by Abe Moss
His mother began her spell, uttering those words few on this earth would understand, and as she did the room started to change. It was there again—the magic. He remembered the feeling in his grandparent’s basement, heavy and… charged. It took his breath away.
Clark returned with a new knife.
“What is that?” he asked, lifting his hand to the air, watching the room above their heads. The candle flames wiggled on their wicks. “Do you feel it?”
Emmett felt it, all right.
His mother’s voice changed. Deepened. Almost that of a male. Emmett felt heat against his chest, and remembered he was wearing her necklace. The pendant, hanging below his sternum, was warm to the touch. Perhaps there was power in it yet.
The strength of his father.
That was what he heard, he thought, in his mother’s voice. The harmony. Not her voice, but their voices. Channeling him. It was what they felt in the room. The energy. Thick as smoke. They were all breathing it.
Emmett shouted in surprise as the floor lifted under his feet. The floor in the center of the room lifted farther still, the point of impact, and the floorboards cracked and splintered into the air. He turned his back to it as pieces of wood rained down around them.
“Are you all right, Emmett?”
“Yeah… I’m okay.” He turned to Clark. “Are you okay?”
Clark coughed into his fist—a cloud of dust had risen into the air—then nodded that he was.
Eileen was still sound asleep.
“Now is the hard part,” his mother said.
As Dr. Marks was limited to her one hand, it was all the more imperative that Emmett and Clark help move the debris. For the next half hour or more, they picked up pieces of floorboard and the broken concrete underneath, tossing it into a pile in the reading room. With five hands, they made rather quick work of it.
As they worked, however, Emmett couldn’t help noticing how especially enthusiastic Clark was in lending his helping hands. Why had he stayed, Emmett wondered? Tobie had fled—why not him? Surely, at first, he’d seen them as merely a means to escape The Cradle. But now…
“I always knew there was something different about you,” Clark said as they cleared the debris. There was no humor in his remark. He cast Emmett a knowing glance as he tossed another handful of pebbles aside. “You weren’t like the rest of us. You’re not crazy, but… you’re not like anyone else, either.”
Emmett wasn’t sure what to say to that. All he knew was he felt like an eight-year-old boy—whatever that was meant to feel like.
Soon the foyer was empty of rubble and the dirt underneath was ready to be dug out. Emmett suggested Dr. Marks could do it even with one hand, though his mother disagreed. It would take too long, she said.
“Come on, Emmett,” Clark said. “You got plenty of practice with Tobie back in the day.”
“The pendant will help,” his mother told him. He could still feel the hot stone against his chest. “It’s not broken entirely.”
Clark retrieved the second shovel from behind the house where he grabbed the first and they got started. They dug together, side by side. The dirt was loosened up rather nicely by the initial blast, at least. It was mostly just a matter of heaving it out.
The longer they worked, the more Emmett became lost in thought, nearly forgetting the chore altogether so that he didn’t notice Clark getting tired, slowing down. Clark announced he needed a rest. Emmett, continued to dig. He stuck the shovel in, heaved the dirt over his shoulder, over and over, just as his mother did all those months ago.
When he finally stopped for a breather, he looked up to see the others, now quite a bit taller than him, standing at the edge of the hole. Emmett leaned against his shovel, wiped sweat from his eyes.
“You’ve been digging for… well, I’m not sure how long,” Clark said. “I would have helped more, but I think I’d have just gotten in the way.”
Emmett pulled the pendant out from under his facility uniform and held it in his hand, astonished by what it’d done for him.
“Your father would be proud,” his mother said. “Soon he will be…”
Emmett stared into the black stone, marveling at the power contained inside. There were still pieces of white glass remaining in its center, where Hollings had smashed it.
“Now what?” Clark asked, sounding relatively thrilled.
The longer the night went on, the more Clark seemed his old self, Emmett noticed. It was a joyous relief to see him that way again. He wished Tobie could have been there, too. And Jackie. And Bailey. And Tyler. All of them, swept up in the mystery of his mother’s magic. His father’s magic. It was thrilling. Impossible and wondrous.
