Edgewood Series: Books 1 - 3 Read online

  THE EDGEWOOD SERIES

  Karen McQuestion

  Includes:

  Edgewood

  Wanderlust

  Absolution

  OTHER BOOKS BY KAREN McQUESTION

  FOR ADULTS

  A Scattered Life

  Easily Amused

  The Long Way Home

  FOR YOUNG ADULTS

  Favorite

  Life on Hold

  Edgewood (Book One)

  Wanderlust (Book Two)

  FOR KIDS

  Celia and the Fairies

  Secrets of the Magic Ring

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Edgewood

  Wanderlust

  Absolution

  EDGEWOOD

  Karen McQuestion

  For readers everywhere. You matter.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Karen McQuestion.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9781478349426

  ISBN-10: 1478349425

  One night that changed everything. If I’d known what was going to happen would I still have gone out walking after midnight?

  Absolutely.

  —Russ Becker

  Remember tonight…for it is the beginning of always.

  —Dante Alighieri

  CHAPTER ONE

  I couldn’t believe it was happening again. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep. It was a Monday night; school started the next day at 7:20 a.m., and I was exhausted, but my body didn’t care. I shifted in bed and punched my pillow into different shapes, like that would help, even though it never did before.

  Finally, after midnight came and went, I dealt with it in my usual way—I got up. I got out of bed, threw on some jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, and tiptoed downstairs. When I got to the back door, I paused to pick up the Nikes I kept next to the mat and slipped out into the night. Once outside, I pulled on my shoes and headed out. Just me and the night air. I was never afraid to be out alone at night because I kept undercover. Even though I was a pretty tall guy, almost six feet, I was able to stay hidden in the shadows. I relished the time alone with my thoughts. But mostly I looked forward to getting back home when I was done with my walk so I could finally get some sleep.

  The weather was cool and a little clammy. Not too bad, pretty warm for spring in Wisconsin, and there weren’t any mosquitoes yet. Our next-door neighbor had used his outdoor fireplace earlier in the evening and a faint smoky smell still lingered.

  I walked around to the sidewalk in front. My house was dark except for the one lamp my mom always kept on in the living room to scare off burglars.

  I didn’t stay there for long. I had a certain route I did every night and it didn’t involve roads. I preferred cutting through yards, fields, and parking lots. I told myself that if I just covered this route I could go home and go to sleep. It was a little psychological game I played, and it worked like nothing else did. I didn’t know it yet, but tonight was going to be different.

  It’s amazing how many people are up at two in the morning. Driving or working mostly. There are others too, people like me who just seem to be awake for no reason at all, pacing in their houses, watching late-night TV, reading. They can’t sleep and I can’t sleep. It makes me feel better when I see them through their windows and know I’m not the only one.

  That night started off the usual way. I did my route through a residential section on the other side of town. There were a few houses that were always lit up, occupied by people like me still awake at that hour. I’d pause by each house watching them through the window, feeling a sense of kinship even though they never noticed me lurking outside. After that, I headed for the strip mall three blocks from my house and wandered around behind the building before taking my usual path through the industrial park toward the old, boarded-up train station.

  I was almost to the train station when I noticed a series of bright lights moving fast in the sky overhead. I stopped, trying to figure out what it was. It wasn’t a plane or a flare or any kind of reflection. More like a blur of shooting stars. Except that shooting stars were usually higher in the sky, I thought. This thing was heading downward and breaking apart as it traveled, almost like fireworks, but dispersing in a more random way. It looked a little bit like photos I’ve seen of an aurora borealis, but I was sure if something like that was going to happen I’d have heard about it.

  I wished someone else was around to see this thing, to tell me what they thought it was. I sure couldn’t figure it out. Then I heard the rush of air as it arced in the sky. It seemed to be dropping down at a slower rate now, almost defying gravity, and broke apart, scattering sparks as it went. The pieces fell to the ground in a slow, lazy motion, like an artistic explosion. The whole thing landed close, maybe only a block away, on the other side of the train station. Despite the slow descent, when it finally hit, the whole mass came down hard. I swear the earth vibrated on impact. The soles of my feet tingled in a weird way, and I found myself moving toward the thing, whatever it was. I wanted to get a closer look.

  I darted around a building that had once been a train station decades before. It was boarded up and there were signs warning people not to trespass. I walked over the tracks, now unused and in disrepair, over to the other side. The field beyond glowed with fragments of something, like someone had tipped over a charcoal grill the size of a water tower. The embers glowed blue and gold, beautiful like jewels. I got closer and noticed the glowing chunks were different sizes but that overall they formed a swirling pattern that covered the entire field. How could it have landed in such a perfect spiral?

  Heat emanated off the field, but nothing was on fire or even smoking. So weird. I walked into the center of the pattern, thinking the temperature might drive me back, but it wasn’t as hot as I would have thought. What could have caused this? A meteor, a shooting star, a weapon, a fireworks display? Standing in the center of the swirl, it was so bright I could have read a book, but it wasn’t blinding, just glowing. I suddenly felt good and energetic, like I do after going for a run on a sunny day. Whatever this thing was, it was having a positive effect on me.

