The Devil Went Down to Georgia

In the last 24 hours, Heather had run away from home, saved the world with her friends, and made a deal with the devil. She thought it was a rather remarkable series of events, in contrast to the rest of her largely unremarkable life.

Most nights, she curled up in her bedroom closet underneath the winter coats to sleep. It was ridiculous to be afraid of the dark at her age, but logic didn't matter. To calm her fear, she learned to focus on the single streak of silver moonlight that found its way through the window and crept underneath her closet door.

She repeated a pledge each night as her eyes focused on that bright sliver of light. If the powers-that-be could ensure she fell asleep before the light disappeared and plunged the closet into darkness, she would dedicate her life to doing good.

She always looked forward to dreaming. Sometimes sleep was the only escape from the ever-present fear.

On those nights in the closet, she rested her head near a small stack of well-read books filled with the stories of legends. The words of her promise were always the last thoughts to linger as she fell into sleep. She dreamed of a different life, where she was the hero at the center of a great adventure, and she fulfilled her pledge, never to be tempted by the sly words of any villain.

Not long after they entered Ricky's home, Heather began to question her decision to defect from her family. All of her friends' families were there. Heather watched from the sidelines as they embraced one another, mutually worried over their injuries, and took turns exchanging assurances.

As she ran her fingers through the coarse texture of the Lion’s mane, she could not help but feel alone. Beside her, the Cowardly Lion turned his head to rub his soft muzzle and thick whiskers against her affectionately. Then he turned and cocked his head away slightly in a wordless invitation for an ear scratch. Heather complied; the action was oddly familiar - pure muscle memory with no associated recollection.

Around them, the warm hum of familial greetings and tender reunions flowed undisturbed despite the presence of the *Great and Terrible* Lion that filled most of one corner of the spacious family room.

"Don't they see you?" Heather whispered.

"I hope not." his shaking voice revealed his fear of discovery.

Perhaps she should never have left home in the first place. Her family had sacrificed for her, adopted her, and given her a home. Until yesterday she had returned that generosity with obedience.

It all happened so quickly. Heather's reluctance to return home and face the consequences of her sister's destructive behavior led to well-intended decisions that were now irreversible.

But as she watched the reunions unfold, she realized that her family would never have been there regardless of her choices. There would never have been a heartfelt greeting or gestures of tender concern. As she acknowledged the truth, her traitorous eyes began to fill.

As Janet pounded on the closet door, it rattled on its hinges. "Are you there, nerd?!"

Heather didn't say a word.

"If you're in there, stay quiet, you ugly little shit." Janet hissed through the door.

Someone else in the room giggled. "Jesus, Janet. If I talked to my sister that way, my mom would have a cow."

"Sister? As if! Mom says she's my cousin, but I think she's just a steaming shit. I can't wait 'til I get my own room so I don't have to deal with the stink."

Turning her back on her sister earlier in the day had been the easiest and hardest thing she'd ever done. Perhaps it was not the most effective reaction, but what other choice did she have? She couldn't spend her life hiding, and she wouldn't spend her life fighting. Any attempt to talk to her sister would only devolve into barbed insults, which wasn't a game that Heather would play.

She had realized sometime before their encounter that her sister was inconsequential, and her insults didn't matter in the greater scheme of things. She had faced far more ruthless monsters with more fearsome weapons than a penchant for vicious mockery.

Still, some part of her wished…

Her introspection broke as JD cracked a joke about protein across the room. There he was, tall and bronze from regular hours in the sun. His ruddy curls bounced as he threw his head back in a loud burst of laughter, eyes alight with humor. JD was naturally gregarious and comfortable in any company. He was an ace at anything he tried. She couldn't help but smile.

Beside him stood Scarlet, nearly as tall and just as tan but with shining golden hair. Scarlet was everything Heather could want to be; graceful, courageous, kind; a true hero. She punched JD square in the arm in retaliation for the joke while her brother looked on with a grin. She held nothing back, at first evoking a sincere wince of pain from JD before he morphed the grimace into a dramatic pantomime of a fatal injury. Their laughter filled the room.

