Eleanor (27 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

H
e wandered the forest for hours. He was miles away before he stopped at a spring and drank all he could hold. His hands and limbs had returned to David's; by morning his nose would be fine, sooner if he found food. He was hungry, and though it was probably just in his imagination, he felt cold.

His mind was clear and uncluttered. He let it stay that way and let his feet propel him forward as if entranced. He tried not to think about the damage he'd left for David to clean up. He could do nothing right. He was fighting against the inevitable and only making things worse. He'd sleep before making the final decision. With any luck, he'd find a deer to eat and sample. Another coyote or a fox was too much to hope for, at least at first. He was done with people. It was too hard to be among them. Maybe a thousand miles away and fifty years from now, he'd try again, but not now.

The sun slipped low on the horizon, another stolen sunset in Wyoming from a guest who'd long outstayed his welcome. In tree shadow, he followed the creek to the clearing David had shown Eleanor a lifetime before. He'd sleep there, and in the morning, he'd go.

“Eleanor,” David said.

He jumped. David, the real David, sat in the clearing facing the path from the creek. He turned to run.

“Eleanor, don't go,” he said.

He hesitated, turned slowly around, and looked at him. He studied that familiar countenance and saw nothing but tenderness. He listened, smelled, and searched for others. There was no one.

“Please, Eleanor,” he said reaching out his hand. “Sit with me.”

He turned away ashamed. He stared at his boots, blood caked from his wounds. The ruined shoes he would not need in the morning.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm a disaster.”

“Eleanor, sit by me. I have a blanket. You can be warm.”

“I'm a thief,” he said. “But I am not a killer. Tabitha died of cancer.”

“I never doubted that.”

“I've got nowhere to go, no one to be. I've stolen from you, and I'm ashamed.”

“My boots? Big deal.”

“No, dummy,” he cried, spinning to face him. “Look at me. I'm a monster. Look what I can do. Look what I took from you. I took you from you.”

“You're not me,” he said. “You only look like me. You're Eleanor. I'd know you anywhere now. I think I've seen you look different before, haven't I?”

He nodded.

“You were the trucker that saved Wendy and me on Halloween, weren't you?”

He nodded.

“Russell stabbed you, didn't he? Like he did today.”

Again, he nodded.

“At the market. Tabitha. That was you, too. I see it now.”

“I'm not human.”

“I'm not racist,” he said.

He laughed.

“Come sit with me,” he said. “I have an overwhelming desire to be beside myself.”

He laughed again and reluctantly shuffled over. David lifted his arm and wrapped him in a blanket.

“How'd you know to look for me here?”

“Barbara called to see if I was okay.”

“She knows you weren't there then,” he said miserably. “I'm a disaster.”

“I played it cool,” he said. “She was very upset. She wasn't taking in information. Don't worry about it. Tell me what happened. I see the nose job. Where'd you get cut?”

He lifted up his left hand and pointed to his thumb.

“You heal quick,” he said.

“One of the perks,” he said.

“You were going for Barbara weren't you,” he asked.

“I couldn't do it,” he said. “It seemed so obvious a solution, but then I thought it out and couldn't do it.”

“That's good,” he said.

“How long have you known?” he asked.

“Since the day you told me in third grade. I said I believed you. I never doubted.”

“But all the research you did.”

“What about it?”

“It showed me for the monster I am.”

“Stop saying that. A monster would have killed Barbara today. You're no monster.”

“What am I then?”

“You're a skinwalker,” he said without hesitation. “That's the most accurate description I found.”

“It's not a pretty name,” he said. “It's the name of a monster.”

“I don't think so. I think it's cool. A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.”

“Skunk-cabbage,” he said, remembering a book he'd read with Tabitha.

After that, they were quiet for a while and watched the light fade.

“I have to leave,” he said finally. “In the morning, after I sleep, I have to leave.”

“No you don't,” he said.

“I've so totally messed up here. I'll try to come back one day. I'll look different. I'll be an adult this time. You know I'm over fifty?”

“That's a little weird,” he said. “You look about sixteen.”

He laughed.

“Can you be Eleanor again?” he said finally.

“If I want to go to jail. If I want to get caught.”

“Will you trust me?” he asked. “I'll make you a deal. If my plan doesn't work, I'll run off with you and we'll start again somewhere else.”

“I don't want that,” he said. “You've got a great life here. Even with all the crap, you've got a life. You've got a family. I know what that's worth. I won't take that from you. No way. Even if you think it sucks, you've got one. Be glad.”

“Stop telling me what I do and do not have,” he said. “I want you to trust me. If you can do that, I might have a solution.”

