“I’m sorry, Dad,” Lester said as he examined Bernard.  While he was relieved to find his brother breathing, he still remained in some sort of catatonic state.

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, son,” said Mr. North. 

  “But it’s my fault,” said Lester.  “If I’d come to you and given you the opportunity to explain—”

  “We could still have ended up where we are right now,” Mr. North said, adjusting his position atop Thomas, who could do little more than mutter the occasional curse word.  “There’s no point in dwelling on regret.  Sometimes, the mistakes we make lead us to where we’re meant to be.  Believe me, I know better than most.”

  Lester had never really thought of his father as someone with a past.  Let alone one that must have included some troubling choices.

  “We can talk about all of this later,” Mr. North said.  “Right now, we need to figure out what to do with your friend here and get help for Bernard.”

  “Will he be okay?” Lester asked.

  “We’ll bring them both to Mr. Noxumbra.  He’ll know what to do.”

  Before they could put their plan into action, a loud rustling came from the edge of the marsh.  A second later, a haggard-looking Ben Titus burst out of the reeds.

  “Edward North!” he shouted.  “Get off that poor boy, now!”

  The old postmaster’s uniform was soaked through and covered in mud from the chest down.  He’d obviously failed to find the path across the water or perhaps fallen off.

  Amanda and Mae, on the other hand, must not have had as much trouble.  Following the sound of pounding footsteps on wood, both girls appeared at the boardwalk’s exit.  They spotted Lester kneeling beside his brother and quickly came running over.

  “I’m sorry we’re late,” puffed Amanda.  “Why is your father sitting on Thomas?  And what’s happened to Bernard?”

  Perhaps feeling Amanda had covered the basics, Mae stood silently, looking around with wide eyes.  As her gaze settled onto Thomas, there was a change in her expression.  It was something Lester had never seen before.  Was she angry?

  “Thank goodness you’re here,” Thomas called to Ben, his voice shaking.  “They’re both crazy!  That one,” he said, motioning to Lester with a jerk of his head, “lured me down to this field, so his weirdo father and brother could ambush me.  Someone call the police!” 

  “It isn’t what you think, Ben,” said Mr. North, pushing down on the struggling Thomas.  “He attacked my sons.”

  “All the same,” said Ben, “you’re going to get off of him, or you and I are going to have a problem.”  He brandished his walking stick like a weapon.

  Leaving Bernard in the care of Amanda and Mae, Lester jumped to his feet.

  “Careful, Dad,” Lester said.  “Ben’s a member of The Light.  He told me so himself.”

   Mr. North gaped at the old man, a look of bewilderment on his face.  It was as though he were attempting to incorporate this new information into years of memories.

  “It’s true.  I am,” Ben said.  “And I’m only going to ask you one more time to let that boy go.”  

  “If you belong to The Secret Order of The Light, then take a look around you,” said Mr. North.  “Odd weather for October.  Can’t you feel it?  This is no ordinary kid.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Ben, “I’m still going to have to insist you hand him over to me.”  

  “You knew,” Lester said.  It wasn’t a question.  He and Ben had gotten to know each other well over the last few years.  “You knew about Thomas.  About who he was and what he was here to do.”

  “I had my suspicions,” said Ben.

  “Then why didn’t you do something?” asked Lester.  “Don’t you care about the damage he could cause to Giles Hollow?  To the people of this town?  To me?” 

  “Of course, I care, Lester,” Ben said, his tone softening.  “I would never willingly put you or your friends in danger.  But that is not my choice to make.  Those of us that follow The Light must be bound to it.  For generations, we’ve fought to keep lost souls like Thomas from meeting a brutal end at the hands of The Dark.  People like your father think by eliminating them, they’re somehow fixing the natural order.  But the Lingering are the natural order.”

  “How can you say that?” asked Lester.  “Look at my brother.  Before you got here, Thomas was trying to do the same to me.”

  “It can be difficult to accept,” said Ben.  “But since the beginning of time, whenever the world has grown too overpopulated, polluted, or corrupt, something has always come along to restore the balance.  Sometimes it’s a devastating flood, a famine, or a massive earthquake.  The Black Death alone killed 25 million people.  And like a fire that burns through an overgrown forest, incinerating the rot to make way for new life, the Lingering are here to enact a cleansing.”

