JACK GLANCED FOR THE THIRD TIME OUT THE WINdow of the Hillsborough Street Waffle House. He wanted to be pacing back and forth, moving, doing something to burn up this energy and anxiety. Take his arm with one fell swoop and clean off the table: sugar, Equal, Sweet’N Low, syrup, menus, salt and pepper. Or smash the syrup bottle against the window—which would break—bottle or window or both? A big splat of maple brown on the window? No, not maple, boysenberry. Burgundy drops. What the hell was a boysenberry anyway—something Waffle House had made up? Drumming his fingers on the Formica just wasn’t enough to ease his tension. Gulping down coffee heavily laced with Equal and little packets of non-fat non-dairy creamer, which littered the table in front of him, was only a minor distraction. Why in the hell was he bothering to use Equal and non-fat creamer anyway? If the entire world was falling apart, what did a few clogged arteries and some extra calories matter? Besides, he’d lost a few pounds since Hilda’s death. Eating had just seemed sort of pointless. Ben forced him to eat, and he did, to avoid the lecture, not because he really wanted or cared to.
No, Jack thought and glanced out the window for the fourth time, as a car passed, not falling apart. Re-arranging, changing, transforming. He shook his head and took another sip of lukewarm coffee. He was tired of thinking about what was happening: the transformation of reality into something different. He wanted the change to be done, finished, over, and for life to go on, regardless of the shape it finally had. At least the Waffle House was still open, until sundown, anyway. Everything closed then—except for hospitals. The governor had tried to keep gas stations open at night, but the owners had simply refused. Folks could just buy their gas before dark—and besides, who was driving after dark, anyway. Jack looked out the window for the fifth time at the Amoco station across the street. The line of cars snaked down Hillsborough Street. It was sort of comforting to see people standing by the pumps, holding the gas hose and watching the price and gallons add up. Yes, they were in a hurry, but at least they were out.
According to President Bush, all this would be over in two weeks. As if anybody believed Bush anymore. His sunspots theory for explaining the monsters crawling out of the Great Dismal Swamp had been given just as much credence as his ozone theory as to why all the weirdness was happening in North Carolina. Bush’s current theory was that North Carolina was suffering a mass psychosis. North Carolina was under quarantine and federal troops searched cars crossing state lines on the interstates. Cars, trucks, buses—any vehicle with North Carolina tags—were forced to turn around. That had made Governor Martin really happy.
Jack wondered idly if the other rumors were true. The lieutenant governor, supported by the North Carolina National Guard, was planning a coup. A Republican had gotten the state into this mess—only the second one since Reconstruction—about time a Democrat got into office to set things straight. A coup.
Yeah, right. Jack knew why everything in Raleigh was going to close down at sunset, why Raleigh and every other city in the state would become a ghost town after dark: the ghosts were real. Malachi was the reason. Ben’s son was the focal point. And Thomas and his witch-friends and the red-eyed monsters had the boy. They were going to use Malachi like some sort of catalyst or energizer to control the gate opening for their own ends. Jack shuddered, and for a moment, wished he had brought Ben and the other three children with him so he wouldn’t have to face Thomas alone. None of them even knew Jack had set up this meeting or what he was going to offer Thomas in exchange for the boy’s life.
Ben wouldn’t have agreed to come; he wouldn’t have agreed to even try Jack’s plan. As for the other children, Jack was sort of scared of them. Not Hazel so much, the little girl seemed almost normal, her long, light-brown hair in a thick braid bouncing behind her and her quick, sharp mind. She reminded Jack of Hilda and even a little of his first wife, Thomas’s mother, Kathleen. He had been attracted to both women because of their keen intellects. Poor Kathleen. If she were alive—could she have stopped Thomas? Or would she have joined him? If half of what Thomas said happened when he was with her was true—but it was too late to undo that.
Jeff and Russell—the two boys—on the other hand, made Jack uncomfortable. They both seemed haunted, with their glowing green eyes, pointed ears, and now Russell’s hair was becoming fire-colored: red, orange, and yellow. Yes, Hazel’s eyes were silvery and luminous and she did have pointed ears, too. It wasn’t how the boys looked so much. Rather it was how they used their magic so casually, flying and floating and moving things here and there. Jack knew Hazel flew to Ben’s house, but she always knocked on the door. Maybe, Jack thought, it is more than just casual magic—rather the sense he had of the power each boy had, a power they weren’t quite aware of yet, and would have no idea how to use, but was still there, waiting, like a huge cat, ready to pounce. Besides, the two boys were dangerous for Ben in far more normal ways. DSS and the police were looking for them, calling, asking questions—even, Jack was sure, following Ben around Garner—
“Warm up your coffee?”
Jack looked away from the window and nodded at the waitress. Worrying about DSS and the police was a waste of energy—at least it was right now. Thomas was his focus right now, and what Jack was going to say to him—
Thomas Ruggles, his only child, pushed the Waffle House door open and came inside. He stood still in front of the counter, scanning the restaurant for Jack. Jack was glad for the minute and that he had selected the booth farthest from the door. For just a brief while, he could really look at his son, the son Jack hadn’t seen since Hilda’s death. This boy—his son—the man—was thinner and paler. His eyes were turning red. Thomas’s already dark brown hair was even darker, almost black—a dull, flat black. Were Thomas’s ears pointed as well? My God. Is my son turning into a Fomorii? For who knew how many times, Jack wondered again what had gone wrong, what had he done wrong as a father. The divorce? But that had been over twelve years ago. Kathleen? Or had Thomas simply been predisposed toward evil from birth and it had only been a matter of where and when and how. But Jack couldn’t remember any de-winged flies or turpentined cats. Why hadn’t Valeria sensed all those years ago—weren’t fairies supposed to be able to do that? Or had she and said nothing—this was how things were supposed to be. The thirteen-year-old Thomas had adored Valeria—did the man want her back in some weird way through her son? That was too simple—but wasn’t Thomas being seduced by darkness just as simple? Jack wanted to blame Kathleen for what she had done to Thomas. But, even so, ultimately, Thomas had to have chosen this. He chose evil.
Thomas had seen him.
Jack made himself not look away as his son walked toward him, his almost-red eyes measuring him, adding, subtracting, dissecting. No, Valeria had no more power to see into a soul than any human —and that, Jack decided, was where the wrongness had to be, somewhere in the darkest nether regions of his son’s soul. Had Thomas been born bad? Bad in the womb? Or made bad? God don’t make junk, Jack remembered someone telling him. Then, why had God let this happen?
God didn’t; Thomas chose this.
“Hello, Father, what do you want?” Thomas said as he sat down.
“You know what I want: Malachi back and before you can do some sort of irreparable harm to him.” Father? Thomas had never called him that—he had always been Dad.
Thomas laughed and Jack felt as if he were being whipped by the sound.
“He’s the promised one, Father. If we can control him, the changelings won’t be able to get back to Faerie and their victory will mean nothing; they will wither and die. And when we finally triumph there, we will triumph here as well. Why should I give him to you?”
“Coffee?”
Thomas paused for a long moment before he answered the waitress. He stared at her with the same measuring and dissecting look. Jack wanted to hit him. My son is gone, lost. I have no son; this thing here looks and sounds like him, but it’s not my son. It’s a monster. God lets monsters exist, doesn’t he? It’s what we do with them that matters.
“Yes, coffee.” Then Thomas turned back to Jack. “Well? Why should I give him back to you?”
“Malachi is dying, Thomas; you know that. If Ben can’t get him and the others back to Faerie by Halloween, he’ll die.”
“So? After Halloween, I won’t need him anymore. What could you give me for Malachi, anyway? What do you have that I want or need?”
Jack stared down into his coffee and then slowly looked up. “You’re wrong. I do have something you want and could use. Your power is fed by sacrifice—human sacrifice—isn’t it?”
“The sacrifice of human cattle. No true person is put to the knife,” Thomas said and sat back as the waitress sat down his cup.
“Cuppa coffee cream and sugar’s on the table. Gitcha anythin’ else?”
“No. Case in point, Father—see what I mean?”
The waitress shrugged and left. Everybody was crazy these days.
“I see a young woman trying to make a living—not a heifer,” Jack said, his voice low and to his surprise, angry and almost savage.
Thomas laughed and held up his hands as if to block his father’s words. “Easy, easy. There are other power sources,” he said, glancing at the waitress as she wiped off the counter. “But sacrifice is the most powerful for covens—what did you have in mind? What can you offer me more powerful than Malachi?”
“A willing sacrifice—much more powerful than somebody drugged or magicked or whatever you do. The sacrifice of Abraham in reverse—that would be loaded with power, yes?” Jack tried to look at Thomas while he talked, but he couldn’t face the red eyes.
“A willing sacrifice. Not drugged or enchanted. Alert and aware the entire time, even to the last moment? And Isaac and Abraham—yes, you’ve done your research. That would bring me great power. Enough to do what the dark ones want and need at Samhain. Enough to trade for Malachi? I don’t know about that, Father. Let me think this over, ask the others. I’ll call you tomorrow—”
“At Ben’s house. I haven’t lived at home since Hilda died.”
“Tomorrow, then,” Thomas said, with a slight wave of his hand to dismiss Hilda’s death as the inconsequential act it was. Jack hated his son then, as if he had never hated anyone in his life. He had not known he could even hate this much. “Tell Ben to be careful: there are all kinds of monsters loose. Lousy coffee. Bye.”
Jack watched him leave, trying to stop his hatred, his anger, knowing that what lay between them wasn’t as wide a gap as he wanted to believe. There but for the grace of God go I? But he is my son. No, he was my son. I have no son. He is my son and he has done—he is doing great evil. What did I do wrong? God, why is this happening. to me? What have I done to deserve all this?
“You did what? Are you crazy? Do you want to commit suicide? Thomas is a necromancer—a black witch—he kills people for power and you want to trade yourself for Malachi? Do you really think I am going to let you do this?”
