“He was lurking around outside my shed a few days ago,” Grover went on. “Someone was, anyway. He ran away before I could see who it was.” He scowled. “I don’t want to get rid of my snakes.”
Nickie felt a sickening dizziness. She couldn’t remember, all of a sudden, whose side she was on. Was she God’s helper or Grover’s friend? Her mind went numb. She didn’t know what to say.
“I had to tell someone,” Grover said. “I saw you in there, so…” He shrugged, looking at her curiously, probably wondering why she was standing there like a dummy.
Without her even wanting it to, the truth pushed its way out of her. “It wasn’t a he,” she said, looking down at the sidewalk.
“What? Who wasn’t?”
“It was me. Outside your shed. It was me who told her about the snakes.”
Grover’s mouth dropped open. “You? You?”
“I’ve been helping her,” Nickie said. “Looking for things that are bad, you know, helping her root them out. I didn’t know if keeping snakes was bad. I just asked her about it. That’s all I did.”
“Why are you helping her?” Grover said. He flung his hands out and looked at her with an “I can’t believe this” expression.
“Because I want to fight against evil,” Nickie said. “Find trouble spots. Help keep everything on the side of good, so we’ll be safe.”
“You know what they’re going to do if I don’t get rid of my snakes?” Grover said.
“What?”
“Put one of those bracelet things on me. Hah!” he cried out suddenly. A woman passing by gave him a startled look. “Let ’em try it. They’re never gonna touch me.”
“What bracelet things?” Nickie asked.
“You don’t know about them?” Grover circled his wrist with his thumb and forefinger. “They hum. They go MMMMmmmm-MMMMmmmm. Some little nonstop battery thing powers them. You can’t get them off, even with a hammer or a hacksaw, because they’re made of something incredibly hard. Anybody they say is a sinner gets one. Nobody can talk to a person with a bracelet, and they won’t take it off till you either quit sinning or leave.”
“Leave?”
“Leave town. Move somewhere else.”
“That must be what I’ve heard, then,” Nickie said. “Twice I heard it.”
“There’s three or four people who have them right now. They don’t come out much. They don’t want to be seen. Jonathan Small has one. So does Ricky Platt.”
“What did they do wrong?”
“I don’t know about Ricky, but Jonathan sings,” said Grover. “No one is supposed to, since the Prophet said ‘No singing.’ But he sings these loud show tunes in the shower every morning. His neighbors heard him, and the cops came and snapped the bracelet on him. He said he wouldn’t quit singing, but I think he’s about ready to change his mind. That bracelet thing drives a person crazy.” He twisted his lips in a disgusted way. “A whole lot of people got these letters in their mailboxes. I heard about two of ’em already: The Elwoods got one for yelling at each other. Maryessa Brown got one for smoking. And you should have seen what happened to old Hoyt McCoy. They brought out the whole police force and tried to arrest him. I saw it—I was there.”
Nickie’s heart had started beating rapidly. “Maybe you should let the snakes go,” she said.
“Why should I?” he said. “What harm are they doing?”
“They could bite someone,” Nickie said weakly.
“There’s a lock on the shed! No one goes in there but me!” Grover was shouting now, and people passing by were frowning at him. His face took on its wild-eyed look. “And anyway,” he yelled, “they’re not venomous snakes!”
Nickie stepped back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just trying to…I don’t know, to do the right thing.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “If they try to put one of those bracelets on you, what will you do?”
“Run. They won’t catch me.” Grover’s chin jutted out, and his lips pressed together in a hard line. He pointed a finger at her and shook it in her face. “You should think about what’s the right thing to do. Not just take someone’s word for it.” And with that he turned around and stalked away, leaving Nickie standing beside the door of the shoe store, with dark feelings swirling through her like storm clouds.
The storm in her mind got worse when she tried to sleep that night. She couldn’t stop thinking about the blue envelopes. Mrs. Beeson must have given one to every person who was doing something they’d decided was wrong. How many of them were people Nickie herself had talked about? And were they all going to do what they were told? Or were there others like Grover, who would refuse? And what was the right thing to do?