“And if it flops, I'll be captured. Eventually, they'll figure out what I am. Then they'll either kill me, which is the tradition, or maybe, if we believe in Hollywood, I'll be studied like a lab rat for the rest of my life. I can't let that happen.”

“I won't let them do that,” he promised. “If things go south, I'll get you out. If you don't want me to be with you, fine, but I promise I'll get you out. You'll be no worse off than you are now. Trust me.”

“I tried to stay,” he said softly. “Look what a mess I made. I need to go.”

“You made a mess because you tried to do it alone. You're not alone. Eleanor, I've got to say that it's really weird to look at my own face and call you that, but I know who and what you are, and I want to help.”

“I don't want to leave,” he said.

“Then don't,” he said. “Give me a chance.”

“I'm really a girl,” he said. “I know that much. I don't know what I really look like, but I know I'm a girl.”

“Then we need to get you out of that outfit,” he said. “I promise not to look.”

He put his head on David's shoulders and sighed. “Tell me your plan,” he said.

And he did.

Eleanor's old house was wrapped in police tape. The Mercedes cruised around the block twice to make sure it was empty then parked in a neighboring lot.

David and David got out of the car and crossed the field to the back fence. They helped each other over, and then David found the key hidden under a terra-cotta pot holding a withered, dead tomato plant. He tried not to look at the empty grave, but couldn't help himself. He slid the key in the lock and opened the door.

The place had been tossed by the police searching for who knows what. David found a candle in a drawer and lit it. It was the most light he dared show, and even then he kept it in the kitchen at the back of the house.

“They can't explain the body,” David whispered. “Tabitha was seen last week. The body looks to have been buried a month ago.”

“See,” he said. “A disaster.”

He was pleased to see all his food still there. The meat he'd left to thaw had gone bad. He tossed it in a garbage bag, sealed it and threw it out. The smell was unpleasant and too strong.

“Just act dumb,” he said. “Let it be a mystery. A ghost story. It's perfect.”

“You're just loading more rumors onto me,” he said, but threw a plate of ham steaks in the microwave to defrost.

“That's the great thing about it. It's so preposterous that when people realize how stupid it is, it'll suck the life out of all the rumors.”

“No, it won't. The Shoshone are on to me.”

David paused. “Yeah,” he said. “You're not wrong there. But this is the twenty-first century. Even they don't buy it completely.”

“It hurts, by the way,” he said. “The faster I change, the more it hurts. If I take it slowly, I can do it without howling.”

“We wouldn't want that,” he said. “I'll run you a bath.”

“Cold,” he said. “It's exothermic, going down in mass.”

“Looks like you've already adopted the role of lab-rat.”

“That's not funny,” he said, taking off his shirt.

“Sorry. Hey, you ruined my jacket.”

“You gave it to me.”

“Yes, I did. I'll give you another one.”

“You need to wear this one again.”

“Yeah,” he said.

They met in the kitchen while the tub filled.

“So,” David said. “I don't think I can do it myself. You've got to hit me.”

“Really?”

“Do it quick.”

“And the thumb?”

“Do that quicker still.”

“No, don't make me.”

“Trust me,” he said.

The microwave dinged. David turned and took out the meat. When he turned back, David smashed his fist into his nose and dropped him to the floor, the plate crashed down beside him.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay,” he said. “Give me a towel.”

After he did, David left the kitchen and climbed to the loft. He came down in a robe with an armful of clothes.

“I don't want you to be here,” he said. “I'll cut your thumb but then you leave. You go to the hospital, get it stitched up. Come back in the morning.”

“I don't want to leave you,” he said.

“It's your turn to trust me,” he said. “I'll be here in the morning. Go work on your mom.”

David handed him a knife and put his hand on the kitchen cutting block and turned away.

One swipe of the knife and blood poured onto the floor.

“Now get out of here,” he said. “That's deep. It's going to hurt a lot.”

“Be here in the morning,” he said. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” he said.

David kissed him on the forehead and left through the back door. Even on the forehead, there'd been an energy. Holding the candle and a box of crackers, he climbed in the tub and gritted his teeth.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

T
he flat, late August plains were hidden behind miles of head-high corn stalks. The little Honda sped along the highway on its newly oiled four cylinders. The windows were rolled down, and David fished through the radio channels for something that wasn't country or didn't yell scriptures over his speakers. He finally plugged in his iPod transmitter and tuned the car to a blank station.

Familiar lyrics began. He turned it up.

“Angels made these arms and legs, take me as I am. This is how the world has made me, love me as I am.'”

