The Stormchasers: A Novel (30 page)

“But Charles,” Karena says. She struggles for a politic way to phrase what Dr. H has told them:
When Charles sees and hears things that aren’t there, this is called a psychotic break.
“What about the fact that nobody around you can see or hear these things? Doesn’t that mean that they’re probably not really there?”

“Not for you,” says Charles. “But they are for me, and did you ever think maybe I am just more advanced? I am a genius, you know. Plus, they’re not all bad. The storms, for instance. They talk to me too. They each have a different—voice is putting it too simply, but essence. Personality. Some are screamers. Some mutterers. But I always know how to find them.”

“Okay,” says Karena. “But—well, isn’t that a reason not to—you know. And your study, what about that. Your abstract. You’d never be able to chase again.”

“I know,” says Charles. “And I’d miss the flying dream. That’s what it’s like when I’m up, when I’m really really really really up, like that dream we both have? The one where I’m flying over the hills for like hours and turn a corner and there’s a tornado there? I’m up so high I can see the pattern, and that’s so beautiful, K. There’s nothing like it in the world. I wish you could see it—I’ve wished that so many times. I’d really miss that if I were dead.”

“Good,” says Karena. She lies back down, tucking her spine against Charles’s legs. “Think about that. Whenever you go Into the Black, think about it.”

“I do,” says Charles. “But I swear, K. Most days I doubt I’ll see thirty.”

“Shut up, Charles,” Karena says fiercely. “Just shut up! If you—did that, don’t you know it would kill me? Don’t you know I’d die too?”

“That’s primarily why I haven’t done it—yet. But I think you should start preparing for life as a half, K. I’ll be with you, I’ll always be there, I just won’t be here. I don’t know if I can take it.”

Karena seizes his ankle again.

“You have to,” she says. “You just have to, that’s all. Promise me, Charles.”

“I can’t, K,” says Charles. “But I promise to try, how’s that?”

“Not good enough,” says Karena.

They lie silently for a while, pushing at each other with their minds. Karena thinks of the axiomatic struggle they learned about in physics class: an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. And she thinks, there must be a way out. There is no way. I have to tell. I can’t. He’ll go to jail, and he’ll never make it. There must be a way out. There is no way—

And then she starts to have an idea.

As if Charles feels her disengage to consider it, he sighs.

“I don’t want to think about it anymore tonight,” he says. “I’m so tired. I just want to go to sleep. Okay, K? Can we do that?”

Karena shrugs.

“Will you stay with me, K?”

“Of course,” she says.

“And would you do me a favor?”

“Depends. What is it?”

“Sing,” says Charles.

Karena can’t help but smile. It has been so long since she heard this request from Charles, not since they shared the room upstairs. Then, often, when he couldn’t sleep, his small voice would issue imperiously forth from the dark:
Sing!
And when Karena stopped:
More!

“Any requests?” she asks.

“No, whatever you want’s fine.”

“Okay,” Karena says. “Hold on.”

She clears her mind, thinking about it, then sings:

“More, please,” Charles says when she is done. His voice is drowsy now. So Karena repeats the verse, then again, over and over until she starts to wind down too, like a music box. By the time the arrow-slit window lightens with dawn, Karena, like Charles, is fast asleep.

T
he sheriff comes up the front walk with Frank at seven the next evening, and when Karena sees him from the living room window, she thinks she’s going to throw up. She turns to Siri, who’s been watching and waiting with her, and says, “What the fuck?”

“Karena Lien Hallingdahl!” Siri says.

“Sorry,” Karena says. “But why is the sheriff coming? Is it for—”

She points to the floor, indicating Charles’s lair beneath it.

“Of course,” snaps Siri. “Why else?”

“It’s just—” stammers Karena. “I didn’t know—I didn’t expect—Oh jeez.”

