Chapter the 17th
Bill Harrison parked his car in front of the bank he hoped to own by the end of the day so that he could in turn present it to his son.
“That will teach the hicks around here to make fun of my son just because he's got a little more money than they do,” Bill muttered as he crawled out of the car.
Feeling that the failing bank was in hand already, Bill could taste the money he was about to make out of it. It would cover the bill for his wife's treatment for alcoholism, not that he couldn’t afford that expense already.
“We’re so glad you have decided to purchase the bank,” said an old man dressed in black.
Suddenly, Bill found himself surrounded by three people dressed in black. All three held black umbrellas in such a way that Bill thought they might be secret weapons. He shrank back, self-conscious of his guilty secret.
“Uh—how did know?”
“We get around,” said the woman. “Don't worry, we are on your side one hundred percent.”
“We just want to help you with the negotiations,” said the younger man.
“Thank you very much,” said Bill in his most suave voice, “but I really think I can bring Mr. Barfield around myself. I already have him in the palm of my hand.”
“What you don't know,” said the old man, “is that Mr. Barfield has been listening to the lawyer across the street.”
“A lawyer who just moved to Milton,” said the woman.
“An outsider,” said the young man, “who is trying to take over the town.”
Before he knew it, Bill found himself walking down Main Street with the three strangers.
“You are doing a great deed for the sake of Milton,” said the old man.
“And once you have the bank on its feet, you will have the town at your feet,” said the woman.
“Then you can buy out the steel mills and put everybody back on their old jobs,” added the young man.
Bill soon found himself sitting on a stool at Tony's Bar where he had consumed many a drink since placing Shawn in Milton. Four glasses appeared on the counter. Bill took one of them and swallowed his whiskey in one gulp. When he pounded the glass on to the counter, the bartender filled it up again. The words of his new friends filled his ears for such a long time that he never noticed when they left him to his own thoughts.
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“Can’t they even make a decent light bulb any more?” Eleanore Gleason asked herself after she screwed a third light bulb into her desk lamp with the same meager result she had with the first two.
Resigned to have to work with diminished light, Eleanore returned to her endless stack of English papers. Each stroke of her red pen only increased her irritation.
“Your students are making mistakes on purpose just to get your goat,” said an old man dressed in black.
“They know how to write a grammatical sentence, or they would if they listened to you,” said an old woman dressed in black.
“The whole student body hates you,” said a younger man in black.
“At least I return the compliment with interest,” Eleanore grumbled to herself as she made an especially emphatic red mark with her pen.
But even as she squinted at a student’s sloppy handwriting in the bad light, Eleanore’s ears told her that her students hadn’t tormented her enough, but had seen fit to play the noisiest game in the world right outside her house.
“If I gave these kids enough homework, they wouldn’t have time to make so much noise in my neighborhood,” Eleanore grumbled.
A dedicated teacher, Eleanor Gleason worked hard to prepare her students for the life ahead of them, but far from appreciating her efforts, they only complained of all the work she did for them, and even their parents complained about all the homework she assigned.
“I caught you in the very act!” Eleanore heard a child cry out from just outside her house. “Bring that plant back immediately!”
Alarmed by that outcry, Eleanore rushed to the door and flung it open. By then, several children were scattering in all directions, leaving trails of dirt behind them as they always did. Her paper carrier, Michael Bullinger, obviously the ringleader of the trouble, remained behind, standing in the middle of the walk with his paper sack over his shoulder.
“Well, are you going to bring me the paper or bury it in my garden as you did last week?” Eleanore asked Michael impatiently.
Not even then did Michael move a muscle, not even to make a typically sassy remark. Instead, he stared at her yard with the strangest look on his face. Eleanore opened her mouth to ask Michael if he stared at everybody’s yard the way he stared at hers. But then her eyes followed Michael’s and she understood why her paper carrier was so transfixed. Every rose bush she had planted in the front yard had been uprooted and carried off by the children. And that in broad daylight! Or, was it this sudden loss and her own helplessness that made the afternoon look so dark? Not having gotten a good look at any of the children who had vandalized her garden, she didn’t see how the police could help her beyond telling her how horrible it was. Surely, they would never find anybody with stolen roses in their possession.
