Chapter Three

Clyde raised his hips to allow Fannie to tuck the blanket around his legs firmly, then patiently waited as she brushed the curls back from his forehead before planting a kiss there. At the age of six, even his diminutive size did not support his weight completely.

“Now, you waits here, Clyde. I’m going into the store, and I be right back.”

He nodded and smiled up at her, reaching out to stroke her cheek, happy to be in town, away from the confines of their shack. He watched her back as she disappeared into the store and puckered his lips, attempting to whistle like he saw his older brothers do, his head turning to follow the comings and goings of the people treading on the rough boards that comprised the street.

Some of them stared as they passed, then turned away, whispering behind their hands. Clyde reached for the hat on the seat beside him and pressed it down on his head, protecting him from the sun’s heat. He liked watching the people as they passed, wondering what it was like to have legs that went where you wanted them to go when you wanted them to. It seemed so easy for each of them, just like with his brothers.

He leaned forward, his arms resting on the edge of the truck, his chin perched on his folded arms. A short distance away, he heard laughter, followed by a small group of boys walking toward the vehicle. The footsteps abruptly halted as they reached where he sat.

Clyde smiled, a feeling of warmth and happiness filling him as he looked down into the three upturned faces, his thoughts filled with the hope of friendship. He remembered his mother telling him that you had to be a friend to make a friend.

“How you?” he asked, his voice uncharacteristically deep in the chest of a six-year-old.

The boys gawked, then laughed nervously, pointing at him. “Damn, you is ugly,” one of them roared, slapping his friends on the back.

Clyde’s smile slowly slid, turning his mouth down in the corners as he inhaled sadness. He pulled his arms back from the truck’s rim, turning his head to look at the other side of the street where a woman stood watching him, two young boys running in circles around her. He held her gaze, willing her to help him, disappointed when she turned away. Behind him, the young boys continued, boisterously ridiculing him while his ears burned with shame. He regretted coming along on this trip. It was no different than the ones before.

“You still ugly, even from behind!” another boy guffawed. “Ain’t you that monkey boy we done heard about?”

He heard six feet pounding the dust of the road to come up on the other side of the truck where they could stare at his face. He wished he could stand and face them, leap from the truck, and dare them to call him another name. But his legs remained twisted under the blanket. Today was a bad day for him, and the pain rendered them nearly useless.

He fought against the urge to hurt them, hoping by ignoring their taunts, they would grow weary and leave. Maybe they would feel ashamed enough to stop so he could try again to be friendly. Instead, the words became more hurtful, stinging slurs hurled against him.

Clyde felt the darkness rising within him. It edged into his mind and swirled there, wanting to reach outward. The darkness knew just what to do. It knew how to stop them.

From across the street, Cora felt the Knowing stir and turned to see Clyde sitting in his father’s truck. She felt the tendrils of joy she’d first felt dissipating from him as the darkness grew. Reaching out, her hands snatched Daniel and David to her, holding them against her long skirts. Her heart twisted in anguish as she felt Clyde’s hurt, the boys taunting him from beside the truck, his anger growing with the darkness rolling through him.

Suddenly, she saw Fannie running toward the truck, her face twisted in anger. “YOU BEST GET YOUR LITTLE BAD ASSES AWAY FROM HERE!” she shouted, waving her handbag toward the boys as they ran away from the truck, scattering in different directions. She lifted her skirts, climbing into the back before duckwalking over to her son. “It all right, baby boy. They ain’t gon’ hurt you.”

Clyde allowed himself to be pulled into his mother’s embrace, inhaling the comfort of her scent, rose sachet, and mother’s milk. His muscles relaxed, and the darkness released its hold on him. He watched trails of it following the boys as they ran away from the truck. Then he turned his head and saw the woman watching.

Cora exhaled, grateful tragedy had been averted. She’d felt the raw power of the darkness in him, watching it dancing and gathering around the boys outside the truck. She pinned Clyde with her gaze, then drew away before Fannie could see her, pulling her boys with her. She turned one last time to watch Fannie wipe the tears from Clyde’s face, feeling the darkness recede from him.

“I thought we was going to the general store,” David whined, unable to release his wrist from Cora’s firm grasp.

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” she said, tugging harder, “and if I hear another word, you won’t be with us.”