  “That’s demented,” said Lester.  “You can’t believe that?”

  “It’s no use, son,” interrupted Mr. North.  “You can save your breath.  Their kind can’t be reasoned with.”

  “And what about you?” Ben asked, leveling his walking stick at Lester’s father.  “You Dark in your melodramatic black suits, sneaking around like a bunch of greedy undertakers.  You lurk in the shadows of every tragedy, hoping for another victim.  How many Lingering have you and your kind burned to cinders over the centuries?  A thousand?  Ten thousand?  Has it slowed society’s decay?  No.  Yet you still think you’re saving the world.”

  “What about what happens to the Lingering we don’t find in time?” said Mr. North.  “Is that part of the grand plan too?”

  “That’s a myth,” derided Ben.  “More fairy tales perpetuated by The Dark to justify their twisted cause.” 

  “No.  It’s not,” said Mr. North.  “I’ve seen it myself, admittedly only twice.  Once three days ago out by Whipple Hill.”  He paused as if choosing his next words carefully.  “And once the night your wife died.”

  Ben’s stare was full of pure hatred.  “You mean the night you killed her.”

  “What?” said Lester, gawking at Ben.  “What are you talking about?  My dad didn’t kill your wife.  You told me yourself she died in a car accident.”  

  “That’s true,” said Ben.  “But what I didn’t say was that when help finally arrived, they found Molly’s car engulfed in flames — and your father standing there watching it burn.”

  Everyone turned to look at Mr. North.  Even Thomas managed to crane his head around from his spot on the ground.   

  “He claimed he just happened to be passing by that night,” continued Ben.  “What he couldn’t explain was why he was out there all alone in the middle of nowhere.  Of course, The Council used its influence to cover the whole thing up.”

  Ben’s watery eyes glinted in the moonlight.

  “No,” Lester said, his heart sinking.  “It was an accident.  You’re wrong.  Tell him, Dad.”

  “I’m sorry, son,” said Mr. North.  “I can’t do that.”

  A hush fell across the baseball diamond.  In the sudden silence, the faint crinkling sound of snow could be heard piling up around them.  Even Ben seemed momentarily shocked as if, despite his certainty, a small part of him had always harbored some doubt.

  “Your mother and I had just gotten married,” Lester’s father said softly.  “We were so young.  And though it had been more than a decade since my Drawing-In, I’d barely begun working for The Council.  The Lingering problem wasn’t nearly as pronounced then.  Nothing like it is now.  Up to that point, I’d only assisted in releasing two.  One in a retirement home, and the other asleep on a bench, waiting for the bus he’d taken every day for the last forty years.  I was woefully unprepared for what happened that night.”

  Lester felt Amanda slide next to him.  Without taking his eyes off his father, he slipped his  hand into hers.

  “The funny thing is,” Mr. North said, “that day began with so much joy.  At breakfast, Patricia told me she was pregnant with Mathis.  Your grandparents had just passed the house down to us, and I was getting to know my new job.  Everything was falling into place.”

  Lester wanted to stop his father’s story there, with the image of his young parents happy, before he and his brothers had come along.  He didn’t want to hear what came next, but Ben was hanging on every word.

  “They called me to the mansion, where Doorman gave me my first solo assignment.  Even back then, he was bald.  It must be twenty years ago now.” 

  “Nineteen,” said Ben.

  “I didn’t have much to go on,” continued Mr. North, “just that the Lingering was recent and somewhere on the edge of town.  I searched all day with no luck.  Then, as the sun was going down, I heard the horse barn at the summer camp had caught fire.  Fortunately, no one was hurt, and they managed to get all of the animals out before it was too late.”

  Lester had ridden his bike by the charred remains of the barn more times than he could count.  Yet, it had never occurred to him to wonder what had happened there.

  “I knew the Lingering couldn’t be too far away.  So I headed down Meeting House Road, hoping to cut it off.  As I reached the crest of the hill, something moved in the field to my right.  Suddenly there he was.  A boy.  Not much older than you are now, Lester.  He popped out of the corn and onto the edge of the road.  We just stood there, looking at one another.  I could have grabbed him then, but I hesitated.  I’d never seen a Lingering that young before.  So, like a fool, I did nothing — and that’s when they came.”

