THREE DAYS AFTER HILDA’S FUNERAL BEN CAME looking for him.
“Jack, if you don’t open this damn door, I will knock it down. I swear I will. I know you are in there.”
Jack sighed, looking at the knife in his hand. He had waited too long. He knew Ben wouldn’t go away and that Ben would knock down the damn door.
“The door’s not locked; come in.”
“You look like shit. You haven’t been eating—damn, Jack, you haven’t even changed your clothes since the funeral. And what in the hell are you doing with a knife? Give it to me,” Ben snapped and threw the steak knife across the room. “Are you out of your fucking mind? I don’t have time for you to be messing around with a damn knife. Now get up and get some clothes, you’re coming with me. I know how it is—remember how I was when Valeria died? Hadn’t been for you, and if I hadn’t had a baby to look after—never mind, I’ll get your clothes,” Ben growled and stomped off down the hall.
“Valeria has been dead for ten years. You’ve had time to get over it; you’ve got Malachi,” Jack said to Ben’s retreating back. He was sitting in his living room, facing the television. He hadn’t bathed or shaved, let alone changed clothes since coming back from Hilda’s parents in Charlotte. Would he have used the knife? He had tested it against his skin; it was sharp enough.
Ben turned to stare hard at Jack. “No, I’ll never get over it; I’ve just learned to live with it, and you can, too. And I know you haven’t had ten years—but I need you now. Alive. Thomas isn’t your fault. Where’s that duffel bag of yours?”
“In the closet, top shelf. But you have her son. My son, my only son, killed Hilda. My only son is a murderer, a black witch, a practitioner of the dark arts and the whole fucking world is going crazy.”
Ben came back in the living room, carrying a stuffed duffel bag. “This should be enough for a few days; we can get some more stuff later. Now, get up.”
“Why?”
“Like I said: I need you. I can’t do this alone. I can’t protect Malachi and three other kids, and get them to the gate on Halloween—if we can find the gate—and now his teacher is calling. She wants to know why he’s been out of school so much. Told me he’s already missed too many days. Made some vague comment about reporting these absences, making sure Malachi was really all right. I told her where to get off. Now, come on.”
“What do you want me to do? I can’t do anything,” Jack muttered, looking away from Ben. “I can’t save my wife; I can’t save my son. How can I save my best friend and his son? Who is going to save me?”
“I’m trying to. Now get the fuck up,” Ben said. “Okay, I’ll get you up.” He grabbed Jack and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s go.”
Jack let Ben haul him next door, untie his tie, pull his jacket and shirt off, shuck off his shoes, and socks, and then shove him in a shower. (“You can take off your pants yourself.”) After standing there, his pants and underwear soaked, water pooling at his feet, Jack started crying for the first time since the funeral. Jack slowly started peeling off his sodden clothes until he was naked. He leaned into the shower then, wanting nothing more than the water to keep beating his head, pounding its way into his brain. He cried for a long time.
That had been seven days ago and nothing had happened since the funeral. No more dragons were sighted in the air, no more unicorns wandered out of the woods. No more shadows moved without bodies, no more children disappeared. Schools reopened and parents started sending their children back to school. Jack met all his classes at State.
Men and women, calling themselves white witches, appeared on local television and warned the public whatever was happening wasn’t over, that Samhain was coming, and people should get prepared.
“What,” a bemused Channel Eleven reporter asked, “should we do? Wear garlic?”
“Yes, and rowan,” one of the white witches said. “Burn marjoram; it will help people accept the changes that are coming—”
Psychiatrists also appeared on TV to talk about mob psychology and mass hallucination and to make fun of the white witches. Everywhere, most people sighed in relief and turned the TV off when the white witches came on the air. But garlic and marjoram weren’t to be found on the shelves. Rowan trees lost a lot of leaves.
Jack met Ben at the library Thursday afternoon. “Did you see the News and Observer this morning? There was another white witch on TV last night and today the paper prints this article on mass psychosis and that everything is all over and we can go about our business as if nothing happened.”
“I saw it; I even called the paper,” Ben said, shaking his head. “I told them it wasn’t over and everything really did happen and more is going to happen. The reporter wanted to know how I knew and didn’t I think my kind of talk was just going to scare people. I said that people should be scared and that she was an idiot. Then I slammed the phone down. I should have told her that every day three children fly to my house—through the trees, hiding in clouds, walking at strategic points. They are all waiting for Samhain and for me to get to them to that gate. And today—”
“What happened today?” Jack asked.
“I got a call from Malachi’s principal. Wants me to come in tomorrow. Very serious, she said, Malachi’s welfare.”
Jack looked around the library. Today was the first day it was crowded again. People were trying to believe what the newspaper had said and were coming out of their houses and doing more than just going back and forth to work. Even so, they looked wary, glancing over their shoulders and around the room from time to time. And the library’s books on anything remotely connected to magic had to be put on two-hour building-use-only reserve, or the shelves would have been stripped. Staff had to start searching bags and purses and knapsacks at the door to be sure the reserve books were just being used in the building and not borrowed by “mistake.”
“So we had a respite. We rested while the Fomorii and their people gathered their strength,” Jack said.
Ben nodded.
Camille found Malachi Tyson in one of the study carrels in the library asleep over a book. His class was at PE down on the playground.
“He has a doctor’s note—but I have my doubts,” Charlotte Collins had said to her that morning. Camille had been in her office, reviewing Russell White’s thick file. Hallie Bigelow had asked her to. The boy was doing much better, Hallie had said, and he seemed to have finally made one friend, Jeff. Jeff Gates, of all people. How did those two find each other? One wounded soul knows another? Hallie had wondered if maybe she should just let well enough alone, but still, this change seemed a bit too quick. Jeff certainly needs a friend, too. And here I am, reviewing a bad boy’s file because he is now a good boy? Camille had tried telling Charlotte that maybe if she expected Russell to be good, he might surprise her—kids live up or down to our expectations, she had said. Charlotte had ignored her. Camille tucked her brown hair behind her ears, and pushed her glasses back up her nose. Back to the bad-boy-gone-good’s file— “He has a doctor’s name—but I have my doubts. Camille?”
Camille had jerked up from Russell’s file, her glasses almost falling off. Note: go to optician’s today. Charlotte Collins stood in the door of her office, a dark frown on her face—and her eyes—surely they weren’t red. Odd the room seemed darker with her in it.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Charlotte. I must have spaced out completely. Who has a doctor’s note you doubt?”
That had been an hour ago. Camille Bondurant, school social worker, investigating—checking up—Hell. What parent would fake a doctor’s name? Just to get a kid out of PE? To the point of faking doctor’s stationery? She sighed and leaned down to gently shake Malachi awake. He felt so warm—could he be running a fever? It’s my job to investigate cases of neglect. She shook Malachi’s shoulder again.
“Malachi?”
He slowly looked up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Mrs. Collins said you weren’t feeling well and I just thought—”
Malachi looked hard at her, as if he could see something about her she couldn’t. “You’re not the nurse. You’re the counselor.”
“She just mentioned in the lounge and I had to come in the library to pick up a copy of—Nana Upstairs and Downstairs—for my grief group and I saw you.” God, I am a terrible liar and I have no idea if that is the right name for that book.
“I have some sort of flu. My father said it’s going around. I’m better; I just get tired easily.”
“What sort of flu?”
“Stomach. I’m okay, Mrs. Bondurant. I just get tired easily.”
“Why aren’t you at home? What did the doctor say?”
“I felt okay this morning. My dad didn’t want me to come anyway. I had to promise I would call him if I felt sick again.”
Pretty quick with the answers. Rehearsed? And he didn’t answer my question about the doctor. He seems to be hiding something. Am I getting paranoid or is Charlotte Collins?
“You feel warm; I think you’d better call him,” Camille said. “You can’t even keep your eyes open to read.”
Malachi stared hard at her again, his odd eyes seemingly brighter. She finally had to look away, her skin prickling. What is this child seeing? And why is he holding on so hard to this carrel? Like he would float away if he let go? What is going on with this kid?
“Okay, if you think so.”
Camille watched Malachi walk out of the library and down the hall to the office. Something was odd, but neglect? The doctor’s note looked real. She just didn’t know enough.
Above her the fluorescent lights popped and went out.
Hallie Bigelow frowned at the clock in her office. Friday, October 11, 7:45 A.M. In fifteen minutes, Ben Tyson would be sitting in one of the chairs facing her and so would Charlotte Collins, Ben’s son’s teacher. Hallie didn’t want either of them in her office for the reason they were coming. Where was her coffee? She had put her mug down right here on her desk—was she losing her mind? Put something down for a minute and—there it was, below today’s breakfast and lunch menu. Hallie picked up her dark blue Duke University mug and took a long swallow. She wondered if she had tried hard enough to talk Charlotte out of all this. At least the woman hadn’t called DSS—or had she? Charlotte had gotten Camille Bondurant to talk to the boy, but all the social worker had said was that Malachi had thought he was better from some flu and came back to school too early—after arguing with his father. He should have stayed at home. Camille, when pressed, said something was odd, but what, she couldn’t figure out. She was adamant that she had no proof of neglect. Hallie shook her head. Damn Charlotte Collins. The woman had always had a mean, self-righteous streak in her, Hallie thought, and she didn’t like people brighter than she was—like Malachi and Ben Tyson. Or Hallie Bigelow, for that matter. If only we paid teachers enough money.
She took another swallow of her cold coffee. If Charlotte had called DSS, Hallie would be furious—just thinking about it made her more than a little irritated. Innocent until proven guilty, right? She got up to pace her office: a neat square enclosing her desk. She just couldn’t believe Ben Tyson was guilty of criminal neglect in regard to his son. After Charlotte had talked to her, Hallie had made some calls. Well-respected librarian in Garner, been there for almost fifteen years, pillar of the community, regular church-goer, widower who doted on his only child. Not that any of these were guarantees, she reflected as she flicked open and closed the venetian blinds. Too many well-respected churchgoers had been guilty of child abuse. Hallie had met Ben when he came to check out the school and later, to enroll Malachi. She had been sure then Ben was a good man. And if Hallie Bigelow was anything, she was a good judge of character.
