More Than This Read Free Page B

again.
    “It’s almost eleven,” Monica said, reading her phone. “I thought you said –”
    Before she could finish, they were plunged into darkness as the entire Fletcher display shut off in obedience to the county-ordered curfew the neighbors had gone to court to obtain. Even from where they were parked down the gravel road from the house, they could hear shouts of disappointment from the last of the chain of cars that had spent the evening driving leisurely by.
    (Callen Fletcher, a tall, awkward boy, spent the time from Thanksgiving to New Year desperately trying not to be noticed in any way at school. He was usually unsuccessful.)
    “All right, then,” Gudmund said, rubbing his hands together. “We just wait for the cars to clear, and then we make our move.”
    “This is theft, you know,” Monica said. “They’re bonkers over that display, and if Baby Jesus suddenly goes missing –”
    “They’ll go apeshit,” H laughed.
    “They’ll press charges,” Monica said.
    “We’re not going to take him far,” Gudmund said, and then he added, mischievously, “I thought Summer Blaydon’s house could use a holy visitation.”
    Monica looked shocked for a moment, then seemingly couldn’t stop herself from grinning back. “We’ll have to be careful that we don’t interrupt some late-night cheerleading practice or something.”
    “I thought you said it was theft,” Gudmund said.
    “I did,” Monica shrugged, still grinning. “I didn’t say I minded.”
    “Hey!” H snapped at her. “You gonna flirt with him all night or what?”
    “Everyone shut up anyway,” Gudmund said, turning back. “It’s almost time.”
    There was a silence then, as they waited. The only sound was the squeak of H rubbing his sleeve on the window to clear it of condensation. Gudmund’s leg bounced up and down in anticipation. The cars thinned out to nothing on the road, and still the silence ruled as they held their breath without knowing they were doing it.
    At last, the street was empty. The Fletchers’ porch light clicked off.
    Gudmund let out a long exhalation and turned to the backseat with a serious look. H nodded back to him. “Let’s do it,” he said.
    “I’m coming, too,” Monica said, putting her phone away.
    “Never thought you wouldn’t,” Gudmund said, smiling.
    He turned to the person sitting in the passenger’s seat.
    “You ready, Seth?” he asked.

Seth opens his eyes.
    He’s still lying on the concrete path, curled up into himself, feeling cramped and stiff against the hard surface. For a moment, he doesn’t move.
    Seth,
he thinks.
Seth is my name.
    It seems a surprise, as if he’d forgotten it until the dream or the memory or whatever the hell it was that just happened. It had been so clear it’s almost painful to recall it. And the sudden rush of information that comes with it is painful, too. Not just his name. No, not just that.
    He had been
right
there,
so much more vividly than any memory or dream would have been. He had actually been there,
with
them. With H and Monica. With Gudmund, who had a car so always drove. His friends. On the night they stole the Baby Jesus out of Callen Fletcher’s front yard.
    Not two months ago.
    Seth,
he thinks again. The name slips from his brain strangely, like sand held in an open palm.
I am Seth Wearing.
    I
was
Seth Wearing.
    He takes a deep breath, and his nostrils fill with a gag-making smell from where he was sick in the bushes. He sits up. The sun is higher in the sky. He’s been out for a while, but it doesn’t feel like noon yet.
    If there
is
a noon in this place. If time means anything here.
    His head is pounding badly, and even in the confusion of memories laying heavily on him, he becomes aware of a powerful new feeling, one he realizes he’s felt all along but can now put a description to, a word, now that things are clearing, now that he knows his own name.
    Thirst. He’s thirsty. More thirsty than he can ever remember. So much so it