She didn’t feel well. Her stomach was all unsettled. She lay in bed for a long time, not sleeping, thinking about Grover’s snakes, and the humming bracelets, and the Prophet, and the president, and God, and about good versus evil, until her mind was a swirl of confusion. Finally, she crept out of bed. She felt her way down the hall in the dark to the back stairs, and she tiptoed up to the third floor and into the nursery. Otis, who’d been asleep on the bed that had been Amanda’s, jumped down and ran to her, wagging his rear end, and Nickie picked him up and got into the bed herself. She could feel the warm spot where he’d been lying—it was right by her knees. She put him back there and laid one arm across his furry body, and after that she felt better. But she didn’t sleep soundly that night. A dark feeling stayed with her. She wasn’t sure if it was guilt or dread.
CHAPTER 21
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Getting Ready for the Open House
For the next two days, Wednesday and Thursday, Nickie worked with Crystal at Greenhaven, helping her get ready for the open house. Crystal gave her the assignment of cleaning and neatening the rooms on the third floor. “We won’t bother to make those rooms beautiful,” she said, “but they can at least be presentable. Get rid of mess and cobwebs, sweep up the dead bugs, take extra furniture down to the basement, that sort of thing.” She cast her critical gaze around the front parlor, where they were standing. “The rest of the house,” she said, “has to be as elegant as possible. I think we can manage it. The house has good bones.”
Once each day, Crystal came up to the third floor to see how the work was going, and Nickie had to quickly close Otis into the hall closet and put the radio on loud to disguise any sounds he might make. Luckily, Crystal wasn’t very interested in the rooms on the third floor. All she wanted was for them not to look too awful. She glanced in, said Nickie was doing a good job, and went back downstairs.
As she worked, Nickie turned over the problem of goodness in her mind. On Thursday evening, as they were sitting in the kitchen having a dinner of canned soup and soda crackers, and listening to the news on the radio, she asked Crystal her question.
“Crystal,” she said. “How do you tell if something is good or bad?”
Crystal was exhausted from rearranging furniture and hauling boxes of stuff down to the local thrift shop. “You mean like a good or bad book?” she said. “A good or bad movie?”
“No,” Nickie said, “I mean like something you do. How do you know if it’s a good thing to do or not?”
On the radio, the news announcer broke off in the middle of a sentence, and there was a sudden silence. Then he said, “We have a bulletin from the president. One moment.”
The president’s voice came on, not quite as smooth as usual. Instead of answering Nickie’s question, Crystal held up one finger and said, “Listen.”
“One day remains,” the president said, “before the deadline we have issued to the Phalanx Nations. I regret to say no progress has been made. Our resolve is firm: we will not back down in the face of threats from godless evildoers. Citizens should prepare for possible large-scale conflict. Please refer to the Homeland Security website at www…”
Crystal turned down the radio. She frowned and broke a few soda crackers into her soup. “It sounds bad,” she said. “We ought to be al
l right here, but I’m worried about your mother in the city.”
“Let’s call her, then,” said Nickie, “and tell her to come.”
“No, I wouldn’t want her traveling right now. I’m not really sure what to do.” She turned up the radio again, but the president was finished, and the newsman was reporting on a terrorist group that had taken a hundred hostages and was refusing to release them until they swore to follow the one true faith.
“Could you answer my question now?” said Nickie. “About how you tell if something is good or bad?”
“It’s a deep question,” Crystal said, “and I’m deeply tired. I guess if I had to answer, I’d say that you look to see if what you’re doing causes harm. If it hurts anyone. If so, it’s probably not good.”
“What if it doesn’t hurt any people,” said Nickie, “or even any animals, but it hurts God?”
“Hurts God? How can God be hurt?”
“Well, I mean if what you do goes against what God says.”