What had possessed Charlotte to even suggest Ben was hurting his child? Had she become one of those born-again fundamentalist Baptists who believed all Catholics were papist idolaters bound for hell? Hallie shook her head: too crazy. And surely she would have noticed that if it had happened to Charlotte. Charlotte didn’t even go to church, Hallie remembered. Maybe the craziness that had infected the world had infected Charlotte Collins.
Hallie drained her coffee mug and glanced at her watch: 7:51. Nine more minutes. Her twelve days of grace were over. Nothing weird since the end of September. Until this morning. She had only been half-listening to the radio on her way into school when an excited reporter started describing what was happening between Norfolk and Elizabeth City. Monsters were crawling out of the Dismal Swamp. Godzilla-like monsters. Highway 64 in North Carolina and Highway 58 in Virginia were packed with people running scared, and heading west. She started pacing again, this time pausing to pick up and examine and put back down objects on her desk: the telephone, pencils, pens, a Blue Devil paperweight, the stapler, a Post-it packet identifying her as Boss Lady. Her grandmother had been right: there were unseen things in the world. Spirits and things that did go bump in the night. Never leave a candle to burn out, it brings bad luck. When Hallie had moved into her new house, a few months before her grandmother had died, the old woman had come over to give her a threshold blessing. Granny had hung three pinecones over the front door, and what had the inscription above them said? Who comes to me, I keep /Who goes from me, I free lYet against all I stand /Who do not carry my key.
Maybe it was time to hang that inscription back up. People with glowing eyes. People flying, disappearing into thin air. They had never really gone away, had they? We just didn’t see them for twelve days because we didn’t want to, or we couldn’t: shock overload. Just too much that couldn’t be explained. Every morning she and her next-door neighbor left for work at the same time. Every morning they would smile at each other and wave as they got into their cars. Today her neighbor’s eyes glowed green.
The governor was talking again about declaring martial law, by Saturday; the National Guard was placed on full alert, along with Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base and Seymour Johnson and Camp Lejeune. Not that tanks and guns could fight fairy tales. The whole northeast corner of the state was supposed to be in a total panic. The Navy had evacuated dependent families from Norfolk and evidently naval artillery and aircraft had been tried and failed. People were so on the edge, nerves frayed, that she was afraid they were going to fall off. The suicide rate had skyrocketed. So had physical assaults, random violence. Chaos within and without.
Hallie finally stopped pacing at her gift shelves, where she kept all the little things children had given her over the years. Ceramic apples, little school bells, Duke blue devils, dried flowers, clumsy clay handprint ashtrays. She glanced at her watch: 7:59. In a minute the parents of the gift-givers would start calling to tell her their kids were staying home.
There was a knock on the door. Hallie turned around to see the school secretary, Trudy Anderson, standing there, wearing a raincoat and carrying an umbrella.
“Good morning, Trudy. I didn’t hear the weather report this morning. Rain?”
“I didn’t, either, but the clouds are sure dark. Mr. Tyson’s here, Hallie, and so is Mrs. Collins. Both of them are out in the lobby, standing about as far apart as two people can get and still be in the same space. And you should take a look at Charlotte, Hallie. She looks really strange,” Trudy said in a low voice. Then the phone rang.
“You get the phone; I’ll ask them in,” Hallie said with a heavy sigh.
“Heard half the buses aren’t running, either. Good morning, Nottingham Heights Elementary, can I help you?”
Hallie, wishing she had had at least one more cup of coffee, stepped out into the lobby. “Ben, thanks for coming over this morning. I wish you were here under happier circumstances. But, as I told you over the phone, Charlotte has called some things to my attention that we need to discuss. Come on in and let’s sit down and talk. Yes, please, close the door, Charlotte. Thank you. Now, Ben, as I was saying—”
Charlotte did look really strange. What had she done with her hair—spilt a peroxide bottle on it? And her eyes—were they darker and redder?
“Hallie, this man is abusing his son. Call DSS; this little meeting of yours is a waste of time. Camille Bondurant told me the boy was too sick to be at school,” Charlotte Collins said, cutting Hallie off with one slash of her hand. Ben froze, his hands on the chair arm, his body poised above the seat. “That child has been out of school two or three times a week since school started—he’s already used up his quota to be able to pass the fifth grade. I am positive it’s Mr. Tyson’s neglect and maybe worse than that is keeping Malachi out of school—”
“Go ahead, Ben, sit down. Charlotte, stop. I talked to Camille, too. She also said that Malachi had felt better before he left home, persuaded his father he was okay, and then he felt worse,” Hallie said, making an even sharper gesture with her hand. “Let me talk.” What in the hell was going on? This wasn’t how this meeting was supposed to go. What was the matter with Charlotte? Was she crazy? The woman had ten years of teaching experience; she knew better. “Ben, Mrs. Collins is concerned because of Malachi’s high number of absences and his—well, deteriorating appearance. Just concerned, that’s all.”
“He’s not behind. He always makes up his work. He did feel better the day Mrs. Collins is talking about. Why is the school social worker interrogating my son? What is going on?” Ben said slowly, not looking at Charlotte, his hands tight around the chair arms.
He looked wary, on guard. My God, Hallie thought, maybe Charlotte hit a nerve. No, not Ben Tyson. He’s pissed off—with good reason—for being accused of hurting his boy. I’d be pissed, too.
“He has been having some health problems lately, but he’s under a doctor’s care, and the doctor assures me he is fine.”
“What doctor, Mr. Tyson?” Charlotte asked. “I checked the name on Malachi’s health forms—and while Dr. Todd Tilman does indeed practice right here in Raleigh, the receptionist told me there are no patient records for a Malachi Tyson in their files. I don’t believe that child has even seen any doctor; you’re just cooking up some perverted home remedy, some sort of bizarre ritual with your own son—”
“You are out of your mind and how dare you invade our privacy by calling the doctor’s office. I take good care of my son. He saw Dr. Tilman, who is one of the most respected pediatricians in the city. God only knows who you talked to in his office—if you talked to anybody, that is. The receptionist wouldn’t tell you that—you are lying. The person who is sick and perverted is you—”
Ben hesitated, just a little. Didn’t he?
“Hallie, Miss Bigelow, this man is lying. He’s not taking care of his son—you can look at the boy and tell that. The boy is ill and his father is guilty of criminal neglect and abuse. These medical records are fakes—I know that’s against the law. If you’d let me call DSS immediately instead of insisting on this innocent until proven guilty crap, Malachi would be safe now.”
“You will not take my son away from me.” Ben stood and stepped back and away from Charlotte Collins, toward the office door. “You’re working with the Fomorii, aren’t you? You smell like evil, like one who’s been to bed with evil. You’re not touching my boy. Either that or you’ve gone completely crazy like everybody else.”
“You are out of your fucking mind,” Charlotte hissed, after a pause that was just a little too long.
“Will you both shut up?” Hallie shouted. “Ben, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about, but wait, don’t leave. Please.” It will be all over school in a minute, she thought. “Can’t we discuss this like adults—no fairy tales, no threats? Please, sit down. Ben.” He stood by the door, one hand on the knob.
“Let him leave, Hallie,” Charlotte said, her voice now cold and measured. “The charge of criminal neglect isn’t going away. Or any other charge. I think DSS will want to know why Russell White, Jeff Gates, and Hazel Richards were seen leaving Mr. Tyson’s house at odd hours of the night. And why Russell was wearing just a T-shirt and gym shorts. I don’t think they will think I am the crazy one.”
“What are you talking about? You are possessed—you are one of their lackeys, aren’t you? They own you, body and soul, don’t they? What was your price, Mrs. Collins? Remember what happens in the old stories to people who sell their souls?”
Charlotte flinched. Hallie was sure of it: Charlotte had flinched. Had she really sold her soul to the Devil? What am I thinking? And Ben—did he pause or did he not, before he answered her—are those kids coming to his house?
Maybe she was going crazy.
“Go back to hell,” Ben yelled, jerked the door open, and literally ran. Trudy stared in amazement, her hand frozen over the phone which was ringing and ringing and ringing.
“Charlotte, what the hell is going on? Trudy, get the damn phone. I thought we were going to discuss the child’s health and you are accusing Ben Tyson of being a child molester? Are you crazy?” Hallie shouted, knowing she was shouting, wishing she wasn’t shouting, and knowing she couldn’t stop shouting. The phone started ringing again—this time Trudy got it on the second ring.
“Hallie Bigelow, you will be going to jail along with Mr. Tyson. I am going to go into the health room, pick up the phone, and call DSS,” Charlotte said slowly and then, as slowly, she got up and walked out of the office and into the health room.
“Trudy: the health room line,” Hallie shouted.
“I got it—I got it—” Trudy shouted back.
Charlotte stepped into the doorway between Trudy’s office and the health room. Her eyes—they looked as if they were not just red; they looked like they were on fire.
“You can’t stop me,” she said and left.
“What just happened? Is everyone crazy?” Hallie said, shaking her head, as she watched Charlotte Collins walk down the hall to her classroom. “That was sure one hell of a waste of time.”
“Yes, everybody is going crazy,” Trudy said as she put the phone down. It started ringing again, almost instantly. “I have never seen anything like it. Nottingham Heights Elementary, please hold. Central Office called, by the way—this will really make your day—they’re thinking of closing all the schools for good, until the crazy things stop. Emergency meeting of the school board this morning. Sit down, Hallie honey; let me get you some more coffee. Thank you for holding, may I help you? Yes, Mr. Parker, I will tell Miss Murphy that Danny isn’t coming today, thank you. That makes—let me see, I’ve been keeping score—the fortieth call all about the same thing: why their kid isn’t coming or they are coming to pick them up. Give me your cup and don’t answer the phone.”