“Don’t yell at me, Ben,” Jack said, looking away from him, away from breakfast and coffee and juice, not wanting to see the pity he was sure was there. Yes, he did want to sacrifice himself: for Hilda, for Malachi, for all the others dead or whose lives had been turned upside down because of his son and the evil his son had done. His son, whom he had raised—what had happened? Was it his fault? Could he have done anything to prevent all this? He kept coming back to the same questions, over and over again. Jack had taken down the family albums and the shoe boxes stuffed with photographs that needed to be sorted and put in albums and gone through them, over and over, examining them as if he were a jeweler, looking for flaws in a tiny diamond. Was the evil there in a photo of Tom at thirteen, wet and dripping by the pool? Or it was there in all the photos, an unseen shadow lurking, waiting, biding its time? He could find nothing: no clue, no one moment, no action of his. Had it happened in the years his wife had had custody? Just exactly what had happened in those three years? He would never know.
Ben had caught him and had yelled at him to stop: “It’s not your fault. You were a good dad. Some people are just evil—or they choose it on their own.” Ben repeated himself as he got up to get more coffee. “It’s not your fault. Want some more coffee? Getting yourself killed won’t help Malachi.”
“Yeah, pour me another cup. And stop yelling at me—please,” Jack said. But my death might help. It might atone for everything. But he didn’t say that out loud to Ben.
The two men were sitting at the kitchen table early Thursday morning, listening to Morning Edition on National Public Radio, WUNC 91.5 FM, and a cautious David Molpus discussing the limbo in which North Carolina seemed stuck until Halloween. Molpus noted Halloween as the end point hadn’t been figured out scientifically—but still everybody was sure that was the time all the events were leading to. Food and fuel shipments crossed the state’s borders only during the day, on trains protected by troops. The state’s airspace was closed. Perhaps, David Molpus said, as Jack and Ben glared at each other over the table, it’s time to talk of magic as real—again or for the first time ... As for the reaction abroad, NPR turned to Sylvia Paggioli at Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain in England, where thousands of neo-Druids and pagans, would-be Druids and pagans, witches, and the curious had gathered ...
“Yelling? Maybe if you said something that made sense I wouldn’t have to yell,” Ben yelled as he set a fresh cup of coffee in front of Jack and then sat down himself. “I’m sorry I yelled. I know Thomas is your son and I know you love Malachi and want to do something. But Thomas can’t be trusted and I don’t want you to die, you idiot, for nothing. There has to be another answer, another way. Your life as atonement for your son’s sins isn’t the way to go,” Ben said in softer, more even tones.
Jack sighed. “What then? Get Father Jamey down at St. Mary’s to lead a charge holding a crucifix and spraying holy water?”
“Well, why not? It works against vampires, why not against the Fomorii and the black witches?” Ben asked. “And if the cross was made of iron, why not? Besides, even though Father Jamey is a changeling, he’s a priest. In all the old stories about priests and fairies, priests—Catholic priests—had special powers. I remember Valeria telling me the Church cast out fairies in Ireland.”
“Two middle-aged men, one priest, three children, no matter how magical or how special, against a coven of witches and God knows how many Fomorii?”
“I don’t think the Fomorii are here yet—not in any significant numbers. Just a few. That’s why they need Malachi: his life energy can be used to control all the doors at Samhain. Want another bagel?”
“Listen to me, Ben. No, I’m full. Just listen to me, okay? I know Thomas can’t be trusted and I expect him to betray us—so, let’s use that to get Malachi back. You know we have to do it in a few days or it will be too late. He is going to die if we don’t get him back to Faerie and if they use him, his power, he will die all the more faster. They will literally burn up his life. Unless you have a better idea, I don’t see how we have any other choice other than to use me as bait.”
“The next few days is right,” Ben muttered. “I had another call from DSS while you were gone last night. They want to come over, ask more questions—just a few more routine questions. When I asked them why couldn’t we talk over the phone, the woman made some noise about confidentiality and the phones being unreliable lately and besides they needed to see Malachi—”
Jack snorted. “When?”
“Next week, Monday or Tuesday. She even managed to mention police and search warrant. I told the boys to stay at Hazel’s permanently. They can hide there, down in her grandmother’s studio or something. All right—you are right. Let’s go talk to Father Jamey. I don’t like it, but I’ll do it,” Ben said, glaring at Jack. “But no sacrifices, understand? Promise me, Jack, you won’t do anything stupid. Promise me.”
“I promise,” Jack said, looking away from Ben. It didn’t matter what he agreed to or promised. And it didn’t matter what happened to him—what probably would happen to him—as long as Malachi was safe and Ben got him to Faerie in time. At least when it happened, it would all be over and he wouldn’t have to feel anything anymore, anything at all. The constant sorrow would come to an end. But I would like to have seen Faerie, see if it looks like Narnia or Middle-Earth.
It was, Father Jamey thought, actually a good time to be a Catholic priest, although he wasn’t sure the price being paid for full pews was worth it. Fear had brought the lapsed Catholics back to mass, not any sudden reconversion. But, you take ‘em where you find ’em. He looked again at his morning schedule on his desk calendar. Decidedly full, now that he had penciled in the appointment with Ben and Jack. Ben had called five minutes ago and the two men were on their way. He had them down for an hour. After Ben and Jack, Janet Thompson. Her oldest child had disappeared and her grief was choking her. Next were Carrie Maxwell and Jeff Allamaok. Probably wanted to postpone their wedding. He would encourage them not to, but, instead, to choose life over fear.
He yawned. God, am I tired. And whom am I kidding? I don’t have any answers. Did I ever really have any? People came to his office and to him as if he were an oracle of some kind or another. As if in all the books lining his walls, and the file cabinets filled with clippings and case histories and back issues of The North Carolina Catholic, Commonweal, and The Catholic Digest there was one right answer. There isn’t even one answer in the Bible—not one neat answer, anyway. Telling people to have faith, to trust God, to love, to follow Jesus’ example—was any of that enough? But it had to be. What else was there?
“Father Jamey?”
Jamey looked up to see Ben Tyson peering around the door. Behind him, looking very tired, was Ben’s friend, Jack Ruggles. Jack hadn’t shaved in what looked like a week and his hair looked as if more than a week had passed since a comb had gotten anywhere near his head. The priest stood and waved the two men into his office.
“Sit down, Ben, Jack. That couch looks like crap, but actually it’s pretty comfortable. Just throw those papers on the floor. Coffee? Isn’t the best—you know how hard it is to get really good coffee since the Weirdness started. I asked at the Harris Teeter, Farm Fresh, and at the Food Lion, and nobody knows why. The guy at the Food Lion thought it might have something to do with Santeria in Brazil, but—you are not here to listen to me babble about coffee.”
“No coffee, thanks—I’m floating in it already. Put in enough sugar and milk and it tastes all right. Father, what are you doing on the 18th, this Friday night?” Ben said as he sat down on one side of the couch. Jack sat down beside him, and leaned back, clearly wanting Ben to do all the talking. His face, so gaunt, tired. He’s lost so much weight his clothes look two sizes too big.
“The 18th?” Jamey glanced down at his calendar. Friday night was open: no counseling sessions, no rosary groups, no Bible studies. But then every night of the week was open. He had even moved up the Saturday evening vigil mass to four o’clock in the afternoon. People were not going out in the dark unless they had to. “Friday night? What have you two got cooked up? You know the nights aren’t safe.”
“Father, Malachi’s gone. We know where he is, and if we don’t get him back, the days won’t be safe, either, let alone the nights. We need you to help us—” Ben paused, looked down at the floor, at Jack, then back at Jamey. “In all the fairy tales I have ever read—and I have read a lot—priests have powers. Special powers. And if the fairy tales are true, then that has to be true, too. Will you help us? You can do things Jack and I can’t.”
Jamey listened as Ben talked. Thomas Ruggles had the boy and evil had Thomas Ruggles. The boy was far more important than he had expected: not one, but two universes’ fates hinged on what happened to Malachi. Jamey had known Malachi was special from the moment he had seen the boy. But not this important. The last stand of the Fomorii, already beaten in Faerie, but if the changelings did not return, there could be no recovery from the war, and the Fomorii would have won, there, after all. And a victory there would mean an eventual victory here. The two universes were forever linked; one could not survive if the other fell. The priest listened, pondering, as Ben explained what Thomas wanted and what they had planned to do with his help. Jack’s face was taut with pain and fatigue and a grief so deep Jamey wondered if he could ever recover.
“I can see auras, Ben, and I can see through glamour and even make a little of it myself. And I can see those who are changing, even before they grow pointed ears or their eyes began glowing. And this.” He made the Sign of the Cross and a Cross took shape, shining, pulsing with charged light that shot out green and white sparks into the air. The first time that had happened in church, he had been as surprised as the congregation. One woman had dropped to her knees, her rosary beads whipping through her fingers. A man had got up and walked out. The rest had just sat there in a stunned silence. And a handful had come after, to touch his robe.
“That cross might do the trick, Father. Priests cast fairies out in the old stories. With holy water and crucifixes,” Ben said and went on to explain Jack was to be the bait. Thomas could gain great power by the blood-sacrifice of his father—maybe even more than control of Malachi offered.
“Jack thinks Thomas believes he will still get the boy anyway, so why not make a deal. I know he can’t be trusted, and he certainly won’t trust us,” Ben said. “But it may buy us enough time to get Malachi to a gate by Halloween and back to Faerie. He’ll die if he doesn’t. I don’t think Thomas knows that—or maybe he doesn’t care.”