Like being a kid again.
Their attention shifted as something stirred across the room, on the floor. Eileen. She mumbled, eyes shut. Sleep-talking. She turned her head side to side, dreaming.
“Clark,” Emmett’s mother said. “Do you know where you might find some rope, or a cord or cable?”
“Maybe,” he said, thinking.
“Her hands and feet should be bound.”
Emmett’s stomach suddenly rolled. “What for?”
“For her sake,” his mother reassured. “She might be confused when she wakes up. Frightened.”
“She’ll be even more scared if we tie her up,” Emmett said.
“She might run away, otherwise.”
Emmett observed her sleeping form on the floor, the candlelight flickering on her dewy, restless face. Whether he wished to argue it further or not didn’t matter, however, as Clark was already rummaging through the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen searching for something.
He returned with twine, which Emmett’s mother said was perfect. Emmett supervised as Clark tied Eileen’s ankles and wrists.
“That’s too tight,” Emmett said, noticing the twine was squeezing the skin. Clark tied it a bit looser then. “That’s better, I guess…”
After that, in order to determine how deep the hole was, Dr. Marks was instructed to climb inside. Standing, she was above ground from the chest up. Emmett feared he hadn’t dug deep enough.
“It seemed a lot deeper when I was inside it.”
“It’s fine,” his mother said. “She’ll lay down.”
That wrenching in his gut again.
“She’s going in the hole?”
“Of course. Who else?”
Emmett scratched his head, heart fluttering.
“But she’s alive.”
“She doesn’t deserve your remorse, Emmett.”
He knew he’d prefer to be dead if anyone were burying him in a hole. The slightest notion of the contrary chilled him to the marrow. More and more memories of that night were surfacing—the cold basement, his feelings of reluctance as his mother repeatedly asked for his help. As he recalled, he’d ended up helping with very little.
“I’ll do it,” Clark told Emmett. “If you don’t want to, I mean.”
“No…” He’d hate to disappoint his mother a second time. Or his father, for that matter, whom he’d yet to even meet. “I can do it…”
“Your mom’s right,” Clark said. “I’ve been to lots of asylums. People like her…” He gestured toward Dr. Marks, who was now crouching into the hole, sitting cross-legged as tears spilled down her face. “…they’re exactly what’s wrong with the world. The things I’ve seen them do to kids like us… kids, Emmett. Like us. This is generous for someone like her.”
Emmett shivered. He took up the shovel once more, doing his best to put it out of his mind.
“We’re starting with her,” his mother said. “Forging a better world.”
He stuck the shovel into the dirt pile he’d made. He shivered again—a painful chill. He paused with the shovel in the dirt, trying to clear his mind but failing miserably. Unable to shake it, he pulled the shovel out and handed it to Clark after all.
“You do it,” he said. “I…”
“It’s all right,” his mother said from
the floor, that haunting pink light flashing from Hollings’ open mouth. “I understand, Emmett.”
Clark accepted the shovel without a second thought.
“It’s okay. You did all the digging, after all.”
Emmett took a seat beside Hollings’ head and watched as Clark filled the hole in. Where he sat, he could just see above Dr. Marks’ shoulders, sitting patiently inside. Besides the tears down her cheeks and the blinking of her eyes as Clark tossed each shovelful of dirt in around her, she was unresponsive.
“Do you remember the next part?” his mother asked.
He remembered well enough. He wasn’t planning on running this time, though. Maybe it would’ve been different the first time had his mother been more honest with him about it—told him exactly what it would be, let his little mind digest it. As it was, he’d been surprised, and all his little mind could think was danger, danger, danger!
“I remember,” he said.
“Are you ready?”
He breathed deeply. “I think so.”
“Would you like Clark to help you?”
“No,” he said abruptly. “I can do it.”
