Only the Devil Is Here

by Stephen Michell

  “Do you like books?” August asked.

  Evan shrugged. “Not really.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Six. But I’m almost seven.”

  August gave him a quizzical look. “You don’t seem like an almost-seven-year-old,” she said.

  “I know. I’m different.”

  “No, you just seem more grown up.” August quickly added, “What do you want to be when you do grow up?”

  Evan was surprised at the question. He had never really thought about that. His brow crinkled. “I want to . . . make things right. I want one of those hammers that you bang on the high table.”

  “You mean you want to be a judge?”

  Evan nodded and sipped his water, keeping the glass tipped at his mouth.

  They were quiet. August watched Evan. He could feel her eyes like static heat on his skin, and it reminded him of being at the Centre, how people would look at him He glanced once at her and then he looked at the table. August tapped her cigarette into the ashtray.

  Eventually, Evan asked, “So, are you Rook’s wife?”

  August laughed outright. She took a drag of her cigarette and two grey jets shots out her nose. “No,” she said. “I’m certainly not his wife.”

  “Oh. So how do you know him?”

  August looked at Evan as if measuring his aptitude to understand what she was about to say. After a moment, she said, “I first met Rook when I was four years old, and for many years I thought he was our neighbour or a friend of my parents. He came and went. Then when I was eleven I saw my first ghost, a real ghost. After that, I looked at everything differently. I saw Rook for what he was.”

  “What is he?”

  “You don’t know?” She sounded surprised.

  Evan shook his head. He knew Rook was different, like him, but that was all.

  “Well, Rook’s more like a living ghost. He was born in the 1760s and he’s been alive ever since. He built this house, lived in it with his wife and son. After what happened, Rook became bound to the house. It was smaller back then, just this room and the kitchen. Different owners over the years must have built on the rest. My parents bought this house when I was one or two, and Rook was here then. I used to call him Uncle Rook, but he’s not my uncle. He’s just my oldest friend. When my parents decided to sell the house, I bought it, and Rook was here. I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve made most of my money from the books I’ve written about Rook.”

  August put out her cigarette and got up and went into the kitchen. Evan heard cupboard doors open, the fridge, the clink of ceramics, and then the sloshing sound of rinsing water.

  August returned to the table with a mug of coffee and a glass of milk and set the latter in front of Evan.

  “You can’t just want water,” she said.

  Evan thanked her and sipped the milk.

  August sat down and held her coffee mug with both hands.

  “So . . . Rook’s like one hundred years old?” Evan asked.

  “He’s more like two hundred and fifty years old, almost.”

  “Wow,” Evan said. He looked at August. “How old are you?” he asked.

  August narrowed her eyes. “How old do you think I am?”

  “Umm . . . thirty?”

  A smile flashed across her face. “That’s sweet,” she said. “I’m forty-three.”

  “Oh.”

  For the first time, Evan looked straight into the woman’s eyes. They were green and almost yellowish and he saw the wrinkles at their edges. He blinked and looked away again to admire the many books. August sipped her coffee and lit another cigarette, extinguishing the match with a wave in the air.

  After a while, Evan asked, “So what does Rook do with you?”

  “Do with me?” August said, puzzled, sounding a little affronted even. “He doesn’t do anything with me. Like I said, he comes and goes. In my late twenties, we spent a lot of time together. I managed to convince him in a weak moment to let me interview him. Extensively. That’s when I got most of the material for the books. But I don’t actually see him very often at all anymore.”

  Evan’s brow furrowed. He tilted his head. He was about to ask another question, but it was then that Evan heard August’s voice—he felt it.

  I don’t want him to leave. . . .

  It was a swift infiltrating whisper that reached across the table and split through his chest.

  Evan looked up and saw August’s green eyes shimmering. He said nothing. He could see the sadness in her face plain as if she had told him she was about to cry.

  Her voice came to him again.

  He’s scared and he’s running. He says he has no choice, but that’s a lie. He’s lying to himself. Choice is all he has. He’s been on his own for so long, always done what he wants. But now he’s not thinking about himself. He’s made the choice to let himself go. I don’t want him to leave.

  Evan was listening with rapt attention, her voice like an ephemeral hum inside his head, a weight in the centre of him. He almost didn’t notice when August started to speak aloud again.

  She had lit a new cigarette and was saying, “You know, the truth about Rook is that he does all of this because he believes he owes it to someone. Because of what happened in his past, he feels he has to atone for it. But he’s such an old fool. And I mean that literally, he’s old. He’s stuck in an old-world mentality, where men believe in bullshit like honour—pardon my French—and all it ever does is get them killed.”

  Evan was a little confused and overwhelmed with everything August was telling him, but nevertheless he wanted to hear more.

  August shook her head. “Really, I can’t explain Rook,” she said. “He’s been the proof in my life that there is more to this world than anyone knows. And I believe it. But most days it’s just easier to pretend that he isn’t real, that I’m crazy, or he’s just a figment of my imagination. Just a dream. Then, of course, he shows up like this.”

  Evan watched as tears ran down August’s cheeks. She wiped them away as quickly as they fell, looking almost surprised.

