by Ilsa J. Bick
“I said, you killed my fucking bike.” Dekker pitched his voice louder, and now I could hear the dragging lurch in his steps and then the rhythmic rasp of metal against metal as his knife opened, closed, opened, snick-snick-snick.... “My fucking leg hurts like hell. I’m going to find you, you cocksucker, and I’m going to mess you up so bad it’ll be a miracle they figure out how to put you back together.”
We remained silent, crouching behind that massive root ball, watching as the light stabbed and probed and got closer. Maybe fifty yards now and there was no way we could get away, go deeper into the woods without being heard.
“Oh, and one more thing, Killer,” Dekker sang out. “You remember your aunt? Aunt Jean? My daddy got drunk a couple of nights ago, and guess what he comes out with? The night your aunt drowned, he said he saw her car right before it went under. Said she went off the road and crashed through the ice and when he got to the bank, she was screaming, hollering her head off. Only he saw she was sinking, and so it wasn’t any use going to get anyone. So he just had himself another drink and waited for the hollering to stop. Said it took a long, long time because he near about finished that bottle. Said she squealed like a pig before it was all over. Wee-wee-wee.” He giggled. “Wee-wee-wee-wee, help me, help me, I don’t want to die, wee-wee-wee . . . ”
I closed my eyes. Remembered the empty fifth found in that gulley. Maybe black ice had started the skid, but Dekker’s father had put the period on my aunt’s life.
And did it make a difference, really? Her death was fated. I had drawn it: pulled that horrible moment from the well of my rage and her secret hell. I couldn’t remember if I’d drawn a drunk in there, and it didn’t matter.
The voices, beckoning, clamoring . . .
And from Dekker: “Wee-wee-wee . . .”
I let go of Sarah.
She grabbed my arm. “Christian,” she hissed in my ear. “He’s baiting you . . . no!”
I didn’t reply. My questing fingers closed around the pouch with Witek’s brushes, and I pulled one out at random. It didn’t matter which one, and I wouldn’t need to see for this. Even if I had decided on something more complex, I doubted I would need my eyes. I drew in the dark, after all.
Scrambling quickly to the deepest point in the bowl, I upended the brush, grasping it like a knife. Then I cut four sharp strokes into the dirt with the tip of the wooden handle: a rectangle. Then I visualized where the knob needed to be and quickly sketched a circle.
Now or never...
“Stay down.” I swarmed to Sarah and pressed her back, out of the way. “Stay away from the door. Don’t come down here or near it or me, no matter what happens.”
“Door? What? Christian, no, no!” Sarah’s terrified whisper thinned to a wheeze as I pushed to my feet. “What are you doing?”
“What I should have done a long time ago,” I said and turned as Dekker’s flashlight found me, firing my body in a silvery blaze. He was so close I could see he still wore that stupid mask.
“There you are, Killer,” said Dekker.
“That’s right,” I said. “Here I am.”
Then I bent, grabbed the knob—and turned.
For an instant, as my fingers scraped dirt, I thought, You idiot, this isn’t going to work. But then it was as if the idea of the knob drew on substance from the air and my intent because I felt the hard metal solidify beneath my palm and against my fingers. The margins of the door began to shimmer and glow, and then I yanked back as hard as I could, and then I drew....
I don’t know what I expected.
No, I’m lying. I know what I wanted.
You know what I wanted? I wanted black wraiths and goblins, things with jostling teeth and bloody tentacles. What I wanted from the sideways place—if that’s what lay behind this door—was death and destruction and vengeance. I embraced the blackness welling in my heart. My mouth was coppery with the imagined taste of blood. I wanted Dekker to feel every inch of pain and terror I was certain my aunt felt as she drowned, alone, in that freezing dark. That’s what I wanted.
But that was not what I drew.
In the next instant, a great bolt of stunning purple light and sound blew apart the night.
Imagine looking down an elevator shaft that is infinitely deep and think of the brightest day that can exist on this earth—and then multiple that by a thousand. Ten thousand. The planet Mercury at high noon—so bright that the light is solid, it has a punch and heft, and now imagine that it is also sound that smashes the night, splintering trees with a great guttering roar....
