“Where do you think you are going, young lady,” Maggy hollered after me when I broke right for the stairs. “I told you I had lunch on the table.”

“I gotta get something.”

“You can get it later.”

“I want it now.” I fired up the stairs before she could say another thing about it.

It took a bit of looking to find the note pad. By then, everything that was in the first three drawers of my dresser were flung about the room. I shoved everything back in the drawers, and headed for the stairs, but stopped short when I heard Maggy and Mike yelling at each. I decided to wait for things to cool down and took a seat on the steps of the first landing.

“I can’t believe you told her about that!” Mag the Rag shouted.

“She’s a big part of it all, Maggy. She has a right to know what’s going on. Besides, I think there’s answers hidden in those dreams of hers.” Mike’s voice was low; nowhere near as loud as Maggy’s.

“How? As if she isn’t frightened enough already! Now she has this cult business to deal with– something that happened years ago– and has nothing to do with this. For crying out loud Mike! Do you know what you are doing?”

“I’m doing my job. As best I can under the circumstances.”

“I still don’t understand why y’all are wasting so much time on that cult business. Mr. Blackney is the one who’s after her.You should be concentrating on him!”

When Mike spoke again, I could scarcely hear him and had to move down to the foot of the stairs. I sat down on the last step and cocked an ear towards the kitchen.

Mike’s words came out low and he sounded like my teacher when she taught us long-division, stretching out the sentences to make sure things were plain. “The cases are related, Maggy. The cult is his motivation. Sometimes when you can understand a killer’s motivation, you can anticipate his next move. And if you can anticipate it, you can prevent it. That’s what it’s all about.”

They both got real quiet and I started off the step, but then Maggy started in again and I plopped back down. “That may be.” This time quieter than before. “I still don’t see why you had to tell her about all that cult business.”

“Those dreams have answers. She’s been locked in on the cult– or Blackney, the whole time...somehow. She just knows. And can you imagine how that must be for her? I thought it would help to talk through it. Make some sense of all the imagery and symbolism. Maybe discover a few answers in the process that would help locate Blackney. Find out why he wants to harm her.”

“I don’t see how she could know. That all happened before she was even born,” Maggy shot back. Then she fired off in a sharp voice, “Mike they’re just nightmares, that’s all! Trying to make more out of them than there is, won’t change anything. It’s nothing more than stress and coincidence.”

I was starting to feel sorry for Mike.

“Then you explain them.” This time his words were a louder and keener. “She knew the day Blackney escaped. How? What about the men killed in the escape? Chief said she knew about them. And what about Joe? She knew of his danger when he went after Huey. She knew about the attack on Hank for Christ’s sake! She even knew about my meeting up with a pole in the woods. To me it’s just a little too much to write off as stress and coincidence! Somehow she’s locked in on it all and she’s living it through her nightmares.”

“How!”

Long stretch, then, “I don’t know....” Mike was quiet-like. “Maybe…When she went inside herself. Maybe she crossed a line. The line. Or maybe someone on the other side is feeding her the information.”

“Who! And why? This is crazy! Do you know what you are saying?”

“No. I don’t know everything, Mag. I don’t have all the answers. I know it sounds crazy. I find it hard to swallow, myself. But I can’t deny the evidence.”

“What evidence?”

“Kelly’s perceptions. I can’t deny their validity. We can’t afford to. Doing so almost cost Hank his life... Could have cost me, mine.”

Another long stretch of silence before I heard Maggy mumble a “sorry” and Mike say something back. The fire was out of their conversation so I decided it was safe for me to go to the kitchen. I waited a little longer, so it wouldn’t look like I was spying, before making my way down the hall.

I stopped at the door for just a minute, before taking my place across from Maggy at the table. She was red from her shouting match with Mike. Her hair was out of sorts and her fingers were clenched.

Mike stood by the sink looking out into the back yard. His face was red too and he looked real down. He turned to me and the light from the window slammed a shadow across his face. I paid close attention to make sure it was just the light that did it and not another message from the Dead Place, before turning to my plate.