Jack finally spoke up. He leaned forward and talked in a low voice, his words sounding as pained as his face. Jamey saw that, when juxtaposed with Ben’s white and yellow aura, Jack’s looked all the more grey-streaked and stained with brown and black. “I’ve told Thomas I will come alone to the place where he makes his sacrifices, his black altar. It’s in Clemmons State Forest. He will have Malachi there—to use to channel and control the energy he will release by sacrificing his father, eating his father’s heart. I go in alone. And when he turns his attention from Malachi to me, then you distract him with that cross and the holy water and whatever priestly magic you have. Ben will get Malachi and I think the other three children will be doing some magic of their own. I may be able to break free then.”
“I’ll help, but will that be enough?” Jamey asked. The plan sounded too simple. Making a cross glow in the air and having three changeling children doing magic seemed hardly enough to combat Thomas and his witch-friends.
Jack shrugged. “It’s all we can do.”
Larissa, the Second, left the White City and went home for the first time since the Call to the changelings. She flew alone, leaving early in the morning, just as the sun began to burn its way up through the sea, turning the green golden, scarlet, and white, illuminating one last time the noctilucent savva. The birds became black shadows against the light. The far sky was still night-purple and Yellow Moon was still visible, although fading, behind distant clouds, as well as a dim handful of stars, a band of glowing dust. White Moon had set hours ago. The near sky’s purple had almost turned to blue.
She had only told the Third she was leaving, wanting only the privacy of her thoughts and none of the questions or worries of the rest of the Dodecagon. The hungry thoughts of the gulls were more than enough. And the beach was empty—before the war there would have been children, up early to go with one of their four parents to fish, to collect shells, to give the rest back home a break. This is only temporary, she thought as she flew soft, following the bright white line of the surf for a while, and then, as she had done as a child, out over the ocean. Fishing folk on the beach when I was a girl and swimmers in the ocean, and dolphins. They were always here, and if I knew them, I would dip down and fly through the water, in and out of the waves, over and under jumping dolphins, diving swimmers. She had hoped they would come back once victory and peace had been declared, once the Call had been given, but only a few had, and none of the people who had lived below, on shore or off.
Peace. Victory, she thought as she flew closer to the water, wanting the spray to catch her face every now and then. But at what price? There are so few of us left, so few complete tetrads. If the changelings do not come home, the Fomorii will have won anyway. And where is the First? The Prime Mover—will the Peace last, the changelings come—stay?—if she was not at the table? I know she is dead—why is it taking me so long and why is it so hard to say that out loud?
Do the Fomorii know what happened. to her? At the last meeting, when the surrender had been signed, the Fomorii lord had wanted to know where the First was—this was to be a meeting between equals, yes? He had towered over the Second, a huge creature whose black scales shed as he walked, leaving a trail of smelly darkness in his wake, patches of grass here and there withering, turning brown, desiccating into brittle dust. Had he been—smiting? Did Fomorii smile?
“No Valeria? No Prime Mover? Well. You say she is traveling in the other universes, taking her rest before coming home? How interesting, Lady. Will this journey be long enough to give her sufficient rest and renewal so she can rebuild Faerie? We are resting from the war as well. She will be home by Samhain? Of course,” he had said, with a slight nod, “you must protect her privacy. May I have another drink? It has been some time since I have had the wine of the White City.”
The Second had made a slight, quick gesture to the guard as she smiled and sat back in her seat. “Of course. I think I will join you. Two,” she said to the silent guard ...
Enough. I promised myself I would not replay every conversation, every gesture, every look and glance. They had talked of inconsequential things afterward, as they sipped the hot spiced wine the guard had carefully set before them, the tips of his ears a disapproving red. Now, as the Second banked toward the shore, her parents’ home just ahead, she wondered about the rumors that the Fomorii had violated the terms of surrender: troop movement, illegal use of magic, interuniverse crossings. Samhain was only days away. The gates would be open then, releasing magical energy into both worlds. Enough to let the changelings return, and to let others cross as well—depending on who controlled the gates, by whose will the gates open. Enough magic to overturn the Peace, no matter that neither fairies nor Fomorii would survive a second war.
She dropped to the ground behind the house. She stood for a moment, listening and smelling, looking. Flowers bloomed all around her on vines laced through a fence, up and down tree trunks, in the trees, on low bushes, in neat rows and circles on the lawn. Red, pink, white, yellow, blue, purple, and various shades in between, and all the accompanying perfume and music, the latter, faint, soft, just at the touch of a breeze. All of it—color, smell, and sound—was woven together in a kaleidoscopic harmony. They knew I was coming. They always set the garden to bloom for me. Inside she heard voices, low and muted, behind the walls of the house. Mom and Mama, and Dad and Papa. Making morning bread, the sweet, sweet bread she had loved as a child.
How long have I been gone? Too long. She slowly walked to the house, the grass wet beneath her feet, as the orange and scarlet trumpet-lilies announced her arrival.
For a long time after the fire in the Garner library Malachi was lost. He wasn’t at home in his bedroom, next door to his father. Nor was he in Russell’s attic bedroom or the dinosaur nest where Jeff slept. Nor was he in the neat and orderly room Hazel kept, her computer in the middle of her desk, and Alexander, her overgrown Siamese, in the middle of her bed. He wasn’t in Uncle Jack’s, whose house, even after a major effort by his second wife, Hilda, looked like an attic the library used for storage. Nor was he in church, leaning back against the satiny wood of the pews, half-listening to the priest, as he looked up to count the tiny, star-like crosses on the church ceiling.
Nor was Malachi in the other place, the place of his dreams, with forests of white and silver trees and gold trees and the shining sea everywhere and the White City. Malachi had dreamed of the White City the most often, next to his dreams of his mother. The City was high on a promontory, looking down on the ocean, its walls growing out of the cliffs. In his dreams he had stood on the walls, almost drunk from the sea air and watched the ocean, just as he did on the annual summer trips he took with his father to Ocracoke. Malachi loved the tiny island twenty miles off the North Carolina coast, the two-hour ferry ride, and its long, empty beaches and the wild ponies. Malachi had never told anyone—not even his father or Uncle Jack, who stayed with them for at least a few days, sometimes the entire two weeks—but the ponies, once he was old enough to roam around by himself, had come up to him. Snuffling, nudging each other, nuzzling his hands and face, they let him pat their heads and feed them apples and carrots. Malachi loved Ocracoke, but he knew he would love the White City and its rocky cliffs even more.
Malachi had seen his mother for the first time in his dreams of walking the walls of the White City. He had started remembering her when he was five: a warm light peering down at him in his crib. He had tried asking his father about her then, and learned Valeria was forbidden territory. Now he knew his mother was dead. Had his dreams not been dreams after all, but real memories of her ghost visiting him? Where did people go after they died? He knew his father still dreamed of her. Malachi could tell by his father’s eyes the next morning: they echoed the lights in his own when he began to see her just ahead of him on the walls of the City.
But Malachi was in none of those places; he was lost. There had been the fire and the smoke and his father and Uncle Jack and the Fomorii. They had chased him from his house, with Thomas and that woman—Mrs. Collins, his teacher. And the burning books falling all around, the glass shattering, and the fire. Where was he now? Even with the light oozing from his eyes, ears, nose, and fingers, Malachi saw only greyness. Had he been asleep? Sick? Why was it so hard to open his eyes? Why was everything so grey—was this yet another universe, one without light?
“Dad? Uncle Jack? Hazel? Russell? Jeff?” Malachi said slowly and softly.
No one answered.
Then Malachi remembered.
They had taken him.
He opened his eyes, even though doing so hurt, to look into Thomas’s face. He tried to move, but something was holding his arms and legs in place. Even his head. Malachi couldn’t move at all.
“He’s awake,” Thomas said, speaking to someone Malachi couldn’t see. “No, don’t try to move, Malachi. The binding spell will only constrict you even more; it will really hurt.”
“He is so little—do you really think he has all this power?” Another voice, familiar—there, she had moved into his field of vision: Mrs. Collins. Then he hadn’t imagined her chasing him with the others, just before the fire. The two adults bent down and for one moment, Malachi could see their faces clear and sharp, but then it was as if he had fallen, back first, into water. The colors and shapes blurred and smeared, as the sounds of their voices waxed and waned in loudness. Words and sentences disappeared, evaporated, between their mouths and his ears. More magic, he thought.
“Malachi ... can ... me?”
“I’m falling, everything is, it’s hard to see, I can’t hold on any longer.” Malachi tried to reach up, to grab something, but there was nothing. He couldn’t move. He wasn’t even sure if he had spoken out loud. Then his vision cleared again: a living room, on a couch. Thomas’s? A lamp, a table, chairs. Thomas and Mrs. Collins. The lamp was vibrating and glowing. It got brighter and brighter—now it was on fire. The two adults started yelling. The more the lamp burned, and now the table it was on, the clearer he could hear them speak. The fire, it seemed, was burning away whatever held him so close and in such fog.
“Throw something over it, get some water. Quick! I thought you could control him, Mr. Magician, Your Majesty, the Great Witch King. He’s going to burn down this place just like he did the library. Fireballs! Tho—”
He slapped her so hard she fell. “I’m trying, you damn bitch. You get the damn water and let me take care of him. Let me try giving him another injection—there.”
“There. The fire’s stopped, the drug worked.”
“Is he going to stay under control until Friday? He could burn us all up,” Mrs. Collins said, standing, a bucket in her hand, by the smoldering lamp and table.
“I know,” Thomas said. “But he’s under control and he will stay under ...”
Malachi closed his eyes and slept.
For a long moment Jeff wanted to tell Mr. Tyson—Ben—Malachi’s daddy—to stop the car and let him out. Anywhere on the side of the road; it didn’t matter. Or maybe he would just push open the back of the station wagon they were in and launch himself out. He would just fly straight up into the air as high as he could go until the city of Raleigh and the town of Garner were a blanket of brightly glowing colored jewels below and above was only the night sky and the stars. He would just float on the winds forever and ever, never coming down, never again touching the earth. And the hard, tight lump in his stomach would come apart as if it were a loose granny knot.
