While Tim was telling Sheriff Ashworth the story Luke had told him and Wendy, and while Gold team was approaching the I-95 Hardeeville exit, where they would double back to the little town of DuPray, Nick Wilholm was herding the kids who had remained in the screening room into the little Back Half lounge.

Sometimes kids lasted a surprisingly long time; George Iles was a case in point. Sometimes, however, they seemed to unravel all at once. That appeared to be happening to Iris Stanhope. What Back Half kids called the bounce—a brief post-movie respite from the headaches—hadn’t happened for her this time. Her eyes were blank, and her mouth hung open. She stood against the wall of the lounge with her head down and her hair in her eyes. Helen went to her and put an arm around her, but Iris didn’t seem to notice.

“What are we doing here?” Donna asked. “I want to go back to my room. I want to go to sleep. I hate movie nights.” She sounded querulous and on the verge of tears, but at least she was still present and accounted for. The same seemed true of Jimmy and Hal. They looked dazed, but not exactly hammered, the way Iris did.

Not going to be any more movies, Avery said. Not ever.

His voice was louder in Kalisha’s head than it had ever been, and for her that just about proved it—they really were stronger together.

“A bold prediction,” Nicky said. “Especially coming from a little shit like you, Avester.”

Hal and Jimmy smiled at that, and Katie even giggled. Only Iris still seemed completely lost, now scratching unselfconsciously at her crotch. Len had been distracted by the television, although nothing was on. Kalisha thought maybe he was studying his own reflection.

We don’t have much time, Avery said. One of them will come soon to take us back to our rooms.

“Probably Corinne,” Kalisha said.

“Yeah,” Helen said. “The Wicked Bitch of the East.”

“What do we do?” George asked.

For a moment Avery seemed at a loss, and Kalisha was afraid. Then the little boy who had thought earlier in the day that his life was going to end in the immersion tank held out his hands. “Grab on,” he said. Make a circle.

All of them except Iris shuffled forward. Helen Simms took Iris’s shoulders and steered her into the rough circle the others had formed. Len looked longingly back over his shoulder at the TV, then sighed and put out his hands. “Fuck it. Whatever.”

“That’s right, fuck it,” Kalisha said. “Nothing to lose.” She took Len’s right hand in her left, and Nicky’s left hand in her right. Iris was the last one to join up, and the instant she was linked to Jimmy Cullum on one side and Helen on the other, her head came up.

“Where am I? What are we doing? Is the movie over?”

“Hush,” Kalisha said.

“My head feels better!”

“Good. Hush, now.”

And the others joined in: Hush . . . hush . . . Iris, hush.

Each hush was louder. Something was changing. Something was charging.

Levers, Kalisha thought. There are levers, Avery.

He nodded at her from the other side of their circle.

It wasn’t power, at least not yet, and she knew it would be a fatal mistake to believe it was, but the potential for power was present. Kalisha thought, This is like breathing air just before the summer’s biggest thunderstorm lets rip.

“Guys?” Len said in a timid voice. “My head’s clear. I can’t remember the last time it was clear like this.” He looked at Kalisha with something like panic. “Don’t let go of me, Sha!”

You’re okay, she thought at him. You’re safe.

But he wasn’t. None of them were.

Kalisha knew what came next, what had to come next, and she dreaded it. Of course, she also wanted it. Only it was more than wanting. It was lusting. They were children with high explosives, and that might be wrong, but it felt so right.

Avery spoke in a low, clear voice. “Think. Think with me, guys.”

He began, the thought and the image that went with it strong and clear. Nicky joined him. Katie, George, and Helen chimed in. So did Kalisha. Then the rest of them. They chanted at the end of the movies, and they chanted now.

Think of the sparkler. Think of the sparkler. Think of the sparkler.

The dots came, brighter than they had ever been. The hum came, louder than it had ever been. The sparkler came, spitting brilliance.

And suddenly they weren’t just eleven. Suddenly they were twenty-eight.

Ignition, Kalisha thought. She was terrified; she was exultant; she was holy.