Cora had visited this dreamscape so often that it no longer startled her. Instead, it felt safe and familiar. She stared around her. The soft sobs that had drawn her to this location carried through the twilight air toward her, and she began walking in that direction until she caught sight of Clyde hunched over in the tall grass, his head cradled against his knees.

She observed him from a distance, the Knowing drifting to enfold him. His aura pulsed green, tinged on its edges with purple, imbued by his overpowering need and his sense of confusion. He looked so small sitting there. His sorrow and loneliness were tangible to her, and she despaired, recalling his tear-streaked face the day before as he sat in the truck, trapped by his crippled limbs, unable to flee the insults of the boys around him.

In the years since his birth, she had followed him through town gossip, the occasional sighting, and through his dreams. She witnessed the dark Knowing manifesting within him in minuscule increments, often when he was frustrated, angry, or afraid.

As always, he remained blind to her, unable to see or sense her, disconnected from the divine in himself and others. Nothing reached him except the darkness.

Looking at him, she renewed her vow to remain vigilant. She trusted that she would know what to do if the time came. The Knowing prodded her, pushing her to see what he would become. She pushed it away.

Fannie shuffled from the stove to the small table in the center of the room, humming a little hymn of gratitude for the blessing of another day as she glanced over at Clyde sitting on his stool in the corner. A warm glow spread across her chest as she smiled at him. The Creator was as good as he had promised he would be. She had her special boy.

She harrumphed deep in her throat, recalling the viciousness of the words thrown at them over the years since his birth. They called him “bastard” and “demon,” making the sign of the cross anytime they passed him in town. Before yesterday, she hadn’t taken him to town with her since he was four, and others had taken to throwing rocks at them.

She stared at him, his head perfectly round beneath the mop of thick, black curls. His feet swung restlessly in the air, thumping against the legs of the stool, and his hands gripped the seat. He was humming tunelessly, trying to imitate the sounds that she made. His eyes followed her movements as she kneaded the bread dough on the table, dusting it with flour and then pummeling it.

“What you thinking about over there, baby boy?” she asked, waiting for his head to lift and acknowledge her words. His feet stopped in midair. “The Lord done made you able to walk when they said you never would.”

She wiped her hands on her apron and picked up the bottle of healing oil from the windowsill. Leaning over Clyde, she rubbed his head, her hands following the familiar shape of his skull she had spent rounding since his birth. Kneeling, she rubbed both his legs with the oil, kneading it into his dark skin and praying as she did. She got it from a healer in the next town and had been using it when she stretched and pulled the muscles in Clyde’s stunted legs. She rose to stand before him, dropping the precious oil into her apron pocket and placing her hands on her hips.

“You been sitting there most of the morning. Why you don’t go on outside and play with the boys? Go give them legs some use. I knows they feeling better today, ain’t they?” she asked before cupping her raised hands around her mouth and calling out, her voice escalating until it could clearly be heard outside. “SIMON! SIMON?”

Simon appeared in the doorway, his hands grasping the frame, breathing hard, his eyes rolling in panic. “You call me, Mama?”

She wiped traces of the remaining oil from her hands, leaving smears on the front of her dress before placing them back on her hips. “Take Clyde on outside with you so he can get some air. He don’t need to always be in here up under me.”

“Mama, you know he cain’t do nothing. Why I got to take him?” Simon whined, annoyance momentarily displacing his fear of his mother.

Fannie crossed the short space to the door and cuffed him sharply on the side of the head before he could move, then grasped his left ear, twisting it between her fingers. “Boy, you back talking me?”

Simon squirmed, then stilled as the pain in his ear increased, huffing out air. “No, ma’m, no, ma’m, Mama,” he squealed, his heart pumping madly in his narrow chest.

“Then takes your brother out like I said. If you cain’t take him, then you stays in and play with him.”

Simon lowered his head as his mother gave his ear a final twist, being sure to hide his glare from her as he considered his options. Finally, rubbing his tender ear, he held his hand out toward his brother.

“Come on, Clyde.”

Clyde eased his body forward, looking first at his mother and then at his older brother. Simon was only eight, but he towered over him. Clyde began his slow, shifting gait, his knees knocking together with each step, his torso shifting from side to side. He stopped as he approached his mother, leaning into her, inhaling her smell as he wrapped his arms around her knees. She nudged him until he was an arm’s length away, prying his reluctant arms from her knees and bending down to stare into his eyes.

“You go on, Clyde. It be all right,” she said, her voice hushed, her breath whispering against his cheek before pushing him toward the door and Simon.

