Shadow Walkers (13 page)

That’s when the gentle touch, the comfort we were sharing turned to something more, something urgent. It still had something to do with Gilbert, with being consoled by Emory, but now it was more passionate, as if I could somehow lose myself in this soul-kiss, spread what I was feeling out, diffuse it between our souls.

But what I was feeling didn’t lessen. Just the opposite happened. Suddenly I was a skyrocket again, finally exploding, but in an explosion that did not end, just grew in an ever-expanding bloom of light and energy. I vaguely remembered how only a few short days ago I had felt so trapped and isolated and alone, living on Hinder Island. Now I felt the opposite of all that, like I was exploding to fill Emory, and he was exploding too—or maybe it was all just one explosion. I still existed only in the point of our kiss, the touch of our embrace, but suddenly that point of impact seemed so much bigger than just the two of us, as if we were expanding to be able touch everything around us—the planet below, the stars above.

Then, without warning, the horizon underneath us began to sizzle in the burst of a sunrise halfway across the world. If this is what it looked like through the smoky lens of the astral dimension, I could only imagine how bright it must’ve looked unfiltered—literally blinding. A new day was dawning in many more ways than one. And suddenly I was completely consumed by that dazzling light and the warmth of Emory’s spirit, and together we were as bright and clean and clear as the universe itself.

Later, as we hung entwined in the heavens, I said to Emory, “Well, I guess I know the answer to whether or not we could fly to Jupiter.”

He looked up at me. “Hmmm?”

“Remember?” I said. “Before? I wondered if we could visit other planets in the astral dimension?” I nodded toward a bright light out among the stars.

Emory smiled. “Oh, right. But for the record, that’s not Jupiter. That’s Venus. The brightest natural object in the night sky. A lot of people mix ’em up.”

For some reason, this made me think of Gilbert. Once again, I listened for him, but I still couldn’t hear anything.

Emory pulled away. “We should get back to Earth.”

“People mix up Jupiter and Venus,” I said, thinking out loud.

“Sure,” Emory said. “It’s an easy mistake. They look a lot alike.”

“Just like I mixed up Gilbert and Billy.”

“What?”

“Before, when we heard Billy crying, and I thought it was Gilbert.”

“Oh, right.”

I pulled the rest of the way apart from Emory. I felt like an amoeba separating, alone again, though not nearly as cold and alone as before.

“I just got a crazy thought,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“What if Conrad and Evelyn meant to kidnap Billy, but they got Gilbert instead?”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because Billy’s dad told them to.”

“Who?” Emory said.

“Billy’s father! Billy’s parents are divorced, and they’re both real jerks. But more than once, I’ve heard the father saying say how totally unfair it is that the mother got full custody and that she makes him come all the way out to the island to pick Billy up.”

I remembered what I’d read about kids who were kidnapped being traded off to someone else—that the person they ended up with wasn’t always the person who did the actual kidnapping. I’d thought it had been the woman from the New Age store who had traded Gilbert off to Conrad and Evelyn. But what if it was Conrad and Evelyn who had kidnapped him and were trading him off to Billy’s dad? If Billy’s dad sent someone who didn’t know Billy to kidnap him, it made sense that they might get the wrong kid, especially since the two boys looked so much alike.

The more I thought about this, the more sense it made.

“You’re just guessing,” Emory said, and he was right. I’d already jumped to the wrong conclusions a couple of times before. “How do we find out for sure?”

I turned myself back toward the Earth. “Well, the first thing I want to do is take another look at Billy.”

———

Back on Hinder Island, we flew to the front porch where I’d watched Billy and his mother before.

With their blond hair, Gilbert and Billy really did look alike, especially if you didn’t know them.

“Conrad and Evelyn had probably never seen Billy before,” I said. “They’d probably just been given a picture. But Billy wasn’t in his front yard where his father said he was going to be, and Gilbert was, looking just like him.”

“So that’s who Conrad and Evelyn are going to meet?” Emory said. “Billy’s dad? But he’ll know they got the wrong kid. He’ll have to let Gilbert go.”

I nodded. “That’s right! So Gilbert’s going to be all right!” I so wanted these words to be true. Why didn’t I feel like they were?

Emory looked away.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. Too quickly.

And that’s when I realized what he already knew: if Gilbert recognized Billy’s father, the whole plan got exposed. They couldn’t just let him go, because Gilbert would know the truth.

“But if they can’t send him home,” I said, “then they’ll have no choice but to … ” I couldn’t say the words out loud.

If Gilbert recognizes Billy’s dad, they’ll have no choice but to kill him.

“You need to call the police,” Emory said. “You’ve got a good theory now—probable cause, I bet. They’ll listen to you. You’ve got to go back to your body.”

I nodded quickly. “You’re absolutely right. I will.” But the more I thought about this, the less sense it made.

“What?” Emory said.

“What can the police do? Billy’s dad is on the run now. He had to have a plan—if Evelyn and Conrad had taken the right kid, the police would already be on his trail. So they won’t know where he is. And there’s no time. Conrad and Evelyn went to meet Billy’s dad
hours
ago. It might already be too late.”

“But you have to try. What choice do we have?”

We can try to find them ourselves from the astral dimension
. If nothing else, there was still the needle-in-a-haystack search of the area’s airports and marinas.

