This must be where the answer is. I head for the laundry room and the muddy clothes on the tile floor. The scent of cold rain and damp soil reaches me as I search. The air is clammy, and the sensation of it crawls across my skin. My fingers brush something small and cool in that cargo pocket. I sit back on my heels and consider the object in the center of my palm: an exquisitely crafted platinum wedding band.
Chapter 45
Henry
King’s End, Minnesota
Thursday, July 13
Pansy returned faster than Henry had expected but slower than he’d hoped. If he were honest with himself, he’d wish the ring away, lost between here and the housing development. Although he knew it hadn’t been. That wasn’t how his luck was running.
Pansy was sitting across from him now, the ring in the center of her palm. While he didn’t necessarily owe her an explanation, he wanted to give her one.
“A few months back, when I was in the Sahara, I walked into a sandstorm.”
“You know that’s legendary, right?”
“It shouldn’t be.” Henry shook his head as if shaking that long-ago sand from his ears. “Because I didn’t do anything. I didn’t tame the Screamers. It wasn’t long after my father died, and all I wanted to do was fight.”
Indeed, he’d walked into the desert without an exit strategy. It was enough to take the physical and psychic beating, more than enough. After losing his father to death and Ophelia to the Sight, all Henry wanted was to lose himself. The Sahara and the Screamers gave him that opportunity.
Pansy nodded. Yes, she understood exactly what he was saying. “So, you were fighting the Screamers? And?”
“I pulled off my ring?—”
“This ring?” She held it up between her index finger and thumb. When she tried to give it to him, he refused.
“Yes, that ring. I pulled off my ring and threw it into the heart of the sandstorm, right into the Screamers’ center of mass.”
He hadn’t planned it that way. He’d been driven to the ground, his umbrella valiantly sending out a defensive pulse along with an SOS, not that anyone would venture a rescue at that point. Henry figured that if he had to go, he’d go free of obligations.
“Let me get this straight. You threw the ring, this ring.” She held it up again, and it glinted dully in the low light of the office. “Into a sandstorm, the one in the Sahara?”
“Yes, and a moment later, a vortex opened. The ring vanished, along with all the Screamers. That’s how I defeated them.” The stillness in the wake of that had been breathtaking and bewildering, sand settling like a gentle rain. “That’s the only reason I walked out alive.”
“And now, four months later?”
He nodded. “Four, or thereabouts.”
“Four months later, it reappears. Here. In King’s End.”
Like a shot across the bow. He pressed his lips together and gave another nod. “So it would seem.”
“That’s—”
“Unprecedented?”
“I was going to say bizarre, but sure, let’s go with unprecedented. Whatever it is, this can’t be good.”
“I’m assuming it’s not. It’s also why I was so interested in your mother’s encounters in the same area.”
“Do you think it’s connected?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s a piece of the puzzle. Or perhaps it’s completely unrelated, and we’re chasing ghosts. It’s also not the entire story.” Now, he did pluck the ring from her fingers. “This is my betrothal ring.”
“I figured as much.”
He tucked the ring into the pocket of his pajamas, where it could burn guiltily against his thigh. “I should’ve been honest with you.”