“You’d have to know what he says, then, wouldn’t you? Assuming he’s up there saying anything.” Crystal swallowed a spoonful of soup. “It’s too deep for me,” she said. “I just want to eat my dinner and go to bed. And by the way, your mom called again and read me another one of those odd postcards from your dad.”
Nickie jumped up. “Did you write it down? Where is it?”
“It’s here somewhere.” Crystal went out to the hall. “Here.” She handed Nickie a scrap of paper.
It said:
Dear Rachel and Nickie,
How is everything with you? Here it’s work as usual. I am doing all right, though I miss you both.
Love, Dad
P.S. Nickie, I was thinking about that movie we went to for your ninth birthday. Wasn’t it called “Snowblind”?
Nickie thought back to when she turned nine. She remembered it well. She and Kate and Sophy had gone ice-skating. There was no movie. So this confirmed it: either her father was losing his mind, or he was sending a message in some sort of code. She would crack it. She was sure she could. She took the postcard messages into her bedroom, spread them out on the bed, and began to study them in earnest. And after a while, she had an idea about what the key to the code might be.
On Friday morning, Nickie awoke and instantly knew that she had to find out what had happened to Grover and his snakes. If he was still mad at her, too bad; she couldn’t bear not to know.
Crystal said she was meeting Len for breakfast so they could discuss last-minute open-house details. “Want to come?” she said, and of course Nickie said no. As soon as Crystal had left, she ran upstairs to feed Otis and take him outside, and when that was done she headed for Grover’s house.
It was very cold. Iron-gray clouds hung like a ceiling over the town. Main Street was strangely quiet. As usual, small clusters of people stood inside the stores with TVs on, but when Nickie glanced in, she didn’t see the president on the screen. She couldn’t tell what was on—it looked like an old movie of some kind. But she didn’t stop to wonder about it. She was in a hurry.
Granny Carrie saw her coming. “You won’t find him here,” she said as Nickie came up the steps.
“I won’t? Where is he?”
“Up in the woods somewheres. They came and clamped one of them bracelets on him this morning early, and he took off.”
Nickie stood still where she was, with one foot on the porch and the other on the step. “A bracelet?”
“Yep,” said Granny Carrie. She pressed her lips together. “MMMMMM-mmmm-MMMMM-mmmm,” she said, “Nasty thing.”
“He didn’t go to school?”
“I doubt it,” said Granny Carrie. “With the noise that thing was making, they’d-a probably thrown him out.”
“So he didn’t let his snakes go, then,” said Nickie.
“Said he didn’t see why he should.”
“How did they catch him? He said he’d run.”
“Ambushed him,” said Granny Carrie. “Teddy Crane and that old Bill Willard jumped on him from behind the garage when he set out for school. Then he ran off, and the two of them came here and told us what they’d done.”
“I’m going to go find him,” said Nickie.
“Better not,” Granny Carrie said. “His pa’s already gone up there after him. No point in you going. You don’t know your way around in the woods. He could be anywhere.”
“But that terrorist is in the woods,” Nickie said.
“So I’ve heard,” said Granny Carrie, frowning and rocking. “It does make a person worry. We’ve got a lot to worry about today.” She waved a hand toward the window, from which came the sound of the TV. “That deadline the president set is up. We’re waiting to hear if there’s going to be war.”
CHAPTER 22
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An Indoor Universe
Nickie turned away from Grover’s house with her mind whirling. The president’s deadline! That’s why people were gathered in the stores. They were waiting to hear his announcement. Why was an old movie on, though? Had they started the war without telling anyone? She glanced at the sky, almost expecting to see bombers streaking overhead.
She didn’t know what to do. It was true that there was no point in trying to find Grover. Even if she did find him, how could she help? And she certainly couldn’t keep a war from happening. Her Goal #3 seemed silly now—how could she possibly do anything to help the messed-up world? She was just a kid.
