The Buried Book (22 page)

CHAPTER 40

What happened?

“Jasper?”

The faraway voice was calling to him from a tiny opening high above. But he couldn’t answer. He was trapped at the bottom of a well. There was water in his lungs.

“Jasper.” A gentle hand shook his shoulder.

He could smell fire. The barn was burning down. He could hear screaming. The crack of a gun exploded in his head.

“No!” His eyes flew open. White light poured into his bruised skull. He squeezed them shut again and shook his head.
No.

A warm palm fell over his eyes. “Easy, Ogichidaa. It is all right.”

Jasper’s eyelids fluttered against the shadow of the hand. “Dr. Whitebird?”

“Ah! You are alive.” He could hear the smile in the doctor’s voice. “This is good.”

The large hand slowly lifted as Jasper’s eyes adjusted to the room. He was back at the reservation clinic. He grunted as he tried to lift himself up onto his elbows. “Am I still here?”

The doctor lowered him back down to the pillow. “Easy. We are not there yet.”

“Have I been here the whole time?” Jasper’s words muddled together against his swollen lips. He lifted his arm to see the IV line. The needle was stuck in a different vein an inch away from a round bruise. His fingernails were blackened at the edges. There were cuts on his hands. Sandpaper burned in the back of his throat.

He closed his eyes, and he was standing in his grandmother’s half-burnt kitchen again. He’d been looking for something. He’d heard a voice.

Jasper shot up, screaming, “Mom!”

The doctor forced him back down to the cot with firm hands. “Shh . . . You must rest, Ogichidaa.”

Jasper flailed against the doctor. “No! I can’t leave her.”

“Your mother would want you to rest.”

“But . . .”
Was it her?
He couldn’t remember. Jasper turned his head into his pillow and sobbed.

The doctor pressed a warm compress to his head. “You have been through quite a lot. There is no shame in crying. Only tears can wash away blood.”

Blood.
Broken images assaulted the back of his eyes—blood splattered on the floorboards, yellow teeth grinning, giant hands gripping his wrists, hair catching fire, a gun crashing down. Jasper shook his head violently, his fingers clawing at his face.

“You are not ready to wake, Ogichidaa. It will be all right. No more dreams tonight.”

Jasper felt a sharp pinch in his arm, and everything went black.

CHAPTER 41

It says here you tried to kill yourself. Would you say that’s true?

Jasper woke to voices. At first they were just muffled sounds in the distance, but they grew steadily louder until he realized the voices were in the room. They were talking about him.

“When can he come home, do you think?” It was his uncle speaking.

“We have to wait for his mind to settle. He’s been in shock,” Dr. Whitebird said. “He might come back to us tomorrow, but it could take longer. He will have to avoid any strenuous activity for at least two weeks to heal the concussion.”

Jasper lay frozen, not wanting either man to know he was awake. It felt like there was a fifty-pound weight on his chest.

“What about his lungs, Doc?” a third voice asked. It was his father.

“The smoke inhalation wasn’t severe. It shouldn’t cause permanent damage.”

“Maybe we should get him over to St. Catherine’s in Port Huron. Damn the costs,” his father pleaded. He sounded more worried than angry. In fact, he didn’t sound angry at all.

“They will tell you no different, but there will be more questions. He needs his rest. The boy has been through quite an ordeal.” It sounded like a warning.

The three men didn’t speak for a few moments.

“Perhaps we should discuss this outside.”

“Wen, he’s right. Let’s talk outside. Jasper needs his rest.”

“I’ll be the judge of what Jasper needs.” There were tears in the old man’s voice. “He’s all I got left. I didn’t even get a chance to talk . . .”

His father’s voice faded down the hall, and the door to Jasper’s room closed with a firm click. Jasper peeled open his eyes and turned his head toward the door. The sudden movement sent a blinding pain through his skull. Reaching up, he could feel a thick, damp bandage on his brow. Under it was an enormous lump.

The door to his room opened, and the doctor reappeared. “Ah. We are awake.” He smiled at him. “How are we feeling?”

“My head hurts.” Jasper’s voice frayed to nothing but a whisper, like he’d been screaming at the top of his lungs. Maybe he had been.

“Yes. It should. Twelve stitches and a concussion. Do you know what a concussion is?” The doctor pulled the stool up to the side of the bed and placed a gentle hand next to the bandage.

Jasper shook his head, then winced.

“Your brain is bruised. You took a few good bumps to your skull.”

Jasper frowned, trying to remember. All he could see were the stairs leading up to the attic. All he could hear was a whisper,
Who’s there?
All he could smell and taste was smoke.