“How—how could this have happened?” Eleanore spluttered.
Michael shook his head sadly. It seemed odd to Eleanore that he wasn’t fixing that cold stare of his on her, one that dared her to complain about his most outrageous actions.
“Did you see who committed these atrocities against me?” Eleanore asked her paper carrier.
She didn’t expect Michael to giver her a helpful answer, but perhaps his refusal to help could get him placed in a home for delinquent juveniles, small consolation as that would be for her.
“Yes, I saw them very well. I caught them in the very act of pulling up your rose plants.”
To heighten his sense of mockery, Michael answered in the high-pitched voice that Eleanore knew he used to mimic her behind her back.
“Will you please give me their names?” Eleanore asked Michael.
To her dismay, Michael showed no sign of shrinking away from the hard glare she directed at him.
“I fear I cannot do that as I do not know any of their names,” Michael replied in the same high-pitched mocking voice.
“Perhaps an interview at the police department will jog your memory, Michael,” Eleanore threatened.
“I have nothing in my memory about them to jog except their faces,” Michael replied in his falsetto. “If you want me to know their names, you will have to introduce them to me. Then I will know their names and I can match them to their faces for you.”
That reply was so unlike anything she had ever heard from Michael Bullinger that Eleanore focused her eyes on the paper carrier and finally realized that it wasn’t Michael. The carrier wasn’t even a boy; it was a tall, slender girl Eleanore had never seen before.
“Oh! I'm sorry!” Eleanore exclaimed, embarrassed at her mistake. “I guess I’m so mad at what those kids did I can’t see straight. Are you substituting for Michael Bullinger?”
“Yes,” said the girl.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you before. You must be new here.”
“I don’t think you have seen me before, either,” the girl replied, her serious face showing no trace of mockery. “It is not necessarily the case that I am new to this town, but that is the case in this instance.”
“What’s your name?” Eleanore asked her.
“Amarilla.”
“Amarilla who?”
“Amarilla, that’s who.”
“I mean, what’s your last name?”
Amarilla appeared genuinely puzzled.
“Why should I have a last name?”
“It’s how people identify themselves,” Eleanore explained, shifting into lecture mode. “You have a family name so that people know what family you come from. Some family names are patronymics. These are names based on the old custom of designating oneself as the son or daughter of certain man. That’s are we got the surname Johnson, which means Son of John. Other surnames are derived from a profession, such as Carpenter or Smith.”
Amarilla’s face flooded with recognition.
“Okay! I’m the daughter of Martin and Edith.”
“You don’t call them that, do you?”
“No, I call them Mother and Father. Other people call them Martin, Father of Amarilla, Roger and Samantha, and Edith, Mother of Amarilla, Roger, and Samantha.”
“I’ve never heard of a grownup being identified by his or her children before,” said Eleanore.
“Oh, well, you should try it some time,” Amarilla suggested. “It’s a rather good system.”
“Do you know where Michael is?” Eleanore asked. “And why isn’t Scott Simpson substituting for him if Michael is too busy loafing to do his job?”
“I don’t know where either Scott or Michael are,” Amarilla replied. “I haven’t heard from Scott since yesterday. Most likely he has gone off on a quest. I suppose Michael might be off on a quest as well, since there are a few things he can do as a crow that can’t be done in human form.”
“What is that about?” Eleanore asked, determined to bring sense into this weird conversation.
“What I just said is what I was talking about,” Amarilla replied, sounding as if she were the one trying to explain something to a small child. “I said that I believe Scott has been sent on a quest. With the light disappearing, there is a need for many quests and Scott is highly qualified to go on one. I said that Michael has turned into a crow. I know that for a fact because I learned of that from some rowdy children of this town who told me so. I also said that Michael is most likely off on a quest of his own, a quest that a crow can perform better than a human. Otherwise, why should he be sent on his quest in the form of a crow. Have I made myself clear?”