  Amanda’s grip on Lester’s hand tightened.  As his father told his story, the expression on his face changed to one Lester didn’t recognize.  Was he frightened?

  “There’s more to tracking down Lingering than preventing accidents,” Mr. North said, turning to Lester.  “If they exist in our world for too long, they attract Wrasps, nasty formless creatures that feed on the Lingering.  It’s horrific.  A fate no one deserves.  Not even the dead.  That night, I had the dubious honor of being the first person to see Wrasps in over a hundred years.  They came screaming out of the sky in a black cloud and swarmed all around us.  It was like being sliced by a thousand ice-cold knives.  I thought I was done for, but they weren’t there for me.  The Lingering ran, and the Wrasps followed.  A moment later, I heard the crash.”

  Lester’s father stopped and looked at Ben.  The old postmaster gave a slight nod, and Mr. North continued.

  “By the time I got to the car, it was already on fire.  I pulled on the driver’s door, but it was pinned against a tree and wouldn’t budge.  So I found a rock, smashed the window, and reached in to pull Molly free.  I’d just undone her seatbelt when the fire hit the fuel line, and a wall of flames shot up between us.”

  Mr. North peeled off his single black glove and held up a red, raw-looking hand.  It was crisscrossed with a web of white scars, the skin looking as though it had been melted.

  “I held onto her as long as I could,” he said, staring at his damaged fingers.

  Amanda stifled a gasp.  Even at home, Lester rarely saw his father’s injury.  The glove was ever-present, and since it had always been that way, he hardly noticed.  Now, knowing how it had happened, it was all Lester saw.

  “A day hasn’t gone by where I don’t relive that night,” Mr. North said.  “I play it over and over in my mind, second-guessing every choice I made.  After all these years, I’ve come to one conclusion.  From when the Lingering ran to when I heard the crash, Molly had plenty of time to avoid that boy without swerving off the road.  I can’t say for certain, but I believe she meant to drive her car into those Wrasps.  I think she was trying to save him.”     

  Ben removed a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose.  Mae wiped her eyes on her sleeves.

  “So you see, Lester,” his father said, “because I let my emotions get in the way, I failed in my duty.  As a result, Molly Titus is dead.  While I didn’t kill her, I am responsible.”

  They all stood unmoving in the middle of the baseball diamond.  No one seemed willing to shatter the quiet reverence that had descended after Mr. North’s confession.  In the end, it was Ben who spoke first.

  “Molly used to warn me that the older we get, the heavier our history weighs,” he said.  “If you don’t stop to set some of it down now and then, you’ll find yourself buried beneath it.  How about this, Edward?  Let me take charge of Thomas while you see to Bernard.  I promise to keep him out of trouble.”

  “I can’t allow anyone else to get hurt, Ben,” said Mr. North.

  “I give you my word.  While Thomas is under my care, he will cause no harm, intentional or otherwise.”

  “And after that?” Mr. North asked.

  “I can’t say that my views have changed,” Ben said, rubbing his face with both hands.  “But perhaps it would do us all good to get out of this weather and let cooler heads prevail in the morning.  What do you say?”

  Mr. North turned to Lester and to where Bernard lay on the ground.  “Fair enough,” he said and pulled Thomas to his feet.

  Free from his grip, Thomas glared at Lester’s father.  Then, brushing himself off, he took a painfully long moment to rearrange his hair.

  “Let’s go, son,” Ben said.  “Everything’s going to be alright.”

  As Lester watched Thomas join the old postmaster, he felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him.  It had only been a few hours since he’d left his house dressed in his rock costume, but it felt like a lifetime ago.  In some ways, he guessed it was.  His head spun with questions and concern for his bother, but his father seemed confident Mr. Noxumbra could help.  He’d have to trust in that, for now.  

  Amanda let go of his hand, a confused jumble of emotions on her face, as she stared at the departing Thomas.  Ben had an arm around his shoulders, and the two of them were talking quietly as they went.

  On the ground, Mr. North bent over Bernard, examining his eyes.

  Everyone was busy attending to the business at hand when suddenly there was a loud bang, followed by a hissing sound, and the dark of the night burst into a glaring red.

