Swan Song

by Robert R. McCammon

  The man had turned and walked purposefully away. It was the stride of a man who had things to do and places to go. And maybe that was why Robin remembered him. But then Robin had shifted his position, laid his head back down and slept until awakened by cold bits of snow on his eyelids.

  “When do we get our guns back?” he asked her.

  “Not until Josh says so.”

  “Listen, lady! Nobody takes my gun away from me! I want it back!”

  She smiled at him indulgently. “You’ll get it. When Josh says so.”

  “Hey, Anna!” Aaron called from a little further down the road. He was playing with Crybaby. “Can you come see the magic now?”

  “Later!” she replied, and she went back to ladling out the root and rat meat concoction. She even began to whistle as she worked—one of her favorite tunes, “Bali Ha’i” from South Pacific.

  Robin knew there was no way to get his rifle back except to storm the shack. Neither he nor the other boys had been allowed inside since they’d gotten there, and Robin was getting pissed. “What the hell are you so happy about?” he snapped.

  “Because,” she answered, “this is a great and glorious morning. So glorious that not even a punk like you can get under my skin. See?” And she flashed him a quick grin that showed all of her front teeth.

  “What’s so great and glorious about it?” He flung out the rest of his soup. “Looks about the same to me—dark and cold.” But he’d noted that her eyes were different; they were clear and excited. “What’s going on?”

  Sister came outside, with the leather satchel that never left her. She drew in a breath of cold air to clear her head, because she’d been up and watching over Swan, along with the others, since well before dawn. “Can I help you?” she asked Anna.

  “Naw, I got it. That’s the last one.” She ladled soup into the final bowl. All but Robin had returned to the bonfire to eat their meals. “How is she?”

  “Still the same.” Sister stretched and heard her old joints pop and click. “She’s breathing fine, and her fever’s gone—but she’s still the same.”

  “What’s going on?” Robin demanded.

  Anna took his empty bowl from him and dropped it into the pot. “When Josh wants you to know, he’ll tell you. And everybody else, too.”

  Robin looked at Sister. “What’s wrong with Swan?” he asked in a quieter voice.

  Sister glanced quickly at Anna, then back to the young man. He was awaiting an answer, and she thought he deserved one. “She’s ... changed.”

  “Changed? Into what? A frog?” He smiled, but Sister didn’t return it, and he let the smile slip away. “Why don’t I get to see her? I’m not going to attack her or anything. Besides, I’m the one who saw her and the big dude in that glass thing. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here. Doesn’t that make me rate anything?”

  Anna said, “When Josh says you—”

  “I’m not talking to you, Big Mama!” Robin interrupted, and his cool, level gaze bored right into her skull. She flinched just a fraction, then returned his stare full-force. “I don’t give a damn what Josh says or wants,” he continued, unshaken. “I should be able to see Swan.” He motioned to the leather satchel. “I know you believe that glass ring guided you here,” he told Sister. “Well, did you ever stop to think that maybe it guided me here, too?”

  That idea gave her food for thought. He might be right. Besides herself, he was the only person who’d seen a vision of Swan in the depths of the glass circle.

  “How about it?” he asked.

  “All right,” she decided. “Come on.”

  “Hey! Don’t you think we ought to ask Josh first?”

  “No. It’s okay.” She went to the door and opened it.

  “Why don’t you comb that hair?” Anna told him as he came up the steps. “It looks like a freakin’ bird’s nest!”

  He smiled sourly at her. “Why don’t you grow some hair? Like on your face.” And then he walked past Sister and into the shack.

  Before she went in, Sister asked Anna if Gene and Zachial had found the cripple in the child’s red wagon. Anna said they hadn’t reported back yet, that they’d been gone for about two hours and that she was getting worried about them. “What do you want with him?” she asked. “He’s crazy in the head, is all.”

  “Maybe so. And maybe he’s crazy like a fox, too.” And then Sister entered the shack while the other woman went to collect the empty soup bowls.

  “Hey, Anna!” Aaron called. “Will you come see the magic now?”

