Chapter 35

Isaac Milton

They had an assembly at school on Tuesday morning to inform the student body about the events of the night before. A dangerous criminal was still at large. Don’t go anywhere alone, call police immediately to report suspicious individuals, etc.

Isaac hardly listened. This morning he had tried to clean Mr. Clark’s blood off of his coat, but realized that he could not. He wore a different jacket, the “Dead Man Walking” one, which seemed to him like the most darkly hilarious thing in recent memory. His shoes had blood on them too.

This morning he had tried to call Jim to talk about Black , which was still in his pocket. He had called Mike when he couldn’t reach Jim, and found out that Jim had done a full painting of Black . Also, their house was blown up. They were attacked? But safe for now.

This morning, shortly after school began, some people heard thunder, Isaac among them, though there was not a cloud in the sky. The sound made him cower in his seat.

Isaac had spent most of the previous night praying instead of sleeping. If Abraham Black was not a demon, Isaac didn’t know what was. Isaac thought about the monster inside, the beast Dwayne had talked about on that camping trip long ago. Well, Black was no dragon, but he certainly did not exist symbolically within Isaac himself either. He had killed people, and symbolic representations of evil didn’t do that. At least one monster, Isaac now knew, was real. He needed to talk to Dwayne. God loved Dwayne Hartman. Isaac would be safe with Dwayne.

He didn’t know anything. Something was going on, and he didn’t understand any of it. Maybe Jim knew. Maybe Kate knew. Dwayne probably didn’t know, but with him that wouldn’t matter.

So he texted Elizabeth in his fourth period class. It was science with Mr. Fletcher, so Isaac could text all he wanted without fear of being called out.

IM: Hey

EE: Hello, Isaac.

IM: Everything okay over there?

EE: How do you mean?

EE: Is there a reason why things would not be okay?

IM: I mean, is there anything weird?

IM: And no, not necessarily

EE: It is funny that you should mention weirdness.

IM: Why?

IM: Are you in trouble?

EE: I am not in trouble. Or in danger. But you seem anxious. Is there reason to believe that I may soon find myself in one of these undesirable conditions?

IM: Just tell me what’s weird

EE: I find myself now in the presence of two peculiar individuals.

IM: Are they Black?

EE: Isaac!

IM: I mean, is that their name?

IM: Are they scary?

EE: Well they do have unusual names.

EE: No, they are not scary.

EE: Or black.

EE: I know you do not have much intercultural experience out in Mayberry, Montana, but really.

IM: Har har

IM: Who are they?

EE: Their names are Elmer and Amelia. They have lost their memories.

EE: They say hi.

IM: Okay tell them hi from me too I guess

EE: They do not remember why, exactly, but they are running from something. They have also been looking for me.

EE: Or more precisely, looking for Callie. They keep calling her an angel.

EE: Not that I disagree with their assessment.

IM: What are they running from?

EE: I just told you they don’t know.

EE: Now tell me what’s wrong.

IM: A guy came into town last night and killed some people. He said he was looking for an angel too. Jim painted a picture of him.

IM: He’s not normal

EE: What?

IM: Also Jim’s house was attacked and blown up last night but he’s fine

EE: Are you being serious, Isaac?

EE: You had better not be joking about something happening to Jim.

IM: I’m serious.

IM: He’s fine though! I talked to Mike

EE: Where is he?

IM: Jim? I don’t know.

EE: Where are they going?

IM: I don’t know! Call Mike if you’re so concerned. Jim’s phone got blown up I think

EE: I will.

IM: Have you heard from Kate?

EE: Not recently.

EE: Do you believe she is in danger as well?

IM: I’m just worried about her

EE: I know. You always are.

IM: What really? What do you know about this?

EE: About you and Kate, you mean?

EE: Probably more than you.

IM: Okay subject change

EE: Why are boys so hesitant to talk about their feelings?

IM: I said subject change!

EE: It was a subject change.

IM: What does it mean that Callie’s an angel?

EE: I will ask.

