Chapter 14
Knocking, somewhere off in the distance, woke me up the following morning.
Wrapped up like a burrito in the covers on my bed, it took a second for me to even realize where I was.
I didn’t even remember having gone to bed the night before.
Time slowly came back to me as the knocking continued in the distance, muffled by walls and floor.
The previous day’s events filled my head, and I realized that I had spent most of the afternoon on my bed, watching Possibly through a glass filter.
At one point, I had wandered downstairs for a sandwich and some chips—Jack had a pretty good selection of snack foods—and then ate on my bed while reading a book on my phone.
I hadn’t needed a signal to read any of the books I’d saved.
Sometime, probably around midnight, after checking out the greenish glow coming from the roof of Auguste’s barn, I’d fallen back in bed.
My instincts had obviously kicked in and my body had wrapped itself up in the covers.
The room was stuffy, warm early morning Texas heat already making the temperature rise in my attic bedroom.
When the knocking continued and my ears adjusted enough to being awake that I realized it was coming from the front door, I tried to pry myself out of the covers.
Thrashing and ripping—not unamused by the tangle I’d gotten myself in—I extracted my body from the bed.
I yanked on some basketball shorts and a t-shirt and exited my room.
In bare feet, I padded down the first flight of stairs, hoping whoever was at the door wouldn’t give up before I could answer their knocking.
However, on the second-floor landing, I glanced over and noticed that Jack’s bedroom door was open at the end of the hall.
Golden sunlight was streaming through his window, bathing the room in the warm yellow of the early morning hours.
As I stood there, I realized the knocking at the front door had stopped, and a voice had replaced the noise.
I skipped down the bottom flight of stairs, finding Jack at the open front door across the room from me.
Sunlight framed him in a halo, so I couldn’t really see who was at the door.
I had to slink across the living room and glance around him to find out who had woken us both.
Jack was fully dressed, though, so he might have been awake when the person came knocking.
When I rounded Jack, I saw that the mysterious knocker was actually Auguste.
When he said he’d come to Jack’s, he hadn’t mentioned it would be so early. It was barely seven o’clock in the morning.
“—yeah,” Auguste was speaking to Jack, obviously continuing a conversation I had walked in on, “Jordan asked me if I’d show him around town.”
Though I couldn’t see his hands, I saw Jack move, as though signing to Auguste.
Auguste laughed. “I guess it’s nice of me, sure.”
Again, Jack was moving like he was signing something.
“Oh,” Auguste said, “if he’s still asleep, I can come back later. I just thought since you’re usually up by now that—”
I dashed the last few feet through the living room to stand beside Jack in the doorway.
“I’m awake!” I announced sprightly.
Jack jumped, his head whipping to the side to look at me. Auguste smiled.
“Sorry, Jack,” I mumbled. “Uh, I was asleep, but I woke up when I heard you knocking.”
Auguste winced.
“Sorry,” he said. “Jack is always up at this time working, so I thought…well, anyway.”
Jack signed something.
Auguste chuckled. “Yeah.”
I had no idea what Jack had said to him.
“What?” I asked.
“He called you ‘sleepy head.’” Auguste answered.
“Oh.” I glanced over to see Jack smiling slightly.
The three of us stood there in awkward silence for a moment. I didn’t know why Auguste knew sign language when I, Jack’s stepson, was out of practice, but it wasn’t a question I felt I should ask in front of Jack.
“So,” I reached up to scratch my head, “still up for showing me around?”
“Sure,” Auguste said. “Yeah. You ready, or…”
“Yeah.” I glanced over at Jack. “Um, is it all right if I use that twenty bucks still?”
Jack nodded.
“Okay. Thanks.”
Jack turned slightly so I could dash through the doorway and down the front steps. Auguste gave me a nod and smile as I stood there expectantly, then he turned to Jack.
“Finishing your table today?” he asked.
Jack nodded and then signed rapidly and excitedly to Auguste.
“Awesome!” Auguste responded, though he didn’t tell me what Jack had said. “He’ll be so happy.”
Jack smiled, proud of whatever it was that they had shared.
My head just turned back and forth between them, trying to figure out what had happened.
Something was going on with Jack’s table, but whatever it was apparently wasn’t my business to know.
Either that, or neither of them had considered that maybe I’d be interested in what they were talking about.
“Okay.” Auguste turned to me. “Ready?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, glancing over at Jack. “Sure.”
Jack raised his hand and waved to us both.