  Inside the shack, Paul had shown an interest in the printing press and had taken some of it apart, and he and Glory were cleaning the gears and rollers with ashes. She looked warily at Robin as he walked to the stove and warmed his hands, but Paul said, “He’s all right,” and she returned to work.

  Sister motioned for Robin to follow. They started into the next room, but Josh’s bulk suddenly blocked the doorway. “What’s he doing in here?”

  “I invited him. I told him he could see Swan.”

  “She’s still asleep. Either she was awfully exhausted, or ... there’s something still wrong with her.” He angled his head so his eye was aimed at Robin. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to go in.”

  “Come on, man! What’s the big mystery? I just want to see what she looks like, that’s all!”

  Josh ignored him but did not move from the doorway. He turned his attention to Sister. “Aren’t Gene and Zachial back yet?”

  “No. Anna says she’s getting worried. I am, too.”

  Josh grunted. He, too, was deeply concerned. Sister had told him about the man with the flaming hand in the Forty-second Street theater, and about her meeting with Doyle Halland in New Jersey. She’d told him about the man who was bicycling on the Pennsylvania highway with a pack of wolves jogging at his heels, and who’d just missed her at the rescue station of Homewood. He could change his face and his body, too, she’d said. He could appear to be anyone, even a cripple. That would be a good disguise, she’d told Josh, because who would expect that a crippled man was as dangerous as a mad dog among sheep? What she couldn’t figure out, though, was how he’d tracked her down. Had he decided to settle here and been waiting for her or for somebody who might have seen the glass ring? Anna had said that Mr. Welcome had only been there a couple of days, but then again he could have been living in Mary’s Rest in any number of disguises. However and whenever he’d arrived, Mr. Welcome had to be found, and Gene and Zachial had gone looking for him armed to the teeth.

  “He was here,” Josh remembered Swan saying. “The man with the scarlet eye.”

  “Should we send somebody to find them?” Sister asked.

  “What?” He came back from his thoughts.

  “Gene and Zachial. Should we start looking for them?”

  “No, not yet.” He’d wanted to go with them, but Glory had grasped his sleeve and said he needed to stay near Swan. She knows what he is, Josh had thought. And maybe she was trying to save his life, too. “The man with the scarlet eye,” he said softly.

  “Huh?” Robin frowned, not knowing if he’d heard correctly.

  “That’s what Swan calls him.” He did not tell the boy that the lettering on that particular tarot card had read THE DEVIL.

  “Riiiight,” Robin scoffed. “You two must have some strong medicine stashed around here, big dude.”

  “I wish.” Josh decided that Robin was okay—a little rough around the edges, of course, but wasn’t everybody these days? “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. You can go in, but you can only stay for two minutes. Understand?” He waited until the boy nodded, and then he went to the front room. The entrance to where Swan lay sleeping was unblocked.

  But Robin hesitated. His palms were clammy. By the lamplight, he could make out a figure lying on the cot. A blanket was pulled up to her chin, but her face was averted, and he couldn’t see it.

  “Go on,” Sister told him.

  I’m scared shitless!
he realized. “What did you mean, ‘she’s changed’? Is she ... y’know ... messed up?”

  “Go in and see for yourself.”

  His feet refused to budge. “She’s pretty important, isn’t she? I mean, if she made the corn start growing again, she must really be somebody special. Right?”

  “You’d better go in. You’re wasting your two minutes.” She gave him a shove, and he entered the bedroom. Sister followed him.

  Robin walked to the side of the bed. He was as nervous as if he was about to get his hands whacked by one of the nuns for throwing spitballs.

  He saw a spill of golden hair on the patchwork pillow. It shone in the lamplight like newly mown hay, but it was flecked here and there with hints of red.

  His knees bumped the edge of the bed. He was entranced by that hair. He’d forgotten what clean hair looked like.

  And then she shifted position under the blanket and turned onto her back, and Robin saw her face.