  “STOP!”

  All eyes turned to Maeko Chase, who stood holding a bright orange plastic gun high above her head with both hands, its smoking barrel pointing into the air.

  “Nobody move!” Mae shouted.  In the flickering glow of the falling flare, the enraged face looked out of place on the normally enthusiastic and curious girl. 

  “Mae?” Lester asked, his ears ringing.  “What are you doing?” 

  “He doesn’t get to just walk away,” Mae said, lowering the gun and popping another canister into its wide barrel.  Snapping it closed, she pointed it straight at Thomas.

  “Whoa!” Lester said, holding up his hands and taking a step back.  He didn’t know if a flare gun could kill someone, but he was in no hurry to find out.  “Take it easy, Mae.  Where’d you get the gun?”

  “From the sheriff’s car when we were helping your mother at the festival.  And don’t think I don’t know how to use it,” she said, pulling the hammer back and swinging the barrel towards Ben, who’d begun inching closer.  “He’s not going to get away with it.”

  “Get away with what?” asked Lester.  He glanced at Amanda, but she looked as surprised and confused as everyone else.

  “Don’t you see?” said Mae.  “The Lingering and the Onryo, they’re the same thing.  It’s his kind that killed my parents.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Amanda said.  “How do you suddenly know so much about the Lingering?  Neither Lester nor I had even heard about them before tonight.”

  “No one believed me about the woman I saw when my parents died,” said Mae.  “They all thought I was just some messed up kid.  It took me several years and a lot of research, but I eventually began to piece it together.  First, I collected news stories of bizarre and unexplained accidents.  Then, I cross-referenced those with witness accounts matching certain keywords.  That allowed me to identify areas with a high occurrence of possible Onryo activity.  Do you want to guess which town kept appearing at the top of the list?”

  “Giles Hollow,” said Lester.

  “Bingo!” said Mae.  “After that, I got myself kicked out of school and manipulated my parents into moving.  When I heard all the locals talking about the mysterious North family, I arranged to bump into Lester at the library.  From there, things worked out better than I could have hoped.”

  “I knew I should never have trusted you,” Amanda said, balling her hands into fists. 

  Lester could hear the obvious furry in Amanda’s voice, but there was sadness in there too.  Being a kid whose parents were members of The Council was a lonely proposition.  He and Amanda were close, but it was like being brother and sister.  Her friendship with Mae had been different.

  “I’m sorry I lied,” Mae said, turning to Amanda.  “You and Lester are the only true friends I’ve ever really had.  But I can’t rest until my birth parents are avenged.”   

  With Mae’s attention elsewhere, Thomas took the opportunity to quietly begin backing towards the marsh.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Mae said, spinning on him and pulling the flare gun up to eye level.

  With surprising speed, the old postmaster threw himself in front of Thomas.

  “Mae, don’t!” Lester yelled.  “You’ll hit Ben!”

  “So, what?” said Mae.  “You heard him.  He and his kind have been protecting the Lingering for hundreds of years.  How many innocent people like my parents would be alive today if not for them?”

  Lester didn’t know what to do.  What Mae was saying might be true, but this couldn’t be the way to make it right.  Ben was a member of The Light.  He was also his friend.  Wasn’t he?

  “Maeko,” Mr. North said from his place beside Bernard.  “I realize you and I don’t know one another, but please, listen to me.  You’re angry, and rightfully so.  However, if you do this, it will mark you.  Your life will be split in two.  There will be a before and an after and no way back to the person you were.  Is that what your parents would have wanted for you?”

  The gun in Mae’s hands began to shake.

  “Let him go,” Mr. North said.  “Thomas can’t avoid his fate forever.  He’ll eventually get what’s coming to him.”

  “You mean, like one of your lot releasing him?” asked Mae.  “No.  He’s already had more time than he deserves.”

  “Yeah, about that?” said Amanda.  “If these Wrasp creatures are so relentless, why haven’t they come for Thomas already?  I mean, he is a Lingering, right?”

  “Not like any I’ve ever seen,” Mr. North said.  His attention shifted to the tall boy standing in the outfield.

