Page 112 of The Reformatory

“Only if you get away,” Blue said, shrugging.

“We will. You said you’d help.”

“I’ll try, but the running and hiding, that’s up to you. Two’s not easier than one. You think you’re the first two who ever tried it? One wants to go this way, the other wants to go that way? The dogs barking and snarling behind you all the while?”

The cold floating from Blue seemed to gather in Robert’s chest. He remembered Haddock telling him how boys got killed trying to run.

“Can you keep the dogs off?” Robert whispered.

“Not if they’re on your scent in the woods. Especially Haddock’s.”

“Can you slow ’em down at least?”

“I can fool them from time to time, but those are tracking dogs. Haddock trained most of ’em so they want to hurt you. That’s all they want in the wide world. And the dog boys, the dorm masters, the farmers, everyone—they love the hunts. Fifty dollars per boy, dead or alive. It’s like they’re on holiday, all the whooping and hollering.”

Robert’s bare back trembled against the damp shower wall. Did Gloria and Uncle June know how hard it would be? Had they planned it out as well as they should? What if there was no hole in the fence? What if the dogs started chasing them as soon as they were in the cornfield?

Robert’s plan to run terrified him anew.

But that was Friday’s terror. First, he had to get past Wednesday’s.

“Someone has to go in the jar tomorrow, Blue,” Robert said. “Just one more. Maybe that will get me all the way to Friday. Somebody brave has to go in just for a couple of days.”

Blue chuckled, his voice turning sour again. “A couple of days. You say that like you know anything. You don’t know. You think any of us want to be locked up again? Like that?”

“You said they’re trapped already. Isn’t a pact a trap too?”

“That’s different than the jar. In the dark. Shrunken to ash and screaming.” He sounded angry now. Robert had heard the boy in the kitchen scream, and the giant haint at church. He couldn’t say Blue was lying, or that what he was asking was fair.

“But I’ll let them out,” Robert said anyway. “You said I can. Who’s the bravest? See if they’ll do it. Otherwise, Boone might make me go to the fire spot—”

“So?” Blue laughed. “Memories, that’s all you saw there. You’ll never find us at the fire spot or the Funhouse. They’re profane to us. You got lucky in the kitchen, that’s all.”

“The infirmary,” Robert said. “I saw one there. And at the ballfield. Number thirteen.”

Blue was silent at that, his eyes narrowing like he might break the mirror again. Or worse. “I don’t wanna hurt nobody else,” Robert whimpered. “But if I can’t get somebody for the jar… Haddock’s gonna kill me. Or Redbone. Or both of us. I know it. You think I wanna end up in one of those photos in his drawer too?”

For a long time, the bathroom was silent except for dripping from the showerhead in the stall where Robert had washed himself. Finally, Blue said, “You know where the old well is?”

Robert shook his head. He’d never seen a well on the campus.

“By the butcher’s,” Blue said. “Out in the back, by the cedars. You’ll see it.”

“Okay,” Robert said, sure he could find it. He had heard enough horrible squealing of pigs to know where the butcher’s block was.

“He won’t like it… but there is one, maybe,” Blue said. “He was almost twenty-one when Haddock shot him dead running. He doesn’t scare easy, always bragging he was a grown man. Maybe he’ll go to the well if I ask him. Maybe he won’t be afraid of the jar.”

“What’s his name?” Robert said, remembering Redbone’s advice about calling haints.

Again Blue was silent. He didn’t want to give out the name. “Henry Jackson,” he said. “He went by Hank, but call for Henry Jackson. No one’s called his name in years, probably.”

“It has to be tomorrow,” Robert said. “By dinner. Please. Boone’s gonna want to set his trap, and he has to see the ashes come. Tell Hank I’ll let him out Friday—I promise.”

“Maybe he will, maybe he won’t,” Blue said, shrugging. “I’ll try to dare him into it.”

“He has to do it or I can’t help any of you,” Robert said. “Boone never waits any later than six to put down that dust. I’ll push him off as long as I can, but he has to come by six.” This time Blue didn’t answer.

“What’s in that goofer dust?” Robert whispered. “Why does it make y’all come back?”