Little Becky Newhall went missing after she went outside to play two days after the Wallace fire. Her parents were frantic, and a large mass of people gathered, ready to comb the woods for any sign of the girl. But even before they could all set out, she was discovered on the porch swing at her house, covered in a blanket, her arm clutched to her chest. She’d fallen into a small sinkhole, she said later. The fall had broken her arm. She cried for a long time and screamed for someone to get her, but she grew tired and tried to sleep. She woke sometime later and she was being carried by someone who told her everything would be okay. She went back to sleep and when she woke again, she was on her porch at her house.
Who saved her? the town cried. Surely the hero would come forward and receive the praise and blessing of Roseland? No one came forward. It’s the will of God, some said. He works in mysterious ways, others whispered. Little Becky Newhall surely had her guardian angel watching over her, all agreed.
“It’s the threads,” Cal tells me when he comes home, slick with mud and grime. “I follow the threads.”
I say nothing as I turn on the shower, getting the water scorching hot, knowing he likes it that way.
It’s been over a week since Cal arrived. I can’t even tell which way is up anymore,
in a dizzy, antigravity kind of way. Floating is probably the best way to describe it. I feel like I’ve been floating in a haze of deep blue, something that is pleasant and at the same time alarming. It’s been eight days since he fell out of the sky, and I’m already having a hard time imagining the way I lived my life when he wasn’t here. It was routine wrapped in grief. It was monotony disguised as security. I feel like I was blind and am now able to see for the first time in years. Everything is bright. Everything is shiny.
And it scares the hell out of me.
It seems like everyone has met Cal in one way or another. People still stop by the store daily, either to see him and chat him up, or to tell me something that he’s done. Of course, a lot of the news is still of the Wallace fire and little Becky Newhall. I’m waiting for a single person to make the connection between Cal and those two events, but so far no one has said a thing. The people of Roseland will typically say whatever they are thinking, so I don’t believe anyone is trying to hide it, but I still feel some anxiety every time the bell dings in the store.
I can feel the FBI agent’s card burning a hole through my wallet. I’ve taken it out every now and then and stared at it, trying to work up the nerve to dial the phone number and relay what I heard at the sheriff’s house to him. I don’t know why I think it’s important that Agent Corwin knows about Griggs and Walken and Smoker, but the t
iming of the agent’s visit and what I heard can’t be coincidence. What stops me, though, is the sheriff’s voice in my head: Nina’s so trusting, isn’t she? She most certainly is. Why, I bet she’d get in a police car if she was asked. Such a sweet, sweet lady. I see her in my mind, the way she looks at the man she calls Blue every time she sees him, her smile so brilliant, her eyes dancing. I can see the way she waits for us every night, the way she rushes out to hug me first and then him. “Blue,” she always sighs. “Benji and Blue.”
Agent Corwin’s card goes back into my wallet. But I know it’s there.
So almost everyone, it seems, has met Cal, with the exception of the one I knew would probably get the biggest kick out of him. Abe didn’t even call to schedule his usual appointment. Instead he just walks in this morning and looks around, trying to be nonchalant, but failing miserably.
“Looking for something, Abe?” I ask as I unload cartons of cigarettes and slide them into the racks, trying to keep a smile from forming.
“Oh?” he mutters, looking down each aisle. “What was that, dear boy?” I roll my eyes. “Thought you’d be in here a lot sooner than this.”
“Yes, well,” he says distractedly, peering around the counter where I stand. “I had those doctors’ appointments in Eugene, you know. Specialists that need to poke and prod to tell me what I already know so they can charge Medicare up the wazoo: I’m an old man, and I’m not getting any younger.”
I’d forgotten about his appointments. “How’s your blood pressure?” I ask as he opens up the cooler, peering between the shelves to see back into the freezer.
He scowls as he closes the door. “Nothing my lisinopril won’t be able to handle.”
“And your heart?”
“Beating like I’m twenty-five!” He cups his hands to his face and looks through the window into the empty garage.
“And how’s your colon?” I ask, trying to keep from bursting out laughing.
He turns and narrows his eyes at me. “Benji, the day you ask me about the status of my colon is the day I know you are trying to keep something from me.”
I shrug. “I’m pretty sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Benjamin Edward Green!” he hollers as he walks menacingly toward me. “You are still not so old that I won’t bend you over my knee and tan your hide!”
I can’t hold it in anymore and I bellow out my laughter. “I’d like to see you try it, old man.”
He tries to keep the serious look on his face, but gives himself away when his lips twitch. “It’s different here,” he finally says after he’s regained some control.
“What do you mean?”
He looks around the store before his gaze finds me again. “It feels… lighter. Calmer.”
I snort. “They gave you the good meds this time, huh?”
Abe smiles quietly, seeing right through me. “You seem lighter too, Benji.”
“Abe, I think you might be seeing things.” But even I don’t believe my words. I feel lighter, somehow, and I wonder why I’m just noticing it now.