Chapter Fifteen

Joe stared at Cora, examining her profile as she sat staring into the deep purple twilight outside their window, little dots of light emerging to twinkle on its surface. This had been her posture for the better part of the last week since they had sent off the letter: not moving from the window, taking little food or water, refusing to be taken to bed, staring as though she could look through time itself. Gal cleared her throat behind him.

“I sorry, Mr. Joe. She ain’t been no better today. You thinks I should get Doc Adams to come out?”

Joe shrugged. “It ain’t nothing he can do. She come out of it, or she don’t.” He sighed and walked to Cora, resting his hand on her thin shoulder and squeezing gently. She no longer spoke, mute again after finishing the letter to Clyde’s wife. He wondered if she’d had a stroke but sensed it was more of a refusal to speak than an inability. Walking away, he left her to ponder the night skies.

Cora’s eyes searched the horizon, awaiting a glimpse of light as she continued her prayer vigil. Surrounding her, row upon row of Clyde’s victims arrayed themselves, eyes silent and accusing, waiting. She knew with a certainty that she had not known or felt since she was first purposed with her task that help was coming. The Knowing was incontrovertible.

The sound manifested first, a screaming, then a wailing at decibels unsustainable by a human voice. She continued to wait, not turning from the window until she felt the subtle cooling of the air on her skin. She slammed her fist on the edge of her chair, a signal to Gal, who ran forward and turned her so that she faced the room, excitement tickling against her working nerve endings.

The air shimmered, and Cora watched as it cohered, becoming a small woman’s body with her head wobbling on a crushed neck. Her mouth dropped open, and Cora knew that the screaming would begin again if she didn’t act.

“Clyde?” she whispered into the woman’s mind.

The woman nodded toward Cora and then relaxed as she said her name aloud. “Mae.” Light blazed around her, surging and filling the room and momentarily rendering Cora sightless. As her vision returned, her mouth lifted in a crooked smile. The light had arrived. Clyde would come. Clyde would die.

The mantle clock continued to tick off the time. Still, she wasn’t sure if hours or minutes had passed. Cora shifted in her chair, her bladder nearly bursting, yet she refused its release. She would not meet Clyde, sitting in her own filth, wrapped in the heavy ammonia scent of urine as she waited for Joe and Gal to come and attend to her. She turned her head to look over at Joe, whose long body stretched across the couch. He snorted in his sleep.

Behind her, Clyde’s victims remained, a litany of accusations on their lips. The one called Mae remained mute, her eyes deep pools of sorrow. She could feel the eyes of the others boring into her. They sensed his presence—his nearness—too, just as she did.

She waited. She let the Knowing probe the night and bring him to her. Her own eyes grainy with sleeplessness, her head finally nodded, and she fell into a restless sleep.

Scanning the horizon of the dreamscape, Cora caught a glimpse of movement in the shadow of the trees, a cloud of darkness moving toward her. Her heart rate accelerated, previous discomfort forgotten, as she leaned forward, squinting, wavering between the world of dreams and the reality of the room she sat in. She felt the tug of the Knowing build in anticipation.

She watched as the darkness took human shape, lurching side to side as it advanced, and she felt its attempt to seep into her spirit, growing stronger as the form came closer. Sitting rigid in her chair, she could discern Clyde as he continued forward, now close enough to reveal his features. He looked the same. Age had not affected him. She braced herself, allowing the Knowing to flood her. She watched him come toward her.

Clyde closed the distance until he stood in front of Cora, seated in front of her window. Her body listed to one side, her shoulder hunched, and her skeletal face twisted in a sneer. Still as a statue, his dark eyes glared directly into her own, pushing the darkness that swirled around him until it rose waist high. A grin stretched his wide mouth. His lips pulled back in a snarl, baring his teeth. Then he raised both hands, and the darkness surged toward her.

Cora flinched, transfixed in his stare, her good hand lifted, palm out to combat the darkness leeching through the flimsy barrier of the glass between them and encircling her heart, bending her light. She felt herself once again succumbing, shame flooding her face with heat. A sob hitched in her broken throat.

