Seven

THE LODGE

38

RAVEN AND NEW WERE ALONE IN THE DEMOCRAT OFFICE. IT WAS a cluttered place with a few desks and typewriters, a row of filing cabinets, and metal shelves that held dictionaries, encyclopedias, and recent copies of the paper. At her desk, Raven sat drinking a cup of strong black coffee from the Mr. Coffee machine, and trying to compose her thoughts. On her blotter was a scatter of paper clips she'd straightened out. The in compartment of the wire-mesh organizer on her desk held stories from the gardening editor and the features editor, color negatives of the fall foliage, and pictures of several young ladies who were getting married the following week - all items from a world that suddenly seemed very remote.

New stood across the room, clutching the Mountain King's stick and staring at the poster with the four children's photographs on it that Raven had taped to a wall. Beyond the Democrat's plate-glass window, the morning had become a strange purple-tinged twilight. The thunder continued, still at a distance, but there had been neither lightning nor rain. The wind was rising, swirling grit along the sidewalk.

The boy had been silent since they'd arrived here from the clinic. After his demonstration in the waiting room, Raven avoided catching his gaze. She was afraid of him, of what might be lurking inside him, trying to break loose. It was like being around a muscle-bound brute with a short temper, though Raven didn't think the boy would intentionally hurt anyone. Still, she sensed his tension; there was a fuse burning within him, and she didn't know what the spark might set off when it reached the end.

He moved away from the poster and looked at the encyclopedias. "You read all these books?" he asked.

"Not all of them, but a little in each one."

"You must be smart. To write stories and all, I mean."

"Not necessarily. It's just a job, like any other."

New nodded thoughtfully. He selected the B volume and paged through it. "I don't go to school much anymore," he said. "Ma keeps me home to help around the house. The teacher came once to find out why I wasn't in school, but Ma said there were more important things for me to be doin'."

"She's wrong. You should be in school. Your mother can make out without you."

"I'm the man of the house now," he told her, as if that made all the difference. "Ma says I need to be findin' a job pretty soon."

"That'll be hard, without a good education."

"I guess so," he agreed. "It's just. . ." He looked up at her with a pained expression. "I don't want to stay on Briartop Mountain all my life. I don't know what I want to do; I don't know what I can do yet. I feel like . . . I'm in a cage or somethin'. Maybe that's why . . . I dream about the Lodge so much. It seems like goin' down to that Lodge is the only way I can ever get off the mountain. Usherland is so beautiful from up high. Briartop is all thorns and rocks. Nathan and I . . . used to talk about what we were gonna be." A fragile smile played quickly across his mouth. "Nathan wanted to fly planes. We could stand and watch 'em pass over, headin' to Asheville, I guess. They looked like they were a thousand miles away.

"And what did you say you wanted to be?"

"You . . . promise you won't laugh?"

"I promise."

"Before he died," New said, "Pa used to read me stories from old magazines. Stories about detectives and cowboys and spies. I guess when I was a kid I wanted to be a detective, and carry a badge and all. After Pa died, I started . . . makin' up my own stories, in my head. I never wrote any of 'em down or anything, 'cause Ma would've thought I was actin' like a kid. I know you have to be real smart and all, but . . . I sure would like to be able to write down what was in my head. I'd like for other people to see the pictures in my mind. Does that make sense?"

"You mean you'd like to be a writer?"

He shrugged, but Raven saw a hint of color in his cheeks. "I don't know. I don't have the education for it, I guess. I mean . . . it's pretty hard to do, right?"

"It takes patience and practice. But that doesn't mean you can't do it."

He returned the book to its place on the shelf and walked over to the window, where he stood facing the street. Briartop Mountain was a massive gray shape whose peak vanished in the low-hanging clouds. His hand tightened around the stick. "I should've been able to help Nathan," he said softly. "I should've been able to do somethin'!"

"What happened to Nathan wasn't your fault. It wasn't your mother's, either. She's afraid of the outside world, New. That's why she doesn't want you to go to school - because she's afraid you'll leave her alone on the mountain. She doesn't want you to outgrow Briartop."

"I don't want to stay there all my life. I want to - " He stopped speaking, and Raven saw his spine stiffen. He took two steps away from the window, his head cocked to one side as if listening.

"New?" Raven tensed. "What is it?" He didn't answer. A dull throb of thunder made the window shake. He thought he'd heard his name called in a soft, seductive voice that was neither masculine nor feminine but something more elemental, as if the wind and the thunder itself could speak. He listened carefully, expecting and dreading the voice. It came - faint, urging, meant for him alone:

- New -

Answer, he told himself. He said mentally, I'm here.

- come home come home come home -

The voice was stronger now, and eager. New felt it battering at his mind, trying to sink deeply. "The Lodge wants me," he told Raven. "I can feel it, even from here." As the voice continued to pull at him, he turned toward Raven. His face was strained, his eyes dark green and full of purpose. "I'm going to it," he said. "I'm going to find out what's in that house, and why it wants me."

"A storm's coming. There's no way for you to get into Usherland, anyway. The gates are - "

"Won't go through the gates," he said. "There are trails going down from Briartop to Usherland, through the woods." But how could he protect himself from whatever waited in the Lodge? He had the cane, though he didn't fully understand how it would help him. No, he needed something else: a snare, something he could trigger and control when and if he needed it. He looked around the office, and his gaze settled on a tape dispenser atop a nearby desk. He picked it up and peeled off some tape. "Do you have any tape stronger than this?" he asked.

Raven opened a desk drawer and brought out a roll of filament tape that she used to seal packages for mailing. He took it from her, examined it, and then put it in his pocket. "That'll do." He looked sharply at her. "Will you drive me to the cabin? I can take the track down to Usherland from there."

"Are you sure you want to do this? I can call Sheriff Kemp, and - "

"And what?" he challenged her. "The sheriff can't help me. Nobody can. Whatever's in the Lodge wants me. I have to find out why."

Raven slowly untwisted another paper clip. The boy's eyes pierced her, and she knew nothing could stop him. She took her keys from her purse and unlocked the lower drawer of her desk, bringing from it a camera case with a thirty-five-millimeter Canon and a flash attachment. "All right," she said. "I've always wanted to see what the Lodge looked like inside."

"No." His voice snapped through the air. "I don't know what's in there. I won't take you with me."

Raven's stomach was knotted at the prospect of entering the Lodge; under any other circumstances, she would have leaped at the opportunity to penetrate the Usher world. Now, the unknown both terrified and tantalized her. "I know what's in the Lodge," she replied. "Answers. To your questions, and to mine. If you want a ride up Briartop, you'll have to take me the rest of the way, too."

I could make her do as I please, New thought. I can keep her out of the Lodge, if I want to.

"I deserve to know," she said firmly, distracting him from his thoughts. "If you want to go in, we'd better get ourselves some good lights from the hardware store, a couple of those big lanterns that won't go out if they're dropped. And waterproof, too, from the look of those clouds." She stood up and put the strap of the camera case around her shoulder. "Well?" she asked.

New decided he'd let her think he'd take her in, and then he'd send her back to Foxton once they got up the mountain. He could not take the responsibility of protecting her from whatever waited in the Lodge.

"How about it?" Raven prompted.

He nodded, sliding his hand into his pocket to touch the tape. "All right. Let's go."