“Sometimes the brain forgets the things it does not want to remember. This can happen with a concussion. This is normal . . . sometimes this is best.” He put the stethoscope into his ears and placed the cold disk on Jasper’s chest. “Your lungs sound strong, Ogichidaa. This is good.”

Jasper didn’t speak until the doctor was finished checking him over. “Dr. Whitebird? What day is it?”

The man put his tools away and gave the boy his full attention. “Today is Sunday, September twenty-first.”

Jasper’s eyes flooded, and he turned to the wall. The two days were up.

“Take heart. The worst is over, Ogichidaa.”

He could see Big Bill waving his gun at Motega. He could feel Bill’s hands squeezing her neck as though it were his own. He’d failed her. He couldn’t breathe. The hands were choking him. He gasped at the air like he was drowning.

“No, Jasper. You must breathe. Nice and slow.” The doctor’s voice sounded farther and farther away. “Nurse!”

Doors opened, and footsteps rushed back and forth while the world went out of focus.

Minutes or hours later, Jasper heard himself talking in choked whispers. It took him a moment to register what he was saying. “What happened? In the house? How did I get here?”

The doctor’s voice answered, “There was a fire. You are safe now. This is all that matters.”

A fire.
Jasper could see it. His grandmother’s house burning to the ground. The smell of smoke still clung to his skin. His breath could barely escape through the tightness in his throat.

“No one is angry with you, Ogichidaa,” the doctor said. “You must rest your mind. You need your strength.”

“Was it my fault? Did I start the fire?” Jasper could see an oil lamp shattering into—

The image went black like someone had cut it out of his head.

“If you did, I’m sure you did not mean to,” the doctor tried to reassure him.

He searched his brain for the missing pictures. The swinging lantern. A pair of black boots. The floor. The rest were gone. “I can’t remember.”

“It is all right, Ogichidaa. Your brain will heal itself. Give it time.”

“But what happened? He said he’d do something terrible if she didn’t call. What if he did? What if he—” Jasper felt his face crumple and rolled onto his side. Hoyt. Big Bill. They blurred together.

“You must quiet your mind. There is nothing to fear.” Dr. Whitebird patted his back. “Remember the story of the boy in the tree? Your Nimaamaa will never leave your side. Listen for her and you will see.”

“What?” He wiped his eyes hard enough to hurt. “What does that even mean? I don’t understand. She’s not here. Is she?”

“When you are ready, you will understand, Ogichidaa. Now you must sleep.” Dr. Whitebird left the room with his riddles.

Jasper fell back to his pillow. A voice had called to him from the attic, but the more he tried to hear it, the farther away it sounded. Until he couldn’t be sure he’d heard it at all.

His hand instinctively reached for her necklace. It had been around his neck when he’d left his bedroom that morning to find clues. To find her. Groping fingers grew more frantic as they searched his neck and stomach and then the bed.

The necklace was gone.

CHAPTER 42

Did you receive any treatment for acute stress or depression after the incident?

Several hours later, Jasper’s door opened again, but he didn’t bother to look up.

“Hey, kid! You still alive?” It was Wayne. He was carrying a basket filled with fried chicken from the smell of it.

Jasper couldn’t bring himself to answer. He couldn’t lift his head off the pillow. It weighed eighty pounds.

Wayne pulled up the doctor’s stool and set the basket on the cot. It was warm. “Ma wanted me to bring you this. She figured you’d be hungry.”

Jasper nodded even though he couldn’t feel his stomach. Everything inside him had gone missing along with his memory of that night. All he knew for certain was that something unspeakable had happened and it was all his fault. Dr. Whitebird’s reminder of the story about the boy in the tree only worsened his fears. She wasn’t coming back.

“Man. You sure are lucky. Pop says two more seconds and you would have burned down with the house.”

Jasper turned his head at this, which Wayne took as a sign to keep talking.

“You must’ve fell through the floor. Did you know that? You might’ve broke your back.” Wayne paused to survey Jasper’s various bandages, then grabbed a piece of chicken.

“I did?” Jasper croaked.

“Yeah. Pop says it’s all his fault. That house has been just sitting there waiting for something terrible to happen. He called it a box of tinder. Said he should’ve torn it down years ago. He feels real bad about it.”

“He isn’t mad?”

“I wouldn’t say he’s mad. He’s more worried . . . like maybe you wanted to burn the house down on purpose.” Wayne gave him a wary glance. Like there might be something seriously wrong with him. “Did you?”

“No,” Jasper whispered, but he wasn’t sure of anything anymore. There
was
something wrong with him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw terrible things. Things he couldn’t even admit to himself.

“Phew! Glad to know you’re not nuts, kid.” Wayne gave him a halfhearted punch in the arm. “We’re still gonna have to hide all the matches from you . . . So, what were you doin’ out there anyway?”

