The Crescent

Chapter 30

"Yes. I'm sorry I didn't at first. I just didn't want to. But I know now. I get it."

Will kneeled to pet Lela, a motion so normal that for a second Zacari could almost believe he was alive. His hand hovered over Lela's head before he retracted it back into himself and rose unsteadily. "Not that I'm not relieved, but...what made you change your mind?"

She pulled on the straps of her backpack. "A lot of it was because of Gloria, what you showed me. But I really understood when he hurt my friend, Javier."

He tensed. "Is he okay?"

"He's fine."

"Did he hurt you too?"

"I'm alright." Her hand found its way through her curls to the massive lump on the back of her head. "I should have trusted you. I think I was just so desperate for a dad I didn't want to see–" she bit her tongue. "It doesn't matter. I'm sorry."

Will shook his head. "It's not your fault. Baker spent his life manipulating people. He's excellent at it."

A silence of unity stretched between them.

"I saw some articles from The Cellardoor Journal," she offered.

"You did?"

"Yeah. I don't know who wrote them, but they cared about you. They offered a fifty-dollar reward for any information on your disappearance. I'm guessing that was a lot of money back then."

Will's eyes welled and streamed traceless tears down his cheeks. He made no attempt to hide them. "Were there any misprints?"

"Misprints?" she puzzled. "Oh, you mean like typos? No, not that I saw."

"Drat," he grinned. "I've always wanted to catch Charlie on a misprint. He was infuriatingly perfect, all the time. And Winston would've keeled over if we wasted money like that." He sat down on the edge of the stairs. "We were a great trio, you know."

"I believe it," Zacari said without hesitation. Will gave a crooked, half-smile, but it faltered all too quickly.

"He has my camera, doesn't he? Baker?"

"Yes," Zacari admitted. She took a seat on the steps below Will, patted her knees and Lela bounded into her lap. "But I'll help you get it back."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. I want to help you."

Will was quiet. "Thank you," he said, pulling himself up off the stairs.

"There's something I think you should know." She swallowed uselessly, her mouth turned cotton. "I don't know if it matters or not, but Baker is my great grandfather."

Will flinched and appeared three strides back, already fading into the dark corners of the staircase. "His frown," he muttered, everywhere and nowhere.

"No, wait!" Zacari rushed. "I know! Maybe I'm a little like him. I know I'm snippy, but I'm not like him. I'm not. It doesn't matter. Does it?"

It should have come out as a statement, but it didn't, and she realized the question was just as much for her as it was for him. Am I like him?

He sized her up, but he didn't retreat further. Lela whined pleadingly at him. He stepped out of the shadows, full and bright again. If Baker was a darkness, then Will was a flame. "It matters only as much as you want it to," he said finally.

Zacari's shoulders untensed. "Then, not at all."

Will smiled uncertainly, and they were back in a unified silence.

She cleared her throat, the question of his death lodged there like cupful of gravel. She managed in a strangled voice, "How did he murder you, Will?"

His eyes eclipsed to dark greens. "I was driving up to Eureka Springs just after Hannukah to interview and photograph Baker for the headlining article for the New Year. We thought – Winston and Charlie and me, that is – that it might help get our newspaper out there, start 1940 with a bang, as Winston put it. My father had just gifted me the Argus C3, and I was delighted to use it. And frankly, I'd done some light reading on Baker, and I was ecstatic to meet him. He seemed elusive, mysterious, a shyster maybe, but I didn't imagine him to be...what he is, I suppose. My mother was nervous about the whole thing, and, per usual, she turned out to be right.

"I drove up in the evening, and right when I stepped foot inside, I knew there was something off. Something wrong. The receptionist wouldn't have even let me in had it not been for a man storming in to see his wife, who turned out to be dead months before. Baker turned him away, and then he turned me away.

"But I couldn't leave just like that. I had to investigate. I parked down a ways and broke in through The Operating Room. There was a body there, long dead and sewn up. I could have left, but I didn't. I wanted to know what was going on. I had to know.

"I was taking pictures of the hospital's conditions, when I met one of Baker's patients, Gloria. She was at death's door then. It wasn't fair. She shouldn't have died like that. There was nothing soft or calm or easy about her death.

"I realized Baker was experimenting on anyone who wasn't white. I had enough proof on my camera to put Baker away, even though I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of Gloria. But I wanted something tangible I could take back. Something immediate. My own trophy.

"So, like an idiot, I tried to steal a tumor jar from The Operating Room, and the entire shelf toppled on me and I passed out. I think I cracked my skull, frankly. I woke to the nurses dragging me into the morgue. I was too groggy to fight back."

He shuddered and his eyes unfocused as he folded his arms around himself, the frank image of a frightened boy.

"Baker came in, opened the door, and then...he just shut it. And I froze to death."

Zacari shivered.

"When I became what I am now, I saw him hide my camera. A trophy for himself, just like the tumors. I think he might have taken a picture that could lead others to my body. I have this...feeling...that if my body is found...maybe I can see my loved ones again."

Zacari took in his angular, boyish face, his waifish figure swallowed up by his ugly sweater and punch pink bowtie. "The camera," she said. "It's in the morgue, isn't it?"

He nodded reluctantly. "That's where he would keep it."