Fannie stood, her eyes hardened, losing all the softness they had held when looking at Clyde. “You watches out for baby boy and remembers what I done told you. And he better not get lost neither.” She fixed Simon with a glare that froze the marrow in his bones, his body going rigid. “The Lord be watching over you both,” she said, her gaze gentle again as Clyde took his brother’s hand and left Fannie to return to her baking.

Once through the door and outside, Clyde strained, struggling to keep up with his brother’s longer strides. Walking made his legs hurt worse, using up his little store of energy. “Wait for me, Simon,” he called, the distance between them increasing. Simon scowled and hesitated, hearing his friends ahead of him, deeper in the woods.

He glared back at his brother, resentment rising as it often did when his mother thrust his brother on him. He hated the way Clyde made their lives.

Clyde had always been a problem for him, starting when they came home after he was born and saw him mewling and pathetic in his mother’s arms. He and his two older brothers, Don and James Junior, had looked at the mashed-up face snuggling against their mother’s breast, not liking him even before they learned any reasons to hate him.

Clyde sucked every minute of their mother’s attention. His squalling screams startled the whole house awake each night, shredding the air and hammering against their ears throughout the day, demanding comfort. He was at her breast, on her lap, or held against her hip in a sling while she prayed for him.

She would forget about Simon, his brothers, and their father for days at a time, leaving them to find their own way in the shack, forage for food, and beg from their auntie Beulah, the only family still talking to them. There was no peace. Since Clyde was born, all he had known was hunger, humiliation, and the sound of his family falling apart.

His parents’ fighting peppered the air of their shack, weaving the threads of discord around them from daybreak to can’t see. Their arguments escalated into loud, brutal battles that ended with broken furniture, bruised bodies, and his father stomping out of the house and not returning for days or weeks.

At first, the other aunties and cousins had come around, trying to talk to his mother even when she screamed curses at them. Sometimes, they brought the preacher with them, standing outside and sprinkling holy water around the house, chanting prayers of salvation to disperse Clyde’s demons.

Once, he’d seen his mother throw boiling lye water out at them, aiming for the preacher and screaming the name of the Lord. The preacher ran, holding his Bible over his head for protection, hollering and calling Fannie a blasphemer. That stopped the visits, leaving them to see family only at the rare gatherings.

Then came the final time when Clyde was about two. Auntie Beulah had just about got down on her knees and begged his mama to come for Christmas, crying and quoting the Bible about forgiveness. Then they had all gone to Granny Corinn’s house.

When they arrived, the house smelled of roasted turkey, ham, and sweet potatoes, and the collected body odor of too many people pressed too closely together in a too-small space.

Fannie had scanned the room suspiciously, cutting her eyes around the place, her back up, waiting for the first openly hostile word. Eventually, she found a corner for Clyde. Whipping out the small quilt she carried with her, she placed him gently upon it, caressed his face, and left him staring at the crowd around him. The feet on his crippled legs pointed inward, not allowing him to crawl from the spot where his mother placed him while the family skirted around him, keeping their distance.

The cousins snickered and pointed at Clyde when Fannie wasn’t looking, whispering behind their hands about his brother. Simon flinched and shushed them harshly, not wanting anything to set off Fannie’s anger and force them all to leave. His mouth watered as his eyes roamed over the feast his grandmother had laid out on the table. His empty stomach growled in anticipation.

That was why he didn’t see the mouse creeping toward Clyde, its fat brown body slung low to the floor, head raised, and whiskers quivering in the air as it made its way to the hole in the wall adjacent to the quilt Clyde sat on. Clyde bent forward, reaching out to snatch the wriggling creature faster than the mouse could react, bringing it up in front of his face. The movement caught the attention of the other children, causing them to look again toward Clyde.

Clyde stared at the mouse, his eyes glazing over, growing darker and rounder. As the frightened animal struggled to get free, it bit down on the tender skin between his thumb and forefinger, and he grunted loudly. His hands began to squeeze, seemingly unaware of the high screeching sound of the mouse, the small bones crunching, or the blood oozing through his fingers.

One of his cousins screamed, and the room erupted into chaos. His uncle Charles ran toward Clyde, attempting to swat the dead mouse from his hands. Fannie leaped on her brother’s back, her hands reaching around to scratch his face, bellowing, “Don’t you touch my baby. You better not touch him, Charles.”