EE: They say it means she is like a key that can unlock a certain door. They are vague, however.

IM: Are you sure they’re not dangerous?

EE: Your concern is endearing. But yes, I am quite sure. Elmer and Amelia here are harmless.

IM: Well maybe whatever they’re running from isn’t

IM: Abraham Black was his name

EE: Whose?

IM: The guy I met last night, who killed people

EE: You met him?

IM: Unfortunately.

EE: What does he want?

IM: An angel, I guess? I haven’t seen any eyeless white cats around though

EE: Well keep me posted. What is your plan now?

EE: You always have a plan.

IM: I’ll talk to Dwayne

EE: Ah.

EE: His voice is amazing.

EE: Like Tom Waits.

IM: Sure whatever

IM: But he’ll know what to do

EE: Okay, seriously.

EE: How are you doing, Isaac?

IM: Well, not great

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IM: I mean

IM: I’m a little freaked out

EE: Understandable.

IM: I was trying to be like Dwayne when it happened

IM: You know, stand against evil and all

EE: You are not Dwayne Hartman.

IM: Got that right

EE: There is nothing wrong with that.

IM: There totally is! I mean, I’m just afraid he’d be disappointed in me

IM: sorry this is getting all personal

EE: Dwayne would never say he is disappointed in you.

IM: Of course he wouldn’t say it! He’s Dwayne! He’d still say he’s proud of me even if I was a crackhead living in some dumpster

EE: You would be the kindest dumpster-dwelling crackhead in the world.

EE: I would give you the award myself.

EE: I would carve it into an old banana peel.

EE: Toss it right in there.

IM: Wow thanks

IM: Okay I have to go soon, but one last thing

IM: I need your help writing lyrics for a song.

EE: What kind of song?

IM: It’s, like, jazzy I guess?

EE: I will require the meter.

EE: And preferably a sense of what the song is like.

IM: Got it.

IM: I think I might start up a group chat.

EE: A continuation of the illustrious Banana Quest?

IM: Something like that.

IM: Over and out.

During lunch break Isaac received an image from Mike. A picture of Jim’s painting, along with an apology for the low resolution. It was clearly a picture of the display screen of Mike’s camera, taken with his phone. But it was enough for Isaac to get the idea. And the idea was simple: this was a painting of him last week, standing in a snowy field next to his telescope, looking up at a crack in the sky. He couldn’t make out details, but the shining crack in the painting followed the same contour as the one which really existed. Also, in the painting there appeared to be a white bird perched on his shoulder. That owl?

Isaac avoided his classmates during lunch. After lunch was pre-calculus. It was a senior level class. He’d start college level math next year. His friends here in Pikeston considered him to be pretty smart just because he was a couple years ahead in math and science. They didn’t know Kate.

This class was hard enough that he had to pay attention, and unlike with Mr. Fletcher he couldn’t just do whatever. Nevertheless, he found himself looking out a window, thinking, as he often thought, that he did not belong here.

It happened halfway through class. A knock on the door. The teacher paused, and everyone turned to see who it was. The door opened and a hummingbird flew into the room, distracting almost everyone from the person behind the hummingbird. The bird did not distract Isaac; from the moment the knock sounded, he feared the appearance of none other than Abraham Black himself.

But it wasn’t. It was a young man in jeans and a dirty hoodie, with stubble on his chin and bright, alert eyes. Everyone else watched the hummingbird dart around the room, but Isaac locked eyes immediately with this man.

“Isaac Milton,” said the young man in an authoritative tone of voice. “Please come with me.” He nodded at the teacher and the rest of the class. “Sorry to interrupt.”

Isaac sat frozen in his seat for a moment, unsure of what to do. This clearly wasn’t Abraham Black, but despite his attire he didn’t seem too much like a normal person either. It was something about the eyes.

The hummingbird approached and hovered right in front of Isaac. It looked at him, then at the newcomer.

Isaac slowly slid his notebook and textbook off the desk and into his hands and made his way to the door. The hummingbird darted ahead, and the man closed the door behind them as they left.

