The Devil's Cauldron (14 page)

So she’d break up, tell him that Kaitlyn was stealing from the company, and leave it there. He could do with that information what he wanted. That was her only responsibility before she quit her job and Benjamin’s life forever.

Making a concrete decision about her future hardened her nerves. Without giving it another moment of thought, Meggie hurried to the hole and shoved her pack and her helmet into it. She plunged into darkness. Behind her, the steady drip of water into the pool.

“Go!”

She hoisted herself up, arms outstretched, squirming forward. Determination and adrenaline carried her in to her waist. She stuck briefly, but further squirming and twisting kept her moving forward. She pushed the pack and helmet ahead of her.

The tunnel grew tighter. It squeezed inexorably on her shoulders and pinched her chest. Her hips were too wide. Soon, she was gasping for air, fighting down panic. No way. She couldn’t do that. It would make her breathe faster, make her body swell. She’d get pinched and fight it and then . . .

Steady. Forward. Go.
 

The pack pushed ahead of her, then plopped out the end. She nudged her helmet all the way out, but didn’t knock it over the edge, afraid she’d break the light when it fell. But it was close. A few inches more, and she’d touch the empty space on the other end. She could get her fingertips around the opening and get some leverage. The stone was crushing her chest, but she exhaled all her air to make her lungs smaller, then one final push forward and . . .

Her hips wedged in the tunnel. Panic surged from some dark, hidden place inside, and up came a scream of absolute terror. But it wouldn’t come out. She had no breath. And she couldn’t move.

She was trapped.

Eric spotted a strange woman at breakfast on Sunday, sitting with the wheelchair team. She was talking to the aide, and then to Mr. Usher. Something about her didn’t look right, but he couldn’t figure out what. Mostly, he was looking at the pretty lady, but the distraction of the new woman made him forget why.

Meggie, the pretty lady’s name is Meggie.
 

Oh, yeah. Wes wanted him to speak to her, and he had. Three times. But she didn’t talk much. She was like Team Smile back at Riverwood. They never talked either. Eric was glad he wasn’t like that.

He liked to talk. He liked to listen, too, but the pretty lady could only talk with her eyes. They blinked sometimes, and she tapped one of her fingers. Eric was sure she was trying to say something, but he could never figure out what.

Eric had lived in group homes and other facilities for most of his life. Riverwood sucked. Yucky food and it smelled funny, like cleaning chemicals. Sometimes Mom and Dad brought him home to to visit, and he wanted to stay there. But they had jobs. Now Wes and Becca were getting married. They said he could live with them. He liked that.

Eric frowned and looked down at his bowl of Captain Crunch. Then why was he here? Why did Wes drop him off at Foggy Hill?

“Sherlock Holmes! That’s why!”

“Come on, Eric,” his aide said. “Your cereal is getting mushy.”

His aide was named Diego, which Eric thought was funny. That was the name of Dora the Explorer’s friend from the cartoon show.

“The rest of your team already finished,” Diego said, “and you have a lot to do if you’re going to be ready to go to the Devil’s Cauldron this afternoon.”

“What’s that?”

“The hot springs.”

“Oh, yeah! I love that!”

Diego laughed. “You haven’t been there yet.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Oh, yeah? When? You just got here a few days ago.”

Eric started to answer, but then he remembered what Wes told him. Not to talk about his family with anyone. They called that TOP SECRET. Like a spy. No, like Sherlock Holmes. On a top secret mission for Scotland Yard.

Diego rose to his feet. “Just hurry it up, will you? I’m going to help the others fold their laundry.”

When the aide was gone, Eric turned to stare at the pretty lady again. But Meggie’s aide had turned her chair around and was pushing her up the path to the residence halls. Instead, Eric’s eyes fell on the strange woman, who stood by herself with her arms crossed, next to one of the flowering poles. The roof out here on the veranda was made of vines and flowers that climbed across pieces of wood. It was kind of like being outside, but kind of like inside, too. Someone was really smart to think of that.

The woman stared back at Eric and something cold trickled down his back. Like how he and Wes used to throw snowballs down each other’s shirts when they were boys. Only it was warm outside, and there were bees buzzing on the flowers and no clouds in the sky.

You don’t belong here,
he thought as he met the woman’s gaze.
Why are you here?
 

