The Wish Collector
Page 15

“How often, Jonah?”
"Never," he said quietly. "I haven't left Windisle in eight years.”
He knew her silence was due to surprise, confusion probably. “Never?” she repeated. “What? Why? What do you . . . what do you do?”
“I . . .” God, what did he do? Existed. Barely that. "I just . . ." He leaned his head back against the stone, turning his cheek so it was pressed against the cold, hard rock.
"What, Jonah? What is it? Tell me, please."
The clouds above moved over the sun, momentarily shutting out the already-dim light, creating a further sense of intimacy. It felt like the world had shrunk to only the two of them.
He searched for the right words, weariness washing through his soul. There were no words that would make this right, and God, but he was tired. He was so damned tired of hurting all the time. And this, here, it suddenly felt like a confessional. Or maybe it always had. Maybe it was the draw that kept him coming back to the wall to meet her over and over again. And yet it wasn’t fair to her, was it?
He knew he had to stop this charade—for both of them. To tell her the truth. But poised on the brink of confessing his greatest sin, he also had the notion of being trapped and wanting something so desperately, only he didn't know what. To cleanse his soul? To feel alive again? Even for a moment? Were any of those things even possible? "I regret," he breathed, "I just regret. I've made a career of it, here, behind this wall."
"Oh," she said, and there was so much feeling in the word that he turned, kneeling, putting his palms against the wall, wondering if maybe her hands were pressed to his in the same way, her mouth somewhere close by. What color were her eyes? What did her expression look like right then? He wanted to know, and yet not knowing—the anonymity—was what had allowed him to speak from his heart for the first time in so, so long.
"I know what that feels like. What do you regret, Jonah? Will you . . . will you tell me?"
Her startling empathy made his heart clench. He didn’t deserve it. She would know that soon enough and she would go. And that’s what he wanted, wasn’t it?
He leaned his forehead against the cool, smooth stone and closed his eyes, seeing the way the clouds had looked above him that day as he’d lain on the ground, half dead, wishing he were.
He could feel the agony of the blast, the way his face had burned—hot, searing—and then the blessed numbness, the fading noise, the disbelief, and then the grief. Nothing but grief, and it felt as though that part had never gone away. "I killed my brother." And others. So many others. Six innocent people and he knew all their names by heart. He repeated them sometimes as he ran, the syllables of each one drilling into his heart like tiny knives. He deserved that. He did. And so he kept doing it—all of these years. He’d never stop.
He heard her let out a soft gasp. "You . . ."
"I didn't mean to, but I did. I was responsible for his death. For others as well. I'm the monster behind the wall, Clara. That's what I am."
Anguish ratcheted through him, and he let out a whoosh of breath as if the admittance was a tangible thing with a soul of its own and had been residing inside of his chest for years, buried underneath the words. And yet, the admittance of it didn’t extinguish his guilt. It only added fuel to the fire. Now she knew too, this girl who had spoken to him gently, who had called him the wish collector and come back.
"Oh, Jonah. What happened?"
Why was she asking him that? Why was she still here? Why hadn’t what he said made her run? Did she really need the details after a confession like that? Did she really still want to be his “friend”? Maybe she was just plain stupid. Or a glutton for punishment. Or one of those do-gooders who thought she could save his soul.
Those people had come by when he’d first moved in to Windisle Plantation. Maybe they’d watched his story on the news and somehow knew he lived there. Or maybe it was a coincidence they’d shown up with pamphlets and booklets about redemption. He’d yelled at them through the gate, telling them he’d call the cops if they didn’t fucking go away and never come back.
And fucking hell, he suddenly felt so zapped of strength as though he could lie in the grass and sleep. He didn’t answer her question, and it lingered between them as much a barrier as the stone wall.
Clara was quiet now and Jonah was glad. He turned back around, pressing his back to the wall as memories assaulted his mind, his heart: Justin, leaning over the top of the bunk bed they’d shared as kids, talking about their dreams for the future, what successes they were going to be, how they would change the world.
He saw his brother the summer before he’d gone to college, doing a backflip off their boat and coming up out of the water laughing, and then his laugh morphed into a frown in Jonah’s mind—the frown he’d worn that day he’d left his office. We’ll talk later.
He snapped back to the moment, leaning his cheek on the wall, sighing and putting his hands flat in the dry grass next to his thighs. The pain of the memories made his stomach contract. He recalled things after that, but it was all such a blur. A horror-filled blur. And he'd been a shell of himself ever since. Just as he deserved. Why should he get to live when they no longer could?
"Jonah."
His name brought him back from all the memories swirling together in his grief-drenched mind—wonderful, tragic, unchangeable. Too much.
He stood up, feeling sick and distressed. "I have to go."
Jonah heard her stand too, her voice coming from right below his head. "Wait. I'm sorry if I—"
"It's not you, Clara. I'm just . . ." His gut was roiling, and he felt like he was going to vomit. "I'm back here for a reason. My name is Jonah Chamberlain. Look me up. Then don’t come back." He knew the final directive was unnecessary. Once she learned his story, she’d never come back.
He walked away quickly, not responding to Clara calling his name from the other side of the wall.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Main Library was open until nine on Tuesdays and Clara took the bus there, asking for directions to the public computer terminals at the information desk once she arrived. Her steps were slow, her mind troubled as she made her way to the place the woman at the front had told her to go. Something about what she was there to do—look Jonah up—felt . . . wrong. Invasive. And yet, he’d told her to. My name is Jonah Chamberlain. Look me up. Chamberlain.
She wasn’t sure exactly why, but she hadn’t imagined he was a member of the Chamberlain family. She’d thought he was part of the staff that kept the place running along with Myrtle and Cecil, or a distant relative maybe.
Perhaps it was the way he’d sounded when he’d spoken briefly about the Chamberlain family, a certain . . . removed tone, laced with disdain. An employer he did not respect, she’d assumed.
She’d asked him questions, of course, but he’d always changed the subject or brought the topic back to Windisle. And she’d let him, figuring he’d open up to her about himself if and when he was ready. She didn’t want to push because she sensed so much sadness in him. So much . . . loneliness.
And now she knew she was right. He was a recluse. He never came out from behind the weeping wall, not even covertly. Why?
She remembered the way he’d spoken about John Whitfield, so much understanding threaded through his voice when he’d mentioned his war trauma. She’d wondered if Jonah had once been a soldier too.
She placed her duffle bag on the floor next to her chair and turned on the computer. She’d like to buy her own laptop, but she was saving up for a car and wanted to put every penny toward that. Also, she assumed the large main library offered more access to a variety of archived news articles.
She’d resisted typing his name into a Google search. If she was going to look him up—and she hadn’t decided she would until that day—she wanted all the information at her disposal. Eight years, he’d said. He’d been behind the wall for eight years. Meaning, whatever he’d encouraged her to look up must have happened about that time.
Don’t come back, he’d demanded. His final words had been ringing through her head for the past two days, the disappointment and confusion continuing to grow. The heartache. Because the truth was, she’d spent each week for the past month and a half looking forward to that brief time on Sunday evening when she sat on the other side of the wall from him, talking and learning and—she’d thought—forming a deep friendship unlike anything she’d ever known.