“I know it’s not whatever this is,” Rafe said as he sat back in the kitchen chair. He tried not to look at the book on the table, the book that held the whole lost and beautiful story of his life in Shanandoah, his life with Jeremy.
“You don’t know anything,” his father said. “Nothing. But I know. And you can hate me, you can judge me, but I know what’s best for you, and what’s best for you is getting rid of this thing right now.”
He tapped the cover of the book like it was a bad report card.
“So get rid of it,” Rafe said. “What are you waiting for?”
For one brief—too-brief—moment, his father looked almost scared.
“You can’t do it, can you?” Rafe asked. “You can’t get it open and you can’t destroy it. Only I can. Magic sketchbook. Little bit tougher to destroy than my old sketchbooks, huh?”
“Please, son.” He took a breath. “Ralph, I’m trying to help you. All I want to do is help you. You open this and you’ll never…you’ll never be able to not see what you see in here, and you’ll wish you had. You’ll wish it so hard, but it’ll be too late for you. I want what’s best for you and it’s not in here.”
Rafe waited for more. There had to be more.
His father reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his old chrome cigarette lighter. He held it out to Rafe, who took it, smiled.
“When I was a kid, I used to love the tricks you could do with this thing,” Rafe said. “The way you could flick it open and closed one-handed, make the flame disappear. I thought when I grew up, I’d be able to do it too. Never bothered to figure it out.”
“See? You looked up to me once, before that boy came along. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want good memories? Come on, son. Do it for me. Burn it and that’s that.”
Rafe held the lighter in his palm, then threw it across the kitchen so hard it shattered the window.
His father didn’t look surprised. In fact, he looked like he’d planned for it.
“All right,” he said, resigned. “Rip?”
Ripper’s grinning face appeared in the doorway.
“Yeah, Boss?”
“Bring up the girl.”
“Not the boy?”
“Saving him for later,” his father said. “Go get her.”
Rafe was on his feet at once. “Dad? Dad, don’t do this. Please don’t do this—”
“Too late, son.”
His father took the book off the table and tossed it into his big red toolbox on the floor, then kicked the lid shut and locked it with his fistful of jangling keys.
Ripper and Chopper dragged Emilie into the kitchen. Her hands were tied in front of her and they’d gagged her with what looked like one of his dad’s old blue handkerchiefs.
“Here she is, Boss,” Ripper said. “And your knife. We took it off her when we caught her.”
His father took the hunting knife and looked at it.
“How’d she get my knife?”
“Mom gave it to her,” Rafe said.
“I didn’t say she could do that.”
“You were dead.”
“Least I got it back.” He put his knife into his belt. “Let her down, boys.”
The Bright Boys put Emilie on her knees on the floor. Rafe got up again, ready for a fight, but Ripper grabbed him, put a knife to his throat.
“You wanna find out why they call me Ripper?” he asked.
“Stop that,” his father said. “Not my son.”
Ripper only laughed low in his throat, then leaned in close to whisper in Rafe’s ear.
“Your daddy said I get to be prince when you’re gone.”
“Gone home,” his father said. “Not gone. Home.”
“Home,” Ripper repeated. “Right. Home.”
He stepped back, wrapped his hand in Emilie’s long blond hair, and held it hard enough that she cried out behind the gag.
“What should we do with her, son?” his father asked.
“Let her go,” Rafe said. He couldn’t believe this was happening, that his father had turned into this monster. But he could see the darkness in his eyes. This benighted place had gotten to him. Was there any light left in him?
