The surname sounded vaguely familiar. Perhaps he’d read an article about them at some point.
Skeeter grinned. “If you can remember that article, you’ll have your answer ‘bout why folks don’t leave the holler.”
“You’re good, old man. I had a talk with your granddaughter about the very thing you just did.”
“She ain’t got it, but there’s plenty of other things she can do.”
“Right. I suspect she’s like her mother in many ways. Her brother on the other hand...”
“Yep. Harlan’s a special boy.”
“Indeed.”
Fergus was getting frustrated by not being able to speak freely. His scythen wasn’t pinging, but he couldn’t be sure Lizzy wasn’t listening. She had found a way to block her output, so he had to assume she was lurking on the other side of the door or watching them through a hidden camera.
“You keep working on that article. Don’t mind me.”
The keen blue eyes closed. Fergus would take the opportunity to analyze what had just happened. Then he would visit his memory palace and try to access the article about the Marsilis family.
Lizzy had appeared exhausted and in pain. Her words slurred a bit when she talked about returning to torture Skeeter. Was she on drugs? Some kind of narcotic for pain? If so, could he take advantage of that? Perhaps. He’d return to that thought soon.
Next. Obviously Ray had escaped from wherever Lizzy had taken him, and for that Fergus was grateful. How he had done so and then managed to find Skeeter, Fergus had no idea. But the two had discovered Lizzy’s isolated cabin. Maybe the conversation with Harlan in the astral plane had paid off.
Willadean had escaped, and as long as Ray got her far away, she should be safe. The relief felt like slicing through an anchor’s rope that had been pulling him to the bottom of a murky lake. Surely Lizzy was in no state to go hunting for them in the woods. She looked near collapse. Unless she had access to stimulants, she wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.
Now to the article about the Marsilis family. Fergus closed his eyes and summoned an image of Versailles. A person who’d lived for thousands of years needed a 700-hundred-room palace to store all those memories. He imagined himself strolling past doorway after doorway, this one baroque, the next rococo, then colonial revival, art deco, and mid-century modern. The various styles of interior design helped him categorize the memories stored behind them.
He arrived at the Asian Zen door, tugged on the embossed, nickel-plated pull, and then entered. Bookshelves lined the walls, as they did in all the other rooms. Some shelves appeared as a hodgepodge of various colored tomes in a dozen different sizes. Books wedged onto other shelves matched in size and hue. After a moment’s hesitation, he slid an unremarkable-looking book from its unremarkable-looking shelf.
News Articles from 2016.
Time lost all meaning in the memory palace, so he had no idea how long or how many pages he scanned until he came upon what he’d been searching for.
Scientists have discovered the secret to the Italian family that doesn’t feel pain...a genetic mutation is responsible for their seeming super-power... sometimes they experience a moment of unpleasantness from a broken bone or a burned hand, but the sensation doesn’t last long...the rare anomaly allows these individuals to blissfully navigate extreme physical discomfort...
Fergus glanced up from the book. Bingo.
In the real world, his eyes popped open.
Skeeter grinned at him from across the room.
“Figured it out, did ya?”
“I believe so. I knew the reference sounded familiar. The holler people wanted to keep it from becoming attenuated...of course that makes perfect sense. How long has this been, uh, kept in the family?”
“We’ve known about it for generations. That’s all I’m gonna say.”
“That explains why you were angry that Serena Jo left.”
The bald head nodded.
“Does everyone know about it?”
“Mostly.”
“Does she?”
The keen blue gaze drifted away for a second as Skeeter contemplated the question, then returned to the cage. “My daughter ain’t as open to this kinda stuff as most folks in the holler. Prolly ‘cause of her university education.”
“So you’re like those people in the article?”
“Yep.”
“Who else?”
“A few folks you don’t know. And the grandkids, a little bit. Not like me, though.”
“What about their mom?”
“Nope.”
“Fascinating. So it randomly manifests?”
“Exactly.”
Fergus desperately wanted to ask the old man about anyone possessing enhanced langthal, the ability to heal others — the most prized of all the gifts the Cthor had coded into the extant population’s DNA. If not for Jessie’s enhanced langthal, Fergus wouldn’t be alive today. She was the only person in the world he knew of who possessed that rare gift.
Instead, he said, “This talent of yours will come in handy soon.”
“Yep. I reckon it will.”
Chapter 22
Willadean
“I was getting in good with her until you ruined it,” Willa growled. “Now she’s going to torture Mister Fergus and it will be your fault.”
The man standing before her arched an eyebrow, making him look like the actor from one of her mother’s favorite movies.
“Come on, kids. We have a lot of ground to cover before sundown,” the man said. Then he took off in the wrong direction.
“Uh, Mister Ray, it’s this-a-way,” Cricket stage-whispered.
“Guess Harlan should lead. I’m no good at this.” His lopsided grin turned rueful.
Willa blew out an exasperated breath, then focused on her brother. Her twin stood silently beside her, a reassuring presence after her captivity. “What happened?”
Cricket and I figured out where you and Mister Fergus were. Pops believed us, but Mama wasn’t on board, and we knew she’d never let me and Cricket out of the village to lead the way. So the four of us snuck out.
“So that was Pops who crashed in
