The hand wrapped around the bear’s chubby stomach began to squeeze rhythmically, much as she had once squeezed the rubber bulb of the horn that had been mounted on her childhood bicycle. Blood from her ruptured nose slid down her throat. Then honey filled her mouth, thick and gagging-sweet.
“Swallow it!” Tak shouted, now in no one’s voice but its own. “Swallow it, you bitch!”
She swallowed. One mouthful, then two, then three. On the third one her throat seemed to clench shut. She tried to breathe and couldn’t. Her windpipe was blocked by a nightmare of sweet glue. She fell to her knees and began crawling across the kitchen floor, her dark-red hair hanging in her face, barking out great thick wads of blood-laced honey. It was up her nose as well, packing it and dripping from her nostrils.
For another few moments she still couldn’t seem to breathe, and the white specks dancing in front of her eyes turned black. I’m going to drown, she thought. Drown in Sue Bee honey.
Then her windpipe opened up again, a little, anyway, enough, and she was gasping air into her lungs, pulling it down her slick, coated throat, weeping with terror and pain.
Tak dropped on to Seth Garin’s scabby knees in front of her and began screaming into her face. “Don’t you ever try to get away from me! Don’t you ever! Don’t you ever! Do you understand? Nod your head, you stupid cow, show me you understand!”
Its hands-the ones she couldn’t see, the ones that were inside her head-seized her and all at once her head was swooping up and down, her forehead smacking the floor on each downstroke, and Tak was laughing. Laughing. She thought it would keep on pounding her head against the floor until she passed out and just sprawled here in the mess she had made.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. The hands were gone. The feel of its mind was gone, as well. She looked up cautiously, swiping at her nose with the side of her hand, still hitching for breath and letting it out in gasps that were half-retches. Her forehead throbbed. She could feel it swelling already.
The boy was looking at her. And she thought it was the boy. She wasn’t completely sure, but-
“Seth?”
For a moment he only crouched there, not nodding, not shaking his head. Then he reached out with one dirty hand and wiped honey off her chin with fingers she could hardly feel.
“Seth, where did it go? Where’s Tak?”
He struggled. She could see him struggling. With his fear, perhaps, but she wasn’t sure he felt fear. Even if he did, it was more likely his own defective communications equipment he was working against right now. He made a gurgling noise, a sound like air in the bathroom pipes, and she thought that was probably all he’d be able to get out. Then, just as she was about to try for her feet, two choked words came from him.
“Gone. Building.”
She looked at him, still breathing through a film of honey but not noticing it for the moment. She felt her heart begin to beat a little faster at the word gone. She should know better, especially after what had just happened, but-
“Is he in a building, honey? Gone to a building? Is that what you’re saying? What building?”
“Building,” Seth repeated. He struggled, his head shaking from side to side. Finally: “Making.”
Building, yes. But the verb, not the noun. Tak was building. Tak was making. What was he making… besides trouble?
“He,” Seth said. “He. He. He-!”
The boy struck down on his own thigh with a frustration she had never seen in him before. She picked up the fist he had hit himself with and soothed it back into a hand.
“No, Seth.” Her diaphragm pulled in again, trying to retch-the honey was a heavy ball in her stomach-but she controlled it. “Don’t, don’t. Just relax. Tell me if you can. If you can’t, it’s okay.” A lie, but if she wound him up any tighter than he was already, he would never be able to get it out. Worse, he might go away. Go away and leave the warm boy-vacancy that Tak inhabited so easily.
“He-!” Seth reached for her, touched her ears. Then he put the backs of his hands behind his own ears and pushed them forward. She saw that they were also dirty from his long hours in the sandbox-filthy-and her eyes stung with tears. But he was looking at her intently, and she nodded. Yes, she understood. When Seth really tried, he was quite good-as good as he had to be, anyway.
He listens to you, the boy was saying. Tak listens to you with my ears. And of course he did. It did. Tak the Magnificent, creature of a thousand voices, most of which came equipped with Western drawls, and one set of ears.
Tak had dropped down in front of her, but it was Seth that got up, just a skinny little boy in grimy underpants. He started for the door, then turned back. Audrey herself was still on her knees, trying to decide if she could reach out for the counter from where she was or if she should crawl a little closer first.
She cringed when she saw him coming back, thinking that Tak had returned, thinking she saw the hard shine of its intelligence in Seth’s eyes. When he got closer, she saw that she had made a natural enough mistake. Seth was crying. She had never seen him cry before, not even when he came to her with scraped knees or a banged head. Until now she hadn’t been entirely sure that he could cry.
He put his arms around her neck and dropped his forehead against hers. It hurt, but she didn’t draw away. For a moment she had a blurred but very emphatic image of the red telephone, only grown to enormous size. Then it was gone, and she heard Seth’s voice in her head. She’d thought on several occasions that she was hearing him, that he was trying to contact her telepathically. The sensation came most commonly as she was drifting off to sleep or just as she was waking up. It was always distant, like a voice calling through blankets of fog. Now, however, it was shockingly close. It was the voice of a child who sounded bright and not in the least defective.
I don’t blame you for trying to run, the voice said. Audrey had a sense of hurry and furtiveness. It was like listening to a kid whisper some vital piece of classroom gossip to his seatmate while the teacher’s back is briefly turned. Get to the others, the ones across the street. You have to wait, but it won’t be long. Because he’s-
No words, but another blurred image that filled her head completely, temporarily driving out all thought. It was Seth. He was dressed in jester’s motley and a cap of bells. He was juggling. Not balls: dolls. Little china ones. Hummel figures. But until he dropped one and it shattered and she saw the broken face of Mary Jackson lying beside one of the jester’s red-and-white curly-toed caliph’s slippers, she did not realize that the dolls were her neighbors. She supposed she was responsible for at least some of that image-she had seen Kirstie Carver’s Hummel figures (a tiresome hobby if ever there was one, in Audrey’s opinion) a thousand times-but she understood that whatever she might have added didn’t in the least change what Seth was trying to convey. Whatever craziness Tak was up to-his building, his making-it was keeping him very busy.
Not too busy to see me when I broke for the door a few minutes ago, she thought. Not too busy to stop me. Not too busy to punish me, either. Maybe next time it’ll be salt going down my throat instead of honey.
Or drain-cleaner.
I’ll tell you when, the child’s voice returned. Listen for me, Aunt Audrey. After the Power Wagons come again. Listen for me. It’s important that you get away. Because-