“What time is it?”
“8:17.”
All that had taken only seventeen minutes?
Hallie Bigelow stood very still by her desk, ignoring the ringing phone with its blinking lights. Forty kids and counting. If this kept up, the school would be closed regardless of what the school board did. Sighing, she picked up the phone.
That afternoon, at four o’clock, the phone on Thomas Ruggles’s desk at the bank rang only once before he picked it up. He looked quickly around the room. None of the other data processors seemed to be even aware of his existence, let alone what he was doing.
Fools.
“Well, what happened? What’d they say? A social worker will be sent out for a home visit? When? Monday? Why so late? Too many caseloads and the current emergency. Damn, I hate having to wait that long for DSS to get its act together. Yes, I am sure he is the one, Charlotte. Yes. No, I have no doubts he is the one promised to us. If we have him, we can open the gates wide for the Dark Ones. Much more so than the last three children. Their feyness was latent—just barely manifesting. It’s all there in this one; Malachi is half-fairy. The other three—I discarded them. You don’t want to know how I found out that Malachi is half-fairy or how I discarded the others. Four of them—damn, he is forming a tetrad. It makes all four stronger as a unit. Who are the other three, tell me about them, who’s the weakest. Russell? Well, we will just go after him. If they have to defend Russell, the other three will get weaker. Malachi especially will get weaker and then we’ll snag him. Yes. Hold on, I’ve got another call on my line—okay, I’ll call you tonight. We may have to wait for DSS, but we can go ahead and call, say, Larry White? Exactly. Okay, bye. Central Carolina Bank, Thomas Ruggles speaking, how can I help you?”
Russell reluctantly stepped off the bus Friday afternoon, and stood by the side of the road, watching until he could no longer see Jeff watching him back in the rear window. When Jeff waved, a blur through the yellow-dust-covered glass, Russell waved back. He didn’t want to go home. He didn’t want to leave Jeff, even though Jeff was coming over in a few minutes. He didn’t want to be left alone at all. Even Jeanie, who was getting crankier and crankier the longer she was pregnant, would be okay company for a little while. Russell had overheard his dad say more than once that November 12 couldn’t come soon enough, just to shut her up. Jeanie’s back ached, her feet ached, her hands were swollen. She was so big she couldn’t get up out of a chair by herself. She couldn’t squeeze behind a steering wheel, so somebody had to drive her everywhere: to work, to the store, to the corner, everydamnwhere.
“And I’m carrying twin boys,” Jeanie had complained to her mother. “Mama, I don’t know if I can handle another White boy-child, let alone two, like Russell. I declare, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another....”
Russell had drifted out of earshot then. He knew just what she was going to complain about—not that he hadn’t changed. Russell hadn’t gotten into trouble at school since the fire. He had stayed, for the most part, out of his father’s way. He was being good. Of course, neither his father nor Jeanie noticed Russell’s new behavior any more than they noticed his green eyes were greener and glowed in the dark, his pointed ears, or that his red hair was redder and every now and then, had flames of light flickering in the red. But, then, nobody but Jeff or Malachi or Hazel or Malachi’s dad had noticed. Malachi had explained: the fairy glamour that hid things was an involuntary reaction, a protective camouflage that just turned on. Unless somebody was also changing, they wouldn’t notice.
Besides, being good didn’t stop the bad ones. The shadows, the red-eyed monsters, they weren’t just whispering to him in dreams anymore. The dark ones wanted Russell; the whispers promised him things: fuel for that hard, little knot of black anger which wouldn’t go away, no matter how much Russell changed, no matter how closer the changes brought him to the light. He had actually made a friend, Jeff, and now, maybe, another, no two: Hazel and Malachi.
But the anger remained. Russell couldn’t quite trust Hazel, yet. She was too much like the kids who picked on him for being too old in the fifth grade, for being too big, for wearing clothes bought at Kmart, for wearing dirty T-shirts. The goody-goodies, who always had everything done on time and without mistakes, looked down their noses at those who didn’t. Hazel was money and clean clothes and a nice house. So was Malachi; Russell had seen that when he met Malachi’s father last Thursday. And he was sure Malachi’s dad had looked at him and seen trailer trash, white trash, redneck.
Russell shook his head. He didn’t want to believe all that, but it was hard not to. And thinking like that only made the whispers come back. The sky rumbled again, this time louder and louder, and a few raindrops splattered on Russell’s head and his face. He started walking faster. At least, since they had gotten out of school early, he had the whole afternoon to himself. And maybe next week as well. From what the principal had said when she announced early dismissal, there might not be any school on Monday, either. Not with swamp monsters crawling across North Carolina. That had been what all the other kids talked about—that, and seeing people-less shadows.
The sky rumbled. Russell started walking faster down the driveway. He looked up into the dark grey clouds that had been there all day long. It looked as if the storm that had been promised since morning was finally here. Where was Jeff? Why wasn’t he here yet? All he had to do was fly over; it took less than five minutes.
Lightning forked over his house, and the rain began, big fat drops. Russell started running, holding his books over his head. No, this will just make Mrs. Collins mad. He stuffed the books under his shirt.
“Hey, Russ! What are you doing?”
Russell stopped and looked around, the rain beating on his head, soaking his shirt, his pants. The books were going to get wet, no matter what he did.
“Up here.”
Russell looked up to see Jeff hovering above him, completely dry, surrounded by a thin, barely visible envelope of white light.
“Forgotten how to do it? You can even dry everything off, too.”
I am so stupid. I can’t remember anything. “No, I haven’t forgotten how to do it. I just forgot I could. There.” He was no longer getting wet; his clothes and his books were dry. The rain, coming down harder, washed around and over him and off. Grinning, he slowly rose until he was at Jeff’s height.
“Better? I had to talk to Ellen—Mrs. Clark—for a while. She had to tell me something about my dad. Come on; let’s go to your house. Boy, it’s like night out here.”
They flew companionably down the driveway, almost drifting, in no hurry. From the Whites’ house to the road was a five-minute walk, a one-minute flight at top speed. Today, with the hard rain and not being in a hurry, Russell and Jeff took almost ten minutes, talking about Malachi and his father and Hazel. Rain came down in sheets around them.
“You don’t like Mal’s dad? I do; I wish I had a father like that—Russell, look out!”
Out of the dark and the rain, a darker shadow formed, with long tendrils, twisting and uncurling, reaching out for each boy. The cool, wet air grew even colder, so cold Russell thought the rain would turn into snow. The shadow was familiar; he knew it. He knew what it was saying and what it wanted.
“Fly, Jeff, fly as fast as you can. It’s me they want, not you—just me. I’m the evil one, the mean one—like my dad. I hurt; I hate. Get away, Jeff, are you crazy?” Russell screamed and shoved Jeff away, his aura growing brighter and hotter with each shove. The shadow shrank back, hissing.
Jeff shoved back. “Look, don’t you see? It pulled away. You’re not like that anymore, you know that. You were never really like that, Russ, not the real you, the you that has finally gotten its chance. Russell, look out!”
The shadow pounced, all its many legs wrapping around Russell, as if it were a net and had caught a huge fish. Russell screamed. The shadow tossed Russell up, and caught him in its cold claws, then up again, the second time catching the boy in its mouth. Russell’s hot white aura went out and he felt colder and duller than he had ever felt in his life, too cold to shiver, too cold for his teeth to chatter. The cold was turning him into a stone, a stone to be juggled in the air.
He couldn’t just let the thing eat Russell, make Russell into darkness, but what could he do? I’m so little, so weak, so smaallll. No, not this time. Not like before when Someone had come for him in the darkness and he had let the Someone do whatever he wanted. Not this time. Jeff flew straight at the monster, the rain hissing as it struck his aura, which was now a white flame. He struck the monster dead center in an explosion of incandescent white light.
Jeff opened his eyes and sat up.
The storm was gone.
The sky was clear, a pale grey-blue. The monster had disappeared. He was soaked and lying on soaked ground, in a mud puddle. Like a small ghost, some of his aura was still visible, tiny flickering white flames.
“Russell?”
Russell lay a few feet away, curled up in a tiny, tight ball. Jeff crawled over and laid a hand on Russell’s head. Cold, cold, cold. But, beneath the cold, a bare trace of warmth. Russell was breathing—barely.
“He’s alive,” Jeff whispered. “He’s far away, but he’s there. He feels like he’s pure fear.” One of Jeff’s still-flickering white flames flowed from his hand into Russell’s wet, red hair, like water being absorbed by a paper towel. “He felt that—I felt him feel it—but he’s too scared to come back. I can’t get him back by myself.”
Jeff closed his eyes, squinched up his face, and then stepped back as Russell’s body floated up from the ground. Keeping his hand on Russell’s head, Jeff took off, his feet barely touching the ground. After making sure neither of Russell’s folks were home, he slowly rose up to the roof, Russell floating beneath his hand. With Russell still floating, Jeff raised Russell’s bedroom window and then guided his friend’s body inside and onto his bed.
Then Jeff called for Malachi and Hazel.
It had been a day. First that insane meeting at the school, then a weird conversation with his lawyer. Could Charlotte Collins make DSS do anything? Would there be social workers waiting at his door when he got home? The lawyer had no answers. What about the threat of a charge of child molestation? Yes, the other children had been at his house, but if he had tried to explain to Hallie why they were there, how they got there, she would have thought he was crazy. And he wasn’t a good liar. Yes, he had told the doctor lie enough times that it felt true, but he hadn’t had any practice defending himself against molestation charges. If he had explained to Hallie why he could never take Malachi to a doctor—yeah, right. And after that the county library director had called to talk about closing the entire system until the “emergency was over”—did Ben think that would be a good idea?
Ben shook his head. Why not close the library? So what if there were people coming there to hide—why they thought they would be safer surrounded by books, he didn’t know. He doubted the schools would re-open on Monday, which was fine with him. Malachi didn’t need to be riding on an unprotected bus. Not that it mattered if he ever went back, Ben thought. His son would be gone after Halloween. Gone forever? Gone was all Ben could think of, conceive of, right now. What would happen after they crossed over into Faerie, cured Malachi of his fairy-sickness—it was just too much to think that far ahead—and he still didn’t know where the gate was.