I felt Maggy staring at me and was sure she knew I’d listened to them. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, my hands were sweaty and I was sure my fork would slide clean out of them before I was through with my potato salad.

“You were listening,” Maggy said quiet-like. I looked up and she added, “Weren’t you?”

I noticed Mike also stared at me. Their eyes were hard to deal with so I planted my attention on my plate and nodded, waiting for more words to follow.

When she didn’t say anything, I looked up and said, “I’m sorry, Maggy.”

“It couldn’t be helped. I was pretty loud.”

“I didn’t even try not to listen,” I confessed.

She gave me a bit more of her undivided attention. The room was quiet, and the house felt empty even though the three of us were inside. The afternoon sun ducked behind the few scattered clouds and the kitchen darkened. Maggy nodded and went back to the sandwich on her own plate. Mike kept to the window. In the hall the grandfather clock ticked away, sounding loud in all the silence.

I took a bite of my sandwich and noticed Maggy, stooped over her plate, staring at me again.

“What do you think,” she asked after a while, “about what Mike told you?”

I shot a glance at Mike. This time his attention stayed on the back the yard.

“I’m glad he told me. It makes a meaning out of things.”

“What things?”

“The book on Chief’s desk... their bible. It has a picture of a bird on it. I saw it when Mike was reading. It’s the bird from my dream.” I looked over to Mike. His back stiffened and he turned from the window. His expression was hidden. The sun was free again and the light outside was blinding. I asked Mike’s silhouette “The bird is the cult, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“Mike?”

“Yeah, Squirt?”

“What happened to that doctor guy?”

“Dr. Jonas?”

“Yeah, him.”

I watched as Mike shot Maggy a glance as he came over to sit at the table. He moved slowly, taking small shuffling steps, like maybe he just didn’t want to risk sitting by Maggy. She still looked to be peeved, and didn’t raise her head as Mike pulled out his chair and sat. He leaned on his elbows and rested his chin in his hands.

“Your father and Sergeant Moss caught up with him. He was in the middle of a ceremony–”

“Like what that cult did? Was he killing somebody?”

“Kelly!” Maggy’s face reddened as she fired a frosty look at Mike. “I don’t think this is appropriate conversation for the table. She doesn’t need to hear any more about killing!”

“But I want to know!” 

She stared angrily at me, but I didn’t let her eyes push mine away. I held steady until she backed off first. Then I asked, “Please, Mike?”

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “All right, Squirt.” He risked a glance at Maggy. “Your father and Sergeant Moss got there just in time. He hadn’t killed the boy. We think he was waiting for the authorities. Jonas was a sacrifice.”

“A sacrifice?”

“He pulled the heat off the rest of the cult members. They went free. And because of the lack of evidence suggesting their existence, the Bureau dropped the case once Jonas was killed.”

“He was killed?”

“Yeah. He had the boy set up to be slain the instant he was brought down, so that he and his... gift, his sacrifice, would enter the cult’s version of heaven or nirvana. But your father was able to place a bullet so accurately into the man’s brain that it killed him instantly. The boy was spared." 

“Did Chief tell you that?” I asked him.

Mike smiled and shook his head. “Your father said he killed him because he hated him when we discussed this a few weeks ago. He said it was the first death he enjoyed.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Maggy said. “Chief never enjoyed a killing in his whole career. Besides, I remember when he came home that day. He was despondent. The same way he gets when he is forced to shoot anybody.”

“I know, Maggy. He was just saying that. I didn’t believe him and I know he didn’t believe himself.” Mike looked down at his sandwich. “Your father is a good, honorable man. It would be impossible to believe he’d enjoy taking a life. Anyone’s life. He’s the best man I know.”

Maggy turned to him. Her anger had slipped from her face. “You make him sound like a father figure,” she said.

Mike met her eyes. “I guess he is, at that.”

“Mike?” I butted in. “How come you never talk about your own pa?”

