The Book of Joby (39 page)

Ideas for beating Lindwald.

He was on his feet, running from the house, madly down the street without a plan, oblivious of the books still clutched in his straining hands. He ran and ran, trying to outdistance the torrent of memory: childhood dreams of Arthur; candles in the darkness; reconciliation of enemies, comfort to the suffering, help for the weak; candles burning by the hundreds, off into the night. . . . The knight. . . .
The knight of God! “Ha!”
he shouted, hardly able to bear his own scorn. What an ass! If he ran forever, he
might
not make it all any
worse
! . . .
That
was the brightest dream left him.

He ended up in a field, doubled over in the grass, vomiting a single plea, over and over, until his raw sobs mocked the raven’s voice:
“Forgive me! Forgive me!”

There was no answer in the silence, and, in time, he ceased to speak at all, but merely sat and stared as sunset came and he realized, with dull surprise, where he was.

The tournament field.

He got up, still clutching his two small talismans of childhood, went slowly to the clearing’s edge, swung his arm back, and threw them as hard as he could into the trees.

Across the field, concealed in knee-high grass and weeds, a glossy tortoise-shell cat stood stock-still, watching, with strange dark eyes, as Joby shuffled miserably away. When the boy was gone, the cat turned to mew mournfully at a cricket perched atop a long tendril of vetch beside him.

“He begs for forgiveness he does not need,” the cat mewed in frustration. “Why does he not think to beg for
help,
My Lord?”

“Lucifer’s creature spoke truly before he was destroyed,” the Cricket chirruped softly. “Joby has been well trained to think only of his debt to others. And in any case, he can hardly have guessed that you were here to beg help
directly
from, Gabe.”

“But he has many years of religious instruction now, Master. Why should it not occur to him to call upon one of us?”

“Oh, he’ll call upon Me,” the Creator sighed. “But Lucifer’s terms forbid Me from answering. As for you and all My other servants, Gabe, I sadly suspect that for Joby you are precisely that, and nothing more: ‘religious instruction.’ He may have been taught all your names, but it will not occur to him that any of you are actually there watching, except, perhaps, to judge and condemn.”

“Then how can he ask any of us for help at all?” Gabe asked, greatly distressed. “He cannot. It is not fair!”

“Nonetheless, it is the deal I agreed to,” the Creator chirruped gravely.

“He will want those books back someday,” Gabriel mewed in agitation. “They contain a portion of his heart. . . . Surely it would not violate the wager’s terms if I retrieved them so that they can be returned, should he think to ask it someday?”

“That’s for you to say, Gabe.”

“Me!” the cat complained. “Since when is it my place to define Your will, Lord?”

“You know I am not allowed to speak on any matter touching the wager.
You
are the wager’s official witness and arbiter, are you not? Who should know better?”

Gabe batted the grass with his tail in agitation. He had
never
had to
guess
his Master’s will. A moment later, where the cat had been, a young man
stood, with dark eyes and lovely copper features framed in curly locks as black as night. He walked resolutely toward the thicket of trees where Joby’s books had vanished, but came back moments later empty-handed.

“They are gone!” Gabe said quietly to the cricket. “I searched quite carefully! Where can they have gone?”

“The world is full of mystery, Gabe,” the cricket chirruped back. “Dryer lint, for instance.”

“What?” Gabe asked.

“Does anyone ever see it on the clothes when they go in?” the cricket mused. “Do the clothes seem much smaller when you take them out? . . . Of course,” the cricket chirruped pensively, “clothes do shrink sometimes, but that hardly seems to account for all the sheets of it left over in the end.”

“My Lord, forgive me, but . . . I haven’t the slightest idea what You’re talking about. What happened to Joby’s books?”

“There’s another mystery, Gabe. Shall we head back? I’ve a sudden hankering for cards. Care to join Me in a game of poker?”

“
Cards,
My Lord? . . .
Now?
”

“If not now,
when
?” the cricket chirped.

Their fruitless search ended where it had begun: at the school parking lot. Ben stared wearily through the windshield, his hands still on the wheel, trying to think of someplace they might have missed, while Laura sat in like silence beside him. They had combed the grid of streets around campus first, then gone to the tournament field and half a dozen less and less likely places after that. They’d even gone out to St. Albee’s, where Ben had derived some small, cold pleasure from the look on Richter’s face as he learned of the disastrous fruit all his guilt-mongering had produced.

They’d found Mrs. Peterson a tearful wreck at Joby’s home. After Mr. Thompson’s call that morning, she’d spent a few panicked hours waiting there, then gone to church to pray for Joby’s safety, only to come back and discover he’d been home while she was out. Ben and Laura had stayed with her until Joby’s dad had arrived.

As Ben tried in vain to think of some stone unturned, Laura began to cry again.

