Walton recognized Roy Tomlins’s voice.

“Hey, Roy,” he replied. “I’m glad you called.”

“What’s going on there?”

“Just sitting here with Trav, scribbling down everything I remember about June of ’66,” Walton replied.

Roy stayed silent.

“Remember that month?” Walton continued. “We were all upset about the marches. Folks wanted to drive over to Jackson and shoot that Meredith boy. I remember you showing off which shotgun you’d use.”

“I don’t recollect that, Walton. Tell Trav it’s me calling.”

“And we were outraged that Jiminy Waters had dared to enter that state leadership essay contest, remember? How’d we even find out that she submitted something? She mailed it I guess. Did you open her letter, Roy? Did she drop it off herself at the post office, or did Edward?”

“Put Trav on the phone, Walton.”

“I told you, he’s asleep. But I’ll be sure to give him the message.”

Walton hung up the phone just as Travis started to stir. Walton wondered how much he’d heard or understood, if any at all. He thought about how easy it would be to turn off the machine that was keeping him alive. He knew exactly which switches to flip.

“Can you hear me, Travis?” Walton asked.

Travis nodded, a shaved-head little-boy nod.

“Good,” Walton replied. “Because we have a lot to discuss.”

Chapter 15

The drive to Bo’s great-uncle’s house was more painful alone in the daylight. Weeks ago, with Jiminy next to him in the darkness, everything about it had seemed surprising and fun. The woman by his side, the roughness of the hill road, the shock of the nocturnal animals they’d spotlighted along the way. Now it just seemed dusty and lonely and way too bright. Bo wished he hadn’t agreed to visit. He wished he’d said no, that it wasn’t a good time. But he’d been caught off guard and agreed instead, and now he was pulling up to his uncle Fred’s cabin under much more depressing circumstances.

Fred was scattering chicken feed on the dirt outside the coop. At first glance, it seemed that creatures ran wild on Fred’s property, but in reality there was some control to the chaos. He had a system he’d worked out that he described as being “in cahoots with the critters,” and it was true that among them he seemed to be part of a happy, raucous commune. As Bo approached, he looked up and grinned a toothless grin.

“Right on time for some lemony-lime,” he said.

Bo wasn’t sure what he meant until he saw the iced jug on the table in the front yard. Fred liked to invent different cold drinks in the summer, using whatever he could gather fresh from his garden or the nearby woods. This wasn’t the climate for lemons or limes, but Bo thought he saw some mint leaves and apple chunks floating in the punch.

He took a cautious sip from the glass jar Fred offered him.

“Whew,” Bo said, wiping his lip and setting the jar back on the table.

He’d been right about the mint. He couldn’t be sure about the apples, because whatever fruit they’d once been, they were now just little sponges for whiskey.

“Lemony-lime moonshine mint punch,” Fred proclaimed proudly.

“That’s something,” Bo answered.

Fred was a man of many projects, which Bo found intriguing. He was well into his eighties, and he lived a solitary, reclusive life. He could’ve just faded away from sense and sensibility the way he’d shied from other people, but he’d instead managed to stay engaged and alert. In addition to being a little kooky, Fred was filled with an energy that Bo admired.

“Where’s Lily-Lou?” Fred asked.

By which he meant Jiminy. He’d started calling her that when they were all together weeks ago. He’d said there was only one Jiminy he’d ever known, and so this other Jiminy must be Lily-Lou. Wanting to know all she could about the other Jiminy, the newly christened Lily-Lou had gracefully played along.

“I’m not too sure,” Bo answered, wondering if his uncle could leave it at that.

“You’ve lost Lily-Lou?” Fred gasped. “You don’t know where to find her?”

Nope, Bo guessed that he couldn’t just leave it at that.

“We’re not spending as much time together anymore.”

Fred nodded.

“Trouble with the Knights,” he said.

He didn’t ask it. He just said it. Bo didn’t know what he meant, but he tried to go along to get along.

“With the days, too,” Bo replied. “It’s for the best. She shouldn’t have to deal with any trouble while she figures herself out, and I’m gonna be leaving town again soon anyway.”

“You still lookin’ out for Jiminy?” Fred asked. “And Edward, too? They’re a pair forever and ever now, till reincarnation do them part.”

He was talking about the first Jiminy. The second one was still Lily-Lou.

“Of course,” Bo said. “Though it’s really Jiminy—I mean, it’s really Lily-Lou who’s gotten obsessed with them. She’s gone and gotten someone to come make a real investigation, to really dig into it. They’re creating quite a stir.”

“I knew it, I knew it,” Fred said, clapping his hands to his knees. “When they want some ammudence, tell ’em to come see Fred.”

Bo thought about it for a moment but couldn’t decipher the word.

“Ammudence?”

“Ammudence!” Fred repeated. “When they need some fire that’ll really stick, proof and power all in one!”

Ammunition. And evidence?

“What do you have?” Bo asked.

And why hadn’t Fred mentioned it weeks ago when they’d first visited him? Perhaps their questions had awakened old memories that he’d needed a little time alone with before feeling ready to act.

Bo had been horrified to learn what had happened to Edward and Jiminy, but he’d never personally known them. He knew his great-aunt Lyn as well as she let anyone know her, and he sympathized deeply with her, but overall, he felt removed from the long-ago events that had shattered her. And, in truth, he didn’t want to be saddled with all the baggage from them. He wanted to move forward into his own future, away from this place where the burdens of past generations, though unknown and invisible, somehow still retained the power to hold the next generation down.

But Jiminy’s obsession with his family’s past had shamed Bo into further investigation. For better or for worse, he’d been drafted.

“You wanna see some ammudence?” Fred asked him. “Follow me.”

In the yard, two peacocks strutted among the chickens. Worried that he might accidentally squash a chick, Bo stepped carefully as he followed Fred to a falling-down barn nestled against the hillside behind the house.

“Thisaway,” Fred said, ducking under a listing beam to enter the barn.

Inside, Fred walked toward a stall at the far end. He struggled to move a bale of hay blocking its entrance, and Bo hurried to help him, happy that his youth was good for something. Fred squeezed into the opening they’d made and pointed into the shadows of the stall. It took a moment for Bo’s eyes to make out what looked like a heap of something covered in dusty canvas.

Bo swatted a fly and stepped into the stall to get a better view as Fred lifted the tarp away. It seemed to be the rusted-up, burned-out front of a car, complete with charred seats and steering wheel. Bo looked at Fred, understanding dawning on him.

“Their car?” Bo asked. “The car they were driving that night?”

Fred nodded.

“It didn’t burn all the way up. I got it in the middle of the night and’ve had it since. Maybe now’s its time to shine.”

Bo nodded, suddenly unable to speak. Seeing these charred remains before him made what had transpired real in a way that nothing else had. He no longer just felt sorry for Lyn, or horror in general. He felt as if this had somehow happened to him.