What? Why is the air in here getting so hot? His office smelled of white heat. The air shimmered and tiny lightning bolts zigzagged across the room, making zapping electrical popping sounds, a whoosh of smoke, and there, perched on his desk, was Ben’s son. For one brief wild moment, Malachi looked just like his mother: the glowing eyes, the golden-white hair, and the pointed ears. Ben felt his heart stop, squeeze, and then go on.
Coughing, Ben waved away the residual smoke, wishing Malachi would hurry up and grow out of the special effects stage. And didn’t the boy ever think of the effect of others seeing him materialize in a puff of smoke in his father’s office?
“I told you not to do this in public. And why aren’t you in bed—you’ve been sick, remember?” Ben snapped, glowering. He glanced out his door—the few people he could see on the library’s main floor didn’t seem to have noticed the pyrotechnics in his office. Not that it really mattered. How could it? Stranger things were happening almost every day lately, things that had nothing to do with Malachi.
“Sorry, Dad, but I had to get here as fast as I could—neat trick with the smoke, huh?—and I really do feel much better and I’ve got to go help Russell, Jeff called me, Russell got attacked by a shadow, Hazel is already on her way—”
“Slow down. One word at a time. What’s going on with Russell?” Ben asked, remembering what he had seen last week, when he had gone to pick up Malachi at Nottingham Heights after it had closed early. The other three had been waiting with Malachi outside the school, on the front walk. For a brief moment, before Ben was close enough to speak, he saw the auras of all four children, the different lights merging together, drawn into one greater aura by pink and red pulsing ropes of light.
They are closer to my son and will know him better than I will ever be able to. They are more like him than I can ever be.
“The Fomorii are after him. They attacked him during the storm—Dad—they need me. It will be all right; I promise.”
And Malachi disappeared, winked out, leaving only the smell of heat in Ben’s office and a thin, grey haze of vanishing smoke.
I don’t know them, these other three. Who is this Russell, who looks so tough and mean? This Jeff, who looks like he wants to hide behind the next tree and Hazel, the most normal-looking of the bunch, yet her eyes glow, too.
Who are these three kids who are so attached to my son?
Oh, God, the Fomorii.
It was late afternoon, almost twilight. The sky was darkening again, but at least for now, the darkness was not ominous, just the forerunner of night. Nights were another matter. As the changes progressed and the barriers between universes continued to fracture, nights became more and more horrifying and dangerous. Things roamed in the darkness. The good weakened, or so it seemed. Good people stayed at home, with their doors locked, windows bolted. Crosses, Stars of David, Amish hex signs hung on doors, along with cloves of garlic, all charms against what might be loose between sunset and sunrise.
But that was night and this is afternoon, Jeff thought and looked at Malachi and Hazel, then at Russell. From below Jeff could hear movement, a TV, cabinet doors opening and closing, pots and pans banging. It was close to dinnertime. Russell’s stepmother was home; his father would be soon. When everything was ready, would he come up the stairs and get Russell? What would Larry White do if he found his son in a magical coma, curled up in a tight, little ball, cold to the touch, and his son’s best friends sitting around him? Jeff didn’t want to find out. Larry White scared him almost as much as his own father did.
“Jeff, it has to be you to go in. He knows and trusts you far more than he does me or Malachi,” Hazel said. She looked tired, Jeff thought, and for the first time her long, brown hair was unbraided; strands kept falling over her face like a shifting veil. Hazel had brought her cat, Alexander, with her. The Siamese, now as big as a Maine Coon cat, had first prowled around the room, sniffing one thing or another. Now he was sniffing Russell and licking his forehead and his hands.
“He loves you, Jeff. He can’t say it and I know it’s hard for you to say it, too. That means there isn’t anybody else he will leave his fear for but you,” Malachi said. Hazel looked tired. Malachi, on the other hand, looked sick and pale and worn out. Dark purple rings made his eyes look sunken and he was whispering, as if he didn’t have enough energy to speak louder.
Jeff nodded, watching Alexander as he kneaded the quilt covering Russell and then curled up beside him, pressing his feline bulk against Russell. Hazel swore the cat could mind-speak. Jeff wasn’t surprised. He wished Malachi hadn’t said that about Russell loving him. His father had told Jeff he loved him. Love hurt. But I do really like Russell a lot. When does like become love? Does love have to hurt? And he is a boy. Boys don’t love other boys, do they?
“Are you ready? We can’t leave him there much longer, Jeff. Russ may never be able to come back and that would mean the Fomorii would have won. Our set of four, our tetrad, would be broken, and we won’t be able to cross over on Samhain.”
And you’ll die, Jeff thought. I’ll—I’ll have to go back to live with my father. He had been about to tell Russell that when the shadow had attacked. The Clarks had told him yesterday after dinner.
“His psychiatrist thinks he has made enough progress to handle having you in the home again. His lawyer is petitioning the court and courts tend to favor the natural parents. We’re trying to fight it, but it doesn’t look good,” Ellen Clark had said.
“Jeff? Hold my hand and Malachi’s,” Hazel said.
They completed the circle and closed their eyes. A slow, white flame-aura grew around all three of them, through them, and above them.
Malachi opened his eyes. “He’s there.”
“I know,” Hazel said. “I felt him go.”
They both looked at Jeff, whose eyes were still closed, as he sat between them, the light of his aura playing across his face.
Jeff stood outside an elementary school, an enormous one with towering brick walls. It wasn’t Nottingham Heights Elementary or Vandora Springs or any school in Raleigh Jeff had ever seen. Yellow dust was everywhere and the trees Jeff knew—pines, poplars, oaks, sweet gums—were replaced by scrub pines and trash oaks. The schoolyard seemed to go on forever, spreading out from the school into endless prairie.
The red of the brick and the yellow of the dust were bright, bright red and yellow, chrome red and yellow. The green of the grass was just as bright, but it was intermixed with splotches and streaks of white. It’s a drawing, Jeff thought, colored with Crayolas. He could see where the red and the green and the yellow overlapped, and the sky was a scrawled pale-blue half-sky, marked here and there with purple streaks. A black line marked the edges of the school. In one corner of the half-sky was a yellow circle sun, with radiating orange lines. Below the blue was a pale cream color—manila, Jeff thought, which was what the teachers called that kind of drawing paper. Jeff was sure if he walked far enough he would come to where the manila-and-blue-and-purple sky and earth met. The sky felt close, as if it were a huge window screen someone had just pulled down.
“Russell,” Jeff said out loud, “is inside. I have to go and get him and bring him back.” His voice sounded strange and oddly flat. There were no other sounds: no cars passing, no wind in the prairie grass, no thunder in the sky’s purple.
Only one door and a tiny line of windows broke the expanse of the brick wall. Jeff took a deep breath and walked across the yard and knocked on the door. He waited and knocked again, louder and harder. Finally Jeff pushed down the bar, shoved the door open, and went in.
The inside was even brighter than the outside. Jeff stood in a classroom in which each wall was a different color: red, green, blue, and yellow. The polished linoleum floors was a mosaic, a maze of patterns and shapes—spirals, ellipses, waxing and waning moons, comets with long, long tails—that were only hidden by rag rugs, with even more colors spinning out of the centers. A cheerful fire crackled in the hearth. A deep red couch was against the yellow wall. That part of the classroom was like a living room, with soft arm chairs to either side of the couch, a table, a reading lamp. Behind one armchair was a darker yellow door, slightly ajar. The rest of the classroom was like any other: desks, a blackboard, the teacher’s desk, and a wall of windows overlooking a playground filled with jungle gyms, rope swings, and huge climbing mazes. Jeff wondered why the windows and the playground weren’t visible from the outside. Each desk was a different color, as if someone had used the 64- or 128-color box: burnt sienna, raw umber, periwinkle, aquamarine, maize, goldenrod, peach, mauve. The color names were neatly printed in black square block letters on each desk. The only other difference was that all the furniture looked just a little too big, as if large-sized children were expected to use the room.
But the classroom had more than wild colors and off-sized furniture: Spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, clove—drifted in the air, rich and fragrant. He could even see spice-trails, shades of red and brown, tiny cloud snakes. And somewhere a woman was singing. Jeff followed the singing slowly across the room, touching each desk, the chairs, as he passed. The red couch smelled of strawberries; the yellow wall felt warm.
Jeff opened the dark-yellow door and stepped into a long, long white hallway. “Hello? Hello? Russell? It’s me, Jeff. Where are you?”
Nobody answered. The woman kept singing, a familiar tune, and as Jeff listened, he remembered he had heard it from a babysitter years ago, when he was very small: Down in the valley, the valley so low. Hang your head over, and hear the wind below . . .
Jeff followed the singing down the long hall. The off-white walls of the hallway smelled of banana and when he rubbed his fingers on the wood and licked them, Jeff tasted banana. The hall floor was furry. Jeff wanted to take off his shoes and go barefoot. At the end of the hall was a closed purple door, the color of the clouds. The singing came from behind the purple door; so Jeff didn’t knock, he just turned the knob and went in.
Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don’ sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring . . .
Jeff stood in a bedroom—Russell’s bedroom. There was the wardrobe and the carpet Russell has salvaged from the dumpster. But this carpet was more than the ratty throwaway Russell had back home—Jeff’s feet sank into the thickness of this lush, soft warmness that covered almost the entire floor. The carpet stopped by the window, exposing polished cedar planks and there the singer sat, a woman in a rocking chair. Behind her was Russell’s manger. The star cast a white light on the Joseph and Mary and the Baby.