The Armies of the Light. That’s what Dr. Rainier said.
Light thrust from the sideways place with a moaning, screaming, cracking sound like the rupture of the earth. The concussive force was so great it hammered my chest, palming my body, flinging me from the bowl. I slammed the tangle of roots, and for a second, my vision swirled as the air was driven out of my chest in a sickening whoosh.
The voices in my head were churning, a maelstrom of sound echoing the greater cataclysm I’d unleashed. But then, dimly, I heard Sarah, shrieking....
No, God no, please, not Sarah! Clawing my way to hands and knees, I shook my head like a dog and looked up—and froze.
The forest was alive with streamers of purple and then lava and then gold and then scarlet. The light swirled in a dizzying vortex around the trees, spiraled up trunks, and spilled in a flood along the forest floor. It was spreading fast, wider and wider, and then I realized: the light was the voices, the voices were the light, and they were alive and hungry. Light unfurled in tentacles and spidery fingers, swarming over the earth with a rustling, rasping, clacking chitter like the mandibles of a million locusts.
I spotted Sarah, backed up against a tree. She was screaming; her hands were clasped over her ears, and her eyes were shut tight—and then my heart nearly died in my chest.
Because the light had her. It twined in her hair, tasted her eyes and ears, fingered her mouth, spun in twists up her legs—
“No!” I struggled to my feet. I screamed into the night: “No, no! Not her! She’s an innocent! She’s not what you’re after! Leave her alone, stop . . . stop!”
I don’t know if the light heard me; I may never know if the light is mine to command. But something did happen.
That awful purple light shuddered as it tasted Sarah’s face and her tears—not a blow, a caress—and then it retreated like water from the shore, leaving Sarah moaning and shivering, huddled in a ball, her arms over her head. Heart in my mouth, I took a step toward her, and the light at my feet parted. It eddied and flowed; tendrils plucked at my skin and hair.
And then as quickly as thought, the light blistered the air, hurling itself past me, and then Dekker screamed....
Light funneled around and around Dekker in a tornado that ripped branches from the trees and drew up dead leaves and debris into an ever-widening spiral. The light spun itself into a shimmering purple cobweb around his body and wherever the individual filaments touched, his clothes began to smoke. His black cape curled and burned; and then it was his skin that began bubbling; and Dekker’s screaming mask was melting away; and then his mouth was wide, wide open; and the scalding light was pouring down his throat, boiling away his voice, eating his flesh like acid.
I didn’t want to look, but I knew I had to. This Army of Light was mine. I had summoned it. I had drawn it.
Could I have stopped it? I don’t know.
The truth is, I didn’t want to.
Then that nacreous purple light convulsed, gathering itself into a veil so dense I couldn’t see through it, as if it had become a darkness all its own. If Dekker was still there, I couldn’t see him. The forest was thick with the stench of burning meat and molten latex and scorched wood and an unnatural fire.
And then it was done. I don’t know how the light knew, but maybe it’s like any other fight. When the enemy’s dead, you know it.
The light pulled away in a quickening stream, rushing for the door. It di
d so with a sibilant whisper and in a rush—in that nearly silent way that a serpent slithers into the dark of its burrow. Muttering, the light spilled back, into the sideways place, and I followed, stumbling, because I had to see....
Tottering to the very brink, I peered past the lip of the open door and down into all that bizarre radiance. Yes, I could see it all, and it was as I’d imagined: the rugged mountains, the clawing trees, and that queer spiked mountain....
And something else: my face, shining, pulling together as if I peered into a mirror made from the sun.
Come. The light wavered and whispered, and now I could smell it, an intoxicating fragrance not of this earth and so rich I wanted to fall into it, into that mask of myself. All you have to do is step through the door.
Yes, all I would have to do is fall . . .
Then, cutting through the darkness, I heard Uncle Hank: “Christian! CHRISTIAN!”
