Chapter 31
They turned into the parking lot behind the Brooks Library, and Donna rolled into a slot in a far back corner, the Caddy turned
to face Rackham’s Wood. They were almost the only car there.
Allie went in first. She climbed out of the rear, then leaned back in and pecked Tana on the cheek. She hurried away as if
someone had just told her that her house was on fire. Tana cupped one hand to the side of her face, where Allie’s lips had
touched her.
Donna’s gaze moved to the rearview mirror and locked on Tana’s eyes. “I got one thing to say.”
“Can’t wait,” Tana said.
“You break her heart, I’ll rope you to the bumper of this car and drag you through the streets.”
Robin said, “That’s . . . highly specific.”
Tana said, “You sure you’re not from Gogan, McBride?”
“The Florida panhandle. It’s like Gogan, but with alligators.”
Robin went in next, about half an hour later. Allie thought they would attract less notice entering one at a time. If they
walked in as a group, people would expect them to leave in a group.
“So let’s say, hypothetically, things get bad,” Donna said.
“I hate to update you on current events,” Tana said, “but they got bad a while ago.”
“I mean up in the tower when the dragon comes. Let’s say it becomes clear this isn’t going to work. Do you want me to tell
you before I do it, Gwen, so you can prepare yourself, or is it better not to know?”
“I’d like to know,” Tana said. “Be sure to tell me. Because the moment you decide Gwen has to die, you’re going out the window.”
“You won’t have to tell me,” Gwen said. “We’ll both just know.”
“No one is killing no one,” Tana said. “The both of you can shut up.”
“I don’t shut up, I grow up,” Donna said. “And when I look at you, I throw up. And then your momma runs around the corner
and—oh, wait, I just remembered, your momma isn’t running anywhere. Because you beat her head in. But go on, you were just
about to give me a lecture on the sanctity of life.”
“Jesus,” Tana said, and got out of the car, and wandered out of sight around the library.
“You don’t have to go out of your way to be nasty,” Gwen said.
Donna said, “My best friend in third grade, Cady Lewis? She was the most adorable thing. Sunny and wide eyed and amazed by
everything: a bald eagle in a tree, the ice cream truck, a gold star on a math test. Then she died and I spent the next thirty
years feeling terrible about it. But when I’m gone, it won’t hurt anyone the way Cady hurt me. The way Van hurt me when he died. That’s why the world needs motherfuckers, I think. Motherfuckers hold the line. And if they get wiped out in the process,
it’s no big loss to anyone. The world dusts its hands off and moves on.”
“Donna—” Gwen said.
Donna said, “I think you can go in now.”
Gwen stared at her for a moment, then opened the passenger-side door. Donna got out on the other side to help her with her
crutch.
There had been fresh clothes for Gwen in the car: a pair of sneakers and the ratty yellow hoodie Arthur had loaned her the
last time they went sledding, the one with the face of Steve Biko on the back. Tana could’ve picked any of half a dozen sweatshirts
out of Gwen’s closet, but she had selected that one, for who knew what reason, and it was exactly right.
Donna offered her the crutch. Gwen flipped her hood up and took it and nodded.
“See you in there,” Donna said.
Gwen shifted along the wet and cratered parking lot, hopping along on the crutch. The school was as still as she had ever seen it. With the students on leave, it belonged to the birds now. Juncos, they were called. She had looked them up.
She let herself in. The door fell shut with an echoing bang behind her. There was a librarian on the far side of the empty
lobby, behind the counter, scanning books into the system. She looked Gwen’s way, then dropped her gaze back to the work in
front of her.
Gwen scooted along on her crutch, turning right and ducking into the east wing, then turning again into a darkened corridor.
She ground her teeth against a fresh twist of pain in her hip. Conference Room A appeared on her left and she let herself
in. The others were there, sitting anxiously around a table. The back of the room was a full-wall art piece, a blown-up photograph
printed on white ceramic, rendered at such a large scale, it was possible to see the individual dots making up the image:
it was J.R.R. Tolkien, the old man smiling in profile around his pipe, his eyes amused beneath shaggy eyebrows. It did not
surprise Gwen to see him there. The old dragon fighter would not have wanted to miss out on a night like tonight. At the sight
of him, it struck Gwen that Arthur was already with them, had always somewhat resembled a young Steve Biko, but with Tolkien’s
dress sense.
Donna joined them five minutes later. The door to the server room was almost invisible, a part of the white wall, hidden in
Tolkien’s shoulder. Donna felt around in that massive Michael Kors bag she carried over one shoulder, found something to stick
in the little lock, and forced it with a savage twist.