She fans her face, her heart scrambling in her chest. This is not good. This was not in the program. What Karena came up with—just this morning, in the shower, it hit her—was that she should tell Frank about Charles taking the pills, and Charles would go back to the Mayo. Not ideal, but better than jail, and maybe Dr. H could find something, anything that could help Charles. But when Karena went to Frank’s office this afternoon and stood in the doorway and said,
I’m worried about Charles, last night he tried to hurt himself—like, permanently,
she thought Frank would drive Charles to the clinic himself. Or maybe orderlies would arrive in an ambulance to take him there—but not this. Not the sheriff! This is a disaster. What if Sheriff Cushing knows about Motorcycle Guy? What if he looks at Karena and intuits her involvement? That’s what he’s trained to do, isn’t he? Plus, even if the sheriff doesn’t know—yet—the second Charles sees him he’ll blurt it out, assuming Karena has tattled and the sheriff has come to take him away.

“What is wrong with you?” Siri says. “Stop fidgeting.”

“You know, Ma, I’ve been thinking,” Karena says, “maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all. I might have been mistaken. About Charles—”

“What are you talking about?” Siri says.

“I mean maybe I just imagined—”

But it’s too late. The screen door opens, and the front door with its louvered glass slats, and then Sheriff Cushing is in their living room like a bear in a house trailer. His whiffle cut nearly grazes the Hallingdahls’ living room ceiling as he says his hellos, during which Karena’s stare fastens on his giant black shoes. Normally she likes Sheriff Cushing—everyone does. He’s the youngest sheriff ever elected in Foss County, and although Tiff, who prefers more sophisticated men, has declared him a typical no-neck New Heidelburg bullet-head, the sheriff has always been gentle with Charles, which Karena appreciates. But if she looks at him now he’ll surely know what she and Charles have done. Right? How much does a Minnesota sheriff know about a hit-and-run down in Iowa? Would he even be aware of something like that?

“Karena, the sheriff’s talking to you,” Siri says.

Normal, Karena thinks, act normal. She gives Sheriff Cushing a huge grin.

The sheriff looks a little startled. “That’s okay, Mrs. H,” he says to Siri. “I know everyone’s kind of distracted right now.”

He smiles nicely at Karena.

“So, college girl now, eh?” he says. “You going up to the Cities then?”

“That’s right,” Karena says. “Next month.” It’s the first time she’s realized it takes work to smile, that it requires actual muscles in the face.

“That’s great,” says the sheriff. “Good for you. That’s real exciting.”

Then, the niceties accomplished, the four of them just stand there. The silence thickens, punctuated only by Frank clearing his throat. The fact that they’re all here, in this rarely used room with its fireplace and knickknacks and the prized desk with the relatives under glass, feels like they’re participating in some awful, formal ceremony nobody quite knows the rules to. From outside they probably look like a diorama, Karena thinks, like the pioneer days scenes she saw once in the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument Museum on a field trip. Except in this case the exhibit would be called
Family In Trouble, 1988
. Maybe they should move into the kitchen.

As if he’s having something of the same thoughts, the sheriff says, “Well, folks, should we get this show on the road?”

But nobody answers. They all remain where they are, rooted in dread. The atmosphere in the room continues to gather, tightening like a fist.

The sheriff’s walkie-talkie squawks in a burst of static. He checks it, then asks, “So where is Chuck tonight? Is he here?”

“Downstairs, in his lai—his room,” Karena says. “Do you want me to get him?”

At the same time Siri says, “Doug, I noticed you’re on foot. Did you bring anyone to help? Just in case?”

“Sure,” the sheriff says, “they’re parked in back, over on Cedar Street. I figured we’d go out through the back, spare you folks any gawking.”

He looks at Karena.

“You think it’d go easiest that way,” he asks, “if you bring him up?” Frank clears his throat.

“AHEM!” he says, “no, she’s been involved enough,” and Karena thinks of him praising her not an hour ago in his office, saying,
You’re a good girl to have told me, Karena. A good sister.

“I’ll get him,” Frank says.

“No way, Frank,” Siri says, and Karena counters, “You can’t, Dad, he’ll know in a second something’s up—”

But while they are all debating who should get Charles, he solves the problem for them by loping up the steps from the cellar. He stops at the top, wiping his mouth. He’s been sleeping, deeply from the looks of it. His face is flushed, red pillow lines crisscrossing the fresh scratches on his cheek. His hair is flat on one side and sticking up in the back. And as they all turn to look at him Karena feels the pity she does when she sees cows being loaded into the perforated trucks for the slaughterhouse. Run, Charles, she wants to shout. Run!

