Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [82]
“Maybe it was Marcie Kurek, getting even.”
He went on to explain his reasoning, just as he had to Tim.
When he was through, Weezy said, “I believe in a lot of things I can’t prove, Jack, but I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Not even a little?”
“Well, maybe people leave emanations behind when they die violently, but the whole ghost thing … people reappearing and looking like they did in real life … that’s so bogus.”
“Why?”
“A ghost is supposedly their spirit, so why should it look like their body? And why should it be dressed, for God’s sake? That always makes me laugh. Why would a spirit dress up in clothes?”
Jack had to admit she had a point. It did seem stupid. But he wasn’t backing down.
“Marcie didn’t appear to anyone that we know of—I can’t speak for Toliver, of course—but it answers all the mysteries, Weezy. How else do you explain what happened?”
She was silent a long time, still leaning against him, and Jack sort of wished the moment would go on and on. But then she straightened, pulling away.
“Yeah, it does. But it’s too easy. Something’s missing.”
Uh-oh.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Somehow I think it’s more complicated than that.” She rose and turned to face him. “I’m going to have to do some heavy thinking on this. I don’t need an immediate explanation for everything. But I know there’s one out there. I don’t believe I can know everything—I’m not smart enough and I won’t live long enough—but I’m pretty sure, given sufficient time and intelligence, everything is eventually knowable.”
Jack agreed. But he wanted the ghost story out there, circulating.
“But just for the heck of it, why don’t you ask your friends at school what they think about ghost vengeance?”
“I may just do that.”
Yeah, spread it around.
She stared down at him. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll be ready when the news hits tomorrow morning.” She bent and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “You’re a good friend, Jack.”
I try, he thought as goose bumps raised all over his skin.
He watched her walk away, then stared at the lake, watching the ripples reflect the single lighted window in the Lodge up on the rise.
5
“How interesting,” said a woman’s voice.
Jack jumped off the bench and spun to see Mrs. Clevenger and her three-legged dog standing behind him.
“Oh, hi.”
She fixed him with her stare. “You speak a truth while thinking you speak an untruth.”
“Huh?”
She stepped around the edge of the bench and seated herself. She patted the spot next to her.
“Come sit again.”
“Gee, I don’t know…”
“Sit.”
She said it like she was speaking to a dog, but Jack had never heard her tell her dog to sit.
Still …
He sat.
“It is strange how things work in there,” she said, staring east to where the Pine Barrens lay.
“I guess so.”
She glanced at him. “It was not a question. I was not asking you to agree.”
“Ooookay.”
“A girl dies, murdered. She is buried and, in most other places, that would possibly be the end of that.”
“Most other places? You mean most places other than the Pines?”
“And even in the Pines. Most of the Barrens is exactly what it appears to be, but places exist within its million acres where, possibly, the usual laws do not apply.”
“Like where?”
“Places where plants will not grow, where living things will not tread. And where dead things do not rest easy.”
She didn’t use Weezy’s ooh-scary voice, but the effect was more real. Jack felt that spider on his spine again.
“You … you’re talking about the place where Marcie was buried?”
“I am speaking only of possibilities.”
“What’s wrong with it? Why won’t anything grow there? Was the ground poisoned?”
He thought about the pine lights dipping into that dead soil. Did they sterilize it in some annual ritual, or had they been drawn by Marcie?
“That would depend on what you mean by ‘poison.’”
“Weezy says there was a building there once—a big one.”
Mrs. Clevenger looked at him. “And how would she know that?”
“She says the ebony spleenwort is a clue.”
“She is very wise, that one. Yes, a building once existed there, a long, long