White crows, p.35
White Crows, page 35
“He’s not just yours, Mira. He’s ours.”. “I know. I realize that.”
“No, I mean all of us. Hal’s the Jungian shadow, the archetypal dark heart that lacks empathy, love, compassion. Hal’s the evil that lives within all of us, our baser instincts, our nemesis if we’re seduced.”
Heady words, she thought. But true.
The empty road was cast in a nicotine-colored light from the street lamps. Insects hummed, frogs croaked, but these sounds only heightened the absence of human noises. It all felt eerie to Mira, surreal, like a scene in a movie seconds before the serial killer appeared, the monster leaped out, the world ended.
They passed the empty dock and climbed into the hills. “He had enough left in him to start the goddamn car, Cam.”
“He’s terrified. That probably stoked it.”
As she came out of a curve, she saw the truck. “Headed into the preserve, just like I saw.”
“May I have your gun?”
Mira thrust it at him, he lowered the window and leaned out of it, aiming, firing. The first three shots missed. The fourth shot flattened one of the rear tires and the truck swerved crazily for a moment, slowed, then regained traction and tore into the parking area of the preserve.
She smashed her foot against the accelerator and the SUV crashed over a curb and raced through the parking lot, closing in on him. Mira bore down on him and slammed into the rear of the truck, knocking it sideways. Cam leaned out the window again and fired twice at the side windows, shattering one of them. Then Hal turned sharply left, aimed at the west side of Old Post.
Mire sped after him, caught the rear of the truck again, and it veered dangerously close to the guardrail, the only thing between the road and the edge of the cliff. “Again,” Mira shouted. “And this time see if you can shoot out the other rear tire.”
“Ready,” Cam yelled.
But when she rear-ended Hal this time, their bumpers locked together, a symbolism she really didn’t like. His car swerved, so did hers. She kept slamming on the brake, hoping the bumpers would disconnect, but they didn’t.
Hal’s truck swung left, toward the guard rail, and Mira shouted, “Jump, Cam! We’re going over the edge!”
Mira slammed on the brakes again, threw open her door, and leaped.
Hal’s truck careened over the edge of the cliff, falling so fast that the rear of the SUV, still hooked to it, bumper to bumper, flipped and hit the roof of the truck, then both vehicles vanished over the edge.
Mira, sprawled on the pavement, heard the cars crash together when they struck the rocky beach a hundred feet below. One or both of them exploded.
The flaming debris lit up Old Post.
Cam lay close to the edge of the cliff, motionless, head turned away from her, and Mira couldn’t tell whether he was knocked out or dead. She rolled onto her knees, fell forward onto her hands, and scrambled toward him. In those moments, she felt like an abruptly exposed cockroach as a human closed in for the kill—a folded magazine, a whack from a shoe, a clenched fist. She felt so mortal that when she reached Cam, she threw her arms around him and pulled him away from the edge, the abyss.
He fell back against her, a bony old man whose destiny, like her own, was now permanently changed. Cam, pressed against her on the road, rolled to the right, out of her embrace and turned his head, looking at her.
“I don’t feel that he’s dead,” Mira said.
“Not yet. If he survives the swim to Key West…”
“Can he swim? The other Crows nearly drowned in that swimming pool.”
“His survival instinct is powerful.”
“If we never find his body…” What then? Would Hal become the bogeyman hiding under their beds? The monster in the closet? “What does that mean for us, Cam?”
Sirens shrieked, brakes squealed, car doors slammed open, people hurried toward them. “I don’t know. We continue with our lives. We strive to make a difference so the dome never becomes a reality.”
“That’s it?” “Right now, that’s all that matters.”
Was it?
EPILOGUE
May
The COVID pandemic was in its third month, the Keys were in the second phase of reopening, and customers were slowly returning to the bookstore. Mira knew it wasn’t an ideal time to even think about moving, but the consensus was that they should try to be out of here before the end of hurricane season on November 30.
Mira sat in her office, hunting through Zillow for a place to move. It had to be a city at least fifty feet—preferably more—above sea level, with enough commerce to support a bookstore, and with reasonably priced homes. Also, an FBI office and a daily newspaper were on her must have list.
Maybe it was too much.
The other problems were logistical. Sheppard would have to request a transfer, O’Hara would have to find a job, Annie and O’Hara would need a place of their own, and so would Cam. Right now, he had his own apartment and worked at the bookstore. Most of the locals knew who he was and every day, people wearing masks came into the store to talk to him. Four colleges in the Florida university system had invited him to speak about climate change this fall. Next week he would have his first remote national interview with NBC. He intended to announce that three of the four Crows that had been taken into government custody when Dr. Griffin’s office was raided had died, supposedly of the coronavirus.
Only Squirt remained alive.
And Liz.
Whom Keel and his wife had adopted. So far, Liz was officially presumed dead.
There was a light rap at the door, then: “Mi amor, cómo andas?”
