Jack didn’t, but that didn’t matter. You’re the only one I can trust rang through his head, leaving a warm echo.
“So you’re just going to give him a pass?”
“I’m just going to keep my distance and pretend this never happened.”
“Tell the cops, Weez.”
“No way! I’ll just make things worse for myself. It’s over and done. I’m okay. And I’ve learned something.”
“About what?”
“About getting into a car with a guy I don’t know all that well.” She took a deep breath and looked around. “There. I feel better already.”
“Weez, a few minutes ago you were crying.”
“That’s because it was all bottled up. Now that I’ve let it out”—she gave him a weak smile and a pointed look—“now that I’ve told someone, I feel a hundred percent better.”
Still baffled, Jack shook his head. “You’re crazy.”
Her wavering smile faded. “Don’t call me that, Jack. Please. Not you.”
Her intensity took him aback. She was awful sensitive about the word.
“Okay. Sure.” He smiled. “How about ‘goth chick’? Can I call you that?”
She batted him on the arm. “I’m not goth!”
“No? Let’s see … you dress in black and you love Bauhaus and Siouxsie. Like my father likes to say—”
“Please don’t!” She jammed her fingers in her ears and began making nonsense noises that sounded like “Bobbitta-bobbitta-bobbitta.”
“—‘If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, odds are it’s a duck.’”
She removed her fingers from her ears. “Finished?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Those are simply my choices. They don’t mean I’ve joined a club. I don’t like labels.”
Neither did Jack, so he dropped it.
3
They’d walked their bikes back to the firebreak trail and were readying to head back to Johnson when Weezy held up a hand.
“You know, I’ve never been through this area.”
Jack smiled. “You mean there’s someplace on Old Man Foster’s land you haven’t seen?”
She shrugged. “He owns a lot of land. Let’s take a look around.”
He looked at his watch. “We should be heading back. I’ve got to get to USED—”
“Come on, Jack. Just a little. I’d go myself but…”
Jack knew what she didn’t want to say: After last night, she didn’t want to be alone in there.
“Okay. Just a few…”
But she was already walking her bike back up the path. He brought up the rear until she stopped and pointed.
“Looks like some sort of clearing over there.”
He followed her through a line of trees and, sure enough, a clearing.
A creepy clearing … almost perfectly square, the size of half a football field, with nothing growing in it.
Nothing at all.
“What’s the story here?” Jack said, inspecting the sandy soil. “Does somebody come by and weed this place? Or spray weed killer?”
“Weed killer would leave dead plants.”
Jack looked again. She was right: no sign of vegetation, living or dead.
“Check this out,” she said, kneeling to examine a bright green fern along the edge. She stretched one of the fronds and gave it a close look, then muttered something that sounded like “warts.”
“What?”
“Ebony spleenwort. It doesn’t usually grow in the Barrens because the soil’s too acid.”
Jack felt his eyes roll of their own accord. “How do you know this stuff? And why?”
She rose and faced him. “Because the Pines have lots of lost towns—villages and such that just up and disappeared.”
“Or were built over, as we well know.”
She nodded. “But one way to spot where a town once stood is ebony spleenwort. Pinelands soil is acidic and ebony spleenwort doesn’t like acid. So it grows over buried foundations because the old limestone and mortar reduce the acidity in the soil over them.” She gestured around. “We’re standing in an old foundation.”
Jack looked at the big square of naked soil. “Of what?”
Weezy stepped onto the bare earth and wandered toward the center of the square. Jack followed, scuffing the ground as he followed. Not a sign of life. Not a beetle, not a wormhole, not a single anthill. Looked like nothing had ever grown here. Something else seemed to be missing from the soft soil but he couldn’t say what.
Weezy stopped and turned in a slow circle, pointing. “See? The spleenwort runs all around the edges. A building once stood here—a big one.”
“Big is right. What was this place? And why won’t anything grow in the center? It’s like it’s some sort of dead zone.”
“Dead zone…” She looked at him. “Why does that sound familiar?”
“It’s a movie coming out.” Jack had seen a preview when he’d gone to see the animated Fire and Ice. “I think it’s about—”
“Shhhh!” Weezy said, pointing.
Jack looked and saw a pair of young Pineland deer walking their way. He froze and watched as they approached the clearing. It looked as if they were going to step into it when both abruptly turned right and followed the spleenwort to the corner, then turned left and followed the far edge. At the next corner they made another left until they came even with their path on the far side, then turned away. Jack watched their white tails disappear into the trees.
“Did you see that?” Weezy said, her voice hushed.
Of course he’d seen it. And now he knew what else was missing from the bare square.
“Tracks.”
Weezy stared at him. “What?”
“Look.” He pointed to the ground around them. “It hasn’t rained for at least a week but the only tracks here are our footprints. The only explanation for that has to be that animals won’t cross this space. It’s really and truly a dead zone. What’s going on here?”
“Or maybe, what went on here. I don’t know, but … it doesn’t feel right.”
Jack knew exactly what she meant.
She gave him a sickly look. “I don’t think I want to be here anymore.”
Neither did he, but he put on a carefree expression. “Whatever. I’ve got to go to work anyway.” He looked around. “You think this place might be part of your Secret History of the World?”
