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CHARLIE RISES FROM THE FLOOR. The notebook bearing the title “The House on Abigail Lane” falls to the floor and turns to ash, just like all the others. He sees everything so clearly now. The ivy binding the woman to the pillar snaps and falls away, and she steps down into the ring of light before him. All of this he watches through eyes that are both new and ancient at the same time.
“You are ready now,” the girl says from somewhere, from everywhere in the room. “You have outgrown this old dead world and these old dead souls. Those stories are doors to other realms. Go and see them. Spread the word of The Bone Mother. Spread the word of the Stone Gods, for they shall be coming soon.”
“Yes,” Charlie says, as The Bone Mother removes her mask and he is bathed in the glory of her regard. She has universes for eyes and mountains for teeth. “Yes,” he says and weeps with joy, as her hands find his shoulders and her cold hard fingers reach for his mouth.
“Yes,” he wails in ecstasy before she frees him from his tongue.
Night comes and he lets the girl and The Bone Mother guide him out of the ruins. He scarcely notices the houses have collapsed into sodden ruin, and would hardly have cared if he had. He steps over the pulverized bodies of The Cruel Boys with nary a second glance. They, like everything else in this world, are meaningless.
Together they walk to the edge of the neighborhood, to the edge of the world, where they gaze into the lightless abyss, inside which, other worlds hide in the dark, praying to escape the attention of gods, even as the gods look back, eager to open those worlds like volumes in an ancient library.