Uncle Charles had twirled in circles, trying unsuccessfully to buck her from his shoulders until his daddy had muscled his way through the crowd to grab Fannie around the waist. He carried her—twisting and thrashing—to lower her in front of Clyde. Fannie crouched, her teeth bared in a feral snarl as she shielded her boy. Clyde continued to sit, the blood running over his closed fist, a smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

Fannie turned and grasped his wrists, shaking them until he loosened his grip on the dead rodent, wiping his hand on the front of her skirt. Lifting him from the floor, she wrapped the quilt around him and strode for the door.

The family, who had formed a dense circle around them, moved aside and cleared a path for her. Simon walked slowly behind her, his head lowered, avoiding the horrified looks of his aunts, uncles, and cousins, their whispers crawling against his back. That was when Granny Corinn stepped forward and blocked the front door.

“I done told you that boy an abomination, Fannie, and you knows it.” She wagged an accusing finger in Fannie’s face. “The whole town know how you was whoring round with that boy, Nathaniel, gapping open your legs.” She stopped, her eyes shadowed with a moment of repentance before hardening again when looking at her daughter as she continued. “I be sorry, James Henry, and I don’t means to offend you none, but you knows it too, and that boy ain’t right. She should have let that witch Cora lay him to the side to die.”

Fannie’s hand shot out, striking her mother across the face, leaving a four-finger print, the echo of the blow resonating through the room. Corinn’s head rocked back on her shoulders before she stumbled forward, falling onto Ruth Anne. Fannie’s chest heaved with each breath—her body rigid, Clyde huddled against her chest—eyes blazing as Ruth Anne tried to rush forward, pushing against her mother’s restraining arm.

Corinn’s eyes bored into Fannie’s as she pulled herself up to her full height, looking down at her daughter’s petite form. Her words chopped through the air, whittling at Fannie. “You best be going, Fannie, and you don’t never come back here no more. You ain’t no child of mine. I ain’t claiming you or that demon sin boy no more. I done prayed for you, and that’s all I can do.”

Fannie’s head went back and sprang forward on her neck as she spit in her mother’s face.

“That for you and your prayers,” she shouted, then shouldered her way past, avoiding the hands that reached for her, leaving her mother with the glob of spittle sliding down her face.

Simon took a chance to look backward as he stumbled after her through the snow, seeing his aunts gathered around his grandmother, his auntie Ruth Anne being held down while she screamed, “Let me go! I’m gon’ kill that no-good bitch, spitting on my mama.” Tears streamed down Aunt Beulah’s cheeks as she shook her head in dismay.

Reaching home, his daddy had shooed him and his brothers to their pallets, pulling the curtain that divided their sleeping space on the floor from their parents’ bed. He could hear Clyde breathing on the other side of the curtain where he lay near their mother’s side of the bed. He listened to her pacing, mumbling incomprehensible words to herself before he heard his father clear his throat and speak.

“You was wrong, Fannie, and you knows it.” His words were followed by the sound of something flying through the air and crashing against the wall.

“You gon’ takes her part against your own?!” Her voice was shrill, making him want to clap his hands over his ears.

“I’m guessing us all know that thing ain’t mine.” His voice was heavy with a finality Simon had never heard before, followed by a screeching scream that knifed his mind. His body became tense with fear.

The heavy tread of his father’s boots moved toward the curtain before he pushed it aside, staring down and meeting Simon’s terror-filled eyes for a moment before he strode to the door, Fannie’s unholy shrieking following his bent back. Daddy left them for the last time.

After that, he would sometimes return and give his mother money or take the older boys to town with him. Later, the big boys went to town and stayed with him permanently. He claimed they were old enough to work in the shop with him, but he always left Simon behind. Said he needed to stay and help his mama. James Henry still sent money home when he could, leaving Simon stuck there with Clyde.

Simon felt the heat of anger and frustration burning his cheeks as he pushed the branches back from the clearing, seeing his friends gathered there. That was four years ago, and they hadn’t seen his mother’s family since then. Four years of having his gut twist with fear living in Clyde’s shadow. He took a deep breath, swallowing his emotions and pushing his way into the clearing to stand before his friend, Robert.

“Oh, man, why you got to bring him?” Robert twisted his mouth in disgust, groaning as he stood up and brushed the dirt from the seat of his tattered overalls. The other two boys’ faces were twisted in distaste as they looked over Simon’s head at Clyde.