  “I have to ask,” August said. “Do you know why Rook came and found you? Do you know what this is all about?”

  Evan put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his hands. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong . . . in this world. But maybe I belong wherever Rook is, wherever he goes. ’Cause when I’m with Rook I don’t feel like that anymore. I feel like I have a home.”

  August’s expression lightened and she smiled. When she spoke, her voice was smooth. “I think you’re right,” she said. “You take care of him. Okay?”

  “I will,” Evan said.

  •

  August and Evan ate a small breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, and then August said she had work to do and went into her office. She closed the door. Rook still hadn’t returned.

  Evan lay on the couch in the living room where he could hear the clicking of computer keys from inside August’s office. At one point the clicking stopped and Evan was certain he heard the sound of Rook’s voice. He listened, but there was silence. Then the clicking resumed. After a while, Evan fell asleep.

  When he woke, there was a blanket over him and he was drooling. He wiped his mouth and sat up. The house was quiet. The door to August’s office was open and there was a note on the coffee table beside him.

  Have gone for groceries. Stay in the house. – August.

  Evan kicked away the blanket and slid off the couch.

  “Rook?” he called.

  There was no answer. He wandered out to the front hall and called Rook’s name again. After a moment, he went into August’s office. Again, he called Rook’s name, though it was clear that he wasn’t there.

  In addition to the books on the walls, there were many stacked on August’s desk as well. Evan went around it and climbed into her chair. The springs creaked a little. There was a small squished pillow at the low back of the chair and Evan sat forward away from it.

  On th
e desk, August’s laptop was open. There were sheets of paper all over the place, covered in tiny handwriting, and a sky-blue coffee mug crammed full of pens and pencils.

  Evan swivelled in the chair, swinging his legs, then grabbed the edge of the desk to stop himself. His fingers knocked August’s computer mouse and her laptop screen brightened. There was a picture on the screen.

  At first, Evan failed to grasp what he was seeing. There was a man in a grey suit sitting in an armchair, rather slumped, his face downturned. His hair was dark and combed back. His large hands held the ends of the chair arms like widespread spider legs. He was not an old man, Evan decided, but he gave the impression of age. He looked tired.

  The screen dimmed and Evan touched the mouse again to awaken it. When the mouse pointer moved across the screen, little play and pause buttons appeared over the image and Evan realized it was a video. His hand went clammy on the mouse.

  This is a video of Rook.

  The thought made his heart jump. Evan glanced over the top of the laptop to the office door, nervous, waiting to see if in the next second or two someone would arrive and catch him. Could he really do this? Could he watch the video of Rook? He waited another second. Then he pressed play.

  The video started. At first Rook sat slumped and still in the armchair. He stared at the floor. Evan watched him with rapt attention.

  Then there was a voice. “Can you tell me about what happened next?”

  It was August’s voice. Evan realized that she must have been sitting behind the video camera.

  Rook shifted, holding his gaze to a spot on the floor. He huffed once and Evan smiled. Then Rook said, “You mean, you want to know how I became what I am now. You want to know how I became one with darkness?”

  August’s voice was a hard stone when she said, “Yes, tell me.”

  A moment’s silence. Then Rook said, “I had work in town under a young carpenter named Absalom Shade, building a new church steeple.”

  “The man who you worked for, building the mill?”

  “We built the whole town.”

  “And what about your wife?”

  “Allison, she had a good hand as a seamstress. She could fashion anything, but her dresses were the best. They made your head spin—that someone could put such beautiful detail into a thing.”

  “And then?”

  “Would you like to hear this, or would you rather piece it together yourself?”

  It sounded like August laughed. “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

  Rook went on. “With the post office built and the store opening, Shade’s Mills was growing and people were moving there. It was turning into a really nice town. The landowner, Mr. William Dickson, had an event to celebrate it, inviting people from all over, but mostly from Hamilton and Waterloo. He hired a circus troupe from god knows where, and I remember when they came down the road in their wagons, you could hear the carts rattling and jingling from miles away. They had donkeys braying and a roaring lion in a cage. A fortnight later, half of Shade’s Mills was sick with fever, myself included. I was bedridden.”

  “I’m sorry? You got sick?” August asked.

  Rook nodded. “They had to send for the doctor in Waterloo. It was cholera. And it damned near killed half the town.”

  Rook paused and shook his head.

  Then he said, “We’d had our first child two months before. A boy, Nathaniel, named after Allison’s father. It was midwinter and there I was, like a dying dog, unable to get out of bed. I couldn’t even hold my son. There’d been talk of men camping around the town and on the roads. Sick and hungry and cold. Unable to go on with the circus they had come through with. I don’t know if the men who came to our house that night were from the troupe. It doesn’t matter. They were drifters in any case.”

  “They came to your home?”