  “Simpletons,” sighed Thomas.  “You’re no smarter than those fools in Salem.  Do you think something as crude as a gun could stop me?  You really have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

  Thomas held out his arm and pulled back his coat sleeve.  A braided rope bracelet with a single dangling charm hung from his wrist.  It was constructed of a thin piece of tarnished iron, twisted into three interlocking spirals reminiscent of ocean waves.

  “This was my mother’s,” he said.  “After my real father died, before she married that idiot Corey, she gave it to me.  She made me swear never to take it off.  It wasn’t until she was gone that I realized what she had done.  She’d discovered a way to keep me with her forever.  My mother was a caring person, who only ever used her powers to help people, and they hung her for it.”

  Thomas reached inside his coat and withdrew a book-sized piece of heavy blue-gray stone.  Its edges were round and worn smooth.

  “Did you know that when they first founded the settlement, it was originally named Naumkeag?  They only later changed it to Salem, the Hebrew word for peace.  What a joke.  This stone is one of the rocks used in the pressing of my stepfather.  They took everything from me that day, and now it’s time for them to pay!”

  Thomas thrust his arm skyward.  There was a loud crack of thunder, and the rock in his hand started to vibrate and hum like a giant tuning fork.  The air above it warped and shimmered, swirling the falling snowflakes in the night sky.

  “Thomas!” Ben shouted.  “Don’t do this!  It won’t just be the end of The Light and The Dark, but everything else as well!”

  Thomas flashed him a nasty smile.  “I don’t care.” 

  Fighting against whatever force was acting on the stone, Thomas pulled it slowly downward.  A sound like sheets of metal being torn apart rang out, and a jagged bolt of purple light split the air.

  Lester covered his ears as the stone sliced through the star-filled sky like a knife through a heavy curtain.  On the other side of the window it created, there was nothing.  No stars.  No moon.  No trees.  Just darkness like he had never seen.  And yet, it moved and pulsated as though it were alive.

  With a mad laugh, Thomas brought his hand all the way to the ground until the opening was big enough for a person to walk through.  Then, as though a stopper had been removed from a celestial bathtub, the rift in the night sky began to pull in everything around it.  The lightly drifting flakes of the storm were the first to succumb.  Angling sideways through the air, they were quickly followed by large piles of snow lifted straight from the field.  Next went the colorful layer of autumn leaves that had been hidden beneath.

  Lester braced himself against the roaring wind rushing past him and cast about for something to hold onto.  He caught Amanda’s eye and motioned to home plate.  Amanda grabbed Mae, who stumbled and dropped the flare gun, sending it spinning end over end into the rift, and the three of them moved as one.  It took every bit of strength they had to reach the chainlink fence.  Realizing they wouldn’t be able to hang on for very long, Lester removed his belt, looped it through a section, and then re-buckled it.  They each put an arm through and huddled together.

  At the opening of the rift, Mr. North had thrown himself over Bernard.  He lay on top of him, pressing his body as flat as possible.  But without something to anchor themselves to, they were both being pulled backward, Lester’s father’s shoes leaving deep trenches in the exposed grass as they went.

  Ben had also dropped to the ground and looked like he was attempting to steal second base as he wedged his legs into the side of the square bag.

  The pull from the rift continued to grow stronger.  A metal trashcan clanged its way up the cement steps of the visitor’s dugout, flew through the air, and vanished into the widening hole.

  Mr. North and Bernard slid further toward the outfield.  As they passed, Ben reached out a hand to Lester’s father.  The two men stretched, fingertips brushing, but neither could find a grip and soon they were out of reach.  

  Lester clung to the fence with Amanda and Mae and watched.  His heart was racing.  In another minute, his brother and father would be gone.

  Ben twisted around and shouted something.  Lester cupped his hand to his ear and shook his head.  Ben tried again, but the sound of the wind was too strong.  Giving up, the old postmaster settled for simply mouthing the words I’m sorry.  Then he launched himself into the air.

   Assisted by the pull from the rift, Ben angled his body like a skydiver and flew over Lester’s brother and father.  Gathering speed, he rammed into Thomas, and the boy from Salem was flung aside, the stone escaping his grip as he tumbled.

  For a brief second, Ben hung alone in the air in front of the roiling opening.  Then there was a loud pop, and he was gone. 