Jeff didn’t recognize the woman. She didn’t look at all like what he remembered of Russell’s mother from the photograph on Russell’s dresser. This woman was older and heavier. She wore glasses and a pencil stuck in her dark brown, grey-streaked curly hair. A little boy with red fox ears sat in her lap, his face pressed against her. His red fox tail twitched across her legs. At the woman’s feet stood a large, long-necked glass jar, filled with a bubbly oily black fluid.
The woman stopped singing and frowned when she saw Jeff.
Jeff gulped and started talking as fast as he could: “Russell. It’s time to go, to come back, I mean. We need you. I need you. I don’t think I can finish this journey without you. I don’t want to. And Malachi and Hazel need you. None of us can finish this journey without you. We’re a linked group, a tetrad; Malachi says we all go or none of us go. Russell, c’mon.”
“You must be Jeff,” the woman said in a low, sweet voice. “Russell, my little, red foxy, told me you might be coming and that you would be asking him to go. He doesn’t want to. He’s afraid, and as long as he is with me, he won’t be afraid. And those monsters—why should he have to fight those? They were so mean to him—they wanted him to let his anger out and then they were going to eat him up. I never. Russell can keep his anger in this nice jar where it will be safe and it won’t hurt anyone. You run along now, honey,” she said and smiled and started humming to herself, rocking back and forth.
“Who are you?” Jeff asked, wishing he could crawl into her lap, too.
“Why, I’m Miss McNeil, of course. Russell is in my first grade. Today we are learning lullabies. Russell said none of you really need him, anyway.” She looked away and started rocking and singing: I gave my love a cherry that had no stone . . .
Jeff took a step closer. Should he grab Russell and run? Pull him off Miss McNeil’s lap? No, that wouldn’t work. There had to be another way to get Russell back. How had he gotten through before—and he had, Jeff realized, broken through the tough, bad boy to find the Russell who was his best friend. Talking? Listening? Was it that simple? It couldn’t be or Jeff wouldn’t be here, inside Russell’s terrified imagination, talking to a long-ago memory in a school that Russell hadn’t seen since he was six.
He sat down on Russell’s bed, facing Miss McNeil and Russell and the rocking chair. Sunlight poured onto the bed, washing the white spreads and gold oak frame clean and bright. Russell didn’t have a white spread, Jeff thought, and his bed is cast iron. He almost said nothing, but pointing out differences between reality and this other place probably wouldn’t work. This other place didn’t have shadows that came alive and tried to eat people. There was nothing in the room that Jeff thought he could use. The manger, with its Red Fox, the picture of Russell’s mother, the wardrobe. Where had Jeffs imagination hidden him when he needed to hide? Maybe that was it. Maybe Jeff needed to tell Russell he was afraid and how he was leaving his safe place behind. Maybe.
Jeff cleared his throat. “Tell me where we are, Russell.”
“Why, we are right here in Russell’s bedroom, Jeff.”
“No, I need to talk to Russell. You aren’t real; you’re a memory. I’m real and Russell’s real and I need to talk to him.”
“Well, I never. If you had been in my first grade, you would have learned better manners.”
“Russell,” Jeff said in a louder voice, “Where are we? Where’s this bedroom? How do you eat here? Go to the bathroom?”
Still rocking, Miss McNeil looked away from Jeff, shaking her head. She turned to look out the window and started another song: Rockabye baby in the tree tops, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock . . .
The little fox-tailed boy said nothing.
“Russell, Red Fox, I know you can hear me, so just listen, okay?”
“Run along home, Jeff,” Miss McNeil said. “Russell doesn’t need you. He has me and that is enough.”
“That’s not true. Russell, it’s the other way around: you don’t need her or this place anymore. You don’t have to come back here when you’re scared. You—we—can take care of ourselves now. We’ve changed. We’re different; we’re strong. You don’t have to be afraid of your father anymore. He can’t hurt you. It’s not just being magic, either; it’s more than that. I don’t know if I’m saying this right or not, but we’ve become, we’re becoming—wait a minute, let me think—”
“It doesn’t matter, Jeff. Russell is staying right here. Run along ” now.
Please let me find the right words.
“Russell, coming back here is saying you aren’t strong. It’s admitting all the bad things—all the bad names, all the times your dad beat you—are true and right.”
Was it Jeffs imagination, or was Miss McNeil looking a little bit blurry around the edges? Okay, now for the really hard part. One, two, three, just say it all really fast:
“Russ, I was going to tell you something today before the monster came. When I got home from school Mrs. Clark told me my dad was out of jail, on parole for good behavior. His lawyer had made it happen and he wants me back; my dad wants me to come and live with him again. Mrs. Clark told me she didn’t want that to happen and it won’t, not right away, supervised visits first, but still, it might, eventually. I might have to go back to that house. I got so scared when she told me; I’m still scared. I almost went back to my secret place where I don’t have a body and I can’t be hurt, even though I can see what’s happening, hear my dad telling that lump on the bed that it was all my fault, my mother’s fault for leaving, a man has needs, and if I loved him, I’d help him out, and it’s okay for fathers to love their little boys like that in the dark. And I’d be floating in the air, in the dark, and it would be all right. But I thought about you, telling you, and Malachi and Hazel, Mr. and Mrs. Clark, and Malachi’s dad. I didn’t go to my secret place. I came to see you. C’mon, Russ; it’s time to go. I don’t need my secret place anymore and neither do you.”
Jeff stopped to slow down his breathing, to hold his hand against his chest, to slow down his heart.
“Now, Jeff—” Miss McNeil began, but the little boy in her lap sat up. His foxtail and ears had vanished. The boy climbed down and stood up and he got bigger and bigger until he was normal-sized and Miss McNeil began to fade away, her edges blurred, her features a scrawl, as was everything else around them.
“I guess I’m ready to go back,” Russell said, sighing. “But I sure do like it here.”
Jeff grinned and got up from the bed just as it vanished. Holding hands, they started to walk out of the dissolving bedroom when Russell stopped and picked the glass jar filled with the black liquid. It was the only thing that remained solid. He looked at Jeff.
“What do I do with it? I’ve had this forever.”
“Do you still need it?” Jeff asked.
“Well, sort of,” Russell said, looking sheepish, “but not like this, all locked up in this jar, boiling like this.” He unscrewed the top and emptied the jar onto the floor. The black liquid oozed and bubbled, forming little balls, which, as they dissolved, scattered and disappeared. “C’mon, let’s get outta here, Jeff,” Russell said and tossed the jar away, into the disappearing wall of the bedroom. “I won’t listen to those monsters anymore. I’ll try really hard not to, anyway.”
By the time they got to the hallway, it was almost transparent. The hallway was all that was left, except for the blue sky and the purple clouds and the scrawled grass. The manila was fading into what Jeff could only call no color.
“I’m sorry your dad hurt you that way, Jeff. Why didn’t you tell me before?” Russell asked as they stood in the schoolyard. Behind them the hallway collapsed, as if it had been plastic at the edge of a fire.
“I was too scared.”
“Well, which way do we go from here?”
“There’s only one way, Russ. The way you came in.”
Jeff opened his eyes and yawned. The afternoon sunlight had gone; it was almost night. Russell pushed back the quilt and slowly sat up, a small, half-crooked smile on his face. Hazel and Malachi cheered. They could all smell the food downstairs: meatloaf, onions, bread. In a minute, Jeanie would be hollering up the stairs for Russell to come on down.
“I’m really hungry,” Russell said shyly, and looked at the others as if he had been given new eyes.
Sunday night Mrs. Clark came into Jeff’s bedroom and sat down quietly on the edge of the bed. “Jeff, honey, I know you’re scared about seeing your father and I don’t blame you, but his psychiatrist has assured me he is making progress. Jeff, are you listening to me?”
Jeff was in bed, with his face turned to the wall. “Yes, I’m listening. My dad promised me he wouldn’t touch me that way again lots and lots of times, and he broke his promise just as many times.”
“This time will be different. He’ll be supervised and so will you. At first, you will stay here, and he will come visit once a week and we will always be here. Things will be different,” she said and reached out to smooth Jeff’s hair.
“My dad said the same thing every time he promised me it wouldn’t happen again. And he said the same thing after each time he broke his promise: I’m so sorry; it won’t happen again, Jeff, I promise. I’ll never do it again, I promise. Things are going to be different. Every single time,” Jeff said and turned from the wall into his pillow.
“You said you would try to stop this from happening. You said you would fight to keep me. You promised I would be safe. I’ll hide when he comes here; I won’t let him see me.”
“Jeff, you will be safe.” She waited a long pause for Jeff to answer her, then sighed, smoothed his hair again, and got up and left. Jeff lay very still for a long time, his face buried in his pillow. He wished he never had to leave his bed again, that he could stay hidden beneath his pillow forever.
“He’ll find me, no matter where I hide,” Jeff whispered to himself. “He found me before when I tried to hide from him at night. He always knew where to look: the closet, under the bed, the bathroom, the garage, under the house. He always found me.”
But this time things were different: he could fly.
But where would he go? They were all supposed to go through the fairy-gate on Halloween—which was eighteen days away—if they found the gate, although Malachi was positive they would. Malachi was sick again—Jeff could barely feel Malachi’s good night in his mind, a quick whisper that had become a nightly ritual the last week. And Russell. Russell’s dad had yanked out the phone Saturday and Malachi was the only one who could mind-speak. Hazel? Maybe. No matter. Tomorrow, when his dad’s dark red Honda Civic pulled into the Clarks’ driveway for the first supervised visit, Jeff would be gone.
Monday morning breakfast had been strained and Jeff was relieved when it was over, even though Mr. Clark had fixed his favorite: pancakes and bacon, with hot maple syrup and Five-Alive Juice. And they had let him sleep late. The food had tasted wooden, but Jeff had eaten everything anyway, while the Clarks were relentlessly cheerful. Both had taken the day off and over pancakes and between cups of coffee, talked about what all they would do. The Art Museum downtown. Or Pullen Park. Drive to Chapel Hill to the Planetarium. Or to Durham, to the Life Science Museum, with the huge scale-model dinosaurs. Jeff would like that, wouldn’t he? Of course, he would—Jeff loved dinosaurs.