  She was still sleeping, her features peaceful. Her hair flowed back like a mane from her high, unlined forehead, and streaks of red coursed through the hair at her temples like flames in a yellow field. She had an oval-shaped face, and she was ... yes, Robin thought. Yes. She was beautiful. The most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

  Reddish-blond brows made crescents over her closed eyes. She had a straight, elegant nose and sharp cheekbones, and in her chin was a small star-shaped cleft. Her skin was very pale, almost translucent; its hue reminded Robin of what the moon had looked like on a clear summer night in the world that used to be.

  Robin’s gaze wandered over her face—but timidly, like someone exploring a lovely garden where there is no path. He wondered what she’d look like awake, what color her eyes would be, what her voice would sound like, how her lips would move. His eyes couldn’t get enough of her. She looked like the daughter of a marriage between ice and fire.

  Wake up, he thought. Please wake up.

  She lay sleeping and still.

  But something awakened within himself.

  Wake up. Wake up, Swan, he wished. Het eyes remained closed.

  A voice jarred his rapture. “Josh! Glory! Come out here and look at this!” It was that old bat Anna, he realized. Calling from the front door.

  He returned his attention to Swan.

  “Let me see what’s going on,” Sister said. “I’ll be right back.” She left the room, but Robin had hardly heard her.

  He reached out to touch Swan’s cheek but stopped himself. He didn’t feel clean enough to touch her. His clothes were tattered and stiff with sweat and grime, and his hands were dirty. Anna was right about his hair looking like a bird’s nest. Why the hell had he ever wanted to braid feathers and bones in his hair? he wondered. It had been something to do, he guessed, and at the time he’d thought it was pretty cool. Now he just felt dumb.

  “Wake up, Swan,” he whispered. There was still no response. A fly suddenly dropped down, hovering above her face, and Robin snatched it in his fist and crushed it against his leg because a filthy thing like that had no business in here with her. The insect stung his skin just a little bit, but he barely noticed.

  He stood staring down at her face and thinking of all the things he’d ever heard about love. Man! he thought. The guys sure would howl if they could see me right now!

  But she was so beautiful that he thought his heart might crack.

  Sister would be back at any second. If he was going to do what he yearned to, he would have to do it fast.

  “Wake up,” he whispered again, and when she still didn’t move he lowered his head and lightly kissed the corner of her mouth.

  The warmth of her lips under his own shocked him, and he caught the aroma of her skin like a faint breeze through a peach orchard. His heart was hammering like a heavy metal drumbeat, but he let the kiss linger. And linger. And linger.

  Then he ended it, scared to death that Sister or one of the others would barge in. That big dude would boot him so high and far he could hitch a ride on a satellite, if any of those were still up th—

  Swan moved. Robin was sure of it. Something had moved—an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth, maybe a twitch of the cheek or jaw. He leaned over her, his face only a few inches from hers.

  Her eyes opened without warning.

  He was so startled he jerked his head back, as if she were a statue coming to life. Her eyes were dark blue, necked with red and gold, and their colors made him think of the glass ring. She sat up, one hand fluttering to her lips where the kiss had lingered, and then Robin saw her pale cheeks bloom vivid pink.

  She lifted her right hand, and before Robin could think to duck, a stinging slap was delivered to the side of his face.

  He staggered back a few feet before he caught himself. His own cheek was reddening now, but he managed a goofy grin. He could think of nothing better to say than “Hi.”

  Swan stared at her hands. Touched her face. Ran her fingers along her nose, across her mouth, felt the ridges of her cheekbones and the line of her jaw. She was shaking and about to cry, and she didn’t know who the boy with feathers and bones in his hair was, but she’d hit him because she’d thought he was about to attack her. Everything was confused and crazy, but she had a face again, and she could see clearly through both eyes. She caught a glint of reddish gold from the corner of her eye, and she took a long strand of her own hair between her fingers. She stared at it as if she wasn’t sure what the stuff was. The last time she’d had hair, she remembered, was on the day she and her mama had walked into that dusty grocery store in Kansas.

  My hair used to be pale blond, she recalled. Now it was the color of fire.