Jeff said nothing. Even up there on the night wind, he knew the red-eyed monsters would eventually find him and he would never be able to get to the other place—Faerie—where he had gone in his dreams. That had been just two months ago. Malachi would die and so would Hazel and Russell and Mr. Tyson and his friend, Mr. Ruggles, and Father Jamey and the Clarks and then all the people Jeff loved would be dead and he might as well be, if that happened.
It would be like going to live with his father. His therapist had asked him, at his last appointment, if he loved his father. Jeff hadn’t known what to say. Love his father? Once upon a time—before his mother had left—yes, he had. And did he love her?
“I don’t know anymore,” Jeff said after a long silence. “I don’t know.”
Finally Mr. Ruggles spoke. It was a relief to hear his voice. It sounded so ordinary, and it broke the memory of that last time at the therapist, and the other memories lying behind it, waiting, receded, went out to sea.
“We should be riding white horses, or be astride the back of a green dragon,” Mr. Ruggles said from the car’s front seat, where he sat beside Mr. Tyson.
“Well,” Father Jamey said from the middle seat, “this is the church car I am letting you drive. St. Mary’s Catholic Church in gold letters on both sides, and an outlined Dove of Peace and Mary herself—”
“There is a cross on the hood, too,” Hazel said as she leaned her head on the priest’s shoulder. Russell was in the back of the wagon with Jeff, staring out the side window.
“I put that there this morning, along with some holy water,” Father Jamey said laughing, “so we have a blessed steed after all.”
The others laughed and Jeff felt the knot in his stomach start to unravel. He felt, with the lightest of touches, both Russell and Hazel mentally reassuring him: It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, you’ll see. Even without Malachi to complete their tetrad, they remained linked inside a gossamer web of thought.
Huh you think YOU’RE scaredJeff I’m almost crazyscared too scared to talk about it . . .
They needed Malachi, who was the true golden-eyed telepath, to really mind-talk, but even so, sometimes Jeff could hear Russell’s voice, clear and soft, as if Russell were whispering in his ear. Only Russell and neither Malachi nor Hazel could hear him. Jeff leaned over and squeezed Russell’s hand.
And Russell could hear Jeff’s voice as easily: HeyRuss, Everybody’s scared, but we practiced and PRACTICED, REMEMBER? And thecloserweget, the stronger Malachi will be and he’ll help, he KNOWS we’recoming&what we are going to do.
“We’re just about there,” Mr. Tyson said as he drove the car off the interstate and down an off-ramp. He slowed at the bottom of the short hill, but he didn’t stop, even though the light was red. There were no other cars on the road. It was almost midnight—way too late for any sane person to be out. “There’s the entrance to the state forest up ahead.”
“It’s showtime,” Father Jamey said.
Jeff clenched his fists. This time Russell found and squeezed his hand.
“I feel him,” Hazel said suddenly, sitting up straight. “I feel Malachi. He’s not far away. He’s sort of sleepy—weird-sleepy, but he knows we’re here. He’s expecting us—and if he can wake up enough, he will help us.”
“He’s drugged or enchanted or both,” Mr. Ruggles muttered. “How can a ten-year-old boy help us—”
“Jack: we can do this,” Mr. Tyson said as he turned off the highway onto a graveled road, the station wagon’s tires crunching as he slowed the car down and parked it beneath a cedar tree. “We’ll park here. Thomas wanted Jack to approach on foot.”
Jeff wished the car’s headlights were on bright. All he could see was the gravel road and dark trees and darker shadows and a small sign pointing the way to Parking. When Mr. Tyson cut the car’s lights, the dark jumped at him, as if it had been waiting for that moment to pounce. For a long moment, after he had climbed out of the car after Russell, Jeff could see nothing at all. It was as if the darkness had eaten him, its mouth so large he hadn’t even noticed he had been devoured, a huge land whale and a very small Jonah.
“Hold my hand,” Russell said very softly and the darkness receded at the sound of Russell’s voice. Jeff gripped Russell’s hand in his, reassured by the solidity of flesh. He wasn’t surprised when a few moments later Hazel took his other hand. Nor was Jeff surprised that, when she touched him, a quick current of energy rippled between all three of them. Now he could see the trees were just trees: cedars, pines, dogwoods, and with a sudden new clarity of night vision, maples, oaks, sweetgums, sycamores.
WhyIcan see the colors of the leaves I see theleaves the texture of the bark—
Hold onTIGHT everybody, I need you all to HOLD on . . .
“He wants us to hurry,” Jeff said as the adults started getting out of the car. “He’s really sick and keeping them out of his head and connecting to us—he’s gone. I mean, the connection broke—there is something he is going to do and he’s afraid Thomas might figure it out.”
The holy water Father Jamey sprinkled on everybody felt cool on Hazel’s face. She kept a firm grip on Jeff’s hand as she watched the priest pray. Everyone seemed on the edge of crazy with fear. No, just Mr. Ruggles, Uncle Jack, as the man kept insisting they call him —he was the only one visibly shaking. He had the hardest job: bait. He had to walk naked down a very dark road in the middle of the night to face a group of monsters waiting for him around a boiling black cauldron. And the head monster was his only son who wanted to cut out his father’s still-beating heart and hold it up for all the others to see, blood running down his arm, his chest, his legs, and then eat the heart.
Hazel shuddered. She wished she were back home, in front of her computer, playing a very harmless and easy to control and understand computer game. So what if her grandparents ignored her most of the time—at least they weren’t mean about it. Everything would be a lot neater and safe and the only chaos would be chaos she could manage. The dangers would be known and predictable, but—in a way she couldn’t quite name, to be here was to be—more alive. And it did matter that she lived an invisible life. Hazel shook her head. Now wasn’t the time for these mental wanderings. She wanted to go over to Mr. Ruggles and hug him—well, maybe not hug him if he was naked—but at least squeeze his hand. But he seemed to want no one to get close to him; his aura had turned ice-blue-white, encasing him inside as if he were frozen. Not even Malachi’s dad, his best friend, could penetrate the cold.
Hazel wanted to speak, to shout, to say something to break the heaviness of the silence, weighed down even more by the dark. But she didn’t know what to say.
“In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” Father Jamey said, his clear voice breaking the heavy silence—a silence, Hazel realized, as he prayed out loud, hadn’t lasted more than the time needed for everyone to get out of the car. The sound of the priest’s voice let her hear other sounds—it was as if his speech had knocked open a door. Jeffs and Russell’s breathing. The crunch of Mr. Tyson’s feet on the gravel. The snap of a twig as an animal moved in the trees. And the wind in the trees, sounding like the low muttering of a crowd.
“In the Name of Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, strengthened by the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of Blessed Michael the Archangel, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and all the Saints. And powerful in the holy authority of our ministry, we confidently undertake to repulse the attacks and deceits of the devil. Amen. That’s the abbreviated version of what to say during an exorcism—the closest to what we are doing here, I think. Now it really is showtime,” Father Jamey said and starting with Mr. Tyson and ending with Jeff, blessed everyone individually, drawing wet crosses on their foreheads.
3:11 A.M.
I should be asleep; I need to be asleep. I need to be in a sleep so profound that I am past all dreams, past all remembering. I know that sleep will never come. I will remember and dream of what happened for the rest of my life.
Everybody else is asleep. The kids insisted on sleeping together in the same room, in the same bed. When I checked on them for the umpteenth time a few minutes ago Hazel and Malachi were sleeping back to back and Russell and Jeff were a jumble of legs and arms. The tetradic link between them is still visible: ropes of multicolored light woven around, under, over, and through them.
This must be how it is in Faerie: tetrads make a family/ sexual unit. But then how did Valeria come to me? Are there two other people there with whom I would have shared with her?
Never mind.
I laid my hand gently on the talisman, the silver-grey twelve-pointed star on Malachi’s chest. It’s glowing now—it’s never glowed before. It’s vibrating, too; I feel it through my fingertips. With the silver light of the star rippling across his face my son has never looked more like his mother.
I smoothed his hair and put the back of my hand against his cheek.
Jack is asleep. I pray he isn’t dreaming. I put a cot in my bedroom and after giving him a double dose of painkillers, shoved him on it with a pillow and a blanket. He managed to strip down to his underwear before he fell asleep. His back was still hot to the touch, beneath the dressings on his burns. The bandage on his chest oozed blood.
Father Jamey is surely asleep at the rectory. Or perhaps he is at St. Mary’s, praying. I can see him doing that now, the only person in the empty sanctuary, in the corner by the pieta and the lit vigil candles, rows of tiny, white singular flames, turned blue by the color of the rows of blue glass jars. For what is he praying and to whom? I need to ask him how he fits God and Jesus into all this, now that the Change is upon us. Valeria told me of the Three Sons in Faerie, and the Four Teachers, and the Good God, the Father, whose symbol was an enor - mous cornucopia, overflowing with good things, and the Great Goddess, Triune, the oldest of them all. Aren’t they all just different syllables of the same name?
He said he kept praying the whole time we were out there, in his heart, to himself—however he could. I’m glad he did.
I have tried to sleep. I have lain on my stomach, my back, and both sides. I have walked and walked around this house, checking and rechecking each room, each window, each door. just the way Valeria did almost every night as she set the protective wards. I have rearranged and re-rearranged the salt and the pepper shakers, the sugar bowls, and the honey and the jelly jars. I have stacked and re-stacked the fairy lore books beside my desk and I have written all this down here, in my journal, and I have been staring at my words on the screen for a good five minutes. I know what I have to do before I can sleep. I have to write down everything that happened. tonight: what I saw, heard, smelled, did. And what the others did:
Jack took off his clothes and Russell and Jeff and Hazel disappeared somewhere over their heads, floating inside their nest of lights.
“I wish I could hear Malachi like they can,” Jack muttered as he pulled his NCSU sweatshirt over his head.