“Our song,” he said.

Eleanor smiled and sang along.

David's plan was simple, elegant, and relied so heavily on extortion as to make it borderline psychotic. The primary victim of his blackmail was Karen Venn.

David called her from the hospital with eight stitches in the thumb. He'd nearly lost it. Once in the car, he gave her the ultimatum. “Eleanor has returned,” he said. “I'm going to run away with her unless you help her.”

He looked at with her with his bandaged face and steel eyes and, as he later recounted to Eleanor, he “pulled at every heartstring” he could find.

In the morning, he'd had no sleep, and Karen called in sick. After Wendy was dropped off at her daycare, the two of them drove to Eleanor's house and knocked on the door.

Eleanor answered. She wore a skirt, the only one she owned, light makeup and clean skin.

“She'll do it,” David said.

“I said I'd try,” responded Karen.

They got in Karen's van and drove to the Jamesford Social Services Building.

While they waited to see Stephanie Pearce, Sheriff Hannon came through the door. The receptionist had tipped him off. Eleanor heard her make the call from the bathroom on her cell phone.

“Miss Anders, I have a few questions,” he said.

“You can talk to me with Stephanie,” she said matter-of-factly, but kept glancing at a nearby window.

“I think you should come down to the station,” he said.

“Let's try it her way,” said Karen. “It might make things easier.”

He looked at the three of them and shrugged.

“Okay,” he said.

In Stephanie Pearce's cramped office, Eleanor told the story. After the mean Stephanie Pearce told her that the state was going to break up her family and ship them away from their friends and support in Jamesford to Riverton, Eleanor had run away. Her mother apparently told people that she was visiting an aunt. There was no aunt. Pearce knew this from her files. Tabitha thought that she'd come back and so tried to buy time.

Eleanor came home at Easter, hungry and tired. That night, promising Eleanor that everything would work out, she died. Eleanor panicked and buried her mother in the yard. She was scared, lonely, and confused.

She got David's birthday invitation and planned to leave after wishing her best friend a happy sixteenth birthday. She kept low before then so no one would make her go to school and draw out the terrible farewells longer than she could endure.

After David's party, she saw the police at her house and ran away again. She didn't want to live with strangers in Riverton. Miss Pearce was so mean.

David convinced her to come back. Karen Venn had offered to be her guardian until she was eighteen. They could use the extra income. It was a perfect solution.

Karen Venn smiled and agreed, but no one took her to be overly enthusiastic.

That was David's plan. When she was done telling her story of woe and misfortune at the hands of the heartless social worker, she cuddled up to Karen, who did her best to welcome her.

“Tabitha visited me a week ago,” she said. “She was very much alive.”

Eleanor shook her head. “That's impossible.” Looking at the sheriff, she said, “What does this mean?”

His look was skeptical and reserved. He hadn't spoken since he sat down. He cleared his throat before saying, “It's a mystery. I don't know what it means.”

“Am I under arrest? Do you really think I would kill my own mother?” She made herself cry. It wasn't hard.

“No,” he said. “I need to get an official statement, but forensics puts the time of death in late April, over a month ago. She died from cancer. It fits with your story.”

“What about adoption?” interjected David. “Can she live with us? There's no need to make her life more miserable, is there?”

Pearce's face was red. She'd been painted as a complete villain in Eleanor's tale, and her only defense was that a ghost had visited her begging for mercy.

“It's not my decision,” she said. “I'll need to talk to people.”

“But you'll recommend it, won't you?” said David. “Please?”

“We'll need to look at your living conditions,” she said. “There are many factors—”

“I could live at home,” said Eleanor. “My home.” She'd gone off script then, and David shot her an ugly look.

“I only need a guardian. I can still live in my house. I've practically lived alone for years,” she said. “I do all the cleaning, cooking, banking, everything. You can ask around.”

“That's a bit much,” she said.

“Why?” said Karen hopefully. She hadn't been pleased with the idea of her son and his girlfriend living under the same roof. “It's a great idea. We're practically neighbors.”

“That's a stretch,” said Hannon.

“You know I'm self-sufficient,” said Eleanor. “You know I can handle it.”

“I do think you can handle it,” the sheriff said. “But it's not my call.”

“You can ask Principal Curtz,” Eleanor said, playing every card she had. “I bet he'd back me up. Tell him it was my idea.”

And he had.

The case was not concluded, but until it was, Karen was given temporary guardianship over Eleanor. And though the court didn't explicitly approve it, she remained at her old house and slept in the loft.

David had sworn to his mother, on pain of everything that she could think of, to be a gentleman.