As much as he liked Clark, he wanted him nowhere near the knife when it was done. He’d do it himself and only by himself. However hard that would be…
The dirt rose steadily. Clark took a couple quick breaks, letting his arms rest. Soon it was up to Dr. Marks’ chin. As her desperation mounted, she gazed up at Clark with each shovelful of dirt thrown in, pleading in the only way she could. Clark made no effort to be kind. He dumped the dirt atop her head, and let it fill around her that way. Emmett found it difficult to watch, so mostly he didn’t.
Soon the final shovels of dirt were thrown to cover the doctor completely so that she was no more. Buried. Gone not only to them, but the world entirely. Not much longer after that, the hole was filled to the brim. Clark tossed the shovel aside, wiped out from the exertion.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Emmett’s mother asked one last time.
He didn’t think it mattered how ready he was or not. There was nothing left to do but his part. As much as he wished Clark could take his place for that as well…
“The final step,” she said. “Your blood, Emmett.”
He picked up the second, clean knife Clark had brought from the kitchen. It was slippery in his sweaty palms.
“Your father’s blood.”
He stood over the freshly filled dirt with the knife in his hand, his other hand offered up before himself, trembling gently. He hadn’t even started to cut and yet his hand already ached with anticipation—a throbbing up to his elbow. He felt it in his teeth. Jaws clenched.
“It’s only a little pain—a little pain to put an end to so much more. We’re so close, Emmett. Everything we’ve suffered through. Everything we’ve endured. The sun will rise soon, and the earth beneath it will be a new one. A better one. All thanks to you, Emmett. Emmett?”
He turned to his mother, to her soft, pink light shining from the lopsided head like a lovely jack-o-lantern. He was scared, yes, but he felt something else then, too. Deep and eternal. Something he would have in him forever so long as they were together.
“If you don’t want to go through with this—if you’re scared—I’ll understand. I’ll love you just the same. No matter what.”
“I know.”
He stood on top of the dirt, soft and squashy beneath his feet. He put the blade to his hand. Held it there. Anxious. Movement caught his eye from one of the windows—a bird taking flight from the front porch—and he noticed it was getting lighter outside—a gentle red glow—morning already well on its way.
Like ripping a bandage, he drew the knife across his hand in one quick swipe, giving a brief shout as he did it. Hot, sharp pain. He tossed the knife aside and it slid across the floor into the shadows. The blood welled steadily in the cup of his palm.
“You’re doing well,” his mother said. “I’m proud of you.”
He tipped his hand and watched as the blood poured in a syrupy stream onto the dirt. It was like watering a newly planted seed, he thought. Only the water was his blood, and the seed was Dr. Marks’ corpse. He squeezed his hand into a fist and winced. The blood dripped. He looked down at his feet—lit not only by the candlelight anymore but by the faint light of an approaching sunrise as well—and saw the blood seeped into the ground.
Drip, drip.
He looked to Clark, who watched in a mesmerized stupor, when suddenly Clark’s eyes widened, jaw dropped. It was the blood at his feet. He looked down to see for himself and his eyes, too, grew wide with awe.
It was glowing. Turning brighter. The blood turned a bright red, the color of a stoplight. Then it brightened to pink. Brighter still. Emmett retreated from the dirt pile, standing between Clark and his mother, watching as the blood burned brighter and brighter, until it shone hot and white like molten steel.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“Do you hear it?” his mother said, voice brimming with joy. “Listen.”
He held his breath—Clark did the same—and heard nothing at all but the stifled darkness in the house’s walls. Not a sound.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“The dirt. The ground. Listen.”
Emmett got down on his knees. He put his hands at the edge of the filled hole, lowered his head to the dirt. Clark joined him there, curious. Emmett closed his eyes, gently set his face against the dirt, focusing.
“Wait…” he said. “I… I hear it…”
It wasn’t just a sound. He felt it. A tremor. Underneath. It rumbled delicately in the earth beneath them. Vibrations.
“It’s him.”
