I couldn't even see The Pines through the curtain of rain around us, and I tried not to think about what Lucas might have done to cause this. Instead I thought of anything else. My life in the city, full of trains and small apartments, street markets in the summer, the spires of the downtown buildings and the sharp wind that blew between them. I thought of my shop, warm and brightly lit. I thought of the titles on the literature shelf, the chaos of the children's' books. I thought about the comic books and the magazines.
The hill loomed up suddenly before us, so abruptly in the storm that I skidded to a stop in the muddy tracks left by the Friendly, already gone again. I couldn't quite keep my balance and I fell, scrambling to get up again in the mud. The boy thrust his shoulder under my arm to help, and together we staggered up the slick path to the kitchen door.
"It's locked," I said, leaning against the door for what meager shelter the wall provided from the rain.
"Try it again," he urged.
"Did you hear me? It's locked – " But even as I said the words, I jiggled the knob and the door opened.
I staggered inside and was met with an odd silence. The rain had been pelting my body for so long that to be free of it was almost like silence in itself, though it still drummed on the roof.
"Lucas?" I called, dripping mud on the floor. "Lucas? "
The boy ran under my arm, into the kitchen and through the door that led to the living room. I followed cautiously.
The living room had changed drastically. No light or heat danced in the fireplace. Most of the furniture had been pushed back into its proper place. The worktables were gone, the masks piled haphazardly into boxes in a corner. Even the little planter-box on the window-sill was empty.
In front of the bare fireplace sat a battered sofa. There was a body lying on it, and for a moment the world stopped.
Then I saw his hands, artist's hands with calluses and paint-marks and cuts, twitching convulsively against the blanket he was wrapped in. They clutched and released uncontrollably, in time with spasms that were shaking his body.
"Go to the telephone," I said without thinking. "Call 911. Tell them to contact any hospital in Chicago and have them send a helicopter. Can you give them directions?"
The boy ran into the kitchen while I grabbed Lucas by the soft white shirt he wore and pulled him up into a sitting position. His eyes were rolled up in his head.
I glanced at the window-box again. The empty window-box, where he'd been growing hemlock for Socrates.
"You bastard," I said.
A year before, two of Leon's horses had died from eating hemlock that was growing wild in a field near his farm. I knew the symptoms well enough. I'd heard them described every day for a week after it happened.
Two good horses lost. Should have seen them shake. Teeth chattering, kept falling over – couldn't puke it up and too late for charcoal. Such a mercy when they finally dropped. Two good horses.
I got an arm around his chest and lifted him to his feet, dragging him into the kitchen. The boy danced anxiously around us as I bent the limp body over the sink.
"Look for a first-aid kit," I said, turning on the taps.
"I've called the hospital."
"Good, now find me a first-aid kit. Look for ipecac or something labeled emetic. Ee em ee tee eye see. Or charcoal," I added, bracing Lucas against the sink and lifting his head up slightly with one hand.
"What's happened? What are you doing?"
"He's taken hemlock," I said, and the boy's eyes widened. "Go find the damn ipecac!" I shouted, wrapping my right arm around Lucas's forehead. His teeth were chattering but his jaw wasn't yet so tense I couldn't work my hand into his mouth.
I pushed my fingers past his tongue, as far back as they would go. His teeth latched into my palm and he bit me, hard enough to draw blood. I waited until his jaw loosened, jerked my hand away from his teeth, and pushed again. This time, his jaw couldn't close as tightly and he gagged. I could feel the spasm low in his chest – once, twice, and then he heaved and finally threw up. He shuddered and his hands came forward, gripping the edges of the sink as bile and grit and flecks of green landed wetly in the swirling water.
I took my hand out of his mouth and held it under the tap, gritting my teeth as the cold water poured into the bloody bite-mark. The imprint in the skin looked oddly canine, a sharp crescent across the back of my hand.
Lucas heaved again, and there was another sickening wet smack as more hemlock came up. It smelled vicious and foul, and I had no doubt some of it had gotten into the wound, but I couldn't be bothered to care just then.
"I can't find anything!" the boy wailed, running back into the kitchen. Lucas, now half-conscious, was mumbling curses under his breath.
"Get out of here; go as fast as you can back to Low Ferry and find Charles," I said. "Tell him what's happened and that I'm going to the hospital with Lucas. Ask him to close up my shop. Then go home and stay there, all right?"
He nodded and ran for the door. I turned my attention back to Lucas, whose twitching convulsions were subsiding. I cupped my uninjured hand under the tap and brought water up to his mouth, but it leaked back out again. I tried a second time, but his legs gave out so suddenly that I had to lunge to catch him.
We fell to the kitchen floor in a heap, his legs loosely splayed, my arms around his chest, his head knocking against mine. We were both smeared with the mud I'd fallen in and I was shivering with cold; I pushed myself up against the cabinets below the sink and held him across my lap. He'd passed out, but at least the terrible shaking had stopped.
I counted ten breaths, then loosened my death grip on his chest and made sure he was breathing too. That done, I eased him down to the floor and turned him on his side, shedding my coat and sliding it, mud and all, under his head for a pillow. When I was sure he wouldn't roll over and choke if he threw up again, I staggered into the living room.
His sculpture supplies were in an open box next to the masks, including strips of burlap he used for reinforcing plaster castings. I soaked one with liquid soap from the kitchen and tied it around my hand as well as I could, then looped another around the first.