Gwendy's Magic Feather

67

GWENDY’S BRIEF SPEECH AT the PTA New Year’s Eve party goes over well and earns her a spirited round of applause from the audience, along with the usual smattering of catcalls. Castle Rock may be proud of its hometown-girl-made-good, but there are still plenty of folks around here who don’t believe a woman should be representing their voice in the nation’s capital, much less a thirty-seven-year-old woman who happens to be a Democrat. That’s what many of the old-timers down at the corner store call “adding insult to injury.”

When Brigette originally explained that the plan was for everyone inside the Municipal Center to file outside to Castle Rock Common at 11:00 PM so the big midnight countdown could take place in the center of town by the clock tower, Gwendy believed it was the very epitome of a bad idea. It would be dark and freezing cold. People would be tired and cranky. She predicted that most folks would probably just head for their cars and the warmth of their living rooms at that point to celebrate the ball dropping with Dick Clark and assorted celebrity guests on television.

But she was dead wrong, she admitted now.

The PTA volunteers had created quite the festive winter wonderland on the Common, hanging dozens of strings of twinkling white Christmas lights in the trees and shrubbery, around the railing and the roof of the bandstand, and along the white picket fence that bordered the woods at the northern edge of the Common. Red and green streamers hung from lampposts and street signs. A hot chocolate and coffee booth had been set up by the entrance, and someone had even dressed up the War Memorial, draping a bright red ribbon around the WWI soldier’s neck and scrubbing the splatters of birdshit off his pie-dish helmet.

Conspicuous in their absence were the number of HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? posters missing from nearby telephone poles and lampposts and the windows of the handful of buildings that bordered the Common. For a few hours on one night only, talk of the missing girls had been pushed to the background and folks were focusing on the positive and hopeful. Tomorrow morning, the posters and the chatter would undoubtedly return.

At 11:45 PM, as Gwendy stands in line waiting for hot chocolate, the place is positively hopping. Kids dart past her in eager packs, shouting and laughing, tossing snowballs at each other and sliding on stray patches of ice, while their parents and neighbors wander around, flitting from huddled group to huddled group, chatting, gossiping, sneaking sips of whiskey from hidden flasks, and making grandiose plans for 2000 to be the best year ever. Gwendy spots Grace Featherstone from the Book Nook talking to Nanette from the diner over by the bandstand. Brigette is holding court with a number of her PTA minions by the picnic tables, no doubt making sure everything’s set for midnight and the big countdown. Gwendy saw Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman earlier inside the hall, but did her best to avoid them—going so far as to hide in the bathroom for much longer than was probably necessary. So far, so good, in that regard—she hasn’t seen either one of them again since.

The line inches forward, and she notices a tall man with a bushy mustache wearing a Patriots cap leaning against a lamppost by the fountain. He appears to be watching her, but Gwendy can’t be sure she isn’t imagining it. She thinks she remembers seeing him earlier in the audience during her speech.

“That you, Mrs. Gwendy Peterson?”

She turns around. It takes her a second to recognize the older man standing behind her, but then it comes to her in a flash. “Well, hello again, Mr. Charlie Browne.”

“Just Charlie, please.”

“Enjoying the New Year’s Eve festivities?”

“I was enjoying it a lot more when we were inside and I wasn’t freezing my giblets off.”

Gwendy tosses her head back and laughs. “Good thing the wind isn’t blowing, or we’d look like a bunch of ice sculptures out here.”

He grunts and looks around. “You see my boy around anywhere? That clock strikes midnight and I’m outta here.”

Gwendy shakes her head. “Sorry, I haven’t seen him.”

“There you are,” Brigette says, arriving in a perfume-scented flurry. “I was looking for you. What are you doing waiting in line?” She waves furiously at one of the women in the booth. “Can I get a hot cocoa ASAP for the congresswoman?”

“Brigette, no,” Gwendy says, horrified. People are staring at them, some of them pointing.

“Here you go,” a dark-haired woman says, hustling over with a steaming Styrofoam cup.

Gwendy doesn’t want to accept it, but she has no choice. “Thank you. You really didn’t have to do that.”

“Nonsense,” Brigette says, taking her by the arm and leading her away. “I want you right next to me at midnight.”

“Happy New Year, Mr. Browne,” Gwendy says over her shoulder. “It was nice seeing you again.”

“Happy New Year, Congresswoman,” he says, smirking, and Gwendy doesn’t know if it’s her imagination or not, but she’s almost positive his tone is no longer a friendly one.

“Three more minutes,” Brigette says, glancing at her watch. She spots her husband standing across the Common talking to two other men. “Travis! Travis!” She points at the clock tower. “Over there!”

He nods dutifully and starts in that direction.