  “I can see!” she told the boy as tears slid down her smooth cheeks. “I can see again!” Her voice, without the Job’s Mask pressing at her mouth and nostrils, was different, too; it was the soft, smoky voice of a girl on the edge of being a woman—and now her voice strained with excitement as she called, “Josh! Josh!”

  Robin ran out to get Sister, with the image of the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen stamped like a cameo into his brain.

  But Sister wasn’t in the front room. She was standing at the foot of the porch steps, along with Glory and Paul.

  Josh and Anna stood on either side of Aaron, about thirty-five feet from the porch and almost dead center in the road.

  Aaron was the focus of rapt attention. “See?” he crowed. “I told you it was magic! You just gotta know how to hold it!”

  The two small branches that jutted off at opposite angles from Crybaby were balanced on the tips of Aaron’s forefingers. The dowsing rod’s other end was going up and down, up and down like the action of a pump. Aaron grinned proudly at his magic trick, all eyes and shining teeth, as more people gathered around.

  “I do believe you might’ve found us a well,” Josh said wonderingly.

  “Huh?” Aaron asked as Crybaby continued to point the way to fresh water.

  At the steps, Sister felt a hand grip her shoulder. She turned and saw Robin standing there. He was trying to speak, but he was so flustered he couldn’t get the words out. She saw the splayed red handprint on his cheek, and she was about to push him aside and run into the shack when Swan came through the doorway, the blanket wrapped around her tall, thin body and her legs as uncertain as a fawn’s. She squinted and blinked in the dim gray light.

  Sister could have been knocked over by a snowflake, and then she heard Robin whisper, “Oh,” as if he’d been physically struck—and she knew.

  Anna looked up from the bobbing dowsing rod. Josh turned around and saw what the others had already seen.

  He took one step, a second and a third, and then he broke into a run that would have bowled even Haystacks Muldoon flat on his back. The people who’d gathered around scrambled out of his way.

  He bounded up the steps, and Swan was already reaching out for him and just about to fall. He swept her off her feet before she tumbled, and he squeezed her to his chest and thought, Thank God, thank God my
daughter’s come back!

  He sank his deformed head against her shoulder and began to cry—and Swan heard it not as a hurting sound this time, but as a song of new-found joy.

  TWELVE

  True Faces

  Mr. Caidin’s son

  A visit with the Savior

  A lady

  Storming the fortress

  The lair

  70

  SWAN WALKED AMID rows of green and growing cornstalks as flurries of snow hissed upon the bonfires. Josh and Sister walked on either side of her, and they were flanked by two men with rifles who kept a sharp lookout for bobcats—or any other kind of predator.

  It had been three days since Swan’s awakening. Her slender body was warmed by a patchwork coat of many colors that Glory had sewn for her, and her head was protected by a white knit cap, one of dozens of gifts that the grateful people of Mary’s Rest left for her on Glory’s front porch. She couldn’t use all the coats, gloves, pairs of socks and caps that were offered, so the excess clothing went into cardboard boxes to be distributed among those whose clothes were almost worn out.

  Her intense, dark blue eyes with their flecks of red and gold took in the new cornstalks, which were now about four feet tall and beginning to turn a darker green. Around the edges of her cap, Swan’s hair flowed back like flames. Her skin was still very pale, but her cheeks were reddened by the chill wind; her face was bony, in need of food and filling out, but that would come later. Right now all that occupied her attention was the corn.

  Bonfires burned across the field, and volunteers from Mary’s Rest watched around the clock to keep away the bobcats, crows and whatever else might try to destroy the cornstalks. Every so often another group of volunteers would come with buckets and dippers to offer fresh water from the new well that the pickaxes and shovels had hit two days before. The water’s taste blossomed the memories of all who sipped it, reminding them of things half forgotten: the smell of clean, cold mountain air; the sweetness of Christmas candy; fine wine that had sat in a bottle for fifty years awaiting appreciation; and dozens of others, each unique and part of a happier life. Water was no longer melted from the radioactive snow, and people were already beginning to feel stronger, their sore throats, headaches and other ailments starting to fade.