She turned a small brass knob and opened the door on a warm, narrow, dark room, lined with Dragonware-brand servers on steel
shelves. A few hundred lights twinkled and flashed, an alien cosmos of constellations in emerald and gold: a dragon’s hoard
of gleaming gems. So Colin was with them too, in his way. Gwen shivered, conscious of a clammy sweat on her back and sides.
“I think I’m going to try and nap,” she said, crutching to the door and peering inside. She craved the warmth and gentle hum
of the machinery, that twenty-first-century cavern of riches.
“Shouldn’t we try to bring Arthur through now?” Allie asked.
“I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep him here,” Gwen said. “Once we bring him through, we’ll want to pull King Sorrow
straight into our world after him. Best if we wait until we have the library to ourselves.”
There was a leather recliner in there, jammed in one corner, a stack of yellowing Library Journals piled in the seat. Gwen used her crutch to push the magazines to the floor. Her back was to the others, so she didn’t see
Tana and Allie trade a startled look, didn’t know there was a blood stain as large as a man’s palm on the back of the hoodie.
She yawned.
“I feel like I could sleep a hundred years,” Gwen said. “Don’t let me snooze through anything interesting.”
“Like what?” Donna asked. “Like a dragon kicking the roof off the place?”
“Yeah,” Gwen agreed. “Like that.”
They arranged themselves on the floor of the server room, at Gwen’s feet, while Gwen slept. She had dozed off almost the moment
she hit the chair.
Tana had brought premade subs from Market Basket, but no one was hungry. Allie couldn’t imagine eating. Her stomach was doing
nervous backflips. She was going to have to leave soon, abandon them there, and return later with everything they needed for
the night.
Donna sat with her back to a wall. In a low voice she said, “Do you think we can summon Arthur without Gwen? Or Van? If it’s
just you and me, Allie, we might have better luck calling for Van.”
“Why would we summon either of them without her?” Robin asked.
“We might have to if she slides into unconsciousness. I can smell that wound from here. She’s got something bad inside her.”
Allie said, “She’s not dying.”
Donna stared at her.
“She’s not,” Allie said, wanting to cry.
“Maybe it’s a good thing,” Donna said. “That she’s slipping away.”
Allie wanted to punch her right in her big stupid mouth. “You were certainly hoping she’d die a month ago. You sound like
you can’t wait to snap her neck tonight.”
Donna didn’t flinch. She said, “Colin told me it’s easier to bring someone through from the Long Dark if you’re already on
the bridge between life and death. She’s our best chance of pulling Arthur through, not just because they meant everything
to each other, but because she can meet him halfway. She’s just about dead herself.” She clutched her purse close to her stomach.
“It’s true I was going to let her die a month ago. Colin lied to me and used me . . . but I made it easy for him to turn me
against her. I was angry. She told me I was inhuman for setting King Sorrow loose on Black Cricket, that I was as bad as the
worst people we killed, and she was right. I couldn’t bear for another single human being to see how bad I was. One of us
had to go.” She reflected another moment, then said, “I can’t fix what I’ve done. I can’t undo any of it, and I don’t expect
to be forgiven.”
“But here you are,” Robin said.
“But here I am.”
“Why?”
“Because . . . it’s not about me. It’s about Gwen. It’s about Allie. It’s about the people who will live if we cut King Sorrow
down.” Donna’s gaze found Robin. Her green eyes were as dull and disinterested as Allie had ever seen them. “What about you,
Fellows? I can’t think of one single good reason for you to be here. You could walk away.”
“I walked away from Arthur Oakes,” Robin said. “Or, rather, I allowed him to walk away from me. I knew it was a mistake, even
then. I won’t leave another friend. And you’re all friends.”
“You think so?” Donna asked. “Even you and I?”
“I know you’ve convinced yourself you’re unlovable, Donna McBride, but when I look in your face, I see what your brother saw.
Fierceness. An overwhelming urge to protect the people you care about.
A lack of interest in being loved by anyone else.
The yin to Van’s yang. Can’t love one and not the other: the both of you together made a whole. ”
“What about you, Tana?” Allie asked. “You d-don’t have to stay.” It appalled her, to feel so emotional she couldn’t talk without
stammering.
Tana heard the hitch in her voice and smiled. Winked. Allie thought she’d die of embarrassment and love.
“This woman here stood up for me for twenty-plus years.” Nodding to Gwen. “She changed my son’s diapers and wiped away his