it work?” Seth countered, then picked up the book. “Did you find anything else in here?”
“I made some more of the stuff that makes things rise,” Angel replied. “But I couldn’t figure out what the rest of them mean. In fact, I could hardly read most of them.”
Seth went through the pages of the book one by one. On half the pages the designs were so ornate and the words so strange that he had no more idea of what they said than Angel did, and even when he could figure out what the words were, their meanings were buried so deep in riddles that he couldn’t begin to fathom them. Finally he went back to the recipe for “Reckoning.” At least it seemed relatively straightforward. “Okay. Let’s try it.”
He put his coat back on as Angel pulled a plastic poncho out of her backpack, and together they went out into the storm. Houdini, abandoning his place by the hearth, followed them, and by the time they’d picked their way up the slag heap, he was darting across the clearing toward the willow tree, making a zigzag course that made no sense until they caught up with him in the shelter of the huge tree’s canopy.