Daniel sighed, looked down, and shook his head, a bit like a disappointed parent. “Don’t be a fool, Messenger. Do as you are directed. You see a great deal. But you do not see all.”
At that, Daniel, with a sideways glance at me, laid his hand against Messenger’s cheek. Strange to me that there could be something parental in that touch, for Daniel was smaller than Messenger. Perhaps a few years older, but in no way imposing or impressive.
I wondered whether Daniel, when he touched Messenger, who was not to be touched, saw that same horror show of images that still rattled like skeletons around in my mind.
The contact lasted for at least a minute, and halfway through Messenger bowed his head in acceptance. I was sure that Daniel was telling him something, transferring information of a sad nature to him, for Messenger’s eyes drooped and closed, and a weary sigh rose from his chest.
Finally Daniel took his hand away and Messenger stood there, silent, eyes still closed, rocking almost imperceptibly back and forth.
Daniel looked at me, waited until he was certain that he had my full attention, and said, “He is your master. You are his apprentice. Learn from him. He is a very good teacher.” He paused, gazing up at Messenger, as sad now as my “master,” and added in a husky voice, “He has given great service, and he has endured more of this wicked world than I hope you ever shall.”
Daniel walked around the two of us, and when I turned to watch him go, he was already gone. Kayla, too, was gone, though whether to her next class or elsewhere, I did not know.
“We must go,” Messenger said.
“Go? But aren’t we going to deal with Kayla?”
He shook his head. “She has already been . . . dealt with. This new thing—”
“She hasn’t been dealt with,” I said hotly. “She hasn’t had anything happen to her. You put Liam and Emma through hell for nothing. Okay, not nothing, but they were good people, not a wicked, manipulative bitch like Kayla.”
His answer was sharp and angry. “Be silent, or you will regret your careless words later.”
And then, in the usual Messenger style, we were gone from Samantha Early’s school. Though not from her story.
I would learn more of Samantha and Kayla, much more, and I would cry bitter tears over that final chapter.
THE NEXT THING I SAW WAS A CAGE WITH chipped-paint steel bars. That cage was large enough to contain eight long steel tables bolted to the bare concrete floor, a television mounted on one wall, two filthy, open cinderblock-walled bathroom areas. It was also large enough to comfortably hold three dozen men, and was at the moment holding twice that number.
The men ranged in age from their fifties down to their teens. Each was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, though there were variations within narrow limits: Some wore the jumpsuit with sleeves down to cover track marks; others wore the sleeves rolled up to show off tattoos. Some had their zippers down to their navels; others had peeled the top off entirely to let it hang loose; still others were zipped up tight.
It was not difficult to see that the dayroom of the Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez was divided along racial lines. African Americans occupied the closest tables, Latinos took the next group, and white prisoners, many sporting Nazi tattoos, were farthest away and smallest in number.
Food had been served. Bologna on white bread, canned peaches, something that might once have been broccoli. Men ate with plastic forks, their shoulders hunched forward, their heads low over their food. The room was ear-splittingly loud from the television, which showed a mixed martial arts match that earned catcalls, groans, and shouts, as well as a more generalized yelling, guffawing, and even, here and there, unimpressive attempts at singing or rapping.
Messenger stepped through the bars. I watched him as he did it, suspecting he would do so, and wanting to observe closely to better understand just how he performed this particular bit of magic. But again, it was as if my eyes were simply not adapted to seeing what was happening before them. The closest I could come to describing it is to say that the bars seemed to avoid Messenger.
He motioned me forward, and though I had by that point walked through more than one solid object, I hesitated. I might be invisible to the inmates, but that was a knowledge that did not reach down with so much certainty that it could easily override my natural caution. Put plainly: the men in there frightened me. It was a mundane, real-world, and thus all the more compelling fear, different from the fear of the supernatural evoked by something like the Game Master.
But when Messenger jerked his head impatiently, I followed, and my fear of the men distracted me so that I scarcely noticed that I was once more suspending the laws of physics and passing through case-hardened steel bars.
Messenger moved on to stand across from a particular young man, an African American, maybe seventeen but maybe fifteen, it was hard to tell. He was tall but not muscular, good-looking without rising to the level of handsome. His most notable feature were his eyes, which were large and luminous, a light brown at odds with his dark skin.
He was afraid. He was shaking. He was chewing the bologna sandwich in a dry mouth, mechanically working his jaws, as two men, one to either side, leaned in far too close, pressing muscular biceps against him. Squeezing him and looking past the boy to wink at each other, to laugh conspiratorially.
“His name is Manolo,” Messenger said.
“He’s too young to be in here.”
“Yes. But even the young are sent here when they are accused of murder.”
I looked at Manolo with new eyes, searching for something to connect with that most terrible of crimes. Murder? He was a scared boy.