  A scattering of fragments fell all around me, but I wasn’t worried about getting hit or burned. The sensation was pleasant, like the feeling of the sun coming out from behind a cloud on a gloomy day.

  The pieces on the ground sparkled. Twinkle, twinkle, little star…

  You know how sometimes you stop to look at something interesting and then after a few minutes, you’re done looking and you move on? Well, this wasn’t like that. I could have stood there forever, that’s how I felt. I walked until I was right in the middle of the swirl pattern and planted myself, content to stand there and take it all in. I didn’t leave until the light of the embers had faded to a soft glow. Finally, when I realized how much time had passed, I reluctantly headed for home, still not sure what I had experienced, but confident that it would be on the news tomorrow.

  Something that incredible didn’t happen without the world noticing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  For the past few months, there have been nights when I can’t sleep, no matter what. I’m tired, exhausted even. I close my eyes and wait for it, wait to slip into blissful slumber, to go into a sleep coma, to fall into unconsciousness. I’m always ready for a visit from Mr. Sandman, but the bastard ne
ver shows up.

  When I first had developed this problem, my parents took me to a psychiatrist, Dr. Anton. Nice guy, Dr. Anton, burly and kind, with a little goatee, always suited up with a tweed jacket and gray pants. He wore a bow tie. I thought it made him look goofy, but my mom said it gave him a “snazzy” look, whatever that means.

  Dr. Anton specialized in pediatric sleep disorders. He was a good listener, I gave him that much. When I talked he tilted his head to one side, and the expression on his face showed he really cared. “We’re going to get through this, Russ,” he said, like we were in this thing together. “I’m going to teach you how to send your body cues that it’s time to sleep.” He suggested dimming the lights, drinking warm milk, and not going on the computer or playing video games too close to bedtime. Unfortunately for me, he was opposed to sleeping pills. “You just need to retrain your body’s circadian rhythm,” he said.

  I tried all his suggestions and more. I exercised to tire myself out, ran a fan for white noise, and visualized lying in a hammock on a deserted beach. I took melatonin for a few nights and nighttime cold medicine after that. Nothing helped. I stopped going to Dr. Anton after a while because I felt like such a failure. I lied and told him I was all better, sleeping like a baby now, which was actually the truth since babies are up all night long. My parents were relieved I’d outgrown my insomniac phase.

  At some point I figured out that walking was the only thing that helped. After an hour or two, I was able to come back home and zonk out. I was still tired during the day, but it was almost the end of the school year and soon enough it wouldn’t make a difference.

  I didn’t inherit this problem from my parents. Every night they tried to stay up for the late-night news, but they usually didn’t make it. It was so easy for them. My dad could even fall asleep in his recliner with the TV on. I’d look at him with his head tipped back and mouth open, making snorting noises, and I wished some of that would rub off on me. Not the noises, but you know what I mean.

  The first few times I went out at night I thought for sure I’d get caught, that my parents would hear the back door open and close, or check my bed and worry that I was gone. I even left notes in the beginning—Couldn’t sleep. Went for a walk. Be back soon. But the notes weren’t necessary, as I soon found out. No one woke up. No one wondered where I was. Ironically enough, my folks slept right through my insomnia.

  Being outside at night was cool, even in the beginning when there was still snow on the ground. I got a thrill from being where I wasn’t supposed to be. If the cops ever stopped me, I’d be in big trouble for violating curfew, but I was careful and darted into the bushes whenever I spotted headlights in the distance.

  After the first week or two, I found myself going the exact same way. I always started out walking behind the strip mall. Sometimes I found interesting stuff by the dumpsters. The grocery store in particular threw out lots of perfectly good things, dented canned goods and bananas that didn’t look too bad. Someone, somewhere, would have been glad to get that stuff, but instead it was thrown out. What a waste.

  After going past the strip mall, I went through the industrial park, three blocks of small factories. I wasn’t really sure what went on inside the buildings—welding and machines for molding rubber parts was my best guess, based on my observations. When I came by, I saw men hanging around the back loading docks, working sometimes, but other times smoking. Occasionally, I lingered and listened to them talk. They had this sort of easy back and forth trash talk that was funny. Razzing each other about their beer bellies and who lost the latest bet. I knew Bruno’s booming voice, and Tim, Mike, and Dougie by sight. I felt a sort of kinship with them. When they handed out cigars because Tim’s wife had a baby boy, I wished I could step out of the shadows and join them in slapping the new father on the back. Just one of the guys.

  My favorite part of the route was the houses. I stayed out of my own neighborhood—that would just have been creepy. Instead, I went to a section on the edge of town, Old Edgewood. It was the complete opposite of where I lived, New Edgewood. Clever, huh?