There was no mistaking the panic in that voice. Or the love. He called again, but I didn’t answer. I couldn’t, not just yet.
Because here was the hell of it: I loved my mother. Didn’t I? Or did I only love a mirage? A memory?
I couldn’t decide. I didn’t know. I balanced on the brink of two worlds, each with its claim and the promise that love waited as a reward....
“Christian?” I could tell from his voice that he was moving off in the wrong direction, farther away. If I wanted to be found, I would have to guide him.
All you have to do is reach out and take his hand. That’s another thing Dr. Rainier had said.
Then I heard something else above the call of the light and my uncle’s shouts. I heard Sarah.
She was still curled in on herself, but she was moaning, and I knew she would never get out of these woods without help.
I couldn’t do that to her, not to Sarah, who was kind to me and good.
So I turned away from the door.
Wait, whispered the light, though it seemed to scream in my head. Wait, my double sighed.
“Mom.” Sarah was crying and rocking. “Oh Mom, Mommy...”
Wait...
I knew what I had to do.
I closed that door. I erased it, scuffing the dirt with my shoes, but I was crying as I did it. The light dissolved and splintered through my tears, and then it was gone.
Then I went to Sarah and held her and shouted for my uncle. And I didn’t let her go until we were found.
XXXVI
Uncle Hank insisted that I get checked out at the hospital, even though I told him I didn’t need it. Mrs. Schoenberg was already in emergency surgery, but Uncle Hank said they were talking about calling in a helicopter and fiying her to Milwaukee.
“Is she going to be all right?” I asked. We were in the waiting room by then because Reverend Schoenberg was still a couple of hours away, and I wanted to stay until he got there. I hadn’t seen Sarah since they loaded her into a second ambulance, but Uncle Hank said that Dr. Rainier was with her.
“If Mrs. Schoenberg pulls through, I don’t think she’s going to be the same woman,” Uncle Hank said, heavily. “We’ll just have to wait and see. What I don’t understand is where Dekker got himself to. You say he followed you into the woods?” When I only nodded, he continued, “Then there ought to be some trace. A trail, something, but there’s nothing. We got his bike, so I know he didn’t use that to get away. Of course, his two buddies aren’t saying anything.” He checked his watch. “It’ll be light in another couple hours. Maybe then, with dogs . . .”
“Maybe,” I said. But I knew this world had seen the last of Karl Dekker.
I spotted Dr. Rainier pushing out of the elevator, and we stood as she came down the hall. “How is Sarah?” I asked.
“Sleeping. They’ve sedated her. Between the medication and the shock, she’ll probably sleep until this afternoon. Physically, she’s fine, but her memory’s pretty foggy right now. We’ve ruled out trauma. Her CT and neuro exam are clean. So we’ll just have to wait, see if this psychogenic amnesia clears,” said Dr. Rainier.
“She said nothing?” asked Uncle Hank. “She can’t remember anything?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. She remembers, I think, but what she says doesn’t make sense.”
“What did she say?” I asked.
“She said that the light ate him . . . ate Dekker.” Dr. Rainier’s eyes never left my face. “She said the light destroyed the darkness.”
I couldn’t speak.
“You’re right. That doesn’t make sense,” said Uncle Hank.
“Well,” said Dr. Rainier, “not to you or me.”
Dr. Rainier and Uncle Hank went to get coffee and an early breakfast in the hospital cafeteria, but I stayed behind.
Maybe twenty minutes later, Justin came by and said that the guy with the dogs was maybe a half hour away from the Schoenbergs’ place. “Fire chief says the house is gonna be okay. They’ll need to build a new porch, though.” He went off to find Uncle Hank, and I thought about maybe settling in for a nap. I was so keyed up, I was sure I wouldn’t get any sleep.
I woke when someone touched my shoulder. “Are you Christian Cage?”
“What?” Blinking, I pushed out of my slump. My neck hurt and drool slicked my chin. A lean man with clear brown eyes and a well-trimmed beard stood over me. “Yeah, yeah, I’m Christian.”