“I hear the barest of whispers,” Father Jamey said as he took each piece of Jack’s clothes in his arms: sweatshirt, T-shirt, socks, shoes, jeans, underwear. “But it is a good sign. He’s not completely under Thomas’s control. He might be able to help us when the time comes. Now, let me bless you.”
I heard no whispers, touches, nothing. My own son, nothing. It didn’t seem quite fair. Jack seemed to be getting smaller the less clothes he had on. When he was finally naked, I could see how much weight he had lost. Jack’s bare body looked shrunken, frail, and no match for a black witch. Or the Fomorii guards we saw ahead, their eyes malevolent coals. They would let us pass now, I knew that. But if our plan worked, would they let us pass as easily on the way out? I reached down to reassure myself I had the iron fireplace poker hanging from my belt. I looked up to check the priest: a stainless steel butcher knife in a homemade sheath. And each of the kids had steak knives. In my pocket: a thin tube of iron filings. Just maybe—no, I told myself, just let it happen.
“Might? Better make this a strong blessing, then, Father, and a warm one,” Jack said, shivering. “And pray that nobody sees me wandering naked out here. Getting picked up for indecent exposure would definitely screw everything up.”
The night air was cool and wet with the promise of rain. I could see clouds gathering behind them, back toward the highway, back toward home. We would have to drive home in a storm—if we got to drive home. The wind was rising—the leaves were already turning over, the tree trunks beginning to sway. Lightning flashed in the clouds. An October thunderstorm? Just one more thing different this week, one more sign of the coming Change.
“In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen,” Father Jamey said in a soft voice and then drew a cross in the air. His hands glowed as he made the cross and the glow stayed in the air, a shimmering cruciform of light. “Take it inside you, Jack. It’ll help you stay safe.”
I wanted to say something, anything to make Jack stronger and safe, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have any words. Jack had never looked more vulnerable than standing naked in the gravel parking lot of the Clemmons State Forest, his skin even paler against the gravel’s blue, with the dark trees and the path into the forest behind him, the path to the waiting fire.
Jack held out his arms and closed them around the cross, pulling it into his chest. It sparked and popped when it touched him. “It’s warm—ahhh,” Jack whispered as the cross sank into his flesh. “There. I feel like I just drank a cup of hot coffee, really fast.”
“Jack?” I finally said, my voice breaking, “you’re my best friend; I love you.”
“I know. C’mon, it’s showtime.”
Once we were inside the forest, on the path that led to the coven and the fire, the wind of the coming storm died, as if the trees had swal - lowed it into their leaves. Father Jamey and I walked several paces behind Jack and I listened as they walked for what, I wasn’t sure. All I could hear was the sound of shoes and feet on gravel, and then, when there was no gravel, shoes and feet on hard earth. And Jack muttering in relief that the gravel wasn’t cutting into his bare feet. No branches stirred, no leaves rustled, no small unseen animal jumped or ran. Even the hands on my watch stopped moving. The watch’s luminous glow disappeared, as if it were a candle snuffed out by wind—but there was no wind. This can’t be Malachi’s magic; he’s too weak and sick. He could barely connect to the other kids and Father Jamey. Thomas did this; he made this empty space. Is this the sort of world Thomas wants to make? Still, silent, dark? God, those two Fomorii are scary and dark, dark, dark shadows in the night, a black darker than the night.
I felt the heat first, before I saw the fire, at first a slight warmth on my face, as if someone had touched hot metal and then touched my cheek. But the touch lingered and grew warmer: sunburn at the end of too much time on the beach. I started sweating. We walked past an enormous, old oak next, with a park sign on it and a box attached to its trunk. (White Oak, Quercus Alba. If I pressed the button on the box, I would be able to hear what the White Oak had to say—about what I couldn’t then imagine. Did trees talk in Faerie? Were they “in-spirited” with a dryad? Narnian trees were, but Narnia and Middle-Earth are fictions; this was real.)
After White Oak, I could see the fire and the coven waiting for them, shadows around the flames.
“Jack, Ben, it’s going to be all right,” Father Jamey said and blessed Jack again and drew yet another glowing cross in the air.
“Right, Father. Ben, if I don’t—take care of yourself,” Jack said and squeezed my arm. I hugged him, naked as he was, and then Jack turned to face the coven and their fire and his son.
The fire was huge. Somehow Thomas had managed to get whole trees to burn: they formed a tipi-like structure, with the fire at its heart and crown, roaring, laughing, eating, talking. The coven stood around the flames, all of them naked, the fire making red shadows on white, black, brown, and yellow bodies.
“He has stolen a church altar. Or it was given to him,” Father Jamey whispered to me. I wondered why he was whispering—surely nobody could have heard anything unless they were shouting above the fire’s roar. Sweat had plastered the priest’s dark hair to his head. It rolled down his forehead, dripped off his ears, soaked his white robe, now a wavery pink in the firelight. I nodded. I had seen the altar, too. The marble top had been placed over four rock cairns, forming a rough table. I gripped the silver star hard and tight; its points cut into my flesh. I felt a surge of power and warmth in return.
Thomas stood behind the altar, the fire at his back, facing the coven, which had stepped back to open the circle, to let Jack in. Malachi lay on the marble, spread-eagled, his arms and legs tied to the four corners of the altar. Black candles sputtered in each corner. One silver bowl had been placed at Malachi’s head; another had been placed at his feet. Something burned inside each bowl, releasing a strange scent and a heavy, white smoke twisting and curling out of each bowl like snakes. The smoke oozed and slithered to the ground, weaving itself in and around the stone cairns and Thomas’s feet. Thomas lifted a long, black knife, its blade reflecting fire, when he saw all of them. He alone of those around the fire wore clothes: a mid - night-blue robe, marked with glowing pentagrams and twisting spirals.
“Of course I can hear you. And, of course it’s a church altar, priest. But this is a different congregation than the sheep that listen to you every Sunday, isn’t it? Or is it? You might recognize some of these faces, if you look closely,” Thomas said. “But let’s discuss such things another time. We all know why we are here tonight.”
“We have a deal, Thomas,” Jack said. “My life for the boy. Release him to his father and the priest and then I’m yours.”
“Yes, we had a deal. Your life for his life, your heart for his heart,” Thomas intoned and raised his arms. The coven, in one voice, started humming: aaaeeeiiiooouuu. They stepped closer, drawing the circle tighter. I could see, in the shadows, in the firelight, individual faces: Charlotte Collins, Malachi’s teacher, a Baptist minister, the mechanic at a service station on South Saunders Street. I looked at the priest and saw him nodding—yes, there were members of his congregation here. And were those red eyes as well—were there even more Fomorii already here? Had the walls between rooms gotten so thin?
I was terrified.
Charlotte stepped out of the circle and stood behind Thomas. Her blond hair seemed to be part of the fire, as it writhed and twisted around her head—a medusa in flame. Her bare body glistened and shone and was marked with the same symbols as Thomas’s midnight robe. She must be his witch queen. I knew she couldn’t be trusted. She reached around Thomas’s waist and pulled his robe back and then down his back, to pool at his feet. The same markings that covered his robe covered his body. His erect penis had been painted to match the color of his knife.
The humming grew louder. A log shifted and the fire jumped, flames curling up into the sky like unrolling streamers. The smell from the silver bowls grew thicker and more pungent and the white smoke spread, twisting itself through the legs of the coven. I felt the fire’s heat on my face; I was soaked to the skin with sweat. I felt the terror growing, swelling and I wanted to run, yelling, knocking down the coven, Charlotte, Thomas, get Jack, get Malachi, get the hell out of here—but this was pretty close to hell. My best friend, my son.
“Don’t. I know it’s hard, Ben, but don’t do anything,” Father Jamey said softly, stepping closer to me, grabbing my arm. “Thomas is distracted and he’s let go some of his binding on Malachi. Give Malachi a chance to feel this, to figure out what’s going on.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I whispered back.
In answer, the priest gripped my arm tighter and with his free hand, pushed back the hair from his own pointed ears. “Wait, just wait. And keep praying. Saint Michael, defend us in our battle against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Wait.”
Jack stepped to the altar and untied Malachi’s left hand, then his right. Then Malachi’s left foot, his right. Then, slowly, carefully, he leaned down to pick up the boy.
“No, stop,” Thomas said, and pulled Jack back from Malachi, who seemed to be waking up, stirring slightly, as if he were pushing against the spells that had bound him on the marble slab.
“What do you mean: No? We had a deal: me for him. More power from the willing sacrifice of a parent,” Jack said, pushing away Thomas’s hands.
Thomas laughed and held up his knife. The blade shone in the firelight. “But I would have even more power if I took both hearts, now, wouldn’t I? And why should I keep a promise made to you, old man?”
Thomas slashed down, aiming at Jack’s chest, as Charlotte and the rest screamed, and the fire leaped higher. Jack caught his arm as the blade bit into his chest, and pushed Thomas back again, the blade shifting and then sliding against the sweat on Jack’s chest. It fell between the two naked men as they wrestled, the screaming louder and louder.
Malachi slowly set up, dazed, rubbing his eyes, straining to see where he was, who was around him. I started toward him, but the priest grabbed my arm again.
“No, Ben, wait one more second. Jack, this way, Jack—now,” Father Jamey yelled. “Now!” He pulled something—a squirt gun—out of his robe. An Uzi-sized squirt gun, which he shot straight into Thomas’s face and groin. Thomas screamed and jerked away from Jack, covering his face and his genitals, the smell of cayenne pepper pungent in the hot air.
“Go, Ben, get him, get Malachi,” the priest yelled and ran with me. Jack still stood by the altar, the knife at his feet, watching his son writhe in pain from the pepper-saturated holy water. The coven and Charlotte stood still, as if something had been broken, whatever had moved them as one group.