“Hey,” he crooned, sliding an arm across her shoulder. “Joby’s okay. He’s just gone somewhere to sort things out.”

“I’ve made such a mess of everything,” she moaned, swiping at her running nose. “I’ve driven him completely away just when he needs me most.”

“No, you didn’t,” Ben insisted.

Laura just cried even harder, burying her face in his shoulder, soaking his sleeve with her tears.

While they’d been searching for Joby, she had told Ben all about seducing Joby after prom, and how horrified she’d been afterward at what she’d done. He’d been tempted several times to tell her of the marriage plans Joby had confided in him that morning, but he knew those were not his to tell, and certainly not under these circumstances. What unbelievably sucky timing.

“I wanted him to love me, Ben,” she wept. “I wanted us to stay together. But I . . .” For a moment she simply shook with sobs. “I didn’t want to
trick him
into anything!”

“Shhhh,” Ben said, hugging her even tighter. “He loves you, Laura. He told me so. When we got to school this morning, he said he was going to . . . to go find you and talk.” His hand came up to wipe Laura’s tears away. He kissed her cheek where they had been, then kissed the top of her head. She looked up at him, so near, so hurt, so desperate for comfort . . . and somehow, it was her lips that his brushed next. She looked startled, but did not protest or pull away. Instead, she seemed to hold her breath, gazing at him uncertainly when he leaned back at last. Ben knew what he had done was wrong, but Joby had left Laura here with no one to turn to except . . . except . . . Laura leaned up and kissed him again, as if testing some confusing, utterly unexpected hypothesis.

“Well, screw me blind!
Looky here
!”

Laura jumped convulsively in Ben’s arms as he whirled around, slamming his arm painfully on the steering wheel. Johnny Mayhew’s face was practically pressed against the driver’s window.

“King Joby’s girl, frenchin’ his best friend. That’s
sweet
!” Mayhew crowed.

Ben was so horrified—both at what he’d done and at Mayhew’s sudden appearance—that, for a moment, he couldn’t even move.

“Looks like Joby’s havin’ a pretty rough day,” Mayhew sneered. “Not as bad as Lindwald’s, though. Yer just the kinda friends that murdering son of a bitch deserves.”

Suddenly blind with rage, Ben was out of the car in a tangle of fumbling fists and flailing limbs, but Mayhew had already fled, stopping only once halfway across the lawn to turn and jeer, “I’m gonna tell ’im, Ben! I’m gonna show ’im there’s karma out there after all!”

Joby sat vacantly adjusting the sleeves of his robe, the tilt of his cap, waiting for them to call him to the podium to make his little speech. He just wished
the ceremony done with. His pointless years of high school, his childhood in this town, his life with these people; he wanted it to end.

Having suffered terrible nightmares where Jamie’s horrible parents shouted accusations at him over his friend’s open grave, Joby hadn’t found the courage to attend the funeral. When Johnny Mayhew had come later to accuse him of being a fake friend to Lindwald and gloat about Ben and Laura’s betrayal, Joby had only taken Johnny’s news as bitter confirmation of his own failure. To think that only hours after he’d told Ben he meant to marry her . . . But what did that matter now? Joby wasn’t worthy of her. They must both have seen that. He wasn’t even safe for her. He wasn’t safe for anyone.

Even now, two months later, neither she nor Ben had talked with him about any of it. Two weeks earlier, as Joby had entered the hallway to the music room after school to get some books he’d left, he’d overheard them around the corner. Laura had been in tears—groaning that if Joby knew it would destroy him, and that she’d never dreamed this could happen to her. Ben had agreed that telling Joby would only make things worse. Joby hadn’t had to guess what it was they didn’t want him to know. He had just snuck quietly away again, wanting to spare them all yet another painful scene. As the weeks had passed, they had all treated each other more and more like cordial strangers.

He could still see Ben’s closed face earlier this evening, as they’d lined up for their graduation procession.

“You’ll stay in touch, right?” Ben had asked, as if Joby were a distant relative, or a business associate.

“Sure.” He had smiled just as politely. “I’m just going to Berkeley, not the moon. I hear they’ve put up phone lines to Colorado now.”

That had been it. Laura hadn’t spoken to him at all that night, just smiled from her place near the front of their line. Joby hadn’t been able to keep himself from thinking of the three of them together as kids, out at the tournament field, at his house or Ben’s . . . at Roundtable meetings in the grammar school library. . . .

“And now,” the principal announced, “I invite our class valedictorian, Joby Peterson, to the podium to share his thoughts on behalf of the graduating class.”

Joby stood to polite applause and went up to mouth the words his adviser had helped him craft. He saw his parents sitting side by side, clapping with embarrassing enthusiasm. His brief tantrum after Jamie’s death seemed to have brought them a little closer. The only good anyone had to show for that ordeal.