The one thing nobody mentioned which for sure was going to happen was that Jeff’s father was coming for his visit between three and four o’clock.
“Well, Jeff, what would you like to do this morning?” Mr. Clark asked for what Jeff thought must be the hundredth time. “Made up your mind?”
“I think I would like to stay right here,” Jeff said slowly, pushing one last bit of pancake around in leftover syrup. “Play with my dinosaurs.” And fly away. First, to Russell’s. Then, maybe to Malachi’s. And hide until Halloween. Yes, his dad would find him, as he had done before, but maybe, just maybe, with Malachi and Hazel and Russell with him, he would be safe. Finally and truly safe, as he was not even here with the Clarks. After all, they hadn’t kept their promise, either. Maybe all four of them would just fly forever and ever, circling and swooping in the sky, playing tag in the clouds and never, never coming down to the earth. They wouldn’t have to go to Faerie then—just into the sky.
Jeff felt the Clarks’ eyes on him as he walked out of the kitchen and down the hall to his bedroom. It was also a relief to shut the door. Now, Jeff thought, as he stood in the middle of his room: which dinosaur shall I take with me? And when should I leave? He glanced at the clock on his desk: just after 9:30. At ten? Maybe 10:30—no later than that. If he waited over an hour, Jeff was sure the Clarks would come into his room and talk and try to keep him company. Be Good Foster Parents.
10:30 on the dot, Jeff decided. Just one more hour.
Malachi ran out the back door, across the back yard, and jumped over the chain-link fence. Why oh why oh why had he not gone to the library when his dad and Uncle Jack had, just fifteen minutes ago? I’ll be safe for half-an-hour, Dad. Just thirty minutes. I have to talk to Jeff, Russell, and Hazel, okay? They might fly over. It won’t matter if anybody sees them, not now. Yes, I know, it’s still Monday morning rush hour, but, Dad, who is going to work? There won’t be much of a rush hour. Half an hour, tops.
After his dad and Uncle Jack had left, both reluctantly, Malachi had settled down on his bed, the twelve-pointed star in his hand, his eyes closed, his seeking tossed out before him as if he were a fisherman, casting out his line. Where was Russell? There—there. And angry and something was happening—It was then the knocking started, a loud and insistent pounding on the front door, and even on the walls of the house. Malachi’s fishing line snapped and vanished and he was back, solid and present on his bed. The air smelled pungent, as if someone had just lit and blown out a match. The pounding got louder and louder.
They weren’t pounding the door; they were pounding the magic barrier made by the talisman around Malachi’s neck. He felt the pounding in the talisman itself: the star throbbed in his hand. Malachi squeezed the star so hard its points cut into his hand. There. He could see outside the house, who was there: the Fomorii, black and dark, reptilian, their red eyes, their yellow teeth, and sharp claws. And five humans, two men and three women. Thomas was one of the men, and one of the women was ... Mrs. Collins. His teacher. Thomas moved his arms in slow circles, stopping after the third circle to toss what looked like dried leaves at the house. He talked the entire time, but his words were slurred and in a strange accent.
I should call 911. No, the police stopped answering those calls days ago. Too many and not enough police. Besides, if I did, would the police see the Fomorii? Or just five people in business clothes? Would they see Thomas working witchcraft?
The house shook and Malachi heard a cracking noise, and Thomas’s voice higher and sharper.
He ran.
Once he had cleared the back fence, Malachi could hear them behind him, howling, crying out his name, yelling for him to stop, it was all right, they weren’t going to hurt him, just protect him, keep him safe. They’re from Social Services, they are nice people; you can trust me, Malachi, I’m your teacher ... I used to baby-sit for you, my dad is your Uncle Jack; our dads are best friends . . .
By the time Malachi reached Vandora Springs Road and was airborne, he was completely luminous, a glowing boy-comet, trailing sparks behind him. He glanced once over his shoulders at the monsters and their human allies behind him: They’re eating the sparks, the light—they are drawing the light out of me. Once across the street, Malachi turned and slapped the air back at them. A shimmering wave rolled across the street, knocking over a car and a truck, and the Fomorii and their five people down flat against the ground, like cornstalks after a hard rain.
Malachi didn’t look back again. He flew as fast as he could to the library, landing in a hiss on the wet grass behind the staff entrance in the back. He stepped in, sparks popping and exploding in the air behind him. Mrs. Carmichael was the only one in the staff workroom, staring intently at a computer’s blank screen. Malachi guessed his entrance must have shorted it out. Right above her head was a big calendar, with each day in October marked off by a pumpkin, except for today. No one had put a pumpkin on the 14th yet. He took a deep breath and his luminosity faded out. Only if someone looked really hard would they have been able to see the glowing light in his eyes.
“Mrs. Carmichael, where’s my dad? I need to see him right away. It’s kind of an emergency.”
Mrs. Carmichael jumped and turned. “Lord, you scared me child,” she said breathlessly, her hand on her chest. “Why aren’t you in school? Does your daddy know you aren’t in school?”
“Mrs. Carmichael, the schools closed this past Friday. They aren’t open anywhere in North Carolina,” Malachi said. She knew that; everybody in Wake County, in the whole state—probably the whole country, the world—knew that. It had been on every radio and TV station, in the News and Observer—everywhere.
Mrs. Carmichael looked puzzled. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, looking then, Malachi thought, even older than she was. How old was she? Almost sixty? Probably over sixty.
“I’ve got to see him, Mrs. Carmichael. And Uncle Jack. Are they at the reference desk? I’ll go look,” Malachi said and started to walk past her.
“He’s working. You shouldn’t bother him right now. You know that; you used to be such a sweet little boy. Your daddy’s probably with a patron. I don’t know where Jack Ruggles is—poor, sad man. Why aren’t you in school? Why—” She reached out to stop him, to hold him back.
Malachi stared at her. Mrs. Carmichael wasn’t even looking at him as she talked. She was staring at the wall behind him, her head framed by small paper pumpkins. Her words sounded slow and thick, as if coming from under water, or through syrup.
“You can’t. Bother. Him. Go—”
“I’ve got to see my dad and Uncle Jack before it’s too late,” Malachi said and rushed past her, pushing her hands away, feeling them pulling at him, sucking at his energy. In the few seconds it took for Malachi to run from the staff workroom to his father at the reference desk, he glowed again, trailing bits and pieces of fire that scorched the carpet.
“Dad, help, help, Dad—I can’t hold it in anymore. They’re trying to get it, get me, it’s what they want—they eat it. Dad!”
“Leave your father alone, go home, go to school,” Mrs. Carmichael cried out as she staggered out of the workroom, like a wind-up toy about to sputter out.
His father turned around, practically knocking down the woman who was asking him a question. Malachi couldn’t quite make it across the room. He stopped a few feet away from the reference desk, wrapping his arms around himself, but it was too late. Everything was too late. He could see the Fomorii and Thomas and Mrs. Collins just outside, through the glass front library doors. Uncle Jack, who had been at the magazine racks, had started running across the room, yelling that he was coming, but he was too late. Malachi’s arms unfolded their grip of his sides and lightning crackled from his hands, blue-white forks leaping to the overhead fluorescent lights. The lights exploded in a rain of fire and plastic and glass. Then, the lightning, now a fire-snake, raced around the ceiling, the walls, in and out of windows, popping, breaking glass, scorching the air, leaving licking flames in its wake. Every light in the library went out. The fire alarms went off, beating the air with noise. The air reeked of ozone, of heat, of fire and smoke. People ran, screaming and crying, for the doors. One man ran so hard and so fast he knocked the glass out of the front door, shredding his hands and his face with broken glass.
“Oh my God, ohmyGod, omiGod,” Mrs. Carmichael moaned, over and over, swaying back and forth, her hands covering her face. “He’s the devil, that child is the devil—he’s Satan—Saataaan ...” Mrs. Carmichael’s last word was lost in a long, sirenlike scream, rising and falling, in rhythm with the fire alarms. She turned, ran, and fell, as pieces of the roof fell, burning, around her.
“I can’t stop, I can’t stop it, they’re pulling it out of me, help, help me,” Malachi wailed. The lightning rippled down the walls and back up and down and into the carpet. The carpet started to smoke and then burst into flame, sending flames up the walls to meet those coming down.
Ben scooped up Malachi in his arms just as Jack reached them.
“Run, get the hell outta here, go, go, go,” Jack said, pushing Ben on. By then the smoke was everywhere, thick and black.
“Go where? I can’t see the doors and the fire—how do we get out of here? This smoke, . . .” Ben said, coughing.
“This way, I know it’s this way,” Jack yelled. “Follow me, we’ll get out of here.”
A book case fell then, and another, and Jack fell, Ben on top of him, dropping Malachi.
He looked up, coughing, and there they were: the monsters. Glowing red eyes, the fire whips. Thomas stood with them and a woman as well—Charlotte Collins. All of them, a frozen tableau, as the library burned around them, flaming books dropping off shelves. The Fomorii and Thomas and the woman stepped forward and one of the monsters snapped its whip, sparking into the smoke, at Malachi. Jack threw up his arm, deflecting the whip, his flesh scorching.
“Jack, don’t—” Ben yelled, but too late. Jack tackled the monster, trying to wrestle it to the ground, until another Fomorii grabbed him and slung him toward the door. Ben stood slowly, his arms wrapped around his son, and stepped back. Did he hear sirens? What had taken the fire department so long—the Garner Volunteer Fire Department was less than a block away. He took another step back and screamed; a Fomorii was behind him.
“I’ll take this,” Thomas said and as the Fomorii peeled back Ben’s arms, its claws sinking into his flesh, he took Malachi. “And this,” he added as he ripped the star off Malachi’s neck. He screamed then, dropping the boy. “Damn thing burns,” Thomas snarled and tossed it in the direction his father had been thrown.
“Pick him up,” Thomas said to a Fomorii. “Take him. Go.”