As the priest yanked Jack out of his stupor, I pricked my boy up and held him against my chest, the boy’s body hot against my sweaty clothes. Oh, my baby boy, my little baby boy. Malachi glowed everywhere, and moaned, burying his face in my shoulder and throwing out his arms. Lightning erupted from each hand. One bolt smashed the table. Another melted the knife. The third zapped Charlotte Collins in the chest. She shuddered, swallowing a scream, and fell over, her body smoking. Her hair fell about her head, long and loose and burning. Already the air was rank with the smell.
“Run, go, run, now,” Father Jamey screamed, and with one arm around Jack, dragged him from the fire, the altar, his writhing son. “Jack, run, run with me.”
I took off, Malachi close to my chest, one hand cradling the boy’s head, the other around his waist. The silence broke when we hit the graveled path. The wind rose behind me, pushing me and Jack and the priests, breaking the fire into a rain of burning wood. The rain came behind the wind.
“No, no, no, the boy is mine—the old man is mine. No, I won’t have it!”
We stopped–Malachi, Jack, Father Jamey, and I–and turned. Thomas stood over Charlotte’s body, his face contorted in pain, his arms high over his head.
“Don’t look, run,” someone yelled, I had no idea who. Thomas threw a fireball as they turned and hit Jack in the back and Jack fell right beside me, his back burning. Father Jamey threw Jack to the ground and rolled him on the gravel, beating at the fire.
“He’s mine. He’s MINE.”
Then the Fomorii guards attacked, their fire whips singeing the air. For almost too long a moment, I froze, remembering that night, years ago, when they came to kill Valeria and Malachi. Not this time. I let Malachi slip to the ground and straddled him as I whipped out the poker and slashed into the dark. A whip caught one ankle and I tripped, the pain hot and sharp. Father Jamey, with Jack on the ground behind, yanked out his butcher knife and sliced through the fire whip. The Fomorii howled and jerked back, and I rolled over and up, and whacked the nearest one on its arm. This time the monster screamed. I hit him again and again and its arm broke off, the skin melting, dissolving. The other Fomorii snapped its whip and it cut through my sleeve, taking the hair off my arm.
Malachi whimpered and opened his eyes. Another bolt of lightning erupted from his hands, exploding at the Fomorii’s feet. I remembered the iron filings then and clawed them out of my pockets, uncorked them, and with a sweep of my arm, the grey dust fell on both monsters, their faces, their chests. The one-armed one fell, writhing. The other fled.
“Now, Ben, get Malachi, go,” Father Jamey gasped, as he jerked Jack to his feet.
I picked up Malachi and ran and the rain fell, sheets of rain, cold, lashing rain, laced with hail, rain that hurt. The fire sizzled and hissed and screamed as it died. The coven broke and ran: some down the path, pushing past me and Malachi, shoving aside Jack and the priest, some screaming into the woods.
Father Jamey made Jack run. I heard the priest yelling but what I had no idea, as the rain tore his words from his mouth and beat them into the ground. I felt the ground move and I stumbled, got up, and kept running. The trees started moving then, shaking, and one fell, beside me, another somewhere behind me.
I had no idea how long it took to get to the car.
I laid Malachi gently on the backseat and peeled off my shirt to cover him. He looked so small and weak. Light popped and sparked from his fingers. The star glowed on his chest. The rain fell, so hard and so fast, I could only see a few feet in any direction. What had happened to Jack and Father Jamey? How in the world was I going to find the other three kids?
“It worked. We woke him up and he used us to make the lightning, call the storm.”
I jumped as Hazel tugged at his arm. Where had she come from? And Russell and Jeff standing beside her. I was shivering, teeth chattering, without a shirt in the rain, and they were all dry. I could see the rain sliding off the light around them.
“I know, I can’t believe we did it. Where’s Jack? Father Jamey?” I yelled, trying not to think about the pain in my ankle or Jack’s back. I held the poker like a sword. Just two Fomorii guards seemed almost too good to be true.
“There they are,” Jeff yelled and pointed toward the path. There they were. Father Jamey was helping Jack over a fallen tree. The priest had wrapped Jack in his cassock.
“Wait, we’ll help,” Russell said and he and Jeff ran across the parking lot. I could see their shields extending around the two men and the relief in the priest’s face. I couldn’t see poor Jack’s face.
It was too good to be true. The third Fomorii dropped out of a tree, right behind Jack and at the priest, a black shadow behind the shimmer of the children’s protective shields. It lashed its whip against the shield, throwing off sparks and bits of fire and heat.
“Father Jamey—look out—look out—behind you,” I screamed and ran. The priest let Jack fall and turned and threw his knife. At that range, he couldn’t miss. The Fomorii stopped, looking down at the blade in its chest, its skin dissolving and falling away in chunks around it, in total surprise. I don’t think it thought we would fight back. I shoved past the kids and finished it off with my poker.
“Come on, let’s go. Now,” I said as the rain fell even harder, as Jack groaned on the ground, as Hazel cried, and the boys and Father Jamey noisily exhaled. “Get in the car, kids. C’mon, Father, let’s get Jack up.”
Once everyone was in the car, I cranked the heat on and drove home, the rain beating the roof, sliding down in sheets across the windshield, enclosing us in a grey, wet world.
Jeff woke before the others late Saturday morning. He had been dreaming of a huge house, with many rooms and corridors, stairs, attics, and cellars. He had been in the house and couldn’t find his way to the door, his way out. He had to get out—his father was somewhere in the house and Jeff knew he had to get out before his father found him. He could hear his father calling his name and telling him to wait, wait just a minute, everything was going to be all right, really it was. If Jeff would just wait a minute, everything would be all right, he’d see. Jeff ran up and down stairs, looking for the door to go out, a place to hide. He ran down another long flight of stairs, down into a dark basement, slamming doors behind him. But his father followed him and was pounding on the last door, pounding and pounding and pounding.
Jeff sat up, disentangling himself from Malachi and Russell and Hazel. What time was it? Where was Malachi’s clock—there, on the dresser—had anybody remembered to wind it? 11:10 and someone was pounding at the front door. Jeff tiptoed to the window and carefully pulled back the curtain. There were two women and two men at the door. Both men had on sheriff uniforms—Jeff could see the six-pointed stars and the heavy gun holsters. One of them was the pounder. In the middle of Ben Tyson’s driveway sat a sheriffs car. Another unfamiliar car was parked in the street in front of the house. The light at the top of the sheriffs car was on, throwing red light around the yard. Jeff could see across the street another curtain just pulled back and a handful of people standing on their porches, their arms crossed.
Had they come for him? Had his father sent them? The Clarks said he had to meet his dad—had the sheriffs come to take him? Or was it because of last night? Mrs. Collins sure looked dead.
Move, Jeff, do something. Don’t just freeze there. I can do this, he told himself. No use in waking up Malachi, Russell, or Hazel. He ran down the hall and slammed open Mr. Tyson’s bedroom door: “Mr. Tyson? Mr. Tyyyyssonnnnn!”
“Je—wha—whaissit? Whasswrong?” Mr. Tyson had been sleeping on his stomach, buried under the covers. Jeff couldn’t even see his head.
“You have to get up,” Jeff said and shook the bed. Mr. Tyson finally rolled over and pushed back the spread to stare at Jeff, his eyes dazed and unfocused.
“The sheriff’s here. At the front door—that’s him pounding. He’s got a deputy with him—and they have guns. They are going to take me to my father. I just know it. I can’t go; I won’t go, I—”
“Jeff. Stop. Let me think a minute. Just let me think. No, don’t wake up Jack—he needs to sleep—besides with all those painkillers, he won’t easily wake up. Just let me think.”
There was Mr. Ruggles, on a cot on the other side of Mr. Tyson’s bed. He looked terrible: what Jeff could see of his face looked grey and pale. The bandages that were visible were stained with blood. He stirred and groaned.
“Go back to sleep, Jack,” Mr. Tyson said and sat up, swinging his legs to the floor. “I will take care of this. Jeff, hand me my pants over there—and that sweatshirt—God, they are going to break the door in if they keep hammering it like that. Call Father Jamey at the rectory. Tell him it’s an emergency, go.”
“Dad?” Malachi’s voice, just down the hall, sounded small and thin and weak.
“Jesus,” Mr. Tyson muttered. “Use the phone in my study. Go, Jeff, now,” he said and stood to pull his pants up, stumbling to get his feet in the right legs.
Jeff raced to the telephone. The rectory number was on a list by the phone. He punched in the numbers, as the sheriff started shouting. Please, please, please answer. The phone kept ringing and ringing. Finally someone picked up and Jeff heard a tired, sleepy hello.
“Father Jamey, we’re in trouble. The sheriff is here and I don’t know what to do. Mr. Tyson said to call you—”
“Where’s Ben? Jack?”
“Huh—Mr. Ruggles is sick, hurt, I mean, but he’s asleep, and—Mr. Tyson told me to call you—”
“Hello? Can I help you?”
Jeff froze, the receiver pressed to his ear. Mr. Tyson was in the living room and he had opened the door. The pounding and the yelling stopped.
“We have a warrant to search the premises.”
“Jeff? Jeff, tell me what they are saying. Quick, tell me.”
“A warrant, to search—”
“Get Russell and Hazel. Come here, now, the fastest way you know how. Do it. Do it.”
“Where are Russell White and Jeffrey Gates, Mr. Tyson?” one of the women asked, her voice sharp. “I have reason to believe you are harboring these runaway children and that you have been molesting them, along with your own son. That’s what the warrant is for, to find these children and take them into protective custody.”
“We should just shoot the goddamn sunuvabitch and be done with it,” the deputy said, not bothering to whisper.
“Let me see that warrant—you have reason to believe nothing. And I think I should be allowed to call my lawyer before you do anything.”
“Russell, Hazel, we have to go, now. Now, before they catch us here,” Jeff said and yanked both of them off the bed. “Come on, the back door. We’ll fly; Father Jamey is waiting for us at the church. Wake up. Wake up. We have to move now.”