Emmett sat up as he felt his hands pushing through the slowly sifting dirt. It was getting louder. Coming closer. The dirt in the hole was sinking, falling through to someplace deeper.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
EMMETT, CHILD OF THE DARK
Get back,” Emmett warned, and Clark came to stand with him.
The ground moved under their feet. Emmett picked his mother up off the ground, his fingers wound through the head’s hair. They retreated toward the kitchen as the dirt sank into itself, draining somewhere they couldn’t see. The floorboards groaned. Cracked. There was an immense sound—a whoomp—when suddenly the dirt plummeted into itself, revealing the hole they’d dug, empty as though they’d never filled it in. Except it was deeper. Much deeper…
“The Throat of the World,” his mother whispered, barely audible over the house’s groaning and quaking.
The cracking floorboards surrounding the hole began to fall into it, swallowed up, the hole getting wider. The dirt trickled in streams, and a loud, bellowing wind breathed from it—sour and ancient.
Eileen still appeared to be sleeping beside them all the while.
Across the foyer, beyond the opening chasm, the red sunrise reached through the windows onto the floors and the walls, bright and vivid and burning like fire.
The earth lurched under their feet and Emmett stumbled.
“Woah—!”
Someone touched his shoulders to steady him. It was Clark.
“Are we safe?” Emmett asked.
“Everything is as it should be. We’ll be fine.”
They continued watching, wobbling. The house was alive with movement. It was an effort to keep standing as it shifted and shimmied underneath them. Threatening to collapse. Emmett looked fearfully to the ceiling over their heads, afraid it would all come crashing down…
“Emmett?”
He peered down to the floor beside them, where Eileen was fully awake now. Their eyes met, and hers were unquestionably bright with terror. Her gaze fell along his arm, to his hand and the thing he held in it. She turned her head in the direction of the foyer, listening to the destruction.
“What’s happening? What’s…” She sat upright as she realized her hands and feet were bound. She turned to them again from the floor, swiveling on the blanket. “Emme
tt, what is this?”
He started to speak when he was interrupted by another great crack through the room—the sound of the home’s foundation breaking and falling into the growing hole beneath it. Could his mother be sure they were safe, he wondered? He worried the hole might get so large that it would swallow the house whole.
“Why am I tied up?” Eileen asked, voice shrill.
“Let me speak with her,” his mother insisted.
Emmett held the head toward Eileen, and before his mother could utter a word she screamed.
“Don’t!” She pushed herself away with her bound feet, scurrying across the floor toward the kitchen table. “Get that away from me…”
“Listen to me,” his mother said. Emmett hoped Eileen could hear his mother’s voice better than he could over the rumbling demolition. “You’re safe. There’s nothing—”
“What are you!? What is that!? Emmett, what’s happening!?”
“Please, listen to what I’m saying…”
“No,” Eileen said. “No, this… this isn’t real…”
“Eileen.” His mother was struggling to get through to her. “You’re safe. Everything—”
They were each stunned into silence as the chaos abruptly ended around them. Emmett swayed gently as the rumbling ceased. He listened carefully, now able to hear himself breathe.
“Is it done?” Clark asked.
The foyer was warm with deep-red sunlight. Eerily beautiful.
“It’s almost morning,” Emmett said.
The uncanny quiet was interrupted by the sounds of Eileen’s soft whimpering. That sharp pang of guilt seized Emmett again, like razor-wire around his heart.
“Eileen,” his mother continued. “Can you hear me?”
Eileen brought her knees up to her chest, her bound hands clasped between them, and rested her head atop her legs as she continued to cry, ignoring everything else as though hoping she might wake up any moment.
“I can’t get through to her…”
“She’s scared,” Emmett said. “She doesn’t understand…”
“Me neither,” Clark said. “What happens now?”
Emmett strayed into the foyer with his mother in his grasp, cautiously approaching the enlarged hole. The closer he came, the more he feared the possibility that nothing supported the floor underneath. The hole was breathtakingly large now. He craned his neck, peered over the edge, and dizzied himself in looking.