OH MY GOD

19

When Tim finished telling Luke’s story, Sheriff Ashworth sat silent for several seconds in the dispatch chair, his fingers laced together on his considerable belly. Then he picked up the flash drive, studied it as if he had never seen such a thing before, and set it down. “He told you he doesn’t know what’s on it, is that right? Just got it from the housekeeper, along with a knife he used to do surgery on his earlobe.”

“That’s what he said,” Tim agreed.

“Went under a fence, went through the woods, took a boat downriver just like Huck and Jim, then rode a boxcar most of the way down the East Coast.”

“According to him, yes,” Wendy said.

“Well, that’s quite a tale. I especially like the part about the telepathy and mind over matter. Like the stories the old grannies tell at their quilting bees and canning parties about rains of blood and stumpwater cures. Wendy, wake the boy up. Do it easy, I can see he’s been through a lot no matter what his real story is, but when we look at this, I want him looking with us.”

Wendy crossed the room and shook Luke’s shoulder. Gently at first, then a little harder. He muttered, moaned, and tried to pull away from her. She took his arm. “Come on, now, Luke, open your eyes and—”

He surged up so suddenly that Wendy stumbled backward. His eyes were open but unseeing, his hair sticking up in front and all around his head like quills. “They’re doing something! I saw the sparkler!”

“What’s he talking about?” George Burkett asked.

“Luke!” Tim said. “You’re okay, you were having a dre—”

“Kill them!” Luke shouted, and in the station’s small holding annex, the doors of all four cells clashed shut. “Obliterate those motherfuckers!”

Papers flew up from the dispatch desk like a flock of startled birds. Tim felt a gust of wind buffet past him, real enough to ruffle his hair. Wendy gave a little cry, not quite a scream. Sheriff John was on his feet.

Tim gave the boy a single hard shake. “Wake up, Luke, wake up!”

The papers fluttering around the room fell to the floor. The assembled cops, Sheriff John included, were staring at Luke with their mouths open.

Luke was pawing at the air. “Go away,” he muttered. “Go away.”

“Okay,” Tim said, and let go of Luke’s shoulder.

“Not you, the dots. The Stasi Li . . .” He blew out a breath and ran a hand through his dirty hair. “Okay. They’re gone.”

“You did that?” Wendy asked. She gestured at the fallen paperwork. “You really did that?”

“Something sure did it,” Bill Wicklow said. He was looking at the night knocker’s time clock. “The hands on this thing were going around . . . whizzing around . . . but now they’ve stopped.”

“They’re doing something,” Luke said. “My friends are doing something. I felt it, even way down here. How could that happen? Jesus, my head.”

Ashworth approached Luke and held out a hand. Tim noticed he kept the other on the butt of his holstered gun. “I’m Sheriff Ashworth, son. Want to give me a shake?”

Luke shook his hand.

“Good. Good start. Now I want the truth. Did you do that just now?”

“I don’t know if it was me or them,” Luke said. “I don’t know how it could be them, they’re so far away, but I don’t know how it could be me, either. I never did anything like that in my life.”

“You specialize in pizza pans,” Wendy said. “Empty ones.”

Luke smiled faintly. “Yeah. You didn’t see the lights? Any of you? A bunch of colored dots?”

“I didn’t see anything but flying papers,” Sheriff John said. “And heard those cell doors slam shut. Frank, George, pick that stuff up, would you? Wendy, get this boy an aspirin. Then we’re going to see what’s on that little computer widget.”

Luke said, “This afternoon all your mother could talk about was her barrettes. She said someone stole her barrettes.”

Sheriff John’s mouth fell open. “How do you know that?”

Luke shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not even trying. Christ, I wish I knew what they were doing. And I wish I was with them.”

Tag said, “I’m thinking there might be something to this kid’s story, after all.”

“I want to look at that flash drive, and I want to look at it right now,” Sheriff Ashworth said.

20

What they saw first was an empty chair, an old-fashioned wingback placed in front of a wall with a framed Currier & Ives sailing ship on it. Then a woman’s face poked into the frame, staring at the lens.

“That’s her,” Luke said. “That’s Maureen, the lady who helped me get out.”