“Damn, that boy funny looking. He about the homeliest thing I done ever seen,” Robert said, laughing loudly as he walked around Clyde, looking at him from head to toe. The boys behind him joined his laughter, nodding and pointing toward Clyde.

Simon shrugged his shoulders, his face coloring in embarrassment, the familiar taunts sticking to his skin like hot tar and mingling with his recent memories. “My mama say I got to bring him,” he mumbled.

Being the oldest of the group, Robert took leadership and stopped, looking down at Clyde and shaking his head. “How come his arms so long and his legs so short? He look like some kind of monkey. If he had some hair somewhere beside on his head, he be a monkey all right.”

The boys bent over double, holding their stomachs, their laughter raining down around him and Clyde. Simon wanted to shove his brother away and join his own laughter with that of his friends, to let the words hurt only Clyde and not him. Instead, he held his ground silently and waited, hoping they would lose interest and stop if he didn’t defend himself.

Clyde swiveled his head, looking up into the boys’ faces, feeling their disgust, recognizing them as the same ones who had surrounded the truck on that last awful trip into town. He looked at his brother, Simon, waiting for him to say something back, ignoring his sorrow when he didn’t. He knew Simon didn’t like him, hadn’t wanted him to come, but Mama did, and Simon feared his mother. Clyde suspected maybe he feared him too.

Mama always said he needed to get more air, like there wasn’t enough air in the house. All he really wanted to do was stay with her, stay close to the house where nobody laughed at him, and the bad feelings didn’t come rising like they were now.

“Leave him be, Robert. He ain’t gon’ bother nobody. Just let him sit over by the pond,” Simon spoke at last, grasping Clyde’s hand, surprised as he always was by how large it was. Clyde’s short legs gave him the height of a four-year-old, while his torso was bigger than all the older boys around him, including Robert, who was nine. His large head seemed way too big to be supported, even on his thick neck. Nothing on him seemed to match.

Leading him to the edge of the pond, Simon pushed down on his shoulders until he was sitting down. Removing his shoes, he arranged Clyde’s legs so that his feet could dangle in the water. “You sit here. We gon’ be playing over there.” He pointed at the area behind him. “I come back and get you when it be time to go home.”

Clyde nodded, forcing the bad feelings down until he couldn’t feel them anymore. He listened until the laughter and talk from the boys subsided, flinching when he heard Simon’s laughter joining in. The trees closed in behind the boys as they walked away, giving him his last view of them jostling and wrestling one another as they walked. It was always like that, always had been for as long as he could remember. People pointing and laughing at him, groups that he was never a part of.

Clyde lay back in the grass surrounding the pond, spreading his arms out and feeling the sun hot on his upturned face, his feet cooled by the water. One hand covered his face as he traced his features: the close-set bulging eyes, broad nose, and full mouth. He knew his brothers said he was ugly, and the other boys called him that too. He saw how people turned away from him on the rare times his mother had taken him into town and how they moved away from the truck where he sat.

He came to understand that “ugly” was a bad word that hurt him to his core. He also knew what it made him feel when people said it, bringing with it the desire to make them feel the same pain that he did. The desire he fought every day.

Then there were the days when he lost the battle, and he had to pour the darkness and the hatred into living things that could not fight back. Tears of remorse leaked from the corners of his eyes, running down into his ears to water the dry grass beneath him.

His large hands fisted, pulling up tufts of the brittle stalks, feeling them crumble as he gazed at the puffs of white clouds drifting across the blue sky above. He found himself wishing he could float away with them; wishing he was back home in the kitchen with Mama, smelling the fresh bread baking in the oven; waiting to feel her warm hand caress his cheek and feeling the darkness pushed away.

Pulling himself back into a sitting position, he looked down into the surface water of the pond, squinting to see his reflection. Mama didn’t have any mirrors in the house, said they didn’t need any. If he wanted to know how he looked, she said, all he had to do was ask her, and she would tell him.

He tried to compare what he saw in the murky waters with his brothers’ faces, running two fingers along the outline of his nose. Nothing alike, his mind screamed. His palms rubbed against the dark skin of his cheeks, so unlike the smooth tan and creamy caramel of the rest of his family. He grasped his head with both hands and moved it back and forth, watching the reflection do the same. Ugly must look like me, he thought, sticking out his tongue. Running his fingers through the water, he watched as his reflection began to ripple and distort his features further.