Ben tried to move, but the Fomorii held him back.
“Too late, now it’s your turn,” Thomas said and gestured at the monster holding Ben. It threw him into a glass wall. The shattering was the last thing Ben heard.
Ben sat on the hood of a car in the library parking lot. How long had he been there? How long had he lain in the broken glass? When had Jack shaken him awake and got him to stand, to walk? When had the firemen come, one of them helping both him and Jack away from the fire? How long had Jack sat by him, picking glass out of Ben’s hair, as they watched the firemen and their huge hoses trying to stop the inferno? When had Jack put the twelve-pointed star, its chain broken and bloodstained, into Ben’s hands?
Ben looked down. The star glowed faintly against his skin, its even fainter vibration tingling.
He didn’t ask Jack for any answers. He knew Jack wouldn’t have any. The biggest question was the worst: where had Thomas and the Fomorii and that woman taken his son? They had disappeared into the smoke and the fire, carrying Malachi, using the light of his body to show them way out of the burning library. No, the biggest question was how would he get Malachi back?
Larry White swung. Russell jumped back, feeling the air move in front of his face. He had moved—very slightly—his father’s hand aside. It was all he could do. Dodging his father’s fists, with magic and by being quick on his feet, was taking more out of Russell than he thought. His sides hurt. He tasted blood from his lips and his eyes. One side of his face was already swelling and he couldn’t see very well out of his right eye.
“You’d better hold still, boy, or it’s gonna be worse when I do get holt of you. Just tell me why you let that goddamn faggot touch you. You a faggot just like him? I ain’t having no faggot for a son; I’ll kill you first. Tell me the truth, boy. Yer just like your whore mama, except you whore for boys.” Larry White swung again, hitting air.
Two kitchen chairs lay on the floor. The salt shaker had rolled up against the refrigerator; the pepper shaker lay against the stove. The sugar bowl was in pieces and sugar was everywhere. Russell could hear the grains crunching beneath his and his father’s shoes.
“He didn’t touch me. Malachi’s daddy is a good man,” Russell said softly, stepping back just out of his father’s reach. He flicked his right hand quickly: a small push against his father’s chest. Larry White jerked, as if something had hit him, and stood still, breathing hard. “He’s a better man than you’ll ever be. I hate you, you son of a bitch.”
“Don’t talk to me that way, boy. Yer asking for me to beat the shit out of you. I’ve fed you, clothed you, took care of you when that sorry-ass whore mother of yours wouldn’t. I ain’t having no queer shit in my house; your teacher told me the truth about you going over to that queer’s house, staying there real late with that other little fella, Jeff. He felt y’all up, didn’t he? My son ain’t gonna be no damn queer. Hell of a world—damn schools are closed, people are glowing like damn light bulbs everywhere you look—”
“You son of a bitch, that teacher is a damn liar, and you aren’t ever going to hurt anybody ever again,” Russell whispered as he retreated one more step. Then, he took a deep breath and pushed, harder and with more force than he had ever done before. His father, wide-eyed in shock, lifted up off the floor and slammed into the refrigerator door. Larry White hung there for a long second and then slid to the ground, his eyes closed, blood at the edge of his mouth. He didn’t move.
Russell stood very still, waiting to be sure his father didn’t get back up. He glanced at the clock in the microwave: ten. Jeanie would be home in two hours; she was only working half-days in the last weeks of her pregnancy.
Larry White still didn’t move.
Russell ran, out of the kitchen and up the stairs to his bedroom. He grabbed the red fox from the manger and then pushed the window out of its frame, nails popping, wood splintering, the glass shattering and cascading down the roof. Then, with the fox safe in his pocket, Russell flew out the window.
Jeff had just about decided to take the little blue rex and the stuffed apatosaurus when he heard a tapping at his window. He looked up to see a face—Russell’s face—pressed against the glass. For an instant, Jeff didn’t recognize Russell. When Russell pushed open the window and slowly crawled inside, Jeff saw why. One eye was swollen shut. A big, purple bruise covered one side of his face; dried blood made a dark mustache on his upper lip. His shirt was torn.
“Russ, what happened?” Jeff whispered. The blue rex that had been hovering above Jeff fell to his bed with a dull thump.
“I killed him. I think I killed him, Jeff. My dad. He wasn’t moving when I left. I got my fox and I flew away. I came here. I waited outside for a long time—I wasn’t sure you would want me like this, after what I did.” Russell sat down on Jeffs bed by the blue rex.
“You killed your dad?”
“I don’t know. I think so. I pushed him, Jeff, harder than I have ever pushed anything. He wasn’t moving; there was blood. I don’t know,” Russell said. He spoke slowly, as if talking hurt his face and he talked to the floor, as if afraid to look Jeff in the eye.
“Maybe you just knocked him out.”
“Maybe. What do we do now? I can’t ever go—I won’t ever go back there again.”
“We can’t stay here, either. I’ve been meaning to tell you, but, you know, with the shadows and you getting stuck back there in your head—my father is coming to visit me today. I was going to run away to your house or Malachi’s—but he hasn’t spoken to me this morning, either.”
Russell frowned, looking up for the first time since he had arrived. “Something isn’t right. He always mind-speaks us—every day, every morning—”
They both felt it at the same time—a mind-scream: help, help me, help me, the dark ones, the red-eyed ... The words slammed around in both their heads like sharp, tiny rocks caroming off the sides of their skulls. Then, as suddenly as they had come, the words were gone, swallowed into a deep silence.
“Let’s go find Hazel,” Jeff said. “And Malachi’s dad. They can fix your face and check on your dad and tell us what to do. C’mon—here, hold my hand if you need to.”
“Okay.”
They flew out the window, followed by the blue rex.
“Hazel, honey, doesn’t that little blond-haired friend of yours, Malachi, live in Garner?” Mrs. Richards asked her granddaughter mid-morning Monday. Hazel and her grandmother were down in the studio. Hazel sat on the floor, reading as her grandmother worked at the wheel. A radio sat on a table near the wheel. Around Mrs. Richards’s head was a thin black headphone, linked to the radio by an even thinner black wire, like a tiny snake. Alexander lay stretched out beside Hazel, snoozing.
Hazel looked up. “Yes, Malachi lives in Garner. His father is a librarian at the public library there. I told you that.”
Her grandmother pulled off the headphones and looked at Hazel. She wiped her hands on her smock and came and sat down by her granddaughter on the floor. “He’s on the news,” she said gently, one hand on Hazel’s shoulder. “The Garner public library burned down this morning and he’s one of the people missing. No body, no nothing. His father won’t speak to the reporters—won’t even come to the door—”
“Malachi’s not dead,” Hazel said slowly, staring at her grandmother’s pottery wheel. Of that, she was certain. She would have felt his death, like a sudden chill, or a tremor in the earth and in her body. Now she felt: nothing. And that was almost scarier than Malachi being dead. Nothing. No whispery echo of his thoughts, no warm brightness, nothing.
Her grandmother pulled Hazel to her chest, her arms folded around her granddaughter. “Honey, I am so sorry. I know he was your friend, but the radio said the library burned to the ground. He was last seen inside; there was no way he could have escaped. Once the ashes cool,” she said softly into Hazel’s hair, “they’ll look again—for his remains. There’s always something left.”
“No, Grandma,” Hazel and pulled away and out of her grandmother’s arms. “Malachi’s not dead. I’m going to go up to my room.” She stood up and nudged the cat awake with her toe. “Come on, Alexander.”
Her grandmother sighed. “All right.”
Hazel smiled at her grandmother and went upstairs, Alexander bumping against her side. Alex must have his own fairy glamour, Hazel thought. Otherwise, even though her grandparents were equally oblivious to just about everything outside of pottery and computers, they would surely see the beast bumping his head into Hazel’s legs was the size of a collie. Wouldn’t they? She laid her hand lightly on Alex’s broad back, just enough to feel the vibrations from his deep, low purring. And now he mind-talks, she thought, looking down at the wide, flat head.
Then, as she came to the top of the second floor stairs, Hazel felt the cat’s mind touch hers, as gently as he touched her face with his paws: Waiting inside.
“Who’s waiting inside—inside my room? Can you tell me who? Is it safe to go in?” Hazel asked just outside the door, which was covered with a huge circuitry map, something her grandfather had picked up at IBM. The door was closed and she knew she had left it open.
Alex bumped her leg and looked up at her, the blue in his eyes brighter than she could remember. Inside. Waiting. Boys waiting inside. Safe.
Each word, sharp and clear, as if they had just been cut from new paper.
I hear you, Alex, I hear you in—
Open door. Boys.
Hazel opened her bedroom door, and there, sitting in the middle of her bed, were Russell and Jeff. The window was open and a touch of wind fluttered her white curtains. A big, purple bruise covered one side of Russell’s face. One eye was a smaller, darker bruise inside the purple. His shirt was torn and Hazel could see more bruises on Russell’s chest. A blue T-rex hovered about Jeff’s head. Before anybody spoke, the dinosaur fell to the bed.
Golden boy trouble.
“I killed him, Haze, I killed him—”
“We ran away, they were going to make me see my dad, I don’t want to ever see him again—”
Golden boy hurt dark.
“Something’s wrong with Malachi. What are we going to do—”
Hazel slammed the door.
“Stop talking all at the same time. You, too,” she added, glaring at Alex who stared hard at her for a moment and then sat down on his haunches and starting licking his forepaws. “I heard something bad happened in Garner, on the radio—I mean, my grandmother did—the library burned down. What happened—one at a time. Russ, who did you kill? Did you really kill somebody? You first, then Jeff. Let me sit down first, okay?” How did I get to be leader all of a sudden, Hazel thought as she turned her desk chair around to face the two boys on her bed. Was I second-in-command after Malachi? Somehow, knowing something bad had happened to Malachi and that now Hazel was the one expected to decide made everything more real and scarier. Malachi hasn’t been kidnapped by regular criminals; he was kidnapped by magic. And whatever Russ had done, or thought he had done, was magic, too. We need an adult—we’re just kids.