Jasper frowned. His uncle thought he might’ve tried to kill himself. A gruff voice laughed knowingly in his ear. He jerked away from it, but nothing was there but the pillow.

“You okay?” Wayne looked at him sideways like he really was crazy.

Jasper tried to shrug.

“Can’t say I blame you for bein’ jumpy. Pop would’ve killed me right here in the clinic if I’d gone into that house.”

Jasper agreed but said nothing.

“He’s just relieved you’re okay, I guess. Motega went and yanked you out himself. It was real lucky he was there early to pull the harvest.”

In that moment, Jasper could see Motega’s murderous eyes glaring down at him and feel his iron hands digging into his arms. He ran his fingers down his left shoulder and could feel the bruises.

The older boy kept talking. “He and his fellas are out in the fields now. They even cleared the wreckage of the house. Hauled it clean away. It’s kinda weird havin’ it gone. I always liked to think Grandma’s ghost still lived inside it.”

The gruff voice whispered in his ear,
Do you want to know how this place burned down, kid?

Jasper wrenched himself away from it, slamming his bleeding bandage against the pillow until his brain flashed white.
Maybe I
am
crazy.

“So . . . uh. Did they say when you can come home?” Wayne reached into the basket and pulled out another drumstick and tried to hand it to Jasper.

Jasper just shook his head.

The next day, the whole family came to escort Jasper back to the farm. He kept his mouth shut as Wendell settled the bill with the nurse. He glanced around the waiting room for any sign of her son, Pati, and was relieved he wasn’t there. Pati would know he’d done something unforgivable. He’d see it.

Wayne helped him up into the back of his uncle’s truck. “You okay, Jas?”

He nodded, afraid to speak. They all thought he was crazy and had burned down the house on purpose. No one said as much, but an awkward silence hung over the car all the way back to the cabin.

Once they arrived, Aunt Velma gently tucked him into bed like he was a porcelain doll and set about making dinner.

“Maybe I should stay here with him tonight.” Wendell was pacing the kitchen floor on the other side of the curtain. “Mind if I bunk in the barn?”

“Not at all, Wen. You do what you gotta do,” Uncle Leo said.

“I’m gonna run up to the Tally Ho and put in a call to work. Can I get you anything?”

“See if Clint will part with some of that scotch of his. I think we could all use some.”

“Will do.”

Jasper listened as his father left the house and fired up the engine of his truck outside, and then to the clinks and clanks of Aunt Velma cooking. Anything to keep the voices in his head quiet. He stared up at the ceiling, counting nail heads, afraid to sleep.

He wondered if Motega and his men were still out there somewhere. Part of him wanted to go find the man and ask what had happened, but the bigger part was too scared to find out. He didn’t want to listen for his mother in the birds or wind or whatever gobbledygook Dr. Whitebird said. He wanted to believe she was still out there somewhere. The thought of approaching that house or whatever was left of it—

Jasper went back to counting nails.

The curtain opened, and Aunt Velma came in with a bowl of soup. “Jasper, honey, I need to sit you up.” She set the bowl down on the dresser and gently coaxed another pillow under him. “You have to eat, sweetie. Dr. Whitebird said you need to if you’re going to get better.”

Jasper didn’t want to get better, but Aunt Velma wouldn’t have it. The weight of her jostled his aching head as she sat down on the bed and lifted a spoon to his cracked lips. He didn’t budge.

She lowered the spoon. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Jasper.”

He knew he was beaten. The warm soup slid past the burns in his throat down to his festering gut. The taste of the corn mash his uncle had forced him to swallow before his aunt had taken the brush to his leg came back up along with the smoke of the fire.

Five more agonizing spoonfuls later, the front door opened again. Aunt Velma abandoned her bowl for the moment to greet Jasper’s father.

“Everything alright with work?” she asked on the other side of the curtain.

“Yep. Clint says hello and sent this along.”

“Well, that was awful nice of him. Did you invite him to dinner, I hope?”

“I tried, but he’s fixin’ for a busy night there at the tavern. Bill Valassis over in Burtchville was just found dead.”

Jasper stopped breathing at the name.
Big Bill.

“Good Lord, what happened?” Aunt Velma’s voice grew faint.

“Car accident. Real bad one, I guess. Did you know him?”

“Not well. Oh, his poor family. Did it just happen?”

“Early this morning. He ran his car straight into one of them fuel storage tanks. Must’ve been drunk as a dog.”

“Wow! No foolin’?” Wayne piped in. A moment later, the curtain pulled back to their shared bedroom. “Hey, Jas? You hear that? Big Bill from Mr. G’s just . . . oh, sorry.”

The curtain pulled closed again. Behind it, Jasper kept his eyes shut, pretending to sleep, while the house burned over and over in his mind.