Oh, now he knew why she didn’t belong. She wasn’t wearing the right clothes. All the aides wore smocks, blue and green, with pockets in the front for holding pencils and chewing gum and cigarettes. And Mr. Usher wore a white shirt and tie, and the nurses and doctors dressed in special white clothes. But this woman didn’t have anything special about her clothing.

She was pretty, too. Like Meggie. But this woman didn’t look friendly. She looked cold.

Eric dropped his eyes to his cereal. His heart pounded and he tried to think why she might be looking at him with that hard stare.

Because she knows you’re keeping a secret. That’s why. You were staring at Meggie and she saw.

He tried to eat his cereal, but it tasted like yuck. Mushy, squishy yuck. He’d left it too long in the milk. When he looked up, the woman was standing above his table, staring down at him. He looked away quickly.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“It’s mushy. I don’t like mushy mush.”

“Look at me.”

He didn’t look.

The woman pulled out a chair and sat in it. When she spoke again, she didn’t sound so cold. She sounded friendly.

“I saw you watching that woman. Do you know her?”

“What woman?”

“You know who I’m talking about. The one in the wheelchair. I can’t remember . . . what’s her name again?”

“Meggie.”

A smile spread across the woman’s face. “Ah, so you do know her. That’s right, it’s Meggie Kerr. What’s your name?”

“Eric Elwin Pilson.”

She frowned. “Did you say Ruk?”

“No, I said
Eric.
”
 

“I still don’t understand. Ruk?”

“It’s okay, a lot of people think that’s my name.”

“Oh,
Eric
. Tell me. Why were you looking at Meggie?”
 

This woman made him squirm and he couldn’t think of a lie. So he blurted the first true thing he could think of that wouldn’t get him into trouble. “I like pretty ladies.”

“And you think Meggie is pretty?”

“Yes, a pretty lady.”

He blushed as he remembered how he’d been coming out of the hydrotherapy room a couple of nights earlier and glanced into another room where an aide was getting Meggie dressed. There was another woman in there besides the aide, standing to one side, watching. This wasn’t the same woman, was it? Eric knew he should have looked away, that staring at naked ladies was wrong. And he did look away . . . eventually. But first he stared and imagined touching Meggie’s body. Of course, a pretty, smart lady like that would never want anything to do with a man like Eric.

“You’re up to something, aren’t you, Eric?” The woman leaned in, too close. It made his hands sweat. “Someone told you to watch the pretty lady. Who was that?”

“Nobody told me! I’m sorry!”

“What did you do, Eric? Tell me—you know it’s the right thing to do.”

He couldn’t stand the way she was staring, like she could see right into him. “I looked at her boobies!” he blurted.

The woman drew back with a frown. “What do you mean?”

“Someone was getting her dressed and I stood and watched. I looked at her boobies. I’m sorry, don’t tell Mr. Usher.
Please
.”
 

“Oh, God, is that all?” She rose to her feet and looked down at him with a disgusted expression, like she’d found half a worm in her food. Then she snort-laughed. “I don’t know who is more stupid, the retard or the idiot who questions the retard.”

“What?” he said, outraged.

“Must have been someone else. But who? And yes, you are.”

He sprang to his feet, his face turning hot. “Take that back!”

She stood her ground and Eric faltered. There were a few residents still on the patio, finishing their breakfasts, and they stared. The woman seemed to notice the others at the same time, and took a step back.

“Don’t mess with me, Eric,” she said in a low voice. “And stay away from the pretty lady if you know what’s good for you.”

“I will! I’ll stay away and I won’t look at her boobies ever again!” He wasn’t sure why he was shouting.

Her heels clacked on the stone as she walked away. Eric sat down and tugged at his hair, muttering to himself.

“Stupid idiot. Stupid dumb-dumb idiot.”

He thought he was talking about the mean woman, but gradually realized he was angry with himself. He felt guilty about watching Meggie get dressed. And he should have kept his yapper shut about watching. Now the woman would go to Usher and tell him that Eric was naughty and he wouldn’t be able to go to the hot springs. Maybe he’d even get KICKED OUT. That was bad. It’s what happened when you broke the serious rules. Like when Gary at the group home walked down to buy an ice cream sandwich at the Gas-Mart, only he forgot to put on his pants. Then he threw his ice cream sandwich at the lady behind the desk when she told him to leave. He got KICKED OUT. They sent him back to Riverwood.