She walked down the road, hardly noticing where she was going, staring down at the pavement, kicking now and then at a rock. She thought of Grover, a humming bracelet clapped onto his wrist, fleeing up into the mountains, where probably a dangerous person was hiding out. She thought of Hoyt McCoy, accused by police of something he hadn’t done. These things were her fault. Somehow she had done wrong by trying to do right.
She trudged on until she came to Raven Road, and there she turned left. She hadn’t planned to go this way; her feet just seemed to carry her. When she got to Hoyt McCoy’s driveway, her feet stopped. She stared at his “No Trespassing” sign. She gazed up the driveway, past the row of looming trees to the place where the drive curved around toward the house. Part of her wanted to hurry on past. But another part thought she should go in there and tell him she was sorry for what had happened. Was she brave enough? The very thought of it made her stomach shift and her hands get clammy. But she started up the driveway anyhow. She would just knock on his door, apologize very fast, and come away. She was brave enough for that.
The house was as dark and silent this time as it had been before. From a distance, she checked the gable window. It was closed. Nothing that looked like a gun or a telescope stuck out of any of the house’s windows. This gave her courage. When she got closer, she realized Hoyt’s car wasn’t there. Good! Now if she just had a bit of paper and a pencil stub in her pocket, as she usually did—
But behind her she heard the sound of an engine and the crackle of gravel. She turned, and there was Hoyt McCoy in his black car, coming toward her. He’d seen her, of course; she couldn’t leave. So she waited, with her heart thudding.
“Ah,” said Hoyt, getting out of the car. “The other trespasser.”
Nickie managed to speak. “I—I came to say I’m sorry,” she stammered, “about what happened.”
“You mean the invasion of the Beeson Police?”
“Yes. Well, it was because…I thought you were going to…to shoot me.”
“I do not shoot people,” said Hoyt. He opened the rear door of the car and took out a battered suitcase. “I may not like people, but I do not shoot them.”
“I just thought,” said Nickie, “that you had a gun…you know, aiming out your window.”
“And my question for you is this.” Hoyt set down the suitcase, put his hands on his hips, and glared at her. “Why were you here, on my property, looking at my windows in the first place?”
Nickie had no answer for this question. It was no good to say she was
trying to do the right thing. Deep down, she’d suspected that looking in windows and snooping around people’s houses was probably more wrong than right, no matter what the reason for doing it. So she just stood there, staring down at the ground.
“But of course I know why,” Hoyt McCoy went on. “Brenda Beeson sent you. Did she send the boy, too?”
“What boy?”
“The boy who sneaked behind my house a week ago. The boy who was lurking about when those cops tried to snatch me. Skinny boy, hair falling in his face.”
“Oh, Grover. No, she didn’t send him.” For a second, the thought of Grover in the woods came to her; she pushed it away. “Well, I have to go now,” she said. She’d done what she came to do.
“Wait one moment,” said Hoyt McCoy.
Nickie’s heart gave a bump.
“I have just returned from a tense encounter which I believe has had the result I hoped for. That puts me in a rather generous mood, rare for me.” He walked up his front steps and turned to face her. “I’d like to show you,” he said, “that a person may be gruff and somewhat on the sloppy side without being a madman or a criminal. But probably you would decline to step inside my house.”
“Well, thank you very much,” Nickie said, with her heart beating harder, “but I really have to go.”
“I thought so,” said Hoyt. “A wise choice, in general, though in this case unnecessarily cautious. Still, you might be willing just to look in from where you are.” He took his keys from his pocket, opened the door, stepped in, and stood to the side, so that Nickie could look past him. She saw a wide hall. On either side was an arched opening that led to a room, and down at the end, the hall opened into still another room. Even though it was daytime, the windows were all covered with blinds and curtains; dim electric light bulbs filled the rooms with a yellowish gloom. Signs of careless housekeeping were everywhere: in the hall she saw stacks of books on the floor, clothes hanging from doorknobs, a table strewn with loose change and bits of hardware and scraps of paper. From what she could see of the other rooms, they were just as messy.