“Bye, Jack!” Auguste announced happily before skipping away. “See you later!”
Jack looked over at me.
“Uh, see you later.” I gave him a quick wave, then dashed away after Auguste.
Auguste literally skipped down the road away from Jack’s house, going in the direction of the graveyard.
At first, I was embarrassed to be jogging alongside some boy who was skipping—especially since he was wearing bright orange clam diggers, flip-flops, and his ever-present tank top.
The pearl necklace at his throat was another odd touch.
However, I reminded myself that clothes should be experimented with, and Auguste wasn’t self-conscious, so why should I be embarrassed?
When we got to the fork in the road at the edge of the graveyard, Auguste came to a sudden halt, and I nearly ran into him.
He chuckled as I stumbled and grabbed onto his shoulder to keep from landing ass up in the road.
He placed his hands on my shoulders and helped me stay upright until it was obvious that I wasn’t going to topple over.
When we were both safe and secure, standing there, he turned to look at the graveyard.
“Bend of the Road Graveyard,” he said.
“Yeah?” I shrugged.
“It was here before the town was even founded.” Auguste continued. “They say that when the founders of Possibly showed up to this land, there were these headstones and trees.”
“Okay.”
“They really liked this area by the creek, but there was this graveyard,” he said. “But, instead of being jerks and relocating the dead—or just the headstones—or building over it completely, they just built around it.”
“I mean,” I began, “the town’s not that big. Couldn’t have been that big of a decision, right?”
Auguste laughed. Like his melodic, though deep, voice, his laugh also sounded like a song. It had a specific rhythm and cadence that was pleasant and inviting. He was a friendly, cheerful guy.
“They didn’t know how big the town would get at the time, though, right?” he asked. “So, it was still nice of them to decide to build the roads around it. Just in case.”
“Sure. I mean, that sounds fair.”
“They say that it’s possibly haunted,” Auguste said, then realized his phrasing. “Hah. Possibly.”
I chuckled.
“Um,” I started, “I, uh, saw some—body—here the other morning. It was kind of weird.”
“Yeah?” He asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Somebody in, like, a black robe with a hood. They just appeared out from under the tree, went and stood by that headstone there—”
I pointed at the headstone.
“—and then disappeared back under the tree. I mean, it was misty, or foggy, or whatever, that morning, but it seemed like they appeared and disappeared—”
“That’s Malia,” Auguste said.
“What?”
“She’s a performance artist.” Auguste explained. “At least three times a week, she comes to the graveyard and mourns at a different grave. She doesn’t want any of the dead to feel like they’ve been forgotten. It’s totally harmless.”
I stared at him for a minute. Harmless? Sure. Weird? Absolutely.
“You know it’s not really a graveyard, right?” I grinned. “I mean, it’s not even connected to a church.”
“Why does that matter?” Auguste winked. “Come on!”
Again, Auguste was skipping along the road, cutting to the right to take us into the main part of downtown Possibly.
Chuck E’s in Love by Rickie Lee Jones was the song of the day at AMOR.
It grew louder as Auguste skipped and I jogged towards Liberty Lane.
Even when more people came into view, and actually see the two of us, Auguste didn’t stop skipping.
Self-conscious he was not. So, I found myself wondering why he had been so reticent to look up at me or other people the day before.
His head had been down a lot, his eyes on the ground as he had walked away from me at The Pueblo.
Once more, I found myself nearly crashing into Auguste when he stopped suddenly at the end of Liberty Lane.
I didn’t stumble like I had by the graveyard, but Auguste still chuckled at my surprise at the sudden stop.
I just grinned shyly as he spread his arms out wide, as if presenting the street and all its majesty to me.
“Liberty Lane,” he said. “It’s not really, like, the main street of town or anything—”
“There’s so many to choose from,” I mumbled.
Auguste grinned at my snide remark. “—but everyone kinda considers it the main street. Probably because it has the tram alongside of it, and—”
“What is up with the tram, anyway?”
“Well—”
“I mean,” I said, “who needs a tram that runs, like, forty yards? It doesn’t even really go anywhere, ya’ know?”
Auguste laughed. “Just let me do the tour here, sir.”
“Okay.”
Auguste’s good-natured smile and his easy laugh put me at ease. Unlike Jack, who didn’t want to tell me anything about town, Auguste was ready to explain everything. As long as I was patient with him about the details he planned to share.
“Sorry.” I added.
“No problem,” he said. “So—”