Tommy-Ray was woken by the window rattling. He sat up in bed. The day had passed in a self-created fever. Morning seemed more than a dozen hours away, yet what had he done in the intervening time? Just slept, and sweated, and waited for a sign.
Was that what he was hearing now; the chatter of the window, like a dying man's teeth? He threw off the covers. At some stage he'd stripped to his underwear. The body he caught sight of in the mirror was lean and shiny; like a healthy snake. Distracted by admiration, he stumbled, and in attempting to stand up realized he'd lost all grasp of the room. It was suddenly strange to him—and he to it. The floor sloped as it never had before; the wardrobe had shrunk to the size of a suitcase, or else he'd grown grotesquely large. Nauseated, he reached out for something solid to orient himself. He intended the door but either his hand or the room undid his intention and it was the window frame he grasped. He stood still, clinging to the wood until the queasiness passed. As he waited he felt the all but imperceptible motion of the frame move up through the bones in his fingers into his wrists and arms, and thence across his shoulders to his spine. Its progress was a jittering dance in his marrow, which made no sense until it climbed his last few vertebrae and struck his skull. There the motion, which had been a chatter in the glass, became sound again: a loop of clicks and rattles which spoke a summons to him.
He didn't need to be called twice. Letting the window frame go, he turned giddily towards the door. His feet kicked the clothes he'd discarded in his sleep. He picked up his T-shirt and jeans, vaguely thinking that he should dress before leaving the house but not getting beyond dragging his clothes after him as he went, down the stairs and out into the blackness at the back of the house.
The yard was large, and chaotic, having been neglected over many years. The fencing had fallen into disrepair, and the shrubbery which had been planted to shield the yard from the road had grown into a solid wall of foliage. It was towards that little jungle he went now, drawn by the Geiger counter in his skull, which was getting louder with every step he took.
Jo-Beth rose from her pillow with an ache in her teeth. Tentatively she touched the side of her face. It felt tender; almost as though bruised. She got up and slipped down the hall to the bathroom. Tommy-Ray's bedroom door was open, she noticed, which it hadn't previously been. If he was there, she couldn't see him. The curtains were drawn, the interior pitch black.
A brief perusal of her face in the bathroom mirror reassured her that though her crying had taken its toll she was otherwise unmarked. The ache, however, continued in her jaw, creeping around to the base of her skull. She'd never felt anything like it before. The pressure was not consistent but rhythmic, like a pulse that was not her heart's doing, but had come into her from somewhere other.
"Stop," she murmured, clenching her teeth against the percussion. But it wouldn't be controlled. It simply tightened its hold on her head, as if to squeeze her thoughts out altogether.
In desperation she found herself conjuring Howie; an image of light and laughter to set against this mindless beat that had come out of the dark. It was a forbidden image— one she had promised Momma she'd not dwell on—but she was weaponless otherwise. If she didn't fight back the beat in her head would pulp her thoughts with its insistence; make her move to its rhythm and its alone.
Howie...
He smiled at her out of the past. She held on to the brightness of his memory, and bent to the sink to splash cold water on her face. Water and memory subdued the assault. Unsteady on her feet she stepped out of the bathroom and headed towards Tommy-Ray's room. Whatever this sickness was it would surely have afflicted him too. From their earliest childhood they'd caught every virus, and suffered it, together. Perhaps this new, strange affliction had caught him earlier than she, and his behavior at the Mall had been a consequence of it. The thought brought hope. If he was sick then he could be healed. Both of them, healed together.
Her suspicions were confirmed when she stepped
through the door. It smelt like a sickroom; unbearably hot,
and stale.
"Tommy-Ray? Are you there?"
She pushed the door open to throw a better light inside.
The room was empty, the bed heaped with bedclothes, the
carpet rucked up as though he'd danced a tarantella upon it.
She crossed to the window, intending to open it, but she got
no further than drawing the curtains aside. The sight she was
presented with was enough to take her down the stairs fast,
calling Tommy-Ray's name. By the light from the kitchen
door she saw him staggering across the yard, dragging his jeans
after him.
The thicket at the end of the garden was moving; and there was more than the wind in it.
"My son," said the man in the trees. "We meet at last."
Tommy-Ray could not see his summoner clearly, but there was no doubt that this was the man. The chatter in his head grew softer at the sight of him.
"Come closer," he instructed. There was something of the stranger with candy about his voice, and his half-concealment. That my son could not be literally true, could it? Wouldn't it be fine if it were? After giving up all hope of meeting that man, after the childhood taunts and the hours wasted trying to imagine him, to have his lost father here at last, calling him from the house with a code known only to fathers and sons. So fine, so very fine.
"Where's my daughter?" the man said. "Where's Jo-Beth?"
"I think she's in the house."
"Go fetch her for me, will you?"
"In a minute."
"Now!"
"I want to see you first. I want to know this isn't a trick."
The stranger laughed.
"Already I hear my voice in you," he said. "I've had tricks played on me, too. It makes us cautious, yes?"
"Yes."
"Of course you must see me," he said, stepping out of the trees. "I am your father. I am the Jaff."
As Jo-Beth reached the bottom of the stairs she heard Momma call from her room.
"Jo-Beth? What's happening?"
"It's all right, Momma."
"Come here! Something terrible...in my sleep..."
"A moment, Momma. Stay in bed."
"Terrible—"
"I'll be back in a while. Just stay where you are."
He was here, in the flesh: the father Tommy-Ray had dreamed of in a thousand forms since he'd realized that other boys had a second parent, a parent whose sex they shared, who knew men's stuff, and passed it down to their sons. Sometimes he'd fantasized that he was some movie star's bastard, and that one day a limo would glide up the street and a famous smile step out and say exactly what the Jaff had just said. But this man was better than any movie star. He didn't look like much, but he shared with the faces the world idolized an eerie poise, as though he was beyond needing to demonstrate his power. Where that authority came from Tommy-Ray didn't yet know, but its signs were perfectly visible.
"I'm your father," the Jaff said again. "Do you believe me?"
Of course he did. He'd be a fool to deny a father like this.
"Yes," he said, "I believe you."
"And you'll obey me like a loving son?"
"Yes, I will."
"Good," the Jaff said, "so now, please fetch me my daughter. I called her but she refuses to come. You know why..."
"No."
"Think."
Tommy-Ray thought, but no answer immediately sprang to mind.
"My enemy," the Jaff said, "has touched her."
Katz, Tommy-Ray thought: he means that fuckwit Katz.