Rincon stood there in his mask, a shopping bag hanging over his right shoulder, and he looked better than he had in weeks. “Ian! I heard you and Carmen were on vacation.” They started to hug, then both of them laughed and stepped back. She pulled up a chair six from her own and they both lowered their masks. “Where’d you two go, anyway?”
“Not out of the country. No one wants us. Not even the Bahamas. Carmen and I found a place in Orlando and I’m going to open a family practice once we’re in phase three of reopening. As of today, I’m no longer county coroner.”
“Wow!” He had done exactly what he’d said he would. She gestured at her computer. “Zillow. We’re looking, too.”
“The Orlando area is between eighty-two and a hundred feet above sea level. I figure that’s high enough. They also have a fraction of the COVID cases that we do. I emailed Cam and he thinks it’ll be okay.”
“Is it in Orlando or nearby?”
“Neighborhood called Mystical Underground, not far from downtown. It started with the hippies back in the sixties, war resistors. Now it’s large enough to support a family practice and a bookstore, and the Orlando FBI office is hiring. And Disney is close enough for Annie’s dolphin work and there are several newspapers that would nab Jon in a heartbeat.”
“Damn, Ian. You’ve done my job for me.”
“That’s the idea.” He grinned. “Now here’s the other thing. The house Carmen and I put a deposit on has an apartment over the garage and we’re going to ask Cam if he’d like to live there. Two bedrooms, full kitchen, the works.”
“Fantastic.”
“Oh, and I forgot to give this to Shep.” He reached into the bag, brought out the snow globe, set it on her desk.
“I was wondering what had happened to it.” She stared at it for a moment, Tango Key clearly visible inside. “Have you shaken it?”
“Nope.” He held up his hands. “Didn’t want to see.”
“You mind if I shake it?”
He stared at the snow globe, then looked up at her, his eyes haunted. “You really want to know, Mira?”
“That depends on how the globe works. Is it manipulated by something or someone? Or is it a genuine divination device, like the I Ching or tarot cards?”
“Or an actual physical psychic?”
“We don’t know.” She picked up the globe. “I’ve never been as specific as I’ve heard this sucker is.”
“Shake it,” Rincon said. “But think of a question.”
Her question. The problem was that she had so many questions.
Mira turned it upside down twice. Snow flew, Tango Key faded. A strange landscape unfolded, a place of hills and lakes, Mediterranean style buildings, open fields, woods, more lakes. Not South Florida. Not the keys. This was farther north in the state. Around Orlando?
The scene shifted. The Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico encroached on both sides of Florida, creating a corridor of higher land, a kind of land bridge out of the state. That image depicted what central Florida eventually would become. No time frame. It could start next week or decades from now. But in her heart, Mira felt it would not be longer than five years in the future.
Nothing else appeared. “Interesting,” Mira said. “So here’s another question, Ian. If we leave the state, where should we go? What area would be safe?”
“I’d like to clarify that before you shake it.” He paused. “I’d like to know the immediate picture. What place is best for us right now?”
Mira appreciated the way he’d structured his question. Hers had been too broad and probably required more than one answer. The only rule with divination systems, whether it was astrology, the I Ching, tarot or the fall of tea leaves in a cup, was to keep your question simple. It didn’t have to be a yes or no simple, just a focused here’s my situation and what now?
Mira shook the snow globe again. But as the snow settled, nothing new appeared inside. “Did it give up on us?” Rincon asked.
“That’s not allowed. You ask, it’s obligated to give an answer.”
“Yeah? Where’s that written down, Mira?”
She tapped her temple.
Then the snow globe sectioned off into tidy little squares. In the first, Rincon and his wife were in their new home, unpacking, hills visible outside their windows. In the second, Keel and his wife were acclimating their autistic son to Liz, the Crow. Mountains surrounded them. Definitely not Florida, Mira thought.
In the next square, she and Sheppard were in a new place, enjoying a meal with Annie, O’Hara, Hull, Cam, Rincon and Carmen.
The fourth square showed Hal, walking along a moonlit highway in tattered clothes. He walked with a distinct limp and looked old, weakened, defeated.
The last square was foggy, not fully formed, probably indicative of events that were yet to happen.
“So Hal’s not dead,” Rincon remarked.
“Apparently not. But our moves look successful.”
“One more question. Do we run into him again?”
Mira passed the globe back to Rincon. “I don’t want to know, Ian. You shake.”
He thought about it, then suddenly hurled the globe across the room. It didn’t just shatter. It exploded into a million pieces, water and snowy shit everywhere, pieces of stories coalescing, growing, then shriveling up and dying on the bookstore floor.
“I don’t want to know, either,” Rincon said.
Mira stared at all the tiny bits of glass, hoping that a genuine oracle hadn’t been obliterated, but pretty sure that it had. She hugged Rincon. “I hope we’ve done the right thing, Ian.”
“We have. I have to believe that.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
T. J. MacGregor, White Crows