He stuck out his hand. “Rabbi Saltzman. We spoke?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Dazed, I grasped his hand. His grip was firm, but his skin was warm. We shook, and I said, “What time is it? What are you doing here?”
“It’s around nine. May I sit with you?”
“Hunh? Sure.” I scrubbed my face with my hands as he dropped into the chair next to mine, and I noticed he wore a small crocheted cap with a Star of David.
He said, “I had already arranged to come up for David Witek’s body today, but then I heard about Mrs. Schoenberg.”
“How did you—?”
“Steve Schoenberg and I were at the same conference. I didn’t think he should be alone, so we drove up together. He’s with his wife now.”
“She’s out of surgery?” I had slept soundly. “How is she?”
“She’s alive. That’s all anyone can say. They’ll move her to Milwaukee this afternoon. You want to maybe wash up and then get some breakfast? I’ll bet we can scrounge up toiletries for you somewhere.”
Well yeah, my mouth did taste like the bottom of a car. An ER nurse brought me a little packet of stuff they give to patients and a clean scrub shirt. Then she let me into a doctors’ on-call room, which had its own bathroom and shower. After I got cleaned up, Rabbi Saltzman and I went to the cafeteria. The food was lousy—pancakes like Frisbees—but I was starved, and I ate every scrap.
Rabbi Saltzman had coffee. He waited until I slowed down and then said, “I hear you’ve had quite a night. Actually, speaking with Dr. Rainier, it seems to me that you’ve had quite the month.”
The pancakes turned to lead in my stomach. “What did she say?”
He must’ve read my mind because he said, “Nothing personal, if that’s what you’re worried about. She told me about what happened last week, you figuring out about the bodies in the barn. She was a little . . . vague about how you did that. I gather that you’ve had some pretty strange experiences.” He paused, as if expecting that I might respond. It seemed best to keep my mouth shut, so I did.
He waited another moment and then changed the subject. “Do you still want to know what happened to the Jews of Winter? There aren’t many records. So much is . . .” He thought about it. “Well, not gone, but it is history, and if there’s one thing we Jews need to remember is that life isn’t lived in the past. So many Jews define their Jewishness only around the Holocaust, but our history stretches for thousands of years. So we should remember, we shouldn’t forget, and we should abide by the past’s lessons, but we can’t remain there.”
I mulled that one over and was surprised that I even had to think about what I wanted to know, if a
nything. In a way, I was still curious, but I felt as if I’d reached some sort of personal closure. There was much I’d already solved, more that I would never know—and while I did not believe that ignorance was bliss, I was pretty clear I could fill in the gaps.
So what popped out of my mouth was kind of surprising, even to me. “I would like to know what happened to the cemetery. You had to have one.”
Rabbi Saltzman pushed back from the table. “Would you like to see it?”
“This is it?” I asked.
“What’s left of it,” said Rabbi Saltzman. “Not very impressive, I’m afraid.”
Well, not exactly true. We stood by the edge of that grove of white pines, the ones everyone had always said were planted by shipbuilders. I told Rabbi Saltzman that, and he just shrugged.
“People remember what they want to remember. Say something enough times, and people will start to believe it. But the truth is that when the Jews left, they took their dead with them and planted these trees. The only things they left here were their sacred books.” At my questioning look, he said, “Jews believe that God’s name must never be destroyed. So any worn-out prayer book or Torah scroll or any book with God’s name or written in Hebrew is placed in a special storeroom, a genizah. Every seven years, the genizah’s contents are buried in a Jewish cemetery.”
“So the books and Torahs are still out here? In the ground?”
“Yes. By this time, though, they’re the trees, don’t you think?”
I had always felt that this grove was different. I thought of the hours I had lain on this sacred ground and the intense peace that would seep into my body. “Why did they take everyone with them?”
Rabbi Saltzman didn’t answer at first. He stared into the grove’s shadows as a breath of wind whispered through the high branches. Then he said, “Because of Joseph’s bones. You know the story? In Genesis?”