“You can do both,” Emory said. “You can go back to your body and call the police, and
then
come back here and we can see if we can find Billy’s dad.”

“I’ve already used my last stick of incense,” I said. “Maybe the woman at the New Age store has more, and maybe she’d give them to me. But maybe she won’t!” I looked at Emory. “You go. You call the police, tell them what we think, and then come back and meet me.”

“And leave you alone here with that creature? The only reason it didn’t get you the last time was because I was here to fight it off.”

The creature. I’d already forgotten all about it again—had already gotten distracted—even after I’d promised myself I wouldn’t. I scanned the shadows around us.

“Zach,” Emory said. “We both need to go back. We’ve already stayed here too long. You know I’m right.”

He
was
right, but I didn’t answer. Together, we drifted across Billy’s front yard in the never-ending astral breeze.

“What can we possibly do?” he went on. “Search the airports? How would we even find the airports from the astral dimension? It’s not like we have a map. If it hadn’t been for that lighthouse, we might not even have found Hinder Island in the dark. But there are things the police can do. They can close the airports. They can track Billy’s father—maybe find the signal on his cell phone.”

I looked over at Emory again. I suddenly had another idea.

“What?” he said.

“I could listen for
him.
For Billy’s father.”

“But we listened before, for Conrad and Evelyn. We couldn’t hear them. What makes you think you’ll hear Billy’s father?”

Emory had a good point. Then again, I hadn’t known Conrad and Evelyn. I didn’t really know Billy’s father either, but I
had
been listening to him and Billy’s mother scream at each other for almost two years now. And I’d been listening in the same dimension that they were in. Maybe that was the key—maybe I hadn’t been able to hear Conrad and Evelyn because I’d never heard them in the right dimension.

Either way, I had to try.

Emory was still glancing around the shadows of the front yard—the pools of darkness alongside the abandoned wagon, the swath of blackness under the porch itself. “Whatever we do,” he said, “can we at least do it up in the sky?”

I nodded, and we shot up into the open air. Even as we rose, I was already listening for Billy’s father, trying to remember exactly what he sounded like.

I was certain it would work. It
had
to.

I didn’t hear anything at first, just the same dull, otherworldly roar that I’d been hearing since entering the astral dimension.

“Zach?” Emory said.

I was busy listening for the sound of a man I’d heard many times, but had never really paid any attention to. His arguments with Billy’s mom had mostly been an annoyance—noise pollution on an island of peaceful sounds. I’d always tried my best to tune them out.

Still, I’d been able to hear Gilbert that one time. It was a question of focusing, of listening for a specific person, and ignoring all the others.

So I focused.

And suddenly an old man muttered.

Another man laughed.

A third man had called into talk radio and was ranting about immigration politics.

But I knew that none of these was Billy’s father.

Emory and I drifted on the ethereal breeze. He stared down at the gathering shadows below us, and I kept listening. As I did, I tried to picture Billy’s father. What color was his hair? How old was he? How tall? I wasn’t sure—I’d never paid that much attention. Sure, I’d
overheard
him plenty of times, but truthfully, I wasn’t sure I’d ever actually spoken to the man. I didn’t even know his first name. And yet I thought I could distinguish him from all the other people on the planet?

No! I had to try, to
focus
.

A man gave a scientific lecture of some kind.

Another man tried to sell someone on cabinet refinishing.

Some else sang in the shower.

But I still wasn’t hearing Billy’s father.

I glanced over at Emory. He looked up at me expectantly.

“Nothing yet,” I said.

I tried a different tack. I may not have talked to Billy’s father, but I’d talked to Billy plenty of times. And if Billy was his father’s biological son, that meant they shared half their genes. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

I concentrated on Billy—on the normally happy boy with the sweet laugh.

I immediately heard Billy down on the porch below. The sense of him seemed quite distinctive now—really nothing at all like Gilbert, I realized. Billy was crying again, even louder than before.

I tried blocking the sound and feel of Billy out of my mind while still keeping some sense of him. Then I tried again to tune into his father.

I still didn’t hear anything. Emory cleared his throat impatiently.

“I’m trying,” I said, a little irritably.

“Just relax,” Emory said. “It’ll come.”

“Well, if you want me to relax, why are you rushing me?”

“Rushing you?” Emory said.

“Forget it,” I said, concentrating again.

But right away, Emory cleared his throat again.

“Emory, would you please stop that? It’s distracting me.”

“Stop what?” he said.

I looked at him, saw the confusion on his face.

“Didn’t you just clear your throat?” I said.

“Why would I clear my throat? We’re in the astral dimension—no physical body, remember?”

“Oh,” I said. “Then … ” Who was clearing his throat?

I listened again.

Someone was wheezing. But now when I listened more closely, it was obvious it didn’t sound like Emory at all.

Then that same person coughed.

I looked up at Emory. He wasn’t coughing or wheezing.

“Zach?” he said. “What’s going on?”

I didn’t answer, just hovered there, slowly drifting, listening some more. I could now clearly hear the ragged breathing of a heavy smoker. The wheezing sounded like it was coming from right next to me—which is why I’d thought it was Emory. But it wasn’t.

I grinned at Emory. “Got him!”