One-Eyed Jack (20 page)

And then things got busy and we didn’t
have time to think about it for awhile, and eventually there just
didn’t seem to be any point anymore.

But now a lot of things
I’d seen over the past eight years were beginning to fit together,
and I was wondering whether maybe she really
did
just imagine those things into
existence. Maybe what she did on purpose, Jenny Derdiarian did once
by accident.

Maybe that was where
a
lot
of the
night-things came from.

Maybe that was
where
all
of them
came from. Maybe that’s what they were, pieces of people’s
imagination that got loose and became... well,
sort
of real.

But not just anyone’s
imagination, and maybe not just any
kind
of imagination. Jenny said she
used to see ghosts, but that she never did after her obsession went
away; maybe whatever let her see them was all used up in creating
ghost-Jenny. And the obsession itself shaped the
night-thing.

I didn’t know whether the
thing had existed at all before it got Jenny’s fantasy, or whether
it
was
Jenny’s
fantasy. Or maybe it was Jenny’s psychic ability, all tangled up
with the fantasy and cut loose. Maybe dumping it, turning it into
ghost-Jenny, had been some sort of subconscious defense mechanism,
a way to get rid of her fantasy before she got so obsessed she
actually hurt her kids.

I had lots of theories, or
anyway lots of variations on my basic theory, but then I realized
that it didn’t matter very much which one, if any, was right,
because none of them told me anything about how to
stop
ghost-Jenny. Mrs.
Reinholt had originally been able to pull her spells, or demons, or
whatever you want to call them, back into herself, but I couldn’t
imagine Jenny Derdiarian doing that – and after all, Mrs. Reinholt
had lost control eventually. If she hadn’t, my dreams might be
gone, Mel’s curse might be gone, and Mrs. Reinholt might still be
alive.

Maybe she overreached
herself, trying to keep up the spells on both Mel and me while
still doing other stuff. The thing that killed her had said she
only
thought
she
was in control, that it had been growing stronger...

Was ghost-Jenny growing stronger?
After all, real Jenny got over her fantasy something like fifteen
years ago, but ghost-Jenny was only now giving Jack
trouble.

If it was growing stronger, maybe it
wouldn’t always need permission.

“
You think this person has
any idea what she did?” Detective Skees asked.

I’d been so caught up in my thoughts
that I didn’t know what he was talking about until I mentally
replayed the conversation. Then I understood.

“
Jenny Derdiarian? No. I
don’t think she knows anything about it at all.”

“
So you
don’t think she can
un
-imagine it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.
But I could be wrong. I told you, I don’t understand what’s going
on here.”

Except I was beginning to
think maybe I
did
understand it a little. If the night-things were independent
chunks of imagination, then that would explain ghosts, and why they
did weird things over and over instead of acting like people – they
were left-over bits of dead people’s imaginations, doing things
that those people had obsessed about doing.

And werewolves – people would have
fantasies of turning into monsters and killing their enemies, and
those fantasies got loose.

Vampires? Maybe people
fantasized about drinking blood. I didn’t
get
that, but people do lots of
things I don’t get. Biting pretty women on the neck wasn’t any
stranger than putting on a rubber suit and being tied up, was it?
And any browse on the internet could find people who were turned on
by
that
.

But that didn’t tell us anything about
making them go away.

“
So this
ghost – what does it really
want
?”

“
It wants to kill
children,” I said. “To either starve them to death, or eat them
alive.”

“
Starve
them?”

“
Yeah, that’s the main
fantasy Jenny had – starving her kids to death. Eating them was an
earlier, less upsetting fantasy she had.”

“
Less
upsetting?”

“
Because it was less
real.”

He nodded. “So it’s all about food,
somehow?”

“
It’s about food and love
and death and guilt and possession, all tangled
together.”

“
Possession? Like
devils?”

“
Like ownership. It’s
about control.”

Skees looked down at the table, then
at the pancakes I wasn’t eating anymore, then at me. “You know
anything about Jack’s home life?”

“
In my dreams his father
yelled at him a lot,” I said.

“
About what?”

“
About everything.
Belittling him, telling him he was a worthless little loser, stuff
like that.”

“
And his
mother?”

“
She stayed out of it. She
sat there and let her husband yell.”

“
Katie?”

“
Hid in the corner and
hoped her father wouldn’t notice her.”

“
Did the father ever hit
the kids?”

I shook my head. “Not that I
saw.”

“
You think Jack’s looking
for love from the ghost because he doesn’t get it at
home?”

“
Well, yeah. That’s pretty
obvious, isn’t it?”

“
Maybe to you. Not all of
us have psychic visions.”

“
You heard him at the
hospital.”

“
Yeah, I did. That’s why
I’m asking.” He glanced at the pancakes again, then looked me in
the eye. “We talked to the neighbors, when Jack was missing, and
before, when he got hurt. It’s routine, you know? Just trying to
figure out whether the kid ran away or was abducted, or maybe
whether his parents might know more than they’re saying. It’s never
happened in a case I handled, thank God, but you hear about parents
who kill their own kids and then report them missing. So we ask a
lot of questions.”

“
I figured.”