“Let me make something perfectly clear, young lady!” said Eleanore Gleason. “I will not tolerate any more nonsense out of you. Now, will you please explain to me when it became sensible to assume that a thirteen-year-old boy has turned into a crow?”
Amarilla gave Eleanore a puzzled look.
“I don’t know enough history to know when it first became sensible to realize that people who squawk too much turn into crows,” Amarilla replied. “Maybe we have always known that.”
“Amarilla! Will you please tell me where they teach history like that?” Eleanore demanded.
“Why, in Carelin.”
“And where is that?”
“Well, a bit of Carlin is here in Milton. Including my house. That’s how I got here. As to the rest of Carelin, I just don’t know where it is right now.”
“This is too much!” Eleanore exploded. “First a group of hoodlums dig up my roses and then a paper girl comes along and makes a mockery out of common sense! Well, just give me my paper and begone!”
Amarilla fished a paper out of her sack and handed it over to Eleanore. Then she started on her way to the next house, shaking her head. Eleanore blanched and cried out when she read the headline: GARDEN DISAPPEARS FROM ENGLISH TEACHER’S YARD.
“What’s the matter?” asked Amarilla, turning back to the house.
“So, you are part of the conspiracy!” Eleanore accused her.
“What conspiracy?”
“The conspiracy to destroy my rose garden!”
“All I did was deliver the paper,” said Amarilla. “There was no conspiracy in that.”
“Yes there was!” the English teacher insisted. “How else could you have printed a newspaper with a headline announcing what these hoodlums were going to do this afternoon?”
“Our editor often prints stories before they happen,” Amarilla replied, looking totally serious.
“But—that’s not the way things work!” Eleanore spluttered.
“Yes, it is,” said Amarilla, as imperturbable as ever. “That’s the best way to have the news right when it happens.”
Eleanore took a closer look at the newspaper and finally noticed that it was not the Milton Gazette that she had been given, but a newspaper called the Carelin Gazette.
“I see you haven’t even given me the paper I subscribed for,” said Eleanore. “And that makes it all the more obvious that you concocted this fake paper just to make light of the ruination of my rose garden!”
Amarilla riffled through the newspapers and pulled out another one that clearly was a copy of the Milton Gazette.
“Will this do?” Amarilla asked.
Eleanore looked over the paper.
“Yes, this will do. But that does not explain this fake paper you gave me.”
“There is nothing fake about the Carelin Gazette,” Amarilla replied in a tight voice. “You can see for yourself how accurate their reporting is.”
“All I know is that this paper is part of a plot to vandalize my garden and make a horrible mockery out of it!” Eleanore yelled.
“Will you feel better if you have roses growing on your house?” Amarilla asked the English teacher.
“Wh—what? Of course I’d feel better if I had roses growing on my house. Not that that is about to happen for a few years.”
“What color roses do you like?” Amarilla asked.
The question was asked so nicely that Eleanore could not feel quite as angry with the girl as she had.
“Mostly I grow red ones and a few pink ones,” said Eleanor with longing in her voice, “but the ones I like best are the creamy white ones.”
“Good choice,” said Amarilla. “Creamy white roses are the best for glowing in the dark.”
She reached into her paper pouch, pinched something between her fingers and dropped it in the garden.
“Now, what are you doing?” asked the English teacher.
“Since you don’t understand me very well,” Amarilla replied as she walked away, “I think I had best leave my actions unexplained.”
Eleanor shook her head and went back into her house, feeling that night had fallen already. She corrected several more papers, but after a while she heard such an odd scraping sound outside, that she had to spring open the door in the hope that this time, she would catch the juvenile delinquents who were tormenting her. But when she opened her front door, there were no children in her yard. What she saw were creamy white roses blooming up and down the whole front of her house.