Mae drifted across the room and stared through the darkness watching as the form of her husband solidified before her. She searched his face for traces of the man she had known, the gentleness she had claimed as her own, and found only a savage atrocity twisted by loathing.

Standing beside Cora, her radiance flared again, and Cora felt her body loosen, feeling flowing down through her useless arm. She turned her head slightly to find Mae beside her, her body pulsing a brilliant light that flowed through her. Cora’s muscles warmed as unused nerves fired, and the Knowing sent additional strength and movement to her limbs.

Grasping the arms of her chair, she pushed upward until she stood on her feet, vibrating with power, eyes glowing, her hands mirroring Clyde’s. The aura around Mae gleamed, and another burst of brilliance blazed from her.

Behind them, the chorus of the dead that surrounded Cora day and night ceased to speak, their murmuring silencing as they joined the battle. They became a unified light, forming a shimmering vanguard augmenting the attack. Mae extended her small hands to grasp Cora’s wrist, pouring out her power, her face pinched with regret as the light magnified, blinding Clyde and obliterating the darkness surrounding him. “I loved you,” she wailed mournfully.

“Mae!” Clyde cried, his eyes bulging in terror. He felt the darkness waning, undone by Mae’s final betrayal. The light filled his nostrils, slithering down his throat, coating his skin, sealing his pores, and denying him the breath of life.

He was submerged in the darkness, a blackness different from the familiar form he’d known his entire life. One he would never escape. At first, it seemed infinite, stretching beyond the perception of his senses, his eyes unable to penetrate it. Still, he did not fear it. Instead, it comforted him, warm as the womb. He listened intently, sure that he heard the echo of his mother’s heartbeat in the distance. Lying down, he drew his knees to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and rested his chin. His eyes closed.

There was no sense of time, and he drifted in this darkness until a pinpoint of light in the distance moved toward him. He disregarded it, no more than an irritation against his closed eyelids. But it grew as it advanced toward him in undulating waves, bringing with it a feeling of dread and trepidation.

Clyde squeezed his eyes tightly against the radiance of the advancing light, the darkness around him pulsing outward, pushing the light back, then relenting. It forced his eyes to open.

Mae stood over him, a nimbus of light around her as she stared down at him, light glowing beneath her skin and the power of it leaking from her pores. Clyde blinked rapidly at her. Her face was drawn into harsh lines of sorrow and bitterness.

Clyde struggled to free himself from his position—to straighten his legs, stand, and confront her—but found himself bound by bands of light. He strained, grunting, as the light tightened and squeezed his muscles, draining his strength.

Mae leaned over him, then stood erect, her image morphing as her stomach rounded to become a perfectly round ball, her small hands smoothing, then resting beneath it. A moment later, her stomach flattened, and she held a small bundle against her chest as she stared down at him, her face a study of misery. She turned the infant toward him, and Clyde knew.

He gazed upon the child’s perfect features beneath a mop of unruly curls. The contours of his tiny chest, the proportionate length of his arms and legs were miniature versions of his own, unblemished by the effects of the darkness. His seed lay nestled against Mae’s body—his son.

“Mae,” he moaned, reaching toward what could have been as she backed away. She aligned herself with many women who had stepped out of the darkness, and each face was frozen in a rictus of hatred encircling him.

Clyde lifted his head and peered through the ebbing darkness swirling around him. His body was leaning against the alley wall where he had collapsed. The same one where he had waited for Eva. He didn’t remember walking there, just that he had to get to his mother so she could help him, could save him. His head flopped on his neck and he dropped his chin to his chest, seeing the black dagger embedded there.

The pain enveloped him, growing worse each moment, screaming at him to remove the blade and relieve the agony. Shreds of the battle with Cora floated through his mind, the light assaulting the tendrils of darkness that remained in his brain. The battle was over. His will faded with the darkness, the light stamping him in defeat. And he could still hear them, a multiplicity of voices, urging him to remove the dagger. “It’s over for you,” they chanted. “Die.”

One voice rose above all the rest, and he saw Mae’s face before him, her eyes filled with mourning, her hand stretched outward to him. “Pull it out and let go. Let the light come, and the darkness will never claim you again.” Silent beside her, Cora simply stared, the Knowing had made its judgement.