“
There’s no evidence of
physical abuse – no bruises, no broken bones, nothing like that. No
limps or shiners or bloody noses. But there were a lot of neighbors
who weren’t surprised by the idea that Jack and Katie might run
off, and the psychologists who interviewed them say both kids have
lousy self-esteem. Emotionally they’re pretty broken, both of them.
We don’t have enough to take them away, get them declared wards of
the state or anything, but we could make some recommendations, ask
for observation, that kind of thing. There’s a social worker, Angie
Ballard, keeping a case file on them. You think getting them away
from their parents might help?”

I shrugged, and picked up my fork.
“How would I know? I’m just a retail clerk from
Maryland.”

“
Come on, Kraft. You’re a
retail clerk from Maryland who talks to ghosts and has prophetic
dreams.”

“
Yeah, okay, but I’m not a
social worker. I don’t know what those kids need. Ask this Angie
Ballard.”

“
I will, but you know more
about Jack’s dealings with Jenny than any of us. You think maybe if
we could give the kids some support system, a counselor they could
trust checking in on them regularly, they’d stay the hell away from
this ghost?”

“
Katie would,” I said.
“She doesn’t want anything to do with Jenny, does she?”

“
No, she doesn’t. But what
about the boy?”

“
He’s
stubborn. And he really thinks he loves her and she loves him.” I
hesitated, because I really didn’t want to get into this, but I
said, “She can radiate emotions a little – sort of like Melisandra
de Cheverley, but nowhere near that strongly, and I don’t know
whether it’s under her control or not. And it doesn’t seem to
affect everyone, but
I
can feel it, and I’m pretty sure Jack can. He can
feel her hunger, and I think she can make him feel that she really
loves him. So she’s got that hold on him, and I don’t think he’s
going to give it up. It might be the closest thing to actual love
that he’s ever experienced.”

Skees frowned thoughtfully. Then he
said, “So you don’t think counseling would work.”

“
Probably not. But it
couldn’t hurt to try, could it?”

“
Oh, we’ll try. We’ll set
something up through his school to start. He’s had truancy issues,
but we’ve already told the family that any more unexcused absences
will mean we call in the child welfare folks.”

“
You haven’t already? I
thought you said this Ballard person was in charge.”

“
Of course we called them,
and yes, Angie has an open file, but we’re keeping it quiet, so
far. There’s no direct intervention. Besides, the youth services
people are understaffed and there’s no extra in the budget, so
Angie’s trying to avoid turning this into an active, hands-on
case.”

“
Right.” I stuffed some
pancake in my mouth.

“
So, let’s say we do keep
Jack away from Jenny, one way or another – what happens
then?”

I chewed, swallowed, and said, “She
doesn’t eat him.”

Skees looked annoyed.
“Yeah, but what
does
she do? Does she go after some other kid?”

“
If I answer that, I’m
just guessing.” I lifted the fork again.

“
You’ve talked to her. Go
ahead and guess.”

I considered it for a moment as I ate,
and then I said, “I think she does, yeah, as soon as she can find
another one who can see her.”

“
So how does that
work?”

I shrugged for what seemed like the
hundredth time. “I don’t know,” I said. “I can see her, but I can
see all the ghosts and monsters. Jack can see her, but I don’t know
why, or whether he can see other things. Katie could see her a
little, but said she was hard to see, right? You told me
that.”

“
That’s what she said,”
Skees agreed.

“
Some
people can see these things. It’s a talent. I can tell who’s got it
and who hasn’t, but I don’t know why some people have it and others
don’t. I don’t know whether it runs in families, whether it’s
something you’re born with, how you could get it, whether you can
lose it once you’ve got it. If it does run in families, maybe
that’s why Katie saw something – or maybe Jack was able
to
make
her see it somehow; the talent’s really strong in him. Or
maybe this particular monster is something special, and
lots
of kids could see
Jenny. I don’t know. I’ve always heard that little kids can see
ghosts better than grown-ups can, but I don’t know whether that’s
true; I haven’t really done a count. I’m not around kids
much.”

“
Think Jack might know
what the story is?”

“
He might. Doesn’t mean
he’d tell us.”

“
He sees her better than
Katie.”

“
Oh, yeah, Jack’s got it
really strong,” I said. “I don’t know whether it’s because Jenny’s
been working on him, or whether he was born like that, but there’s
something special going on there.”

“
So she might not be able
to find another kid who can see her.”

“
Maybe not right away,” I
acknowledged. “As far as we know, it took her fifteen years to find
Jack.”

I didn’t mention my own
suspicion, since all it was at that point was an unfounded
suspicion. I thought that maybe Katie could see Jenny now not
because she was a kid, or because she was Jack’s sister, but
because Jenny was getting stronger. She might be feeding off Jack’s
psychic ability somehow. I thought maybe
any
kid Jenny wanted might be able
to get a glimpse of her now.

But I didn’t have any way to test it.
I didn’t have any evidence at all. It was just a
feeling.

I hoped I was wrong.

Chapter Fourteen

The rest of the conversation went in
circles. I finished my breakfast and paid the bill, but we kept
talking until finally I said I had to get my stuff together and
head for the airport. I started to get up.

That was when the detective’s cell
phone rang. I slid out of the booth and straightened up, and
started toward the door while Skees answered the call.

I was just past the hostess station
when Skees called, “Hey, Kraft! Hold on!”

I stopped and turned, thinking that he
had some parting remark to make, or maybe he wanted to make sure I
had his number. He was out of the booth, the phone still
open.