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“We are so sorry to disturb you on a Saturday morning, Mr. Armstrong,” said the older man, “but what we have to talk to you about is most important for your law firm,”
Harvey Armstrong had no idea of how the three visitors dressed in black had entered his office and seated around his desk before he could open his mouth to ask them to leave. Remembering the disagreeable visit he had received from them a few days earlier about Mrs. Lear’s estate, Harvey had his radar screen up.
“What we have to say is also import ant for the town, and—how shall we say it?—important for your domestic life,” added the woman.
“I am sure it will be worth your time to hear us out,” said the younger man.
“Uh—what can I do for you?” Harvey asked, though hoping he would not have to do anything for those people.
“Mr. William Harrison is in the process of buying the First National Bank of Milton,” said the old man.
“His purchase should make the bank solvent again,” added the woman.
“But if Mr. Harrison is going to make the bank solvent,” said the younger man, “he will need to make a couple of investments.”
The older man explained at some length the nature of the investments that would be required. Harvey squirmed in his seat the longer the man spoke.
“But that's illegal,” gasped Harvey.
“Anything can be made legal,” said the old man.
“You only need to change a few classifications,” said the woman.
“And you know the best way to do that,” added the young man.
“But . . .” Harvey spluttered, “Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘some things are legal that aren't moral.’”
“Mr. Armstrong,” said the old man. “I assure you that your daughter Sheila is safe—so far.”
A pit suddenly opened up in Harvey’s stomach.
“She is?” Harvey asked in alarm. “What do you mean she’s safe so far? Where is she?”
“You need not worry yourself as to where she is at the moment,” said the woman.
“No harm will come to her,” said the younger man.
“It's just that you won’t see her again until you work out the deal for the purchase of the bank,” said the older man.
“Where is my daughter?!” Harvey cried.
“Let it suffice for us to tell you,” said the woman, “that she is not in Milton at the present moment.”
Harvey sank into his chair. At first his mind raced with ways to work out the deal the three visitors were asking him to do, but each time he worked out a solution, he pictured Sheila's face. He would be able to fulfill her dream of studying at Julliard, but how could he face her if she ever found out how he had managed to free her from her kidnappers and then pay her way through school?
“I'll think about it,” said Harvey weakly, hoping to gain himself some time.
“I suggest you think hard,” said the older man
“And quickly,” added the woman.
“Time is running out,” said the younger man.
Suddenly, the three visitors were gone. Harvey quickly picked up the phone and dialed home, frantically hoping that he would hear Sheila's voice when the phone was answered.
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Although her pager could summon her back to the hospital at any moment, it was still a relief for Marion Rosskill to get out of the building long enough to have a walk up and down Main Street. This time, however, she only exchanged one set of tensions for another as the time to think plunged her deeper into her worries and self-accusations about her children. She did not blame them for reversing roles and making her a latchkey mother. But she did blame them for not calling and leaving a message. It was not unusual for them to spend the night somewhere else, but this was the first time they hadn't phoned the hospital to tell her. But then, giving blame where blame was due, Marion had to admit that, coming home as late as she did, she sometimes failed to check up on the children to make sure they were sleeping in their beds and she was often out of the house before they were down for breakfast. Not until the school called to question their absences did Marion know they were not where they should be for a second time.
Going to work when she did not know where her children were got her day off to a bad start. The parents of a young man she was treating for a closed-head injury made her day a lot worse. When she told them that the chances of a significant recovery from brain damage were slim, they complained bitterly about her efforts to save their son’s life. What was the sense of saving a life when the life saved had no meaning? What was the point of inflicting so much suffering on the young man and on those who would have to take care of him for years? And so it went. They never calmed down enough to listen to some practical recommendations for what they could do about the situation and Marion became too exasperated to try suggesting that loving care might give a lot of meaning to their son’s life. By the time those parents had left, they had Marion feeling like a destroyer.
The sky was cloudy, as it had been for several days, but somehow the day seemed even darker than the clouds could account for. Another symptom of depression, Marion noted. She knew all the reasons she had for feeling depressed but that knowledge did nothing to cheer her up.