Wrapping both hands around the smooth bone handle, Clyde yanked it free and watched as blood spurted with each faltering beat of his heart. His body bucked wildly, choking sounds emitting from his closed throat. He flailed helplessly, his lungs starving for oxygen . . . and Clyde knew fear. The darkness blasted in his head, surging a final time and then faltering under the onslaught of the light that illuminated his soul. The faces of Cora and Mae floated before him, the light haloing them, and they watched as life departed from his eyes.

Fannie stared, checking the time on the large clock on the wall of Union station. Her eyes remained glued to the door as people streamed in and past her, where she sat on the hard wooden bench, searching for Clyde. She waited to see the familiar lopsided gait singling him out from the crowd.

“Clyde! Clyde!” she shouted as she thought she saw him for a moment, her face lighting with joy. She hurried forward. He pushed his stunted legs to move faster, something akin to delight shimmering in his features at the sight of his mother’s face. Fannie held her arms out toward him as he barreled into her. Her arms snatched at him . . . only to seize empty air.

Fannie stopped, balanced on a precipice between reality and desire. “Clyde!” she shouted as her mind frantically reached for the connection between them. Where Clyde should have been . . . there was nothing. The cord dangled uselessly in her mind . . . severed. She leaned forward, a strangled moan building in her throat as she raised both hands to clutch her breasts. She felt their emptiness.

“Clyde, baby boy, Clyde,” she cried, then, “Jesus, Jesus, please, Jesus.” She beseeched God to give her favor, not to let her fears become truth. Fannie mashed her breasts together. She twisted them, attempting to wring milk for Clyde, then lifted her hands to tear at her hair when none came forth. They remained dry and devoid of milk for the first time since his birth. The meaning of it bore into her heart with a cold certainty.

Fannie stood there on legs that threatened to fold beneath her. A scream tore from her soul, ululating through the train station, calling her son back from the dead. Her fingernails dragged bloody rivulets down her cheeks as she continued to shudder and sob, her empty arms wrapped around her body.

Finally, her throat raw, she bent to pick up her Bible from where it had fallen when she stood, then collapsed to her knees on the hard polished floor. She knelt, weeping, begging, and finally demanding her God to intervene on behalf of her son. Silence reverberated around her, mocking her prayers. She had failed. She had not protected him.

Falling forward, she lay facedown on the floor. Around her, people gathered, whispering as they ringed her in. Fannie wept and waited for death to find her.

Behind Cora, Joe tumbled off the couch, snatched from sleep by the sound of a heavy thump as Cora dropped back into her wheelchair. Hearing him, she turned to stare at him. Her features flowed through a range of emotions, ending in grim satisfaction. His eyebrows slammed together in confusion at what his bewildered mind thought he saw.

“Clyde.” Cora spoke his name clearly without pause or hesitation. The sound of her voice, his Cora’s voice, galvanized Joe into action. Gaining his feet, he flew across the room, grabbing her around her shoulders. Leaning back, he stared at her. Her skin no longer dripped like melted wax on one side. Her shoulders squared evenly, and both hands rested in her lap. Tears rolled unchecked to drip off his chin.

Cora reached within and felt the Knowing flow through her unimpeded. She knew that Clyde lay still and dead somewhere, an empty shell. She pushed the Knowing outward to access the dreamscape where she found his remains. Nothing emanated from him. He was no more.

The dead who had filled the room winked out of existence one by one, except for Mae. She drifted for a moment, a look of abject sadness in her eyes. Then she too was gone.

Across from Cora, Gal screamed, having come into the room at the sound of Cora’s voice. She threw both hands upward, tilting her head back.

“What done happened? Lord have mercy, what done happened to you, Miss Cora?” She fired her questions unchecked at her employers.

Cora lifted her chin to stare in Joe’s direction and nodded. Her full mouth lifted in a smile before returning her attention to the girl in front of her.

“Hush all that foolishness, Gal,” she scolded as Gal collapsed in a heap beside her chair, a look of stunned amazement on her face at hearing Cora speak clearly.

“It be done,” Cora said, nodding again at Joe before leaning back in her chair and lifting her face to the rays of morning light flowing in from the sun riding high in the sky. “Everything be all right.”