They stood in the hallway for a few seconds, sizing each other up. The young man tilted his head and looked to the upper left as though listening for something. Then he nodded. “I’m sure.” He turned his attention back to Isaac. “You need to grab anything? We might not be coming back.”

Something in his eyes…Isaac thought this young man might be a few stars short of a constellation. “Um…who are you?” he asked, afraid that he might already know the answer.

The man offered his hand. “Name’s Jacob Hollow.” Jacob looked at Isaac expectantly. “Shut up,” he said suddenly. Then, “Not you, Isaac.”

What had Clara said about Jacob? Stay close to him? Would this guy muttering to himself protect Isaac from Abraham Black?

Isaac put away his books in his locker and removed his backpack. Might not be coming back? “Uh, where are we going?” he asked.

“Away,” said Jacob. “Need to keep you safe until the Cascade.”

“The what?”

“Where’s your angel?”

“My what?”

“Your angel. Where is it?” Jacob’s eyes darted around while he spoke.

“I don’t know what that is. Are you saying I have, like, a guardian angel? Cool. But I haven’t seen him.”

“Guardian angel? Sure. It’ll be white.”

“Oh! Is it the bird?” Isaac looked around to check if anyone else was in the hall. The coast remained clear.

“A bird?” said Jacob. He looked at the hummingbird, perched on a nearby windowsill, and shrugged. “Maybe. Makes sense, actually.” He said this as though speaking to the hummingbird.

“I guess I have seen it, then. Um, are you talking to that bird?”

“No. Come on.” Jacob turned, put his hands in the pocket of his hoodie, and began walking toward the front door of the school. “Just wait and see,” he said. It didn’t sound to Isaac as though this were addressed to him.

Jacob walked slowly down the hall, deep in thought. Or maybe listening to something. He pulled a hand out of his pocket and began snapping his fingers. Then he trailed that hand absently along the brick wall. From the place where his fingers touched bloomed bright colors in feathery frost-like patterns, vibrant and inert as though painted onto the brick. Isaac stopped to observe this phenomenon. The colors did not fade. He reached out and touched the brick wall. Still a brick wall, now with a trail of colorful intricate graffiti. His fingers did not come away with colors on them.

He looked back at Jacob, who noticed. He’d stopped touching the wall, but a good twenty feet of it had been affected. Isaac paused long enough to take a picture of the wall, then hurried to catch up, hoping that no one else came out into the hall.

Jacob led Isaac to the front doors of the school, windowed walls opening onto the entrance and parking lot. Here Jacob paused. Isaac tried to watch every direction, afraid both of the appearance of Black and of a teacher asking where he was going or who this was, because he had No Idea. Jacob looked out the windows for a moment. “Oh really?” he said. He turned to his left, toward the doors of the auditorium. He looked back at Isaac. “You play piano?”

Isaac nodded. “How did you know?”

Jacob went to the auditorium doors. “I was told to come here by Christmas,” he said.

“Pretty early, then,” said Isaac.

Jacob looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Christmas is months away. Like, most of the months.”

Jacob listened to the voices in his head, then said, “Oh, a holiday? No, I meant that someone calling himself Christmas told me to come here.” Pause. “Yeah, fine, or her self, maybe.”

“Not Clara?”

“I don’t know any Clara. I don’t even know Christmas. All I know is I was told I could find you and your angel here. You’re Isaac Milton, right? The cube guy?”

“That’s me,” said Isaac. “The cube guy.” Was Jacob possibly referring to dice?

“Whatever.” Jacob snapped his fingers and pushed through the auditorium doors. They should have been locked. “We can’t waste time. I didn’t think Black would move during the day, but I was wrong. Because someone messed him up bad.” His tone was accusatory in that last sentence, but not toward Isaac.

Jacob led Isaac down the stairs, between the dark rows of seats, and up onto the wooden stage. He snapped his fingers. Tiny flecks of light scattered out from his hand. They hung in the air like dust motes caught in a sunbeam, and then blazed with light. The stage, now illuminated, stood empty. A polished wooden island in a dark sea of empty cushioned seats. “Where’s the piano?” Jacob asked.