Every time she heard a child cry out, Marion looked around in case it was Kevin or Karen. It seemed that more children than usual were about and that they were more boisterous than usual as well. One store seemed to be particularly infested with children running wild in it. They, or somebody, had already broken the front window. The electricity seemed to be off and only a few candles and kerosine lamps lit the place. With the way the children were acting, it seemed likely that they would knock over a candle any minute and set the store and then the whole town ablaze.
Marion entered the store, in case her children, much as she feared the embarrassment of finding them acting up so badly. Not only did she see neither Kevin nor Karen, she did not recognize any of the children. That was odd. Unless Marion had become so absorbed in her work that she no longer noticed anybody in town who wasn’t injured in the head, she knew at least the faces of everybody in town. Only then did Marion realize that she didn’t recognize the store any more than she recognized the children.
“Name, please,” a man called out.
The gentleman, camouflaged by his dark sweater, was sitting at a small desk, busily writing on an endless roll of paper that was curling all over the floor. Marion hadn’t planned on asking the man for help but his greeting caused her to ask just in case he could help.
“I’m Dr. Marion Rosskill. Have you seen either of my children?”
“Filionymic, please.”
“What?”
“Names of your children.”
“Oh, Karen and Kevin.”
“I have Kevin, Son of Harold.”
“Yes, that’s right. Not that he’s seen his father in years, or likely ever will,” said Marion, bitterness flooding her at the mention of that name.
“Kevin Son of Harold: two train cars: one circus car with wolf and one caboose.”
“Does that mean he’s been here?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“Wherever you find one circus car with wolf and one caboose is most likely where you will find Kevin, Son of Harold.”
“Well, where might those train cars be?” asked the bewildered doctor.
“Most likely on the way to Kevin the Weaver Painter’s Treasure Island.”
“Will you please explain what that is all about?”
“Finding the lost light in hidden treasure—Neville, Son of Matthias, one sling shot with rubber ball—this hidden treasure being on an island drawn on a treasure map by Sir Kevin the Weaver Painter,” answered the man who continued writing as he spoke.
The man’s strange words reminded Marion of the unbelievable things she was told the last time her children returned after having disappeared.
“Has Kevin been drawing things that come to life again?” Marion asked him. “Do you think he’s in that strange country he went to before?”
“For Kevin the Weaver Painter, Son of Harold, drawing a treasure map is normal behavior,” the scribe answered. “There is nothing strange about being on a quest if he was appointed to make said quest.”
“What about Karen?” Marion asked, hoping for a more sensible answer this time but doubting she would get it.
“Karen, Daughter of Harold? No purchases listed. Sent on quest elsewhere without benefit of Morley’s accouterments.”
“But—where has she gone on a quest?”
“Not on my list. Must be on somebody else’s list.”
As Marion turned away in puzzlement and disgust, a rubber ball hit her on the shoulder.
“Neville!” a girl’s voice rang out. “I caught you in the very act.”
A girl, yet another stranger, was standing in the doorway, her arms akimbo.
“No you didn’t,” said a boy who had a slingshot dangling from his hand.
“Yes, she did,” the other children chorused.
“However!” the girl’s voice rang out, “your disorderly behavior is nothing against my most earnest prohibition, made in the interests of your safety, against entering this store!”
All of the children stood still and hung their heads slightly.
“But the Dark Lake didn’t get us,” said a boy.
“We’ve been real careful about it,” said a girl.
When several children glanced toward the back of the store, Marion followed their eyes. A chill stabbed her when she saw the store break off into pitch darkness.
“I must say it is a good thing that none of you fell into the Dark Lake,” said the girl who had taken charge. “Only if a quest should take you there should you ever dare enter it with any hope of emerging from it with any thoughts still connected to your brains. Do you understand me?”
