Mystery Walk

important was on her mind. They came to a place where a stream spoke over flat stones, and Ramona suddenly motioned for him to stop. She said, 'My legs aren't what they used to be, I'll tell you. When I was a girl I could run this distance without breathing hard, and now already I'm hiccuping like a frog.' She sat down on a rock that had people's initials scraped on it. He lay on his stomach in the grass, watching the pattern of water as it swirled over the stones. 'There are things you need to know now,' Ramona said. 'I couldn't have told you while your father was living, though he was well aware of them too. I'm going to tell you, and then you'll have to make up your own mind about what to do.'

'What things?'

She looked up, watching a squadron of crows fly across her field of vision. Off in the distance there was the faint reflection of sunlight off an airplane, climbing toward the clouds. 'The world's changing so fast,' she said, almost to herself. 'People fighting in the streets, killing and hating each other; children trying to escape through God knows what kind of drugs; a war going on and on and on without clarity or point . . . these things are making me afraid, because evil's walking without fear, and it changes its shape and voice to gain its own greedy end. It's reaching out, wanting more and more. You saw it once before, a long time ago, in the smokehouse.'

'The shape changer,' Billy said.

'That's right. It was testing you, probing at you. It tested you again, at the carnival, but you were stronger than it took you to be.'

'Have you ever seen it?'

'Oh yes. Several times.' She looked at him through narrowed eyes. 'It always taunted me and tried to trick me, but I saw through its tricks. I wouldn't let it get into my mind; I wouldn't let it make me doubt myself, or my abilities. But now my work's almost done, Billy. Now the shape changer sees no threat in me; it wants you, and it'll do everything it can to destroy you.'

'But I'll be all right, won't I? As long as I don't let it into my mind?'

She paused, listening to the sound of wind through the trees. 'The shape changer never gives up, Billy,' she said quietly. 'Never It's as old as time, and it knows the meaning of patience. It means to catch you unawares, in a weak moment. And I think it's most dangerous when it's feeding off the dead, like a beast gnawing on bones. It draws in a revenant's energy to make itself stronger. I wish I could tell you that I know the limits of the shape changer's powers, but I don't. Oh, there's so much you need to know, Billy!' She gazed at him for a moment. 'But I can't teach you. Life will.'

'Then I'll learn,' he replied.

'You'll have to.' Ramona sighed deeply. 'This is what I have to tell you: you were not born into this world alone.'

Billy frowned. 'What?'

'You were one of two,' she said, staring off at the trees. 'You were born first, but behind you there was a second child. You were so close inside me that the doctor could only hear one heartbeat, and in those days the medical facilities weren't very good. So: there were two children, born in a pickup truck on the way to the hospital on a cold night in November. Both of you were born with cauls, a sure sign of spiritual powers. Yours covered your face. His . . . had torn loose, and he was gripping it in his hands. Even so young, something within your brother made him want to escape his Mystery Walk. You weren't identical twins, though; you had my coloring, while he looked more like his father.'

Her eyes were dark pools as she gazed solemnly at Billy. 'You see, your father and I were very poor. We could hardly feed ourselves, much less two more mouths. We were expecting one, and we had to choose. That was the most terrible decision of my life, son. There's ... a man named Tillman, who buys and sells babies. He bought your brother from us, and he promised to find him a good home.' Her hands clenched into fists, and strain showed on her lined face. 'It was ... the only thing we could do, and we both agonized over it so long. Your father was never the same after we went through with it. We had to choose, and we chose you. Do you understand?'

'I . . . think so.' Billy recalled the woman at the tent revival, a long time ago, confessing the sin of selling her baby. God, how that moment must've pained his mother!

'For years I thought nothing would come of it,' she said. 'Your father and I often wondered what had happened to him, but you were our son and we wanted to give you our full love and attention. But then ... I saw him, and I knew from the first minute who he was. I knew that he might have a special power too, but that it might be different from yours . . . and I saw in his eyes that he was being used without knowing it. I saw him that summer night at the Falconer Crusade. He looks just like your father, but enough like Jimmy Jed Falconer to pass as his son.'

Billy sat frozen for a moment, shocked numb. 'No,' he whispered. 'No, not him. . . .'

'You know it's true. I've seen the way you look at each other. You've felt the same thing, probably, as him— maybe a kind of curiosity or attraction. I think . . . both of you need the other, without knowing it. You understand the meaning of your Mystery Walk, but Wayne is afraid and floundering in the dark.'

'Why?' he asked, rising to his feet. He was angry and confused and dazed, and he realized he had always felt a pull toward the young evangelist, but he'd fought against it. 'If it was a secret for so long, why tell me now?'

'Because J. J. Falconer passed on this summer. He was all that stood between Wayne and the grinding gears of that Crusade machine he built. Wayne is a young businessman now, and his mind is sealed with Jimmy Jed Falconer's thumbprint. He'll follow his father's path, but he doesn't know what's waiting for him at the end of it. He was taught at an early age how to use the power of fear and hatred and call it religion. His spirit is weak, Billy. The shape changer looks for weakness, and if it can use Wayne Falconer against you, it will—in a minute.'

Billy bent and picked up a rock, flinging it into the stream. A bird wheeled for the sky from its cover of brush. 'Why does he hate us?'

'He may feel the same pull we do. He may mistake it for our trying to lure him away from what he thinks is the righteous path. He doesn't understand us, and neither did his father.'

'Do you think he could . . . ever really heal?' Billy asked her.

'I don't know. He's charismatic, there's no doubt. He can make a person believe they've been healed, even if maybe nothing's wrong with them. Falconer had a hand in teaching him that. But if Wayne can heal, he has to find that power deep inside himself, just like you do when you take on the revenants. He has to hurt, just like you do. The Crusade demands that he heal time after time, with no stopping. I think he pretends to heal so he won't have to feel that pain, if indeed he ever really felt it. Oh, he may be able to throw those people a spark or two—but if you throw off enough sparks, you don't have enough left to start a fire when you really need it.'

'What's going to happen to him?'

'He may crack under the weight of the Crusade, or he might find the strength to stand on his own two feet. For him, that might be turning away from the greed that's all around him, and finding out he can learn more about his healing power and he doesn't have to sell it every day on a stage.' She shook her head. 'I don't think he'll leave the Crusade, though. It would be too much of a leap into the dark for him.'

Billy's shoulders sagged. Ramona stood up, unsteadily. 'We'd better be getting home before it gets dark,' she said wearily.

'No, not yet. I need to ... be alone for a while, to think. All right?'

She nodded. 'Take all the time you need.' She touched his cheek with a lingering hand, then started to walk away.

He asked, 'Are you afraid of him?'

'Yes,' she said. 'There's something in him that wants to come home, but he doesn't know the way.' She walked on, alongside the littered road, toward Hawthorne.

Billy watched her go, then crossed the stream to lose himself in the forest.

43

Beneath the same forbidding October sky, a group of men in business suits were slowly walking the length of the county's huge public swimming pool just outside Fayette. The pool was drained and in need of painting.