The miniature clock tower is located at the very heart of the Castle Rock Common. It stands twenty-two feet high and its face measures three feet across its center. Erected during the town’s reconstruction period in the aftermath of the Big Fire, there’s an engraved metal plaque positioned at the stone base of the tower that reads: In honor of the indomitable spirit of the citizens of Castle Rock — 1992.

A burly woman wearing what looks like several layers of flannel shirts flashes a look of relief as they approach. “Thank goodness, I was starting to get worried.” She hands Brigette a microphone. A long black cord snakes from the bottom of the mic to a large speaker propped up on a picnic table behind them.

Gwendy smiles at the woman. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year,” she says shyly, and quickly looks away.

Travis walks up beside them, grinning and smelling like aftershave and whiskey. “All ready to go, ladies?”

“Almost,” Brigette says. She turns on the microphone and a whine of feedback erupts from the speaker. People groan and cover their ears. The woman in the flannel shirts scurries to adjust several knobs at the top of the speaker until the sound diminishes and finally dissipates.

“One minute til midnight!” Brigette announces, giddily. “One minute until midnight!”

A crowd starts to gather at the foot of the clock tower, the younger kids swarming toward the front, most of them wearing glow-in-the-dark necklaces and carrying party horns or noisemakers. Many of the adults are wearing glittery cardboard hats with Y2K! or 2000! or HAPPY NEW YEAR! printed across the brims at jaunty angles.

“Thirty seconds!” Brigette shouts, her tone bordering on hysterical, and for the first time tonight, Gwendy wonders how much her friend has had to drink.

Studying the crowd, she sees Grace and Nanette and Milly Harris, the church organist, huddled together off to the side. All three are staring up at the clock and counting down. Charlie Browne is standing toward the back by himself with his foot propped up on a bench. He’s wearing scuffed cowboy boots and a green plastic derby with a fake yellow flower poking out from the top. He grins and gives Gwendy a big wave. She gratefully waves back, thinking she must’ve been wrong about him before.

Maybe ten yards behind Mr. Browne is the mustached stranger in the Patriots cap. He’s scanning the crowd, but it’s hard to get a good look at his face because the brim of his hat is tilted so low.

“TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, SIX…” Brigette lowers the microphone from her mouth. The roar of the crowd has grown louder than her amplified voice.

“FIVE… FOUR… THREE… TWO… ONE…”

The crowd erupts. “HAPPY NEW YEARRRR!”

A cacophony of drunken hooting and hollering, blowing horns and honking noisemakers fills the air. Confetti is tossed by the handfuls. Someone on the other side of the Common shoots off a string of bottle rockets. Brilliant explosions of red, white, and blue sparks light up the night sky and shower down upon the snow-covered ground. Everywhere around Gwendy, people are embracing and kissing. She thinks of Ryan, the way his whiskers tickle her chin when he kisses her, and a deep ache blooms in the center of her chest.

Brigette untangles herself from her husband’s arms, and then it’s Gwendy’s turn. “Happy New Year!” she shouts above the clatter, hugging Gwendy tight. “I’m so glad you’re here!”

“Happy New Year!” Gwendy says, her face awash in the glow of fireworks.

“My turn next.” Travis is standing behind his wife, arms held open wide, looking at Gwendy. “Happy New Year!”

Gwendy leans over and hugs him and the side of her face brushes against the cold skin of Travis’s cheek. “Happy New—” she starts to say, and then something changes.

Everything changes.

Suddenly Travis appears very clear to her, very bright and in focus, almost as if he’s somehow lit from within, and everything else around him falls away. She notices the tiny scar on Travis’s chin and immediately understands that the neighbor’s dog, Barney, snapped at Travis when he was eight years old because he’d been throwing rocks at it from across the chain-link fence. This was in Boston, where Travis grew up. She stares at the thick, wavy texture of his hair and suddenly understands that he’s having an affair with his hair dresser, a single woman named Katy who lives in a trailer on the outskirts of town with her three-year-old son. Her dear old friend Brigette knows nothing about it…

…and then Gwendy’s vision blurs and Travis suddenly swirls out of view, like he’s being sucked into the maw of a pitch-black vortex, and everything else around him swims back into focus.

“—you okay?” Travis asks. He’s standing a few feet away, staring at her with concern in his eyes.

Gwendy blinks and looks around. “I’m fine,” she says. “Felt a little light-headed for a minute there.”

“Christ, I thought you were having a seizure or something,” he says.

“Come on,” Brigette says, taking her by the arm. “Let’s sit down.”

“Honest, I’m fine.” She wants out of there, and she wants out of there right now. “I think it’s time I head home. It’s been a long day.”

“Are you sure you should be driving? Travis could take—”

“I’m good,” Gwendy says, forcing a smile. “I promise.”

Brigette gives her a lingering look. “Okay, but please be careful.”