But she just makes a noise in her throat.

Charles blinks at them, disoriented.

“Wow,” he says, “quite a party, everyone’s here, even Pops. What’s going on?”

Then he sees the sheriff. His eyes widen, his nostrils flare. Karena feels in her stomach the cold bolt of shock that rises in his, and for a second she thinks he’s going to make a break for it.

Then he looks at her and smiles.

“You bitch,” he says. “You fucking bitch.”

Karena shakes her head as Frank clears his throat and Siri says something and the sheriff says, “Now let’s not have any of that.”

Karena locks eyes with Charles.

“I didn’t tell, Charles,” she says. “I didn’t tell them about anything except the pills, you hear me? Just about last night. Just about the pills. Only about that.”

But Charles backs away from her, clutching his head.

“Oh my God,” he says, laughing. “To think I trusted you. I can’t believe I trusted you—”

Then suddenly, so fast she doesn’t have time to move, he lunges at Karena.

“I trusted you,” he yells in her face. He’s got her by the upper arms, his fingers digging in. He shakes her back and forth. “I trusted you! You betrayed me! You totally fucking betrayed me!”

Then he goes flying backward, the sheriff yanking him off Karena from behind.

“That’s enough, Chuck,” he says. “Calm down now. Can you calm down? Your sister’s just trying to help.”

Charles bucks and thrashes in the sheriff’s grip, his bare feet scrabbling on the carpet. His face is brick red.

“Oh yeah, she’s really trying to help,” he pants. “She’s trying to help me right into a jail cell—”

“No!” says Karena and she steps forward. Her biceps throb where Charles grabbed her.

“Listen . . . to . . . me,” she says into her brother’s face. “I just told them about the pills. That’s
all
. You are not going to jail. Just where somebody can help you. Where they can protect you from—things like you saw last night. Okay, Charles? Okay?”

She nods and maintains eye contact and thinks at him as hard as she can: I did not tell them about Motorcycle Guy, Charles. I would not do that. I will never do that.

Charles continues to struggle, but he looks uncertain. Slowly, he stops. He stands still. Then his face crumples.

“Oh, K,” he says.

He begins to cry, those raw gut-sobs like he’s retching, and lowers his head. The sheriff is still holding his arms and he can’t do anything to wipe his face.

“It’s all right, Charles,” Karena says. “It’s going to be all right. Trust me.”

“She’s right, buddy,” says Sheriff Cushing, low and soothing. “Everything’s going to be okay. Can you tell us what happened? Your sister told us you tried to hurt yourself last night. Is that true?”

Charles nods. Tears drop to the carpet.

“I guess,” he says. “I guess so. Yeah, I did. I took a bunch of pills. I should have used a gun or something, but I was too much of a wuss to do it. She stopped me,” he says. “K did. She made me throw up.”

“Okay, good guy,” the sheriff says softly. “Now we’re just going to go somewhere to talk, get you some help. Can you do that, Chuck? Can you come with me calmly?”

Charles raises his head and looks at Karena.

“Don’t make me go, K,” he says. “Don’t let them take me. Don’t let them take me away. Please.”

Karena can’t hold it back anymore. She puts her hands over her face and cries very hard for a couple of seconds. Then she looks squarely at Charles.

“It’ll be okay, Charles,” she says. “It’s
not
like jail, remember. It’s a place where they can help you. I’ll come as soon as I can.”

“Promise,” says Charles.

“I promise,” says Karena.

“Okay, buddy,” says the sheriff, “it’s time to go now.”

Gently he starts to turn Charles around.

“K?” Charles says, his voice breaking.

Karena nods.

“It’s all right,” Charles says to the sheriff. “I’m calm now. You can let go.”

They walk through the dining area, Sheriff Cushing still holding Charles’s elbow, and Karena wants to shout Wait! The word building up inside her as involuntary as a sneeze. No, wait, bring him back, please! I was wrong, I’ll do better, I’ve changed my mind—