  “No!” shouted Lester as he yanked his arm from the belt and set off at a run.  He could hear Amanda call after him but ignored her and leaped over the pitcher’s mound.  Sprinting into the outfield, he felt the tingling sensation fill his fingers.

  In a desperate attempt to stop his son, Mr. North dove at Lester as he passed.  But Lester ducked and spun, exhibiting an impressive display of athleticism he’d never managed in gym class, coming up out of a forward roll well beyond his father’s reach.

  The moment the stone had left Thomas’s hand, the rift had started repairing itself.  The wind was dying down, and the once massive hole was now barely big enough for Lester as he threw himself into the opening.

  Standing firm against the pull, Lester stretched his arms wide as light poured from his fingertips.  The streams of blue crisscrossed over each other, and a spherical cage quickly formed around him.  Lester’s hands burned, and his body shook, but he held on, and the hole stopped shrinking.

  “Ben!” Lester shouted into the rift, but it was the most complete blackness he’d ever experienced, and there was no sign of his friend. 

  An explosion of sparks sent a ripple through Lester’s protective bubble.  He turned to see his father falling backward, smoke rising from his clothes. 

  “Son!” Mr. North called.  “You have to let go!  I can’t reach you!”  

  “But if I do,” said Lester, “Ben will die.”

  “If you don’t, we may all share his fate.”

  Behind his father, Lester saw Amanda and Mae standing over the still unmoving body of Bernard.  Both girls were sobbing as they looked on.

  “No,” said Lester.  “There has to be a way to do both, to save Ben and Giles Hollow.”  

  “I’m sorry, son,” said Mr. North.  “I really am.  But this is the way of the world.  I’ve spent my whole life wishing it were different, but it’s not.  To have beauty and joy, we must accept pain and loss.  Otherwise, how would we know the difference?  I thought I was fighting to keep you and your brothers safe, but I was just giving in to my fear.  I was too afraid of what I could lose to appreciate what I’d been given.  To love someone is to know you will have to say goodbye one day.  It’s a heavy cost, but if I get to spend what time I have with you boys and your mother, I’ll pay it again and again.”

  “But,” Lester cried, “Ben’s my friend.”

  From inside the rift, a voice echoed.  At first, it was thin and distorted, as if being broadcast through a tin can from impossibly far away.  But as Lester turned to stare into the black, it became clearer, and the ghostly form of Ben Titus flickered into view.

  “Your father’s right, Lester,” Ben said, his image fading in and out as he spoke.  “This is as much my fault as it is his.  I was selfish.  I wanted someone to blame for Molly’s death.  But the choices we make in this life are our own, as are the consequences.”

  “But that’s all over now,” said Lester.  “You don’t have to live in the past anymore.  Come back.  It doesn’t have to end this way.”

  Lester’s arms trembled under the strain.  It was getting harder to maintain the flow of energy, and he could see rips and tears appearing in the blue lines surrounding him. 

  “I’m afraid, for me, it does,” Ben said.  “But that’s okay.  I’m an old man.  This time belongs to you and your friends.  And, Lester, as your friend, I’m asking you to let me go before it’s too late.”

  All Lester had wanted was the truth.  With the unwavering help of his friends, he’d fought for it.  Together they’d put themselves in harm’s way to find it.  And yet, despite all they’d been through, it had never occurred to him that were they successful, he’d have to accept it.

  With a sizzling hiss, one of the lines in Lester’s sphere winked out.  He staggered, groaning as he pushed to maintain its shape.

 “It’s time to say goodbye, Lester,” the old postman said with a smile.

 Lester looked at his friend one last time and knew he was right.  Slowly, he lowered his arms, and the blue light around him vanished as he stepped back.

  “Goodbye, Ben,” Lester said, tears streaming down his face.  “Giles Hollow won’t be the same without you.”

  There was a blinding flash, followed by a loud crack.  When Lester opened his eyes, Ben and the rift were gone.

  “That was the right thing to do, son,” Mr. North said, placing a hand on Lester’s shoulder.  “I’m just sorry it had to be you.”

  Lester stood, dazed, unsure what to say.  Not that it mattered.  Any reply would have been drowned out by the loud whispering sound that had begun to fill the night sky.