cutting apart all them magic places where the Tree done growed back onto itself.”
“And you really scouted me?” Ethan stood up and began backing towards the woods. “When I lived in Colorado Springs?”
“Before that, even.”
“And the ferishers put all those dreams into my dad’s head, about the airships and my mom?”
“That’s right.”
Jennifer T. heard voices coming through the trees, and recognised one of them, at least, as that of Mr. Feld.
“Because of me?” Ethan said.” What do I have to do with the end of the world?”
“Maybe nothin’,” Mr. Brown said. “That is, if my conjure eye” – here he touched a trembling old finger to the lower lid of his left eye – “done finally gone bad on me.” The milky film that was covering the eye, like the clouds of a planet, seemed momentarily to clear as he looked at Ethan. Then he turned towards the sound of men approaching. “Or maybe, if I still know my bidness, you goin’ to be the one to help put off that dark day for just a little bit longer.”
Jennifer T. was not following the conversation too well, but before she had a chance to ask them what in the name of Satchel Paige they were talking about, Mr. Feld emerged from the trees, along with Coach Olafssen, Mr. Brody, and a sheriff’s deputy named Branley who had arrested her father three times that she knew about.
“Ethan? Jennifer T.? Are you all right?” Mr. Feld slipped on a slick pile of leaves as he approached them, and lost his footing. Deputy Branley caught him and hauled him to his feet. “What are you kids doing?”
“Nothing,” Ethan said. “We were just standing around talking to—” Ethan raised a hand as if to introduce Ringfinger Brown to the men. But Ringfinger Brown was not there anymore; he had vanished completely. Jennifer T. wondered if such a very old man could possibly have gotten himself hidden behind one of the earthmovers so quickly, and if so, why he should want to run and hide. Hiding didn’t seem in character for him, somehow.
“Huh,” said Ethan. His face went blank. “To each other.”
“Come on.” Mr. Feld put an arm around Ethan’s shoulders, and then draped the other across Jennifer T.’s. “Let’s go home.”
As she pressed into the warmth of Mr. Feld’s embrace, a shudder racked Jennifer T.’s entire body, and she realised for the first time that she was soaked to the skin and freezing. Mr. Feld started to lead them back towards the ball field, but then he stopped. He looked at the heavy equipment, the stacked corpses of the trees, the empty, torn-up patch of earth on which, a hundred years ago, there had once stood a great hotel with tall pointed towers.
“What the hell are they doing here?” he said.
“They’re putting out the last little candles, one by one,” Ethan said, and even he looked surprised as the words came out of his mouth.
AN UNEXPECTED RESULT of Ethan Feld’s determination to become a catcher was the discovery, by Jennifer T. Rideout, of a native gift for pitching. The two friends met, on the morning after the loss to the Reds, at the ball field behind Clam Island Middle School, which was closer to either of their houses than Jock MacDougal Field. Ethan brought his father’s old mitt and, in the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, Peavine’s book on catching. Jennifer T. brought an infielder’s glove that she had turned up someplace, and the baseball that Ringfinger Brown had given her. When Jennifer T. rocked back and let it fly, it came whistling and fizzing towards Ethan’s mitt as if it were powered by steam.
“Ouch!” cried Ethan, the first time the ancient baseball slapped against the heel of his mitt, sending a crackle all the way up his arm to his shoulder. It hurt so much that he did not at first notice that he had held on to the ball. “Hey. You can throw.”
“Huh,” said Jennifer T., looking at her left hand with new interest.
“That was a fastball.”
“Was it?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
She nodded. “Cool.” She waved her glove at him and he half rose, and arced the ball back to her. His throw was a little high but close enough. She caught it, fingered the ball, then concealed it once more inside her glove.
“So, catcher,” she said. “Call the pitch.”
“Can you throw the slider?”
“I’d like to see if I can,” said Jennifer T. “I know how to put my fingers. I saw it on Tom Seaver’s Total Baseball Video.” She checked an imaginary runner on first, then turned back to Ethan. He put two fingers down, extending them in an inverted V towards the ground. He was calling for the slider. Jennifer T. nodded, her black ponytail flickering behind her. Her wide, dark eyes were unblinking, and she narrowed them in concentration. She reared back again, her right leg lifting and flexing in a high jabbing kick, then stepped down onto her right foot, bringing her whole body forwards and lifting her back leg until it stuck straight out behind her and hung there, wavering. Ethan saw the snap of her hand on the hinge of her wrist. Her fingers blossomed outward and the ball flew towards him in a long, straight line. At the very last second it broke abruptly downward, and he just barely got his glove down and under it in time. By the time you got your bat, if you had been the batter, to the spot at which you hoped your bat would meet it, the ball would have long since dropped away.
“Nasty,” Ethan said. He had a sudden protective feeling towards Jennifer T., an urge to encourage and reassure her. This was not because she was a girl, or his friend, or the child of a scattered and troubled family with a father who was in jail yet again, but because he was a catcher, and she was his pitcher, and it was his job to ease her along. “The bottom fell right out of it.”
“You caught it real nice,” said Jennifer T. “And you had your eyes open all the way.”
Ethan felt a flush of warmth fill his chest, but it was short lived, for in the next instant there was a sharp snapping in the blackberry brambles that made the edge of near right field such a terrifying place to find yourself during a game of kickball or softball. Cutbelly appeared, stumbling onto the field. He limped towards Ethan and Jennifer T., dragging a leg behind him. His coat was matted and filthy, and his sharp little face bled from three different cuts around the cheeks and throat. On his snout and on the tips of his ears there lay a dusting of what looked to Ethan like frost. The glint of mockery was all but extinguished from his eyes.
“Ho, piglets,” he said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “I’m very thirsty. Thirsty. Thirsty and cold.” He shivered, and hugged himself, then brushed the powdery ice from his ears. “I scampered here much too quickly.”
Ethan dug a half-empty squeeze bottle out of his knapsack and passed it to the werefox. Then he took off his sweatshirt and draped it over Cutbelly’s furry shoulders. Jennifer T. had not moved from the pitcher’s mound. Her glove dangled by her side. Her mouth hung open. Cutbelly tipped back the squeeze bottle and drained it in a single draught. He wiped his mouth on the back of his bloodied arm.
“Thank you,” he said. “And now, perhaps it may be for the last time, I’m to ask you to hurry along with me. You’re needed.”