“Go, go,” Malachi whispered and leaned over as if he were going to push at both Russell and Hazel. Both stood suddenly as someone had pulled them up by the backs of their necks. “Go, out Dad’s window. I’m supposed to be here.”
“I’m afraid you are going to have to step aside, Mr. Tyson, or I may have to arrest you. Do I make myself clear?”
“I still haven’t seen that search warrant.”
“This is ridiculous,” the other woman hissed angrily. “The search warrant is valid.”
“You said it, sister. Goddamn faggot, trying to tell us what we can and can’t do,” the deputy added.
Russell and Hazel were finally moving. Alexander helped, nipping at their heels to get them to go faster. “Okay, okay, stop, Alex, I’m awake,” Hazel said, when they stumbled into Mr. Tyson’s study.
“Well, the warrant looks valid. You can look, but my son is sick; I won’t have you disturb him, and so is my neighbor, Jack Ruggles. He’s been staying with us since his wife died.”
“Yeah, I’m okay, I’m ready, let’s take off,” Russell said.
Jeff shoved the window up. “Russ, go first.”
“Step aside, Mr. Tyson.”
Russell climbed out the window and dived out and up into the air. Hazel was right behind him. Alex simply jumped out the window and took off running, his feet skimming the wet grass. We made it, Jeff thought and flew out behind them.
It was the Saturday evening vigil mass. Father Jamey started down the altar to take his place to offer the Host. The two Eucharistic ministers flanking him held ciboriums, and the two behind him held chalices. The woman on his right stepped down first and positioned herself by the front pew. The man on the priest’s left held his yellow ciborium by the steps to the sacristy. The man and the woman behind the first two, holding the wine-filled chalices, took places closer to the church’s side doors. Father Jamey, as always, stood in the middle. He picked up a Host from his own ciborium and looked up to see Ben Tyson at the front of the line. Ben held Malachi in his arms, the boy’s fair head resting on his shoulder. Jack stood behind them. Jack was clearly only up and moving on sheer will power and painkillers; Malachi was obviously ill: pale, flushed, sunken eyes.
“Body of Christ.”
“Father, we’re here. What do we do now? Where do we go? I got out of the warrant this morning because the boys and Hazel got away, but they’re going to be back. A deputy followed us here—he’s parked in front of the church.”
“Listen to me,” Father Jamey whispered back to Ben, who had his right hand open to take the Host. He motioned to the obviously impatient woman behind Jack to go to the female Eucharistic minister. Both Eucharistic ministers were staring at the priest. They stopped when the communicants started following the priest’s insistent hand gestures and came to them to take the Host. “After you take the Host, go to my left to take the cup. Then, go up those stairs to the sacristy. From there, go downstairs to the choir rehearsal room. The other kids are already there. Got it? Malachi,” the priest went on, raising his hand to touch the boy’s head, “I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and ask their healing to be upon you.” Malachi’s hair was wet with sweat and he was hot with fever. “Ben, the Body of Christ. Got it?”
“Amen,” Ben said as he glanced back at Jack, who looked perilously close to falling over. “Jack?”
“I heard him; it’s okay,” Jack whispered back.
“May the Lord bless us, keep us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life,” Father Jamey said as he traced a cross on Jack’s forehead.
“Amen,” Jack said, his voice barely audible.
The Change has finally begun, Father Jamey thought, watching the three of them walk over to the Eucharistic minister holding the chalice. The grey-haired woman seemed unperturbed by the long delay, and offered first Ben, then Jack, the silver cup. It had been on the radio again this morning: more monsters in the Great Dismal Swamp, unseasonal storms, apparitions, dragons in flight, unicorns wandering in city and state parks. And the focal point, ground zero: North Carolina, Raleigh, Garner, Vandora Springs Road. The church was as packed as if it were Christmas or Easter. A dawn-to-dusk curfew was in effect. Martial law had been declared.
“Body of Christ, Ethel.”
“Amen.”
What is Your will here? What sort of world will we have when this is all over? What do You want us to learn, to do, to be? Do You want to show us, teach us that magic is real and afoot? There, Ben, Jack, and Malachi were safe in the sacristy.
“Body of Christ, Steve.”
“Amen, Father.”
Somehow Jamey knew that what he was doing right then: celebrating mass, giving sanctuary to the persecuted, was exactly what God wanted him to do and keep doing, no matter what sort of Change was coming.
“Body of Christ, Margaret.”
“Amen.”
The Raleigh News and Observer
Sunday, 20 October 1991
Gays, Lesbians, and the Left are to Blame?
“They are the ones responsible for what’s been happening here in North Carolina. Gays, lesbians, the feminists, the pro-abortion lefties, the ACLU, all of them—they are bringing the Devil and his minions into this state,” television evangelist Jerry Falwell said yesterday, the final afternoon of his seven-day Raleigh crusade, a joint project with Billy Graham, in Dorton Arena at the State Fairgrounds. Joint crusader Billy Graham seemed to be in sharp disagreement, as he walked off the podium in the middle of Falwell’s attack . . .
When Ben woke Sunday morning he had no idea where he was. He sat up, blinking and rubbing his eyes. God, he felt stiff—like he had slept on the floor. Ben looked around: he had slept on the floor. He was on the floor in the choir room at St. Mary’s. He had spent the night there and so had everybody else: Jack, Malachi, Russell, Jeff, and Hazel and her cat.
“I wonder if I can borrow a razor and some shaving cream from Father Jamey,” Ben muttered, rubbing his hand over the morning stubble on his face. He glanced over at Jack, who was still asleep, flat on his back and snoring. Jack, at least for the moment, seemed to be getting better. Father Jamey had managed to change the dressing on Jack’s chest wound and the burns on his back. The burns looked as if they were healing. The long cut on Jack’s chest still oozed blood and the flesh around it had blackened. It hurts and it burns, Jack had said. Liberal amounts of Solarcaine—all Father Jamey had for burns —only slightly alleviated the pain. At least Jack could sleep with a glass of water and two pills left over from the priest’s arthoscopic knee surgery.
Ben stood, his legs creaking. Friday, Saturday, and now, on Sunday morning, I don’t have a home. I have to live in a church until Halloween—Samhain—and what then? Where do we go? How do we get there? I have looked and looked: in books, journals, upstairs, downstairs—and my lady is gone and I don’t know which gate will take me to her chamber, which gate Valeria tried to take ten years ago.
He had watched her die, only minutes after she left the house, forbidding him to come to the door to see her off, a command he had ignored. One more Fomorii outside, waiting, the backup, in case the first two failed. He had almost died with her, along with a willow oak and a dogwood and a good chunk of the front yard. Grass refused to grow back where the trees had been. And for a long time thereafter, he might as well have been dead.
Ben pulled his pants on and then wriggled into a sweatshirt. He would have to ask Father Jamey to get him some clothes. Would the Wake County Sheriffs Department let a priest into his house? Ben shook his head. Too many things to think about. He glanced at his watch—six. And what the hell—heaven—I am in a church—was he doing up at six A.M.?
There were no alarm clocks, of course, anywhere in the choir room. The closest thing was a metronome on top of the piano and an old clock on the wall. The wall clock was broken: the glass was gone and somebody had managed to snap off the minute and hour hands. The second hand remained, stuck between four and five.
Jack didn’t have an alarm wristwatch. None of the boys did, either. Nor Hazel. So, what had woken him up? What had rang?
“I must have been dreaming,” Ben whispered and stepping over Jack, went to check on Malachi.
The four children lay together in a nest of bodies on the opposite side of the room from Ben and Jack. Ben could see Malachi’s luminous bright head between Russell’s reddy-gold and Jeffs brown, a darkening brown, almost black, Ben realized as he stood over the children. And Hazel’s honey-brown—the same? The bruises on Russell’s face were almost gone. The blue-grey cat was bigger. Malachi glows all the time now, just like his mother did when she was pregnant. The cat was awake and staring back at Ben through half-open eyes, bright blue slits that cast a thin, blue light on the worn carpet.
“Good morning, Alexander,” Ben said and knelt down to rub the cat’s big head. The beast had grown to the size of a German shepherd, but it still acted like a house cat. As Ben stroked Alexander’s head and back, the cat started purring, sounding like the rumbling of a small engine. To Ben’s surprise, it rolled over on its back and let him stroke the soft white-grey belly fur.
“You are something else, kitty-boy-oh-boy—”
Ben stopped mid-stroke. He had heard again the sound that had awakened him. It wasn’t an alarm, but a bell, a single, clear bell rung once. It couldn’t be the church—the earliest mass wasn’t until seven—no, eight, Father Jamey had said. No one wanted to be out before the sun was good and up, even when there hadn’t been a curfew.
All that was left was a bare patch of earth in the front yard. I planted bulbs of every kind, fertilized, watered, aerated, everything I could think of, and nothing grew.
Ben resumed his stroking and was rewarded with another note from the mysterious bell. This time he could localize it: the sound was right by him—right in front of him.
The bell rang again.
“You are a good boy, Alex,” Ben whispered and walking on his hands and knees went around the cat. He knew where the bell was and it wasn’t a bell.
Ben sat down beneath the window, by his son. He leaned back to press his back against the wall: that always took away some of the soreness. He gently stroked his son’s hair, the warm light twisting around his fingers. “Malachi? Wake up, son, tell me what you’re dreaming.”
“Dad? What?” Malachi opened his eyes and looked up.
“Tell me what you’re dreaming. Quick, before you forget—the star your mother left you—it was ringing—”
Malachi sat up, holding the star in his right hand. He eased himself into the crook of Ben’s arm. “A circle without grass, like the one in the front yard, where Mama died, but bigger and not here, it’s glowing, and I’m above it, high in the air. Dad, feel what happens when I move the star.”
