“’Thena? Where is he?”
She wended her way between pieces of furniture, looking behind and under things as she passed. “I saw him go over this way.”
Steve followed, shoving things aside and choking on the dust.
“Matty?” She reached the wall. “Where could…?”
He pointed. “What’s that?”
Against the wall, a massive chest of drawers partly blocked a dark area in the plaster.
“Matthew?”
It was a hole, a deep hole.
“Are you back there?” She squeezed through into the cobwebbed cave.
Too late, he put out a hand to stop her. “Athena?”
No sound came from within. Scraping his shoulder, he tried to pass through the opening but had to shove the high bureau aside. He stumbled over crumbling plaster. Almost no light found its way into the tunnel.
“Athena?” Beyond a tight corner, he found some sort of crawl space, possibly a ventilation passage between the inner wall and outer shell of the house. Slats poked through like broken ribs. He heard a sound, a muffled fluttering as of moths, and he lit a match. At the end of the narrow space, the boy sat hunched against the wall, mumbling to himself. Barely a foot away, Athena had been feeling her way along the bricks.
From outside and far below came a sound like the night breathing through the trees, like waves pressing through the pines to break against the house.
Slowly, she raised her head and gazed at something just above the boy, and Steve raised the faltering match.
Crude iron manacles had been hammered into the ancient bricks of the chimney.
PART FOUR
DEVIL
…hatched for sport
Out of warm water and slime…
Edgar Lee Masters
…his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming…
Edgar Allen Poe
…departing dreams and shadowy forms
Of midnight vision…
Henry David Thoreau
Wednesday, August 12
He was trapped. Ernie lay in the airless little room, languid heat pounding through the tiny window slit. Trapped. He lay on the cot, an arm flung over his face. One long brown hand throbbed with infection, and each breath brought pain.
The summer had peaked, and each day it seemed a relentless ball of flame blazed over the barrens. It was killing him, he knew.
“I brung ya some water.”
One eye stuck shut, the other an opaque slit, he struggled to raise his head as the boy moved timidly into the room. Just since he’d been here, the youth had changed, grown. He seemed leaner, taller. The flesh was firm, the face clear. He carried a brown-caked mug, half-filled with tepid liquid. Gently, he held Ernie’s head and put the cup to his lips, then took a wet rag from the basin and wiped Ernie’s face with it, dabbing at his eyes.
Scratching the grit away with his fingertips, Ernie got his eyes entirely open and for a long moment just lay there, staring at the boy. Aching hunger darkened his face, and his breath became a slow bubbling. He gazed at pale hair so light it seemed a melted confection, spun and glistening, at flesh so thin it displayed a delicate tracing of blue.
“Your pop’s gonna throw me outta here, Marl. Soon. If I don’t get some more money from someplace.”
The boy shook his head. “No, I won’t let ’im.” The face registered no emotion, but the childlike voice whined in a high pitch. “Won’t let nobody! Yor ’bout the only friend I ever…anybody’d try to chase you ’way, I’d…”
Ernie reached out a hand for the cup, gulped down the rest of the water. “Who was that woman was here yesterday? I heard you talking. You thought I was asleep, but I heard you.”
“J-Just some woman. Lives down that ways…inna big old house.”
“What’d she want?”
Marl didn’t answer at first. “She just…asking stuff.”
“She ask about me?” He leaned forward, studying the boy’s face. “She pretty?” Marl looked down in embarrassment, and Ernie laughed, the sound a liquid susurration, like cellophane melting. “Would you like to go to her house?” He leaned back with all his teeth showing, laughing in harsh, explosive little bursts. “Go over there and knock the cook pot over maybe? Start a little fire?” The laughter changed to raking coughs, and Ernie tasted blood as he hacked to clear his sleep-clogged breath. Marl tried to get him to lie back down, but he resisted, choking bloody phlegm into a bucket by the bed.
Marl forced him down on the cot. “You f-feel hot.” Then Ernie lay still for a while, wheezing hard, and Marl glanced at the bucket. “I ain’t had a nosebleed inna long time.”
“Marl. Marl, please.” He muttered feverishly, the damp slits of his eyes clouding over again. “Fucking dying. Get me outta here. We gotta get out. To the woods, Marl. Gotta get into the pines. Come out to the woods with me.”
Marl held him down. “You need more water?” He glanced at the empty mug; then his gaze roamed to the window. “Hate the woods.”
He struggled to sit up. “Please. Just once.” Pushing at the boy’s hands, he thrashed in the bed, but Marl held him firmly. “Just once. Come! Please!” Finally exhausted, he rested his head on the cot and just stared at the flies that stuck to the ceiling like tufts of black velvet.
Marl squinted at the window.
“There’s nothing to be scared of, Marl.” Desperation played across the vulpine face. “You don’t hardly go out no more, getting pale as a worm. Look at you…hair so long, just like a girl. But look at your muscles.” He ran his palm across smooth hardness. “You ever see a dragonfly?” His voice went soft with weariness, with surrender. “When it’s little, I mean? Right after it hatches out in the water? The pond’s all foul, stinks.” He spoke in quick gasps. “Just a little thing, harmless. Nothing notices it in the mud on the bottom. Looks the same as all the other worms.” Already little more than a whisper, his voice grew even softer, weaker, and as he spoke he stared intently at his swollen hand. “Then one day, all of a sudden, something happens. Gets hungry. Is hunger. Starts to eat everything it can catch, salamanders, leeches. Don’t matter.”
“You ain’t seen my cat, has you?”
“Or fish, even if it’s a great big sunny. Don’t matter.”
“Looked all over for ’er.”
“One time, I scooped one out of a puddle. Scooped him right up in my hand, mud and all. After all the wet stuff leaked away, just lay there. All of a sudden, it felt like fire.” He unclenched his fist, then gazed at the insects on the ceiling again. He fumbled with the empty cup, and his hand slipped to the boy’s leg. “That’s what it does. Kills and kills. Gorges till the wings burst outta the skin on his back, and he flies.”
Marl wouldn’t look at him. The hand on his leg moved.
“…wings…in the sunlight…changing colors…so pretty…”
“Your hand bleeding?”
“Just draining a little. Be all right,” Ernie told him, staring. The light faded. Marl’s hair still glowed.
“Th-there’s this bad dream I have.” Marl stayed on the edge of the bed, his face turned away. “Bout something hungry inna pines. They always making fun a me downstairs. But I know. It’s out there. I use to try to drive it ’way, burn it out, make it go ’way.” Beyond the window, a few tall pines prodded the sky. “You know?” He turned his head and looked down at the bed. The room had grown darker than the hot glitter of Ernie’s eyes, and he watched as Ernie reached for him with a hungry languor.