Several children nodded their heads. Unnerved by the unruly children, the store that seemed not to belong in Milton, and the chilling words spoken by the girl, Marion fled and did not stop her brisk walk until she was at the door of Donna’s Donuts across the street. She looked back at the store and read its sign: Morley’S TOY STORE. There was no question that the store was new in town, but with it’s broken window and weather-beaten sign, it didn’t look at all new. Then, a chill overcame Marion when she realized that Carl’s Hardware was supposed to be in that spot, but it wasn’t anywhere to be seen. With her nerves reaching the breaking point, Marion ducked into Donna’s, snatched a couple of donuts, ordered the largest size coffee available, and took a seat.
“Your children have left you for good this time,” said an older man in black, who was suddenly sitting across from Marion.
“They feel you have left them, and so they think it only fair that they should to leave you,” said a woman in black.
“I realize that it is distressing when neglect of your children leads to such a pass,” said a younger man in black.
Marion choked on her donut and wondered where those three horrible people had come from, people who seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.
“Your children really do feel unloved, you know,” said the woman.
“I—do—the—best—I can,” said Marion in as steady a voice as she could manage.
“Which is the best anyone can do,” said a man with a deep voice.
Suddenly, the three strangers were gone and a sympathetic Father Clement was standing over her. Just as suddenly, Marion felt that she could breathe again.
“It’s just—“ Marion stammered.
Father Clement slid into the seat across the booth from Marion.
“Is something wrong?” asked the priest.
Marion nodded as she took a long swig of coffee, and tried to hold back her tears, with little success.
“Karen and Kevin are both missing—again.”
Before Father Clement could reply, a girl approached the booth,
“Can I help?” she asked.
Marion was about to ask for another large coffee, thinking she was a waitress, but to Marion’s surprise, Father Clement nodded to the girl and she sat down. Marion then realized that this was the same girl who had just bawled out the children in the toy store.
“I am trying to have a conversation with Father Clement,” Marion said to the girl.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Father Clement apologized. “I thought you knew Amarilla. She’s a friend of Kevin and Karen.”
“You are?” Marion exclaimed. “Do you know where they are? Are they all right?”
“They are both safe,” Amarilla replied with conviction.
“How do you know?”
“Well, actually, I don’t know how safe they are at the moment,” Amarilla admitted. “I really don’t know for sure if they are safe at all. However, I would rather not assume the worst, as my mother is sure to do, and I would rather not assume that nothing can go wrong as my father will do just as surely.”
“The man in that—that store that seems to invaded the town—that store where you were laying down the law to those children—said that Kevin is on a quest to a treasure island, and that Karen is on a quest, but he had no idea what it was,” said Marion.
“That is partly correct,” said Amarilla. “As it happened, Kevin missed the pirate ship for the treasure island. As a result, he and my brother and sister and a girl named Sheila are taking a train that should take them to their quest.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Marion, rather uncertainly, “but what about Karen?”
Amarilla frowned.
“I have no idea where she is or what quest she is on. However, I have as much confidence in Karen, as I have in Kevin. We can’t help but worry about them, but at least there is hope.”
“Thanks for the information,” said Marion.
Marion shoved her unfinished coffee and half a donut to the side and stood up to go.
“Are you going back to the house?” asked Father Clement.
“Not yet,” answered the doctor. “It’s about time to make the rounds again.”
“You can come to rectory when you’re done,” Father Clement offered.
“Thank you,” said Marion, “I might do that.”
“Or, you could come to my house,” said Amarilla. “Father Clement can show you where it is. I could make you a cup of coffee better than you got here, and you need more to eat than a donut.”
“Thank you,” said Marion. “You’re right about my eating habits. I know better, or should.”
“Are you going to collect the children now?” asked Father Clement.
“I suppose so,” said Amarilla with no show of enthusiasm.
Amarilla walked out of Donna’s Donuts at a fast clip and Marion followed with Father Clement at her side. It was immediately apparent that there was an even greater commotion coming from the toy shop than before. Amarilla dodged a couple of flying cars and pounced on a girl at the entrance to the toy store.
“Sally!” Amarilla’s voice rang out, “I caught you in the very act!”