“Boy, that face ain’t gon’ change staring at it.” Robert cackled loudly as his open palm slammed into the back of Clyde’s head. He was momentarily stunned when the blow didn’t move the boy’s body at all.

Clyde turned slowly, shaking his head and feeling the darkness rise unchecked, molasses thick in his veins. His hand lashed out, wrapping itself around Robert’s ankle and yanking him forward.

Robert danced off balance on his remaining foot for an instant, his long, angular limbs flailing before he felt himself leave the ground and sail into the stagnant water of the pond. His body submerged, then came up, spewing water from his mouth and nostrils, staring with bulging eyes at Clyde, whose chest rose and fell rapidly, his dark eyes rimmed in red, still seated in the grass.

“GET YOUR BROTHER, SIMON,” he yelled, his arms flying up and down, splashing the water around him.

“I done told you leave him be,” Simon muttered, sitting down to place Clyde’s shoes back on his feet before gently placing his hands upon Clyde’s shoulders. He turned his brother’s face toward him, speaking softly the way his mother had taught them to—to the darkness that lay deep within him—and hoping he could reach him like she did.

Clyde’s breathing slowed, the red of his eyes abating until the whites looked normal again. Simon continued, relieved, still stroking with one hand and lifting his brother to his feet with the other. He guided him toward the worn path that would lead them back home.

“Damn, that boy strong,” Robert mumbled as he struggled back to dry ground, his face burning hot under the laughter of the other boys. Scowling, he shouted after Simon and Clyde’s retreating figures.

“You know something wrong with him!” He inflated his chest, pounding against it in a show of bravado meant to suppress his humiliation.

“I think you best leave that boy alone, Robert.” Jason smothered a chuckle as he pulled wet leaves off his brother’s clothes. Robert smacked his hands away, whirling back, his fist balled for a fight. The other boys were bent over laughing, pounding each other on the back, only stopping when they happened to look up and catch Robert glaring at them. He eyed each of the boys, daring them to continue laughing as he seethed, plans of vengeance seeding his thoughts.

Fannie turned, hearing Clyde’s sobs and the door opening. Her hand flew to her mouth as she dropped the chicken to the table she had been seasoning. Clyde stopped just inside the shack’s front room, his shoulders drooping and his eyes cast down at the floor. Darting across the room, she took him in her arms and felt him trembling against her, his body shaking with soft whimpers as she stroked his back.

“Mama, why God make me like this?” He wept, the words hitching in his throat. Fannie held him an arm’s length away from her, her eyes blazing with anger, her head swiveling from him to Simon, who stood statue-still in the doorway.

“Simon, what them boys say to him?! Did you say something?” she demanded, the questions ground between clenched teeth.

Simon almost leaped into the air, startled by the venom in her words. “No, ma’m, Mama. It weren’t me. It was Miss Emma’s boy, Robert. He the one did it. Say he the homeliest-looking boy he done seen.” Simon’s eyes rounded in fear, then squeezed shut. He held his breath, his body tensing in anticipation of the explosion to come and the blow that would accompany it. His heart beat out the time.

Nothing happened, and Simon exhaled, cautiously taking a step backward and edging closer to the door. Fannie’s attention was riveted on Clyde. She dropped to the floor, her dress pooling around her legs, and pulled Clyde onto her lap. She held him close, his head resting on her chest, her chin rubbing against the thick, coal-black curls of his hair.

“Don’t you pay that little fool no mind, Clyde,” she whispered, her breath ruffling the silken strands on his head like bird feathers in the breeze. “His momma one that be homely. Got a face like a mule just like that old bucktooth boy of hers. Everybody know that, and she gon’ get hers one day. The Lord gon’ see to it.” She stopped and patted his chest, then started again. “But God don’t look at thangs people look at. He looks and sees the heart. And your heart be beautiful, Clyde, just like you. When he look at you, that’s all he see, and all we see.”

Simon lowered his head. His face squelched up involuntarily, and he quickly looked at the floor to keep his mother from reading his expression. To him, Clyde had an ugliness in his spirit that was not so much a physical attribute as it was a profound corruption of his soul. Something that seemed to come over him and render him dangerous. Sometimes, Simon would look up and see him staring at him with those red-rimmed eyes, and fear would ice his bones. He didn’t know how she couldn’t see it.