He’s so frail and that fever is burning him up. There was nothing left to bury after Valeria and the Fomorii burned up in the front yard. Just that circle where nothing has grown since. There might be another place like that—near—but where? I know this; the name is in my head; I’ve read about it. But I’ve read so many books, looking for a clue, any clue—
The star rang again. Malachi moved the star to his left and it rang yet again. To his right: no sound.
“You dreamed of the gate, didn’t you, son? Your mother’s star is a compass—see, that long point glows when you move it to the left. And the star rings.”
“Yes,” Malachi said, whispering, as he leaned into his father. “That’s the way to the gate—now we can find it.”
“Don’t say anything yet to the others. We have to be sure, son. It’s just like a compass—if we only had a map—a map, that’s it,” Ben said half to himself, half to Malachi, “a map.” But his road maps were in the car, outside, and it wasn’t safe to go outside. Father Jamey had to have a map somewhere—in his car, the church, the rectory.
Father Jamey will be down here soon, with breakfast. I can wait until then to get the map. Malachi can sleep a little longer—he’s already fallen asleep again, even with all this noise. He is so very hot. And he’s so light; he feels like a bird. His arms, his wrists are so thin. His body seems to be melting away. Those golden eyes are enormous. Now I can get him home; I can save him. Jack? If he doesn’t die first, the fairies must know how to save people. with black magic wounds. What am I going to do without Jack? If I can get Malachi and Jack and Jeff and Hazel and Russell and that cat out of this church, past the sheriff, past Thomas and his witches—know he hasn’t given up—if.
Father Jamey brought in the North Carolina map he had fished out of the glove compartment of his car, and spread it out on the floor in the choir room. The children, all four awake by then, their questions squelched, followed Malachi’s direction and each sat on one side of the map, Malachi to the north, Hazel to the south, Russell, the east, Jeff, the west. A very pale looking Jack sat behind Malachi, to the boy’s right, on the piano bench, leaning back against the piano, as if he needed its weight to bear him. Ben sat on the floor, to his son’s left. Malachi held the still-glowing silver-grey twelve-pointed star in his hand, the chain looped around his wrist.
“Well,” the priest said, looking at each of them, “are you ready? Malachi? This is your show, sort of. Your mother left you the star.”
Malachi nodded and unlooped the star and held it over the map, letting it sway like a pendulum. “Nothing’s happening, and it’s stopped glowing,” he said, frowning and looking at his father.
“It’s a compass,” his father said. “Hold it flat in your hand, close to the map, see where it pulls.”
Father Jamey watched as the star glowed back to life and pulled Malachi’s hand over the map, east on 40, then south on 15-501, away from Durham, around Chapel Hill, and south again, and into Chatham County, into Pittsboro, around the Courthouse, and southwest on 902. Each road lit up on the map, as if someone was drawing with a luminous marker, as Malachi let the star pull his hand. And as each road lit up, the star rang, a sure sweet note that rose up above all of them, almost visible, a brightening in the air.
“It’s warm,” he whispered, looking up once at his father. “Just like that game. Hot or cold.”
Ben nodded.
Over the Rocky River, then Dewitt Smith Road, NC 2176, over 421, and Bear Creek, another crossroads with a name, and streets, roads, all spinning out from it: Old US 421, Barker Road, Roscoe Road, Bonlee School Road, Bear Creek Church Road. Harpers Crossroad and Malachi and the star were still. A slight twitch, up, another stop, and the star rang. This time it sounded like a gong, a long, low tone, which reverberated, bouncing off the walls, and settling over them.
“Here it is, this is the place,” Malachi said and bent over the map to read the words naming the road. “1100. Devil’s Tramping Ground.”
Of course. A perfect circle where nothing grows, has ever grown. I remember the stories—we read about it in school. If something is left on the path, anything, overnight, the path is clear the next day. The circle in the yard—that was all she left.
“Dad?”
Ben looked over at Father Jamey, who shook his head. “I’m not from North Carolina, Ben.”
“I know the place. I’ve never been there, but I know it. A big circle in a grove of trees where nothing grows. It’s the gate.” Ben said.
“We can really get there—we can get to Faerie,” Russell shouted and jumped up. “We can do it—we can go home.”
“We’re almost there,” Jeff shouted, joining in Russell’s chorus. Hazel, then Jeff and Russell, started playing tag with the cat, knocking over the chairs and music stands. Music sheets became airborne, sailing around the room, making great circles in the air. Jack didn’t stand, but he managed to sit up and watch, one hand on his chest, the other waving in the air, as if he had a baton and was directing the show.
Father Jamey was able to go back to the house yesterday afternoon, after the noon mass. He told me the house had been ransacked. The doors had been knocked down, the windows smashed, the furniture turned over, torn apart. He said it was as if they were DEA agents looking for drug stashes. Cushions, pillows, and chair seats had been slashed open, foam and feathers torn out and scattered everywhere. Every plate, every glass, every cup and saucer—smashed. The kitchen floor crunched. Even the salt and pepper shakers, the sugar bowl, the jelly jars—smashed into a sticky mess. The computer, the TV, the stereo. Books with pages ripped out, spines broken.
Everything.
I had wanted him to get one book—just one, The Devil’s Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Mystery Stories. He had to go all the way into Raleigh, to the Cameron Village Public Library.
“None of the books in your house, Ben, were salvageable.”
Somehow the books hurt the most. I know I can’t go back and get them—I know I will never go back to that house again. Where I am going to go—after Faerie—I don’t know. Is there an after Faerie? Do I stay there? Can I? She’s gone.
It wasn’t just Thomas’s goons or the sheriff’s boys, Father Jamey said. My neighbors helped. He caught a handful in the house taking things.
“They’re normals, Ben; their kids aren’t Changing. They aren’t Changing. They’re scared.”
Normals? Are there two kinds of humans now? The Changed and the normal? The magical and the mundane?
“I got some of your clothes and Malachi’s. Those diskettes you wanted—maybe you can use the computer in the rectory office. Here are some of Jack’s clothes. They wrecked his house, too, by the way. I stopped at Kmart on the way back from the library—got some clothes for Hazel, Jeff, and Russell,” he had said.
He came back down a little while ago, to bring dinner. He was still wearing his robes from mass, white and made from rough cloth, a rope around his waist. He looked a bit medieval.
“Are you going to stay here tonight with us?” I asked, afraid that the house wreckers would follow us here.
“You are safe in this church, at least for now. You remember what you told me about priests having special powers in the old stories? You know I can make a Cross in the air,” he said and quickly drew another shimmering cruciform apparition. “I’m Changing, too; I told you that. Look at my ears, my eyes.”
The Change must take longer in adults. Besides his ears, there is just a touch of luminosity in his blue eyes—as if there were a light shimmering behind the blue, a bit of a ways off, flickering in some distant wind.
“Are you going with us?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Father Jamey said. “I’m not dreaming of a place with silver and golden-leafed trees with glowing white trunks and two moons in the sky. My dreams are—different. I’d better go on, get to the grocery store before the panic sets in. It’s the darkness—sunset is almost an hour earlier than it’s supposed to be; sunrise an hour later. You’re safe here. I can do that much, combined with the inherent Power of a sacred place. I might be able to do more—I’ll tell you later.”
I am in the music director’s office right now. I told the others I wanted to be left alone for a while. Father Jamey tells me the music director he inherited when he became the pastor at St. Mary’s was a gadget man, sort of like Hazel’s grand father, I guess. There is a complete computer set-up and a music synthesizer and a stereo deck like something off the Enterprise.
So I can keep up with my journal for now. But even as I write this, I wonder what for and why. Writing helps me think. Writing helps me release stress, work off tension. But who will read this when I am gone? Do I want anybody to read this? People will want a history of these times—won’t they?
Never mind.
I still don’t know how we are going to escape, to get to the gate, even now when we know where it is: the Devil’s Tramping Ground.
It looks almost Edenic in the drawing in the book, a circle of earth surrounding a grassy lawn that is probably yellow with dandelions and buttercups in the spring. Trees grow close by the circle, a few almost on it, cedars, oaks, maples. According to John Harden, starting on page 54 in The Devil’s Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Ghost Stories:
. . . the story is that the Devil goes there to walk in circles as he thinks of new means of causing troubles for humanity. There, sometime during the dark of night, the Majesty of the Underworld of Evil silently tramps around and around that bare circle—thinking, plotting, and planning against good, and in behalf of wrong.
So far as is known, no person has ever spent the night there to disprove that this is what happens and that is this what keeps grass, weeds, and other vegetation worn clean and bare from the circle.
The cleared spot, surrounded by trees, comprises a perfect circle with a forty-foot diameter. The path itself is about a foot wide and is barren of any obstruction—growing or otherwise. A certain variety of wire grass grows inside the circle in a limited fashion (all right, cut the dandelions and buttercups) and residents of that neighborhood say any attempts to transplant any of it have met with failure. Broomsedge, moss, and grasses grow on the outer edge of the circular path, but not inside the circle.
Anything left on the path is always removed by the next day. The Devil kicks aside “the obstacles on his nightly perambulations.” Or, a circle worn by the dancing feet of Indians? The path kept clear by God as a “monument to these faithful Indian braves”? A battle fought between Indians before the whites came, the survivors burying their chief, Croatan, and the “Great Spirit kept bare the circle, down through the years, in mourning for the loss of a faithful chief and a great leader.” The soil is simply sterile? Or the spells that bind this gate between worlds have made a barrier that keeps out vegetation, preserving only the earth in a perfect circle? Nine times around, backward, at midnight on Samhain and the gate will open.
None of which helps me. How are we supposed to get there, escape from this church when demons and demon-possessed people. are just outside? Father Jamey says he has a plan and not to worry.
Jack is only getting a little better. I make him eat and drink, but he hurts.
Malachi is dying.
Russell and Jeff are bored and scared and excited and are driving me crazy. Hazel is waiting for her turn to use the computer. Alex is asleep.
Samhain is three days away.
I can feel the demonic outside.