“Will do,” Gwendy says, waving goodbye. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

What in the hell was that all about? she thinks, cutting across the Common on the way to her car. She doesn’t even know how to describe what just happened, but she knows she’s never experienced anything remotely like it before. It’s almost as if a door had opened, and she’d stepped inside. But opened to what? Travis’s soul? It sounded hokey, like something out of a science fiction novel, but it also made a certain amount of sense to her, the same way that the button box made a certain amount of sense to her now.

Was what happened some kind of a bizarre side effect because of the chocolates she’d given to her Mom? And why Travis? She barely knew the guy, and he certainly wasn’t the only person she’d come in contact with tonight. She shook hands with dozens of other people.

A dark figure suddenly steps out of the shadows in front of her. “Are you okay, Mrs. Peterson?”

Startled, Gwendy jerks to a stop. It’s the stranger in the Patriots cap, and he’s standing close enough to reach out and touch her. She’s trapped in between buildings now, and it’s darker here without the streetlights.

“I’m fine,” she says, trying to sound unafraid. “You really should be more careful about ambushing people like that. Especially with everything that’s going on around here.”

“I apologize,” the man says in a pleasant tone. “I saw what happened and was concerned.”

“You saw what happened,” Gwendy repeats with an edge to her voice. “And why were you watching me in the first place, Mr….?”

“Nolan,” the man says, pulling open his coat to reveal a badge clipped to his belt. “Detective Nolan.”

Gwendy’s eyes widen and she feels a flush spread across her cheeks. “And now I feel very foolish.”

The detective holds up his hands. “Please don’t, ma’am. I should have identified myself right away.”

“Did Sheriff Ridgewick ask you to keep an eye on me?”

“No, ma’am,” he says. “Way he talks about you, I’m pretty sure the sheriff thinks you can take care of yourself.”

Gwendy laughs. She can picture Norris saying exactly those words. “Well, have a good night, detective. Thanks for checking on me.”

He nods mutely and starts walking back in the direction of the Common.

Gwendy turns toward the street and, in the time it takes to recognize the man walking toward her, she decides to conduct an experiment. “Hey, there, Mr. Gallagher,” she says. “Happy New Year.” She tugs the glove off her right hand and extends it toward him.

“Happy New Year to you, too, young lady.” Gwendy’s eighth grade algebra teacher shakes her hand with a firm grip. She can feel the rough callouses on his palm. “You should stop by the school one day. The kids would love to see you.”

“I’ll do that,” she says, waiting for something, anything, out of the ordinary to happen.

But it doesn’t.

So she keeps walking until she reaches Main Street where she parked her car. She’s thinking about the button box and its chocolate treats and not looking where she’s going when her feet suddenly go out from under her. One minute she’s striding confidently past the Castle Rock Diner, catching a fleeting glimpse of her reflection in the darkened front window, and the next she’s skidding across an icy patch of sidewalk, her arms flailing above her head.

Someone grabs her around the waist.

“Oh my God,” she says, steadying herself.

“That was a close one, Mrs. Peterson.” Lucas Browne lets go of her waist and reaches down to the sidewalk. He comes back up holding her glove. “You dropped this.” He smiles and hands it to her and their bare fingers touch…

…and Main Street suddenly falls away, the cars and storefronts and streetlights disappearing, and all she can see is him, in brilliant, almost luminescent, detail. And just like that she knows. Lucas Browne is the Tooth Fairy. She stares at his hand and watches as his gloved fingers wrap around a stainless steel instrument, reach into a dummy mouth full of fake teeth set up on a brightly lit table, UB School of Dental Medicine stitched across the breast of the long white lab coat he’s wearing… and then those same fingers, filthy now, gripping a pair of rusty workroom pliers, and he’s standing over a cowering Deborah Parker, her long hair spiked with sweat, her eyes wide and frightened, the tips of his cowboy boots splattered with fat drops of blood…

And then the darkness swallows him away, and the streetscape sharpens into focus again and Lucas Browne is standing on the sidewalk in front of her.

“What just happened?” he asks, eyes narrowing. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… I’m fine,” she says. “Thank you. You saved me from a nasty fall.” Her voice sounds dull and distant.

A young couple, walking arm-in-arm, passes by then. The teenage boy, a James Dean wannabe with his leather jacket and cigarette dangling from his mouth, nods at them. “What’s up, Lucas?”

Lucas doesn’t answer, doesn’t even look at the guy—just watches Gwendy cross the street with that same wary look on his face.

Gwendy unlocks the car and climbs inside, hurriedly locking the door behind her. Her hands are shaking and her heart feels like it’s going to burst inside her chest. She starts the engine and pulls away without letting it warm up. When she glances toward the sidewalk, Lucas Browne is still standing there, watching her.