It was the perfect picture.

The likely future stretched before her. They'd all go back to their happy homes, and where would she be? She could see the four of them; Scarlet and JD, Ricky and Van Halen. *That interloper!* They would be together in JD's attic listening to music, playing games, and talking about football.

Heather released the mounting tension in her chest with a shaking sigh. If she'd thought there was a place for her before, that was no longer the case. The team had Van Halen now, and VH was so much more than Heather could ever be. On the other end of the room, VH glowed with warmth, her eyes sparkling, her smile magical, and her every movement graceful. She was all things marvelous, a myth in the flesh, a true daughter of two worlds.

Heather's grand adventure, her moment as a hero, was over. Normalcy would return. All the adults would look away from the war's wreckage, and they would soon forget. The Keystones would celebrate winter break, go back to school, and begin to live their happily-ever-after. She had no place in it, no actual place.

*Oh god, she had nowhere to live!* Her eyes rested on Van Halen as she swallowed another lump rising in her throat. She turned away from the room and leaned into Lion's mane as her eyes welled up once again.

Van Halen knew something important, something that Heather should know. And each time VH hinted at it, the world stopped, and everything became too loud and too bright all at once. The moment would hang in the air, suspended in time. Heather waited in those moments; waited for more; waited for the truth that could explain and justify it all. But then the moment would pass, and the conversation would move on.

Her hands tightly clutched thick tufts of fur, and she breathed deeply to stem back tears.

"Heat-herrr?" the Lion rumbled in concern, her name pronounced awkwardly between thick lion lips and around sharp lion teeth.

She turned her head to the side, her cheek resting against him, eyes still closed, and took more breaths. She thought about other things: the lines of Jabberwocky, the world rushing beneath her as she flew on Falcor's back, playing Centipede with JD in his attic. Then, taking Lion's gigantic cheeks into her hands, she rested her forehead on his.

He spoke quietly into the space between them, as quietly as a *Great and Terrible* Lion could. "Sometimes, when something is very important, it's best not to look."

She sighed. *Yes,* she thought, *that was it exactly.* Then she whispered back, "Sometimes, when an answer is very important, I can't ask the question. I can't even think it."

"Oh no! Don't think it!" said the Lion. They were of like minds and sat quietly together in peace. The buzz of conversation did not penetrate the bubble around them: just a girl and her Lion.

She was startled when Ricky lightly tapped her shoulder.

He smiled in his quiet way and tilted his head meaningfully toward the kitchen. "We're putting a pizza in the oven. You should come." His voice was soft and rich; each of his movements deliberate. He was a sonorous melody given life. It was no wonder that VH circled him like a moth.

She wanted to frown at that. But instead, the tension that had been mounting eased, and Heather relaxed in Ricky's presence as she did every time. There was something about Ricky that radiated safety and kindness.

Her dream began in darkness. It was desperately dark, oppressively dark. As always, she began to tremble under the weight of it. Her heartbeat began to rise, and her breath came in short pants.

As tightness curled painfully around her chest, Heather fumbled in her hoodie pocket for the Itty Bitty Book-light. She clicked it on and breathed a sigh of relief as a diffuse glow of light spilled around her.

She was standing in a forest. *Was it THE forest?* She looked to see if she could spot the dark tower but could not find a break in the trees. Her light illuminated the leaves in a desaturated monochrome.

Something rustled in the trees in the darkness well beyond her vision.

"Are you there, nerd?!" It was Janet.

Heather held very still. Her hand gripped the book-light, the plastic corners digging grooves into the pads of her fingers.

"I know you're there, you ugly little shit." Her voice had gone wrong somehow. It wasn't the Janet she knew. It was something darker, older, and more terrible. "I can't hear you, but I can smell you."

And then, with a brief flicker, her book-light went out. *Oh god!* She desperately hit it against the palm of her hand, and it gave a last pulse before going dark again; the battery was dead.