“Backstage, in the piano closet. Um, why?”

“You need to play it,” said Jacob. “Come on.” He swept the curtain aside and marched backstage. He paused long enough to turn on a few stage lights, and then located the low garage-like door of the piano closet. A snap took care of the lock, and together they rolled the door up and slowly extracted the cloth-covered instrument.

Isaac experienced continual second thoughts throughout this process. What if they were caught? But did it matter? He wasn’t sure why exactly he trusted this Jacob Hollow, especially when he clearly bore similarities to Black. But maybe that was it. Jacob was like Black, but clearly opposite in several respects.

Isaac sensed a Mysterious and Puzzling Narrative somewhere in all of this. Between Jim and Kate, Black and Jacob, the crack in the sky and the lens…something strange was definitely going on. He didn’t have the lens on him. He had to remember that it might explode.

They brought the piano out on stage. “I think so,” said Jacob suddenly. Then a pause. Then, “Isn’t that something you should know?”

Isaac slid the padded black cloth off of the grand. He propped the lid up with a heave. The piano was locked with a device that prevented anyone from opening the lid of the keyboard. Jacob knelt down beside the lock and prepared to snap it off, but Isaac stopped him. “I have the key,” he said. He unlocked the piano while Jacob retrieved the bench.

Isaac sat down, put his fingers on the keys in front of the gold Steinway lettering, and paused. He stared out at the dark, empty auditorium: rows of empty red seats. He glanced at the expectant Jacob Hollow. Jacob stood casually, his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth and looking around.

Isaac liked being out here, on stage. He’d been on this stage many times before; played on it. People out there had been silent, listening to his music. Good times. Nerve-wracking, but he always felt good when it was over. He also liked being in here when the room was empty, no audience to worry about.

“Now what?” asked Isaac.

“Now what? Play. What else?”

“Okay…play what?”

Jacob shrugged. “Don’t know. Whatever, maybe.”

Isaac couldn’t help but smile a little. ‘Whatever, maybe.’ Thanks, Jacob. “Okay,” he said, “One ‘whatever, maybe’ coming right up.” He tapped his fingers on the keys. He supposed he could play the piano part of the piece he was writing for all of them. Or improvise it since it was still in pretty amorphous form.

C minor. Initial progression: Cm, E, B, A. Then shifting to 6/8 time, kind-of waltz-like: E, Cm, Gm, A.Yeah. Something like that.

He just started playing. Isaac closed his eyes and just let his fingers wander over the chords. He didn’t try anything fancy. Nor did he sense anything unusual about his playing. Did Jacob here expect him to have some kind of mystical experience? If so, he was going to be disappointed.

But after only a minute Jacob said, “Okay, that’s good. It’s here.”

Isaac opened his eyes and saw a bird perched on the music stand in front of him. A sparrow, it looked like, but pure white. And no eyes. It had feathers, a beak, claws, feet, and the rest of the Standard Avian Equipment, but no eyes. Like Callie. Did this bird have nutty powers too? Should he give it a name?

“All right,” said Jacob. “Let’s go. We need to get you away from Black.”

Isaac stood and stepped away from the piano. The bird watched him, its head cocked sideways. It shuffled its feet on the stand as though in excitement. “So Black wants this bird?”

Jacob nodded.

“And this bird is…my angel?”

Another nod.

“Why? What is he…why does he want it?”

“He wants to get back in…yeah, I know! You know what? Let’s move first, talk later. Yeah, good idea.”

“Okay.” Isaac began closing the lid. “Let’s just put this away…”

“Leave it,” said Jacob, snapping his fingers as he began striding off the stage. “It won’t matter.”

Isaac stopped just before leaving the auditorium. There was one thing he had to do first. He pulled out his phone, and began a group text which included all six of them. Whatever was about to happen, it would be a good idea if they could all help each other understand it.