She nodded. “Definitely. But maybe some things should remain secret. Let’s get out of here.”
Jack didn’t argue. If nothing else, the dead zone seemed to have chased Carson Toliver from her thoughts.
But not from Jack’s.
MONDAY
1
The first clue that something was wrong came on the school bus.
Jack waited with Eddie and Weezy at the intersection of Route 206 and Quakerton Road with four other Johnson kids who attended South Burlington County Regional High School—SBR for short. They stood in front of Sumter’s used car lot. A FOR SALE sign hung in the showroom window. The place had been closed since Mr. Sumter’s mysterious death a couple of months ago and didn’t look like it was going to reopen. Joe Burdett’s Esso station and a Krauszer’s convenience store occupied two other corners.
The grammar and middle-school kids clustered by the vacant lot across the street. He saw Sally Vivino and her mother waiting for the northbound school bus. Mrs. Vivino wouldn’t look at him. Jack knew why.
He and Weezy stood apart. Eddie hung with the others but was in his own world, lost in whatever music his Walkman was pumping through his headphones.
“You okay?” Jack said.
Weezy had her eyeliner back on and was dressed in a sweatshirt, skirt, and tights, all black.
“Fine. Just glad to be out of the house.”
“Your dad?”
She nodded. “He just shakes his head and keeps saying, ‘What are we gonna do with you, Weezy? What are we gonna do?’ That’s all he ever says. I think I embarrass
him. No, I’m sure I embarrass him. He still thinks I should be wearing pink.”
Jack didn’t get the whole black thing, but he never gave it much thought. Just something Weezy was into.
“Weez…”
Her lower lip trembled for an instant. “You know, if I ran away like Marcie Kurek, I wonder if he’d even care.”
Marcie Kurek was from Shamong and had been a soph at the high school last year. One night she told her folks she was going out to visit a friend and never showed up. No one had ever seen or heard from her since.
“Hey, I know you two don’t get along, but that’s crazy.”
She looked at him. “Didn’t I ask you—”
“Yeah, okay. Right. Sorry.” Touchy-touchy-touchy. “What about Toliver?”
“What about him?”
“What are you going to do when you see him?”
And she would see him. SBR wasn’t all that big.
“I won’t see him. If we wind up in the same hall or in the caf at the same time, I won’t look at him. As far as I’ll be concerned, he won’t be there. He won’t exist.”
The big yellow school bus pulled up and clattered to a stop. Jack and Weezy hung back and were last on. He said hello to Karina and Cristin. He found Karina interesting and, well, attractive too. He wished she and Cristin weren’t joined at the hip. He’d like riding the bus next to her.
Not that it was a long ride. SBR was only three miles from Johnson. He could have ridden his bike there easily in good weather like today’s, but his folks were dead set against that. Jack saw some of the girls and guys grinning and pointing at Weezy. They whispered among themselves and one girl giggled. Weezy was oblivious.
Jack wound up next to his usual seatmate, Darren Willmon.
The bus pulled into the parking lot ten minutes later. Weezy got off ahead of him. He was hanging back, waiting for Karina and Cristin, when a trio of older girls, a blonde and two brunettes with high hair and stick-up bangs, breezed by him and flanked Weezy.
“So,” the blonde said with a grin that looked as friendly as a great white’s, “I hear you were out with Carson Saturday night.”
Weezy stopped and reddened. “Where’d you hear that?”
“From Jerry.” She gave Weezy a frank up-and-down. “You don’t seem his type.”
Eddie waved as he walked by, still lost in his headphones.
“I’m not,” Weezy said.
“Yeah? Cars says you showed him a real hot time.”
Weezy gaped. “‘Hot time’?”
“Yeah,” said the heavier of the two brunettes, “we hear you were all over him. He, like, couldn’t stop you.”
Weezy’s face turned a deeper red. “Me all over him? I had to fight him off.”
They all laughed.
The third said, “When a girl like you gets near a guy like Carson Toliver—and will someone please tell me how that happened?—you don’t fight him off. It just doesn’t work that way.”
“So we came up with a name for you,” said the second. “Easy Weezy.”
As they all laughed and repeated it, Jack saw Weezy’s stricken expression and wanted to punch them. Just to shut them up.
“Who’d’ve thought,” said the blonde, giving her another up-and-down. “But I guess if you want to look like that you’ve gotta make up for it some way.” She waved and started to walk away. “Bye, Easy.”
The other two followed, but not before the heavier one said, “And don’t start thinking you’re Carson’s type. You’re not. You’re just … easy.”
Weezy, mouth still open, stood and gazed at their retreating backs. The red faded to a sickly white. Finally she turned to Jack.
“How … what…?”
“Obviously he’s been spreading lies about you.”
The urge to hurt, maim, maybe even kill Carson Toliver returned, stronger than ever. Not only had he attacked her, he was now smearing her.
“But why?”
Jack hid his anger and hurt with a shrug. “Who can figure a walking turd like that? Maybe he figures every girl should have the absolute hots for him. Maybe he doesn’t hear ‘no’ too often. So instead of letting you talk about how you had to fight him off, he launched a preemptive strike.”