Hoarse laughter erupted from the absolute darkness. It was so close that Heather could feel the stir of breath in the air.

And she was off, sprinting into the night and the trees, tripping over roots and branches, throwing herself madly in any direction, half stumbling, half running. Her eyes were wide against the night, desperately looking for a way out but finding nothing in the absolute darkness. Something behind her roared. Trees fell.

Reflexively she began the refrain of her childhood pledge, desperate for anything that would summon the light.

*"I pledge to be a Hero;*

*to use my mind to solve problems in the name of what is good;*

*to use my heart to make good choices in the name of what is right;*

*to never use my precious words as weapons;*

*to never harm others unless it can be helped;*

*and to use every action to make the world a better place for everyone."*

As the last words hung in the air, time stopped, and silence replaced the crashing of the trees behind her. For the first time in response to her pledge, a deep, kind voice filled the silence. "Close your *eyes*. Open your heart."

She closed her eyes with an uncertain flutter, and she peered into the night with her mind's eye, but the world remained dark.

"Close your eyes. Open your *heart.*"

*But how?*

And then, after a pause, she began to think about her friends. She remembered the days in eighth grade when they were still moving into JD's attic. She and JD had exchanged books, and she helped him set up the Atari. Ricky gave her pointers on biking and told her about his BMX. Scarlet taught her some skills from the football field that she could use for self-defense. She was adamant that Heather know how to shed a block.

*There it was!* A tiny light flickered and then was extinguished.

Heather opened her eyes to darkness and closed them again.

This time she understood, and she thought about how she loved them. The light flickered again, but it was not enough. Then she thought about Van Halen and Lion, and the thread of light pulsed more quickly.

She thought about Mr. Singh and Mr. Derry at the school and Miss Casper at the library. She thought about Miss Maggie at the PBX. She thought about Aslan, Falcor, and all the heroes. She thought about Ricky's dad, JD's mom, and all her friends' families. And then she thought about her own family. And she loved them all.

As she thought, her heart expanded, and as it grew, so did the light. A silver glow reflected off the leaves of the trees. A single streak of bright moonlight shone on the ground like a beacon in the night, just like it had on the floor of her closet.

And then time stuttered back into motion, and she was running again. But now, she followed the sliver of light, bright against the night. The wind whipped through her hair, and the trees flew past her in an impossible blur. As she ran, she saw that it wasn't the moon that cast the light, but a lampost. And then, as she finally broke through the trees, she saw that it wasn't a lampost either, but a single bright pin-prick amidst a vast field of stars.

She stepped out onto a beach, the gentle susurration of waves filled the air, and the moonless sky was lit with stars. She breathed deeply of the salty air, the frantic dash of moments ago forgotten. She was safe here.

Her eyes lifted upwards to the sky above her, searching the sky to find that single bright light. It pulsed, and she saw it was the center of a grand constellation of stars. Four leaves, each shaped like a heart, all linked in a circle: JD's clover. It was magical and rare. Four hearts drawn together for a special purpose. Just like her friends. Her ka-tet.

She smiled.

As she followed Ricky into the kitchen, she resolved that she would not ruin the night with sad and dire thoughts. The Keystones were her chosen family, and she would let tomorrow sort itself out. As they sat around the kitchen table, Scarlet oddly withdrawn at the window, she let herself imagine the future as she would want it to be.

That's when Randall Flagg, the devil himself, entered the kitchen and laid out his proposition with all the practiced expertise of an immortal liar and strategist.

"I will teach you all I know…"

*I could learn it all.*

"I can only bring you all together, it is up to you to stay together."

*I will never let them go. No matter what happens next.*

"The world's gonna pay a price because there are forces that are changing it, hurting people, stealing things. I can't stop them by myself."

*The world needs heroes, and that's what I promised to be.*

"Are you ready for one more tale?"

*He can't be trusted, but I can beat him at his own game.*

Heather's voice was reedy and tight when she said, "I'm in."