Eric went to his room to mope. When lunch came, he was feeling too glum to eat, so he told them he had a tummy ache and to save him two pieces of pineapple cake, but he didn’t want his noodles. Maybe he’d take some soda.

“Are you really sick?” Diego asked through the door. “Should I scratch you from the Devil’s Cauldron list?”

“What’s that?”

“We’ve got a field trip to the hot springs this afternoon, remember?”

“You mean I can still go?”

“I don’t know, depends on how sick you are.” Diego pushed open the door and stood with his hands on his hips, staring. “You don’t look sick, you look bored. Come on, let’s grab lunch. You don’t want to get hungry up there.”

They didn’t know. The mean woman hadn’t told Usher that Eric was looking at someone’s boobies. Only now Eric felt doubly guilty, because he’d gotten away with something. He
should
be punished. They didn’t know, but if they did, they’d scratch him from the list.
 

“I can’t go, because I did a bad thing.”

Diego came and sat next to him on the bed. “What are you talking about, Ruk?”

“I looked at a naked lady.”

He explained how he’d been walking past the hydrotherapy room and how he couldn’t resist looking in while she got dressed. It was the pretty lady with the braided blond hair.

“You mean Meggie Kerr?”

“Uh huh.”

“
Hombre,
that’s totally normal.” Diego slapped him on the back. “Don’t worry about it. I mean, don’t be obvious, either. And don’t make it a habit. But you saw something and you didn’t look away. Nobody is going to scratch you from any list for looking at a naked woman.”
 

“Oh.” Eric was confused. “Why did that woman get angry, then? She said she knew I was watching and wanted to know why.”

“What woman?”

Eric explained about the woman in the skirt with the clacky shoes. She wasn’t a nurse or doctor or aide, but he didn’t know who she was.

A frown spread across Diego’s face. “Yeah, I know who you’re talking about. Don’t know what she’s doing here, though. I thought she was upper admin or something. To be honest, she freaks me out.”

“Upper what?”

“You know, from the States. Whoever owns Colina Nublosa. They sent her down to check up on us. But she was asking about Meggie? Wonder why.”

“Wait!” Eric said. “My brother, he—”

Then he remembered quite a bit more. Wes told him to come in and talk to the pretty lady. Eric couldn’t remember why at the moment, but it was Sherlock Holmes business. He was UNDERCOVER. He couldn’t tell anyone.
“What is it? Do you know something?”

Eric shook his head. “Nothing.”

Diego looked at him a long time in a way that made him squirm, then he nodded. “Come on, let’s get some lunch. Everyone else is already eating. We’d better hurry.”

Eric followed him out, delighted that he’d be able to go to the hot springs after all. He looked around warily for the mean woman but didn’t see her anywhere.

Wes and Becca sank low in their hot pot when the staff and residents of Colina Nublosa came down the trail as it curved up and over from the backside of the mountain. There were maybe fifteen residents in total, all capable of walking, as the direct trail was too rugged for wheelchairs. Similarly, few of the older residents had made the trip. Wes looked anxiously for his brother.

It was earlier in the day than when Wes, Becca, and Eric had hiked up the previous week, and the hot springs were busier. Costa Ricans used hot pots as family Jacuzzis, with moms and white-haired grandmothers holding babies in water-logged diapers, while their men drank bottles of Imperial beer. Kids in bathing suits had turned a flat stretch into a rocky soccer field with two opposing hot pots acting as watery goals. A few people glanced up at the handicapped people coming down off the trail, but quickly returned their attention to their own activities.

It was shady beneath the overhanging branches of the surrounding forest, but Wes pulled a baseball cap down on his forehead and both he and Becca wore their sunglasses. He didn’t see Jerry Usher, but there was Eric’s aide, Diego Palomar. Wes had chatted in Spanish with the man upon checking Eric into the facility; he didn’t want to be recognized.

“There’s Eric,” Becca said.

Wes spotted the neon blue shorts and the Sherlock Holmes hat and laughed. “What a goof. This place can’t be all bad if they’re letting him get away with that.”