were talking, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying, and that was all right. It wasn’t for him.
4
Two weeks later, it was Kalisha’s turn to go, not to the bus station in Brunswick but the one in Greenville. She would arrive in Chicago late the following day, and call her sister in Houston from the Navy Pier. Wendy had gifted her with a small beaded purse. In it was seventy dollars and a phone card. There was a key, identical to Nicky’s, in one of her sneakers. The money and phone card could be stolen; the key, never.
She hugged Tim hard. “That’s not enough thanks for what you did, but I don’t have anything else.”
“It’s enough,” Tim said.
“I hope the world doesn’t end because of us.”
“I’m going to tell you this one last time, Sha—if someone pushes the big red button, it won’t be you.”
She smiled wanly. “When we were together at the end, we had a big red button to end all big red buttons. And it felt good to push it. That’s what haunts me. How good it felt.”
“But that’s over.”
“Yes. It’s all going away, and I’m glad. No one should have power like that, especially not kids.”
Tim thought that some of the people who could push the big red button were kids, in mind if not in body, but didn’t say so. She was facing an unknown and uncertain future, and that was scary enough.
Kalisha turned to Luke and reached into her new purse. “I’ve got something for you. I had it in my pocket when we left the Institute, and didn’t realize it. I want you to have it.”
What she gave him was a crumpled cigarette box. On the front was a cowboy twirling a lariat. Above him was the brand, ROUND-UP CANDY CIGARETTES. Below him was SMOKE JUST LIKE DADDY!
“There’s only some pieces left,” she said. “Busted up and probably stale, too, but—”
Luke began to cry. This time it was Kalisha who put her arms around him.
“Don’t, honey,” she said. “Don’t. Please. You want to break my heart?”
5
When Kalisha and Wendy were gone, Tim asked Luke if he wanted to play chess. The boy shook his head. “I think I might just go out back for awhile, and sit under that big tree. I feel empty inside. I never felt so empty.”
Tim nodded. “You’ll fill up again. Trust me.”
“I guess I’ll have to. Tim, do you think any of them will have to use those keys?”
“No.”
The keys would open a safety deposit box in a Charleston bank. What Maureen Alvorson had given Luke was inside. If anything happened to any of the kids who had now left Catawba Farm—or to Luke, Wendy, or Tim—one of them would come to Charleston and open the box. Maybe all of them would come, if any of the bond forged in the Institute remained.
“Would anyone believe what’s on the flash drive?”
“Annie certainly would,” Tim said, smiling. “She believes in ghosts, UFOs, walk-ins, you name it.”
Luke didn’t smile back. “Yeah, but she’s a little . . . you know, woo-woo. Although she’s better now that she’s seeing so much of Mr. Denton.”
Tim’s eyebrows went up. “Drummer? What are you telling me, that they’re dating?”
“I guess so, if that’s what you still call it when the people doing it are old.”
“You read this in her mind?”
Luke smiled a little. “No. I’m back to moving pizza pans and fluttering book pages. She told me.” Luke considered. “And I guess it’s all right that I told you. It’s not like she swore me to secrecy, or anything.”
“I’ll be damned. As to the flash drive . . . you know how you can pull on a loose thread and unravel an entire sweater? I think the flash drive might be like that. There are kids on it people would recognize. A lot of them. It would start an investigation, and any hopes that lisping guy’s organization might have of re-starting their program would go out the window.”
“I don’t think they can do that, anyway. He might think so, but it’s just more magical thinking. The world has changed a lot since the nineteen-fifties. Listen, I’m going to . . .” He gestured vaguely toward the house and the garden.
“Sure, you go on.”
Luke started away, not walking, exactly, but trudging with his head down.
Tim almost let him go, then changed his mind. He caught up with Luke and took him by the shoulder. When the boy turned, Tim hugged him. He had hugged Nicky—hell, he had hugged them all, sometimes after they awoke from bad dreams—but this one meant more. This one meant the world, at least to Tim. He wanted to tell Luke that he was brave, maybe the bravest kid ever outside of a boys’ adventure book. He wanted to tell Luke that he was strong and decent and his folks would be proud of him. He wanted to tell Luke that he loved him. But there were no words, and maybe no need of them. Or telepathy.
Sometimes a hug was telepathy.
6
Out back, between the stoop and the garden, was a fine old pin oak. Luke Ellis—once of Minneapolis, Minnesota, once loved by Herb and Eileen Ellis, once a friend of Maureen Alvorson, and Kalisha Benson, and Nick Wilholm, and George Iles—sat down beneath it. He put his forearms on his drawn-up knees and looked out toward what Officer Wendy called the Rollercoaster Hills.
Also once a friend of Avery, he thought. Avery was the one who really got them out. If there was a hero, it wasn’t me. It was the Avester.
Luke took the crumpled cigarette box from his pocket and fished out one of the pieces. He thought about seeing Kalisha for the first time, sitting on the floor with one of these in her mouth. Want one? she had asked. A little sugar might help your state of mind. It always helps mine.
“What do you think, Avester? Will it help my state of mind?”
Luke crunched up the piece of candy. It did help, although he had no idea why; there was certainly nothing scientific about it. He peered into the pack and saw two or three more pieces. He could eat them now, but it might be better to wait.
Better to save some for later.
September 23, 2018