  Again, Rook nodded. “Allison had Nathaniel sleeping, bundled up tight on the cot near the stove, away from me to keep from catching my sickness. I was in the bed. I remember there was a knock at the door. But I don’t remember if Allison opened the door or if they kicked it in—I was mad with fever. I remember the noise of pots and pans rattling, drawers being pulled out and crashing to the floor as they looked for food. Then I remember trying to stand up and one of them cracked me in the face with a rifle butt. I remember lying on the floor, trying to breathe. Allison was yelling and screaming. I saw her rush across the room and cover the cot with her body. One of the men shot her in the back. They took all they could carry and were gone. I forced myself up and went to Allison where she had fallen over the cot, over Nathan. The bullet had gone straight through her breast. Gone through them both. My wife and son were dead.”

  “What did you do after that?” August said.

  “You mean, how did I become like this? I suppose that’s what you’ve been waiting for.”

  “If you think you can go on, I’d like to know.”

  Rook started to speak, but August cut him off.

  “Oh shit,” she said. “Hang on, the battery’s about to crap out.”

  With a sudden cut to black, the video ended.

  Evan sat for a moment, then slipped off the chair and walked out into the living room. The house seemed darker, as if it had come under a cloud. It made him want to scream or shout to clear his feelings away. But there was no one to hear him. He found his boots and his peacoat in the hall closet, dressed, and left the house.

  Outside, it was warmer than he had expected. The air was dry and it smelled clean and fresh. His head cleared a little. The sun shone on the snow, bright and glittering, and Evan felt better. He wandered aimlessly and found himself in the back yard.

  His feet sunk deep holes through the snow and he had to lift his legs high to walk. It made him feel like Rook. He gestured behind him as he trudged along and said, “Come on. Pick up your feet. Let’s go.”

  He shuffled down the hill to the bottom of the yard where an old wire fence was strung, beyond which were pine trees. The fence was rusted and sagging and there were the dormant remains of wild creeper vine entwined through it. A heavy silence clung to the area. It was colder at the bottom of the yard, in the shadow of the house, and Evan shivered.

  At that moment, the cloudy feeling in Evan’s head cleared away, and he realized that he was alone, not merely in the yard but truly in his whole life. He had never imagined such a thing before and it made him feel panicky. He tried to argue with himself that he wasn’t alone. He had Rook. But Rook was also alone, and that’s what Evan now realized with even greater clarity. Rook had lost his family. He was alone and all by himself and that was why he wasn’t afraid of anything. Rook was strong because he was alone. These thoughts came and went all at once, but they left Evan with an indescribable feeling of himself and the world. As much as he was frightened, he was also filled with a new calm, as if someone had let him in on a great secret. He felt right being alone.

  He walked along the fence to the end of the yard and then he turned and looked up.

  Rook stood at the top of the hill.

  It was the first time Evan had seen Rook since the night before and he did not smile, but he felt his face flush and his stomach tingled with nervous excitement. The new feeling he’d had about himself and his place in the world went away in a flash. All Evan wanted was Rook.

  Rook came down the hill, his feet making deep lines in the snow. He wore a fresh grey button-down shirt under his heavy coat and a pair of clean black pants. His beard was trimmed and his hair combed back. In the sunlight it seemed to Evan as if for the first time he was seeing Rook’s true face. He looked like an ordinary man, prepared for some service or ceremony.

  “What are you doing?” Rook said.

  “I wanted to go outside,” Evan said, and then, “Where did you go?”

  “For a walk.”

  “You were gone a long time”

  “It was a long walk.”

  Rook looked past Evan to the thicket beyond the fence as if he had seen something move. Evan
followed Rook’s gaze. A shifting, creeping sense came over them both that they were being watched.

  “Come on,” Rook said. “It’s time to go.”

  – –

  When they came inside, August was in the kitchen chopping carrots and potatoes on a wooden cutting board. She heard the front door open and came out into the foyer. She knew they were leaving, even before Rook said anything.

  “So you’ve made up your mind, then?” August asked.

  “I have. Though it’s not much of a choice.”

  “Yes it is. Don’t think it isn’t.”

  Rook said nothing.

  “Are you leaving right now?”

  “We’re going to take the truck. It’s not safe if we stay here.”

  “Well, you better get going, then.” She looked at Evan. “Remember what I said, you take care of him.”

  Evan nodded.

  “Thank you,” Rook said. “For everything.”

  August closed her eyes and gave a small laugh. “You stupid old fool,” she said.

  “Goodbye, August.”

  “Goodbye, Rook.”

  Rook and Evan drove out of Shade’s Mills in a red Ford pickup truck. Neither of them spoke. The road was a two-lane country highway marked on one side by a snow-filled marsh of frozen cattails and on the other side by wooded hills. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

  The afternoon sky was clear and blue and for this Rook was pleased. He checked the rear-view mirror often. They had the heaters going and it was warm with the sunlight across their laps. The cab smelled of cigarettes and little else.

  After a while, Evan broke their silence. “Is the church very far?” he asked.

  “It’s just through those trees,” Rook said with a nod to the right side of the road.

  Evan looked out his window at the woods. The trees were thin and grey and there were many dead ones fallen over the ground. But he saw no sign of a church.

  “I don’t see it,” he said.

  “It’s there. Though it’s just a bunch of old stones. The ruins of a church.”

  “Then why are we going there?”

  “We’re not,” Rook said.