He looked at me for a spell, squinted, then, “Because, Squirt, my father isn’t worth talking about.”

“Why’s that, Mike?”

Maggy cleared her throat. “Kelly, don’t pry.”

“But I was just wonder-”

“It’s all right, Maggy. We never really discussed this.”

Maggy put her hand on his. “You don’t have to. I know it’s personal.”

Mike smiled, but the smile didn't fit. He looked at his sandwich, still on his plate, whole. Not a bite missing. Mine was almost gone.

“I haven’t seen my father since I was six.”

“Why? Did he die?”

“As far as I know, Squirt, no.”

“Then, were is he?”

“Kelly,” Maggy warned.

“It’s all right, Maggy,” Mike assured her. “I lost my mother when I was real young. She was hit from behind by a hit and run driver and her car was pushed into an intersection, in front of oncoming traffic. She died instantly. Witnesses claim a man under the influence of liquor drove the car that hit her. Her death left my father empty. It devastated him. He pushed everyone away; me especially. I guess because I was a constant reminder to him that she was gone. He started to fill his emptiness with Fleishmann’s and Johnny Walker Red. He had become the very thing he despised, a drunk.... I hated him for that. He was a coward.”

Mike’s face was turning red, his jaw set tight. His hand clenched under Maggy’s. I started wishing I’d just let it be. There was pain in his eyes. He no longer looked at Maggy or me. He kept his attention on the tablecloth, instead. “Eventually, the booze didn’t get him far enough. He still couldn’t escape her memory, or even his pain at losing her. One day, after Pop came home from work, he asked me if I wanted to go for a drive with him. The breath and clothes stunk on booze and ten cent cigars.” Mike took a breath. He was still in the room; we could see him there, but it felt like he really wasn’t with us any longer, like he was with his father, instead. When he spoke again, it was in a faraway voice. “I can still remember that day like it was yesterday. It was summer; inside the truck it was so hot. We headed west. Pop had a new job, or so he said after admitting he’d lost his job at the mill the month before. And because he spent every cent we had to maintain his drunk, to keep from thinking about her, we lost the house. I just became one more burden for him. Halfway through the desert, he pulled the truck over and told me to get out–”

Maggy gasped. I looked at her, and saw the tears in her eyes. Mike’s were still clear, though. I wondered how it could be for someone else to feel worse about your problems than you did. Mike tried out a smile for her, like what happened didn’t matter to him anymore and that it shouldn't matter to her.

“It’s okay,” he whispered to her, squeezing her hand. “It happened a long time ago.”

“I’m so sorry.” Maggy's eyes were dumping water down her face. Her free hand went to her mouth, trying to hold it all back.

Mike stared at her a while longer. “I hated him for a long time. So much hate, I couldn’t bear it. Then one day I decided he wasn’t worth chewing my own life over. I buried the fact that I ever knew him. Started out with a clean slate. That way he had no control over what I was, who I was, or what I could become.”

“It must have been difficult for you,” Maggy said, sniffing the tears up her nose.

Mike nodded. “A farmer gave me a lift out of the desert. I tried to get work at the next town. I did odd jobs to support myself. But eventually the authorities caught up with me and sent me back to the Springdale Home. It was a terrible place.”

“Same place Huey was at?” I asked.

“Yeah, same place. They try so hard to break you in those places. I ran away when I was nine.” Mike again set about staring at the tablecloth. “I’ve been on my own ever since.”

“I remember when Chief brought you home with him,” Maggy said.

Mike nodded and looked at her. “I was getting tired of running. I felt lost, alone and without place or purpose. Who knows what would have befallen me if your father hadn’t come along. He took a chance on me. No one’s ever believed in me the way your father does, and I’ve never been more determined not to let anyone down. He gave me a home and a family, when I needed one.”

They got quiet and took to staring at each other. Then Maggy said, “You’d better eat up, Mike. Your sandwich is getting stale.”

Mike smiled and picked it up. He noticed the note pad and looked over at me. “Let’s see what we have here.”

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