But for now, she was in charge.
“Okay, Russ, talk.”
Hazel knew, from little things Jeff and Russell had said, that both came from families not at all like her own. But just how different was another matter. Listening to Russell tell how his father had hit him so many times for so long a time (“I don’t really remember him ever not doing it, now that I think about it.”) and all the things his father had said made Hazel feel as if she had stepped inside some dark and harsh and cold place, where no light came. Jeff’s story of what his father had done and then seeing the scars on Russell’s back and legs made Hazel feel ill. What must they feel like here, she wondered. Or was it that different here—where she would be invisible for days before either one of her grandparents noticed her? Her grandmother had spent the night in the hospital—but, once Hazel was well, she had become invisible again. But invisible or not, Hazel knew she was safe. It was different here. Was coming into her house a little like coming into the light? Into a church? And—for the first time—could she come back from Faerie once there? Russell and Jeff would never want to, she was sure of that. But, she knew she might. “What do we do now?” Jeff asked when he had finished talking. “Russell and me can’t go back. We won’t go back.”
Golden boy man.
“Huh?” Russell jerked his head around to stare at Alexander. “Can he talk? Malachi’s daddy—is that what the cat means? He can talk, can’t he?”
“Telepathy. Mind-speech,” Hazel said, wishing that for just a few minutes she could turn on her computer and call up her valley with its tall, white trees and big meadows and lie down in the sweet-smelling grasses and do nothing but stare up at the sky. Or better, because the valley was there, a nice, complicated computer game with good guys and bad guys and tunnels and secret passages and hidden doors and a treasure. A game that would last for a long time, so long she would be lost in it and nothing outside the game would or could possibly matter except when her grandmother or grandfather called her to come and eat.
“No, Alex can’t talk—it’s mind-speech, like I said, like Malachi does. He started—never mind. This is the clearest he has ever been. I think Alex means that Malachi’s dad can help us find out what happened. And that we should go and find Malachi’s daddy.” As soon as we can. Then an adult can be in charge and not me.
“It’s bad,” Jeff said. “Whatever happened to Mal is really bad. I can feel it—”
“The red-eyed monsters. Those shadow-things,” Russell said and shuddered. “They have him. And—they want all of us, all four of us—they need all four of us,” he added.
“How do you know that?” Hazel said, wondering what she was going to tell her grandmother when she brought down two guests from her bedroom or that she and these two strange boys and Alex all had to fly away for a while. Really fly away. Well, Grandma, you were so busy doing pottery downstairs I guess you didn’t hear them come in. Can they stay? Oh, for a few days, for the rest of their lives.
“I had a dream. I had a dream this morning,” Russell said, shaking his head and looking at his hands. “In the dream all four of us were on a baseball diamond, each one of us on a base; Malachi was at home plate. It was night and there was a wind. Malachi raised his arms and this thin, blue light came out from each hand and drew a line in the air until it touched me. I was on first, you were on second; Jeff was on third. We all raised our hands and the light passed through all of us, and back around and through Malachi, over and over, getting brighter and stronger each time. It was like a web: the light passed between each of us—I mean, between you and Malachi, me and Jeff, me and you—until there was a blue web everywhere. The light got so bright I couldn’t see the stars or the moon. And I knew each of you—I really knew you in ways and in places that I can’t explain just yet,” Russell said and glanced quickly at Jeff and then back to his hands. “We were safe as long as we were together, all four of us, and we were powerful. The red-eyed things want that power.”
Jeff nodded his head. “I guess we find Malachi’s dad then, and see about rescuing him. Right?”
“Right,” Hazel agreed.
Gold boy father home now.
“Okay, Alex. I guess we just fly over there.”
“Uh, before we go, can we have some lunch first?” Russell asked. “I’m starving.”
Hazel thought a minute. Maybe she wouldn’t have to tell her grandmother and grandfather anything. They could all fly over to Malachi’s house, talk to Mr. Tyson, and Jeff and Russell could stay there—well, not tell her grandparents anything right away. Besides, her grandmother wasn’t likely to come up from her studio until nightfall. Once she got going on a project, Mrs. Richards would single-mindedly follow it through, in voluntary self-exile with the wheel and the clay. Her grandfather was the same way around computers.
“Y’all stay here. I’ll go get some bread and peanut butter and stuff. We’ll fix something in here. Then we will go over to see Malachi’s father.”
Thomas woke. He sat up in bed. Where was he? For a long moment, he couldn’t remember: his head seemed filled with fog and wind. Then someone stirred beside him and Thomas looked to see Charlotte Collins, naked, her face buried in the pillow. She turned and looked at him with one eye, muttered something and went back to sleep.
Now he remembered: they were in her house, waiting for darkness. After capturing the boy at the Garner library, and after the Fomorii had left, he and Charlotte had come here.
“But why can’t we go with you—where are you going?” Thomas had asked. It had been only minutes after taking the boy, and Thomas, Charlotte, and the Fomorii were just down the street, hidden inside the thick, black smoke that was all around them. Where were the DSS people—had they really been there? But he had seen them fall when Malachi had thrown the ball of hardened air. Thomas shook his head: that wasn’t important. What he was doing now, what he had just done—that was important. Thomas could hear, faintly, the fire and police sirens and the shouting. It was as if a barrier, a curtain, had been pulled, between them and the rest of the world.
“It’s not yet time. You have only the one child—the most powerful one, the key, yes, but we must try for the other three to complete the tetrad and thus have all the power. With all four we can be sure we can prevent the gates from opening on Samhain. They will all try to rescue him—we’ll take the other three then. Until then, guard him,” one Fomorii said in its thick voice.
“Where do we keep him?” Charlotte asked.
“Where you called us, where you drew the circle and lit the blue fire. Where you killed your husband and we feasted on his heart and brains,” the second Fomorii said and touched Malachi lightly with one clawed hand. As if a switch had been flipped, a red light enveloped the unconscious child. Thomas could feel the redness against his own skin as he held Malachi on his shoulder; the light was surprisingly cold and rough. “That will hold him in stasis.”
Then the Fomorii had vanished. The two creatures had grown more and more transparent until they dissolved into the smoke. Thomas rubbed his eyes and waved his free hand in front of him, feeling foolish; he should be used to magic by now. He was a witch, wasn’t he? And walking away, Malachi on his shoulder, Charlotte beside him, getting into his car, and driving away—too simple. But it had worked. But then, Thomas thought, why not? Couldn’t the Fomorii have just as easily cast a glamour over his car as well? Wouldn’t he be able to do so himself, once he had the boy’s power? It wasn’t as if everything around the library wasn’t in chaos: smoke, lingering fire, burnt people screaming, the wounded crying and moaning, firemen, policemen.
Thomas had never taken a woman as roughly as he had taken Charlotte when they got to her house. Nor had a woman ever treated him so roughly, Thomas thought, as he lightly touched the scratches and bites all over his arms, legs, and chest. But it had been as if they had been compelled. The very air had felt charged with sexual electricity, an overpowering current that was in, around, and through them, catching them both in an explosion of flesh.
How long ago had that been? Thomas couldn’t remember, but their fucking had seemed to go on for hours. He got to his feet slowly, making sure Charlotte stayed asleep. He wasn’t tired at all. Naked, Thomas paced the living room, the kitchen, in and out of the bedroom, touching the sleeping Charlotte, the bathroom, and finally, he stood over the sleeping child on his couch: Malachi the Golden-eyed One, the fulcrum, the lever, the key, the one who could seal the door. The shimmering red moved as if it were a second skin, shifting and stirring as the boy stirred in his sleep, rippling across his face like blood. Malachi was his, his, his, his. And when he had the other three—and Thomas had no doubt he would and soon, they would come like flies to honey—he, Thomas, would have the ultimate power. He would be able to open and close the gates between here and there, between this earth and the earth of the red-eyed ones, the Fomorii, and they would come and bend the knee to him, the King of Darkness.
I don’t know where to begin. Once upon a time?
That’s not true; I do know where to begin. I begin with what I know I must do next; what Hazel and Russell and Jeff and Jack told me we were all going to do next. We are going to rescue Malachi from Thomas and the forces of evil.
Once I would have cringed to write such a cliché: the forces of evil. But it’s true. The forces of evil—Thomas Ruggles and Charlotte Collins and whomever else is in league with them and the Fomorii monsters—have Malachi and they are going to use him as some sort of energy source to both pry open the gates so the Fomorii can come here and seal the gates, so that the changelings cannot go home. They have to go home, Faerie needs them. And Malachi has to go home, or he will die. For the want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. Is that it? No. He’s my son and I am going to save him. If I don’t get Malachi through a gate at Samhain he will die. If I don’t rescue him from Thomas, he will die.
Why is God letting this happen? God—God? Oh, God? Are You listening?
The monsters have my son. MY SON. The monsters have my son. They are hurting my son.
Russell and Jeff are here. I’m hiding them. Russell ran away from home after his dad tried to beat him up—kill him, Russell says—until Russell roughed him up with magic. Jeff ran away from his foster parents’ home because he is afraid of even seeing his father again, who sexually abused him. I brought Jack home because his house is empty and he has nowhere else to go. Hazel ran back—no, flew back—home. She will be back.
I have Malachi’s twelve-pointed star in my hand. It is glowing and pulsating and pulling. It knows where Malachi is—a tracker? A directional finder or a magical compass?
Jack wants to try and talk to Thomas one last time, to try and find the place inside where there is no evil, where the Thomas he remembers as a boy lives, the Thomas Valeria touched so many years ago. Jack insists such a place is there.
I don’t think so.
So, this star will lead us to the child—but none of us are very wise.
I have accumulated signs of protection, amulets, charms, crystals —any and everything I could find that wards against black magic. I am thinking I should ask Father Jamey to come, with a barrel of holy water.
I will ask him tomorrow. After Jack tries to reach Thomas.