  The houses in Old Edgewood were smallish and close together like mine, but that was the only similarity. Mostly brick with big porches, they had more character than the houses in New Edgewood. The thick tree trunks were good camouflage. I could stand on the sidewalk, and as long as I was behind the trees I could watch without being seen. I know that makes me sound like some kind of perv, but it’s not like that, really. I was just interested in how they handled being up at night, and after a while I felt like I knew some of these people. At least I knew their nighttime habits, what they did when they couldn’t sleep.

  I grew kind of fond of all the nighttime people and found myself labeling them. There was Grandma Nelly, and the Woman-Who-Played-the-Piano. Third-Shift-Guy lived on Elm Street. If I got there early enough he was leaving for work as I was arriving. Three doors down from him was Knitting-Lady. Always knitting, all the time. There were others, but the ones I mentioned were the regulars. I wondered how many of them tried to sleep, but just couldn’t. Did they lie in bed like I did, feeling like their heads might explode if they had to stay there one more minute?

  I ended my nighttime route by looping past the abandoned train station on the outskirts of town. The building itself was old and boarded up, but still pretty solid. There had been some talk by the local historical committee to have it restored, but that never happened. Beyond the train station were the tracks, no longer in use, and beyond that, what seemed like an endless field. Signs on the building warned about trespassing, so no one ever went there but me, or at least that’s how it felt. I liked ending with a trip to the train station. It was forbidden and dark. A little scary. It made going home seem like a relief.

  Each night, I thought this trek outside might be my last. It was ridiculous, I thought, to be roaming around when I was so tired and all I really wanted to do was sleep. I had to figure out a way to sleep without leaving the house. But a solution never came and I just kept going.

  You might be wondering—why didn’t I just do this walk thing earlier? Eight, nine, ten o’clock? If I did that, I’d be back in plenty of time for a normal bedtime. Don’t think it hadn’t occurred to me. I tried it, more than once, and it didn’t work. It only worked when I left after my usual bedtime. I knew it was just a head game, but I didn’t know what else to do.

  Like I said before, my parents have no trouble falling asleep. “I wish I had your energy,” my mom says, as if energy has anything to do with it. She’s a speech pathologist at a school (not mine, thank God), and pretty worn out most of the time. She and my dad are in their late fifties, a lot older than my friends’ parents. One drawback to having older parents is that I don’t have any living grandparents; the last one died when I was a little kid. I do have an older sister, Carly, but I don’t have much in common with her. I was born when Carly was still in high school. Her son, my nephew Frank, is only five and a half years younger than me. I was what people call an “oops” or “change of life” baby.

  My mom told me that when she learned she was pregnant with me they were over the moon with excitement, but Carly said otherwise. Her version is that Mom cried and cried when she first found out.

  I know that having me put a damper on my parents’ plans. They were just about done with the whole child-rearing thing when I came along. Knowing this makes me feel bad, but there’s not too much I can do about it. Carly was hell on wheels, even she admits that. She drank and smoked pot and flunked classes and wrecked the car. I heard my dad say they couldn’t go through that again, that they’re glad I’m a good kid. I figure it’s the least I can do. I don’t want them to worry about me and my psychological problems.

  So I keep my troubles to myself. When I can’t sleep, which is most of the time, I walk at night. I do my rounds, going from the mall to the industrial park to the houses, and then I go home and crawl into bed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  That night after seeing th
e light explosion I fell into a deep sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. I actually remember sinking through all the stages of sleep. Down, down, down I went, into a sinkhole of comfort and warmth. I had dreams, vivid colorful dreams, and I remembered them when the alarm went off, but somewhere between me hitting the snooze button and my mother yelling up the stairs, they completely left my brain.

  I did a quick look online to see if there was anything in the news about meteors or shooting stars or weird lights in the sky, but there was nothing at all. Nada.

  It was starting to feel like one of those vivid dreams that seem real when you first open your eyes, but fade the longer you’re awake. I didn’t have too much time to think about it, though, since I needed to get my stuff together and head for school. As the day progressed, I somehow managed to put it out of my mind. Until last hour when I had science with Mr. Specter.

  Specter was one of the better teachers at my school. He was almost as old as my parents, and he didn’t try to relate to the kids, something I liked. Nothing worse than teachers who act like they know the latest slang or ask about rock bands or popular YA novels, like they’re one of us. Mr. Specter just did what he was supposed to do. He taught us science. He totally loved the subject—that much was clear. I was taking what everyone called dummy science, a class called Science Samplers, which consisted of units in biology, chemistry, and natural science. Basically, Specter covered whatever he was interested in. It seemed to vary from year to year and class to class, but no one ever complained because he was brilliant and funny and interesting. We saw films on technology, and he did magic tricks and explained how they were done, and he encouraged us to bring in things to share like a sort of high school show-and-tell. One kid brought in his uncle’s taxidermied squirrel, which started a whole conversation about how it was done and why. Another student in my class brought in fossils she found on vacation, and then we were all about fossils for the next week. You didn’t know what you might get in Specter’s class, but it was never dull, and that’s saying a lot when you’re a sophomore in high school.