“But it’s a lie! It makes me sound like a slut.”
“He’s not worried about your rep, he’s worried about his.”
Two guys about a dozen feet away stopped and pointed. Jack recognized them as a couple of starters on the football team. Friends of Toliver’s, no doubt.
“Hey, it’s Easy Weezy!” one cried. “Wanna go out? You can have us both—two for the price of one!”
They must have thought that was a riot because they laughed all the way to the front door.
“It’s all over school,” she whispered, looking sick. “It’s not even first period and already everybody’s calling me Easy Weezy.”
Jack didn’t say it, but none of this would be happening if she’d reported him.
He touched her shoulder. “Not everybody. Just some big-hair airheads and a couple of Toliver’s jock friends. The girls are jealous he asked you out instead of them, and the guys are just being jerks.” He gave her a gentle squeeze on the shoulder and tried to lighten things up. “Us guys like to act like jerks whenever we can. It’s in our nature.”
She looked at him then at the two jocks disappearing inside. “I can’t imagine you ever saying that.”
“Maybe not, but maybe I simply haven’t found the right outlet for all my pent-up jerkiness. When I do—duck and run for cover. Because it’s gonna be ugly.”
That won half a smile from her. He walked her in through the entrance, then they had to part ways. Jack’s first period class was to the right, hers to the left.
He’d gone maybe a dozen feet when he heard a guy call out somewhere behind him.
“Hey! It’s Easy Weezy!”
He cringed and turned. He couldn’t see who’d said it, but saw Weezy moving away with her head down and her shoulders hunched.
2
“What an awful religion,” Karina said at Jack’s side as they left Mr. Kressy’s class.
“I’m sure there are worse.”
The Thuggee cult he’d seen in Gunga Din and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom seemed lots worse.
The Beirut suicide bombings had come up in Mr. Kressy’s civics class and someone had asked what Islamic Jihad was all about. Mr. Kressy hadn’t known anything about the group, but explained that jihad was an Arabic word for “holy war.” And then he’d had to explain what he knew about Islam—which he admitted was very little.
“But their treatment of women,” Karina said. “I mean, they’re like little better than slaves.”
“Slave girls!” said Matt Follette, moving up beside them in his trademark slouching walk. “I want to be a maharajah with a whole harem of slave girls.”
He’d become the class’s unofficial comedian. His humor tended toward black, which suited Jack just fine.
Karina said, “They’re called ‘wives,’ but that’s what it sounds like a harem is—nothing but a bunch of female slaves to cook, clean, feed, and pamper the man while having his children.”
Sounding totally sincere, Matt said, “And the problem with that is…?”
She gave his arm a playful slap.
From what Jack had heard about Islam, it sounded like it had been dreamed up by someone like Matt Follette.
They ambled along the echoey tiled hallways toward the caf. SBR’s class building was a one-story box with an open quadrangle at its center; the caf was a connected square without a quadrangle. Once there they shuffled through the lunch line. Jack picked up a couple of burgers and added a slice of cheese to each. He noticed Karina making a salad.
“Aren’t you going to be hungry?” he said.
She shook her head. “This’ll hold me.”
“A burger’d hold you better.”
“I don’t eat meat.”
“No kidding?”
/> She smiled. “No kidding.”
He realized then that he’d never seen her eat meat. He’d heard of vegetarians but had never met one. Truth was, living in Johnson, he hadn’t met a whole lot of people in his fourteen years.
They found a table and Eddie joined them—physically, at least. He had his Walkman running into his ears.
Matt must have overheard the no-meat conversation because he turned to Karina and said, “So, are you, like, a Hindu or something? Cows are, like, holy?”
He said it with his usual sardonic tone, but Jack sensed genuine curiosity.
“No. I just don’t like the idea of animals being killed just so I can eat.”
“But that’s sort of the way nature works,” Jack said. “One thing dies so another can live. Plants die to feed deer, deer die to feed wolves. What’s left of the dead deer feeds insects or seeps into the ground to feed plants, which other deer eat. And around and around it goes.”
Matt grinned. “Where it stops, nobody knows.”
Karina pointed to her salad. “It stops right here.” She looked at Jack. “Does that make me weird?”
Jack had to smile. Not eating meat weird? He didn’t get it, but so what? He’d hung out with Weezy Connell for years and years. Karina had no idea what weird could be.
“Not to me. Now, if you were eating worms or dirt, that would be weird.”
She made a face. “Ew-ew.”
“But it still wouldn’t be any of my business. It’s only my business when you try to keep me from eating meat.” He grinned. “Or worse, start eating it off my plate.”
She glanced at his cheeseburgers. “No way, José.”
“I should bring you home for dinner.”
She reddened, hesitated a heartbeat or two, then gave a noncommittal, “Hmmm?”
Jack realized that hadn’t come out quite the way he’d intended.
“Uh, yeah. We could be an eating team. I’d take your meat and you could have my vegetables.”
She smiled. “Yeah. That’d work—as long as the vegetables didn’t touch the meat.”
“Oh, you’re one of those.”
“Yep.” Her brown eyes sparkled. “One of those.”