Like yesterday, he’d come across Clyde sitting in the woods just behind the house, holding a squirrel up by the tail and watching the small animal squirm and struggle to get free. Simon had frozen, his mind flashing back to the mouse on Christmas Day. He forced his feet to move, easing behind a tree where Clyde couldn’t see him. He waited and watched to see what Clyde would do, an uneasiness settling in his heart.

Clyde smiled and slammed the animal against a rock protruding from the ground. Blood and gore splattered, splashing up into his face, making the smile he wore look that much more gruesome.

As he repeatedly slammed the squirrel into the ground, its gray brain matter added to the slime covering his hands while his smile grew wider. Wisps of darkness drifted up from the ground where Clyde stood. When he turned in the direction of the tree Simon hid behind, Simon saw those smoldering, dark eyes rimmed in red and that same horrifying smile he wore on that Christmas night at Granny Corinn’s.

Never before had he thought when he saw the mangled, torn bodies of animals in the woods that the predator stalking them had been his brother. He’d assumed a wolf had gotten to them. Now, the reality that it was Clyde all along weighed his mind, a brick of certainty. He had been the one slaughtering them all along.

Simon gagged and swallowed, fighting the urge to vomit into the bushes, fearing Clyde would turn his darkness on him if he were heard. He sucked in a shallow breath and waited, his heart pounding wildly, to see if Clyde would look directly at his hiding place. The wrongness of his brother that he’d heard people whispering and talking about in school or town echoed in his thoughts, weaving together with what he was seeing.

He shivered, fear caressing his spine, frantically wondering who he could tell. Who could help him? Maybe he could tell his daddy the next time he came. He knew something was wrong with Clyde. Maybe his brothers had seen something too. His daddy might finally be able to get through to his mother. He shook his head at the improbability of Fannie believing anything bad about Clyde, and the hope evaporated as quickly as it had come.

Clyde stared down at the remnants of the squirrel, nudging it with his toe. He lifted his head abruptly as though listening to a sound only he could hear, then took off in his shambling run, moving toward their house. Simon had exhaled in relief and collapsed at the base of the tree, eyes glued to the dead squirrel.

“Ain’t that right, Simon?”

Simon jumped again, startled out of his reverie, his head bobbing up and down rapidly as he swallowed hard and tried to refocus on his mother’s words. “Yes, ma’m, Robert be right ugly.”

Clyde lifted his head from his mother’s chest, turning his brooding gaze upon his brother, pinning him with his stare. Simon felt the same chill in his blood he’d felt when he was hidden behind the tree, and his body trembled with fear. He felt searching fingers crawling and probing his mind, making him shiver harder, and instinctively knew that it was Clyde. Somehow, he thought, his brother was reading his mind, knew what he had been thinking, knew what he had seen him do. Simon pressed his back against the wall of the shack and cringed, his breath hitching in his throat.

Clyde slid his gaze away from Simon’s terrified eyes, breaking the connection. He lowered his head to rub against his mother’s chest, hiding his lips curved into a smile. He listened to the rhythm of her heartbeat, letting it lull him, pushing down the pain and the darkness and his knowing about Simon. The new power asserted itself, filling him with a sense of satisfaction.

He envisioned himself smashing a rock into Simon’s head, seeing the bones shatter and his brains squish. Better than a squirrel, he thought as the image danced across his mind, then ebbed slowly as the darkness drained away under the gentle strokes of his mother’s hands. The darkness was growing.

He did not see Simon as he backed up slowly, easing his body silently along the wall, then through the crack he had pushed between the door and the frame. He lifted his head slightly at the sound of Simon’s feet pounding on the dry earth as he ran away from the house.

Outside, Simon threw his head back—arms and legs pumping as he ran—not looking back, pulling the threads between him and Clyde taut until they snapped free. He was back in the clearing when he stopped, panting, thoughts racing through his head. He leaned forward, heaving the meager contents of his stomach until nothing came up but bile.

Fear and hopelessness threatened to overwhelm him. He saw the look in Clyde’s eyes again and knew he couldn’t go back in there. That home was lost to him forever. Raising his head, he sighed and wiped at the tears raining unchecked and dripping off his chin. He looked toward the opposite path that led to the road to town and started walking. He would make it to his father and brothers, and he could be safe.

Clyde lay his head back on his mother’s breast, feeling her nipples harden beneath the thin fabric of her dress. He inhaled the scent of her milk and let all thoughts of Simon drift away.