“As long as I'm your mother, and you're under eighteen, you two are brother and sister. Do you understand?”

They did, and they promised to behave.

“My life is hard enough,” she said, driving back from the police station that night. “Please, don't make it any harder.”

“I'll try not to,” Eleanor said.

Wendy was ecstatic at having a new sister. Eleanor would sleep over at the Venn's on occasion, taking the couch against Karen's offers of letting her sleep in her bed or making a bed in Wendy's room. In the morning, she'd wake them with a big breakfast of eggs and fresh tomatoes.

When Pearce visited that summer, she'd be pleased to find that Eleanor had completed her classwork and wouldn't be held back a year. She didn't ask to see where Eleanor slept in the little trailer; the whole town knew Eleanor lived alone in the little house on Cedar Street. She cautioned them many times that they were on a limb, that the state was watching them and it wouldn't take much for them to step in and remove Eleanor to another home. She made it clear that except for Karen's offer, there wasn't a parent in Jamesford who'd touch her with a stick, and the Riverton family, after reading about the police search for her and the body in her yard, had also declined to take her. The chances of finding a willing foster family this side of Cheyenne was bleak.

They took the threat to heart, and David and Eleanor were perfect citizens. Whenever they went out together, to a movie or to get an ice cream, they took Wendy along as chaperone. When Eleanor went to her home, David accompanied her, but did not step inside. They'd give no one the opportunity to gossip.

By August, they felt the town had reluctantly accepted the situation. It helped that there'd been three months without drama. David hadn't pressed charges against Russell, which made the Sheriff both surprised and relieved. A knife attack would make the papers, and without a doubt, Eleanor's name would be brought into it and that would stir up the school lunch poisoning thing again, and the dead woman buried in the yard. The town wouldn't like that. It needed tourists, not the FBI.

Barbara visited David a couple of times during the summer. Eleanor did her best to be polite, but when Barbara pressed her chest into David's arm, Eleanor felt a phantom cord in her hand and went inside. David would follow shortly after, flushed and apologetic.

“It's not me doing it,” he said.

“I know, Brother,” she said.

“Thanks, Sis.”

David accompanied Eleanor on her necessary Nebraska trip. Karen wasn't pleased to have them go on a vacation together, but David promised up and down that they'd behave. Eleanor was going to go regardless, and he might as well go to look after her. Karen didn't understand why, but she sensed the stubborn determination they both possessed to make the trip. In the end, there was nothing to do. She gave them a hundred fifty dollars and made them promise to call her every night. They snuck out quietly at night so no one would see them.

David traded the Mercedes for a little Honda and presented a check for the difference to his mom. When David's father called in July, he would not tell his wife where he'd gotten the money for it. Karen took the call in her bedroom, but Eleanor could hear the conversation over Wendy's cartoons. He was calling from Afghanistan, but when she pressed him about the money, he grew angry and nearly hung up the phone. Karen backed down. Eleanor noted that she did not tell him what David had done with the car.

“The Honda is a better car,” David said. “This one I can afford to drive. Even to fix. Much better, don't you think?”

“Much,” she said.

They limited themselves to one kiss a week. When the time came, they would catch each other's eye. They'd find a secret place and touch their lips, just a peck, a caress. Just enough to be sure that it was still there, to feel that electrical bolt surge through them again, reaffirming the connection, renewing an unspoken vow.

Eleanor pointed to the road that led to the Batton farm. He slowed to look.

“How far's the house?”

“About a quarter mile up the road,” she said. “You can park over there. No one would see you on that side road.”

“Is she there? Maybe I should drive up and make sure someone's home.”

“Maybe,” she said.

“I want to see it anyway.”

“Let me get out,” she said. “They can't see me.”

“They won't see you,” he said.

“I can't take the chance.”

He stopped the car and let her out.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll be back here in five minutes.”

“I'll be in the corn,” she said.

He drove up the lonely road as Eleanor ducked down the embankment and into the corn rows.

She found a sunny place where a tractor had missed its planting and laid down to watch the clouds. Big, fluffy, white ones floated across the bluest sky she had ever seen. She remembered her mothers, all three of them now. She'd been ready to run for months, ever vigilant for the sound of doom, the voice that would crumble the illusion of her life with the Venns. She'd not been more than a pace away from a door or a window since Karen picked her up that fateful morning. Today she allowed herself to relax and absorb the smell of growing crops.

She wondered how Celeste would look tonight. Had she grown her hair out long? Had she colored it? Had she grown fat or thin? How had the year treated her? It was like the day before Christmas, and she was excited to see what she'd get.