Then I took out my knife and asked Griffin, “What do we eat first?”
* * *
Things were different; I knew that.
And we were all tired.
I tried to explain to them, to piece together what had happened to me and Conner, about how all our paths had crossed before any of us really knew what was going on here, but it was a difficult map to draw out from memory.
And then Griffin said, “I’m tired of all this, Jack. I want to go home. I want my mom and dad.”
What could I say?
And I’ve always wanted my mom and dad, goddamnit. It’s not my fault.
But if it wasn’t my fault, then whose was it? I fucked these kids up. I never should have brought them here in the first place, and now the lens was broken, and we were trapped.
You fucked things up good this time, Jack.
As far as I knew, none of us could ever go back home.
Ben took a deep breath. He just sat there, chewing, watching me, like he was waiting to see if I could fix everything on the spot.
And I almost choked when I said, “I’m sorry.”
But I couldn’t look Griffin in the eye.
Ben put the tip of his finger down on the table between us and traced out a jagged line. “That kid yesterday had a mark shaped like this right here.”
He put his left hand on his ribs, just below his right arm.
“You know how they get those marks on them,” he said. “So I killed him, Jack. Didn’t have a choice. You know, he’d just come back for us. It’s dumb, ’cause I know I’ve killed things before here. Lots of times. But this is me, Jack. Me. From Glenbrook. Me in tenth grade. I don’t belong here.”
I looked from Griffin to Ben. I couldn’t eat any more.
“What do you want me to do?”
Griffin sniffed.
I was afraid he was crying, so I kept my eyes locked on Ben’s.
And he said, “It took a long time for that kid to die. A real long time. It was harder than you’d think. You know, when someone doesn’t want to die. I pushed him into the pool when I was done with it.”
I reached down to the floor and picked up the sock where I’d stashed the broken lens, the glasses. “Here.”
I placed the lens in the center of the table. I held out my hand so I could see how the pink scar on my palm matched up to the jagged edge.
“Can you see anything in it?” I said.
The boys leaned over. Each of them put their eyes directly above the lens.
Then they both sat back in their places. They didn’t have to answer. For us, the Marbury lens was dead.
That door was locked.
“I think it can be fixed, but I’m going to need to find Conner.”
“How did you get back to Glenbrook?” Griffin asked.
I pulled the glasses out and placed them beside the lens.
“These. But it isn’t Glenbrook,” I said.
Ben picked up the glasses, peered through the lenses from both sides. “Can I try?”
He looked at Griffin and bit his lip.
I thought about it. The small green lens was flipped out of position. They just looked like old-fashioned airman’s goggles to me. But I knew what they did, too.
Ben pushed the table, startling me. “Jack. I said, could I try them?”
“What if we lose you, Ben?”
“Then Griff follows me. And you can do whatever you decide.”
I couldn’t stop him. I’d done too much to them, anyway.
“I can’t look,” I said. “When you put them on, you flip this little one on top.”
“Okay.”
Ben held the glasses up to his face. “Don’t look, Jack.”
I lowered my eyes, studied one of the holes on the left leg of my pants. It looked like a sea anemone. I wondered if such words existed here. Then I heard the sound of Ben as he put the glasses back down on the table.
“Nothing,” he said. “Black. I couldn’t see anything, Jack.”
“Let me try,” Griffin said.
But Ben covered the boy’s hand. “Not if I can’t go.”
That was done.
I have to admit I was relieved. The biggest part of me was terrified that Ben and Griffin would both end up somewhere and I’d never find them again; that maybe, eventually, all four of us would be trapped in separate universes, and they’d each be worse than the other.
I gathered up the glasses and the broken lens and hid them away.
Ben said, “You told me what it meant, Jack. If you looked through the lens and saw nothing.”
“I don’t know what anything means,” I said. I wanted Ben to just drop it, change the subject. But what else are you going to talk about when you’re buried alive, inside a cement coffin?
“You said it means I can’t go back because I’m not alive there.”
“It isn’t Glenbrook,” I argued.
Ben was scared. He slammed his palm down onto the table. Griffin jumped. “Then where the fuck is it, Jack? How the fuck do we get back?”
“I don’t know.”
fourteen
I dreamed of floating in the sky, being chased by demons.
Jack is putting on a big show.
I had no idea how they could tell it was morning. Being inside the box was like being trapped in a black hole.
I woke when the wooden post Ben used to bolt shut the hatch clattered down against the floor next to my bed.
He pushed the door open with the point of his spear, and I watched with groggy eyes while he and Griffin climbed out of the hole, black shadow puppets against the monochrome Marbury gray that came seeping in from the hallway above.
I followed them. I guess every morning went just about the same for Ben and Griffin. They half ran for the garage, to the side door, and then outside the house to pee in a spot where there used to be oleanders and a lawn. Now there were just broken things, dead things.
They were still angry about what was said the night before, I could tell. Everyone was.
None of us really blamed anyone for our situation, but that didn’t make us any less pissed off about the truths we aired over the kids’ broken-down dinner table. We all knew it would take awhile before we could talk to one another in a normal way.
That’s just how things were.
Ben didn’t look at me. He didn’t need to. He knew I was right behind him while he pissed out onto the ashes, splattering noisily onto an open paint can lying sideways on top of the white dial face of an Edison meter.
“You want to see that dead kid?”
I looked at the pool. There were harvesters, making their little mad tracks over the edge of the coping, out into the ashes, back into the pool, the clicking, the buzzing, eating.
Breakfast time.
“Do you want me to go look at him, Ben?”
Ben turned around and buttoned his pants. “Not really. I was just asking.”
But Griffin walked over to the pool’s edge and reported back, “Not too much left of him anymore.”
And that was all we said, the whole long morning.
* * *
We drank the last of my stolen water and ate some orange sections and beans for breakfast. I opened the cans with my knife. I think the boys knew what I was going to ask them, but I wasn’t about to be the one to initiate the talking. If they wanted to be quiet, it was okay with me.
Finally, I went out to the garage and shook out my socks and T-shirt and put them on. The boys followed, watching me.
I sat down on the stained concrete floor and slipped on my ragged boots.
“Are you going to leave?” Griffin asked.
“You can have everything that’s left of the food and stuff. Sorry I didn’t bring more water.”
Griffin nudged Ben, like he wanted the older boy to say something. “Where are you going?”
“I told you. I’m going to find Conner. He told me where I can get a horse to ride.” I tied my boots and cussed when one of the rawhide laces broke. It had already been knotted together in two other places. This was number three. I stood. “I can’t stay here. I have to find him.”
Griffin said, “You didn’t even ask us to come.”