“We should just shoot the goddamn sunuvabitch and be done with it,” the deputy said, not bothering to whisper.
“Let me see that warrant—you have reason to believe nothing. And I think I should be allowed to call my lawyer before you do anything.”
“Russell, Hazel, we have to go, now. Now, before they catch us here,” Jeff said and yanked both of them off the bed. “Come on, the back door. We’ll fly; Father Jamey is waiting for us at the church. Wake up. Wake up. We have to move now.”
“Go, go,” Malachi whispered and leaned over as if he were going to push at both Russell and Hazel. Both stood suddenly as someone had pulled them up by the backs of their necks. “Go, out Dad’s window. I’m supposed to be here.”
“I’m afraid you are going to have to step aside, Mr. Tyson, or I may have to arrest you. Do I make myself clear?”
“I still haven’t seen that search warrant.”
“This is ridiculous,” the other woman hissed angrily. “The search warrant is valid.”
“You said it, sister. Goddamn faggot, trying to tell us what we can and can’t do,” the deputy added.
Russell and Hazel were finally moving. Alexander helped, nipping at their heels to get them to go faster. “Okay, okay, stop, Alex, I’m awake,” Hazel said, when they stumbled into Mr. Tyson’s study.
“Well, the warrant looks valid. You can look, but my son is sick; I won’t have you disturb him, and so is my neighbor, Jack Ruggles. He’s been staying with us since his wife died.”
“Yeah, I’m okay, I’m ready, let’s take off,” Russell said.
Jeff shoved the window up. “Russ, go first.”
“Step aside, Mr. Tyson.”
Russell climbed out the window and dived out and up into the air. Hazel was right behind him. Alex simply jumped out the window and took off running, his feet skimming the wet grass. We made it, Jeff thought and flew out behind them.
Father Jamey
It was the Saturday evening vigil mass. Father Jamey started down the altar to take his place to offer the Host. The two Eucharistic ministers flanking him held ciboriums, and the two behind him held chalices. The woman on his right stepped down first and positioned herself by the front pew. The man on the priest’s left held his yellow ciborium by the steps to the sacristy. The man and the woman behind the first two, holding the wine-filled chalices, took places closer to the church’s side doors. Father Jamey, as always, stood in the middle. He picked up a Host from his own ciborium and looked up to see Ben Tyson at the front of the line. Ben held Malachi in his arms, the boy’s fair head resting on his shoulder. Jack stood behind them. Jack was clearly only up and moving on sheer will power and painkillers; Malachi was obviously ill: pale, flushed, sunken eyes.
“Body of Christ.”
“Father, we’re here. What do we do now? Where do we go? I got out of the warrant this morning because the boys and Hazel got away, but they’re going to be back. A deputy followed us here—he’s parked in front of the church.”
“Listen to me,” Father Jamey whispered back to Ben, who had his right hand open to take the Host. He motioned to the obviously impatient woman behind Jack to go to the female Eucharistic minister. Both Eucharistic ministers were staring at the priest. They stopped when the communicants started following the priest’s insistent hand gestures and came to them to take the Host. “After you take the Host, go to my left to take the cup. Then, go up those stairs to the sacristy. From there, go downstairs to the choir rehearsal room. The other kids are already there. Got it? Malachi,” the priest went on, raising his hand to touch the boy’s head, “I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and ask their healing to be upon you.” Malachi’s hair was wet with sweat and he was hot with fever. “Ben, the Body of Christ. Got it?”
“Amen,” Ben said as he glanced back at Jack, who looked perilously close to falling over. “Jack?”
“I heard him; it’s okay,” Jack whispered back.
“May the Lord bless us, keep us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life,” Father Jamey said as he traced a cross on Jack’s forehead.
“Amen,” Jack said, his voice barely audible.
The Change has finally begun, Father Jamey thought, watching the three of them walk over to the Eucharistic minister holding the chalice. The grey-haired woman seemed unperturbed by the long delay, and offered first Ben, then Jack, the silver cup. It had been on the radio again this morning: more monsters in the Great Dismal Swamp, unseasonal storms, apparitions, dragons in flight, unicorns wandering in city and state parks. And the focal point, ground zero: North Carolina, Raleigh, Garner, Vandora Springs Road. The church was as packed as if it were Christmas or Easter. A dawn-to-dusk curfew was in effect. Martial law had been declared.
“Body of Christ, Ethel.”
“Amen.”
What is Your will here? What sort of world will we have when this is all over? What do You want us to learn, to do, to be? Do You want to show us, teach us that magic is real and afoot? There, Ben, Jack, and Malachi were safe in the sacristy.
“Body of Christ, Steve.”
“Amen, Father.”
Somehow Jamey knew that what he was doing right then: celebrating mass, giving sanctuary to the persecuted, was exactly what God wanted him to do and keep doing, no matter what sort of Change was coming.
“Body of Christ, Margaret.”
“Amen.”
The Raleigh News and Observer
Sunday, 20 October 1991
Gays, Lesbians, and the Left are to Blame?
“They are the ones responsible for what’s been happening here in North Carolina. Gays, lesbians, the feminists, the pro-abortion lefties, the ACLU, all of them—they are bringing the Devil and his minions into this state,” television evangelist Jerry Falwell said yesterday, the final afternoon of his seven-day Raleigh crusade, a joint project with Billy Graham, in Dorton Arena at the State Fairgrounds. Joint crusader Billy Graham seemed to be in sharp disagreement, as he walked off the podium in the middle of Falwell’s attack . . .
Ben
When Ben woke Sunday morning he had no idea where he was. He sat up, blinking and rubbing his eyes. God, he felt stiff—like he had slept on the floor. Ben looked around: he had slept on the floor. He was on the floor in the choir room at St. Mary’s. He had spent the night there and so had everybody else: Jack, Malachi, Russell, Jeff, and Hazel and her cat.
“I wonder if I can borrow a razor and some shaving cream from Father Jamey,” Ben muttered, rubbing his hand over the morning stubble on his face. He glanced over at Jack, who was still asleep, flat on his back and snoring. Jack, at least for the moment, seemed to be getting better. Father Jamey had managed to change the dressing on Jack’s chest wound and the burns on his back. The burns looked as if they were healing. The long cut on Jack’s chest still oozed blood and the flesh around it had blackened. It hurts and it burns, Jack had said. Liberal amounts of Solarcaine—all Father Jamey had for burns —only slightly alleviated the pain. At least Jack could sleep with a glass of water and two pills left over from the priest’s arthoscopic knee surgery.
Ben stood, his legs creaking. Friday, Saturday, and now, on Sunday morning, I don’t have a home. I have to live in a church until Halloween—Samhain—and what then? Where do we go? How do we get there? I have looked and looked: in books, journals, upstairs, downstairs—and my lady is gone and I don’t know which gate will take me to her chamber, which gate Valeria tried to take ten years ago.
He had watched her die, only minutes after she left the house, forbidding him to come to the door to see her off, a command he had ignored. One more Fomorii outside, waiting, the backup, in case the first two failed. He had almost died with her, along with a willow oak and a dogwood and a good chunk of the front yard. Grass refused to grow back where the trees had been. And for a long time thereafter, he might as well have been dead.
Ben pulled his pants on and then wriggled into a sweatshirt. He would have to ask
Father Jamey to get him some clothes. Would the Wake County Sheriffs Department let a priest into his house? Ben shook his head. Too many things to think about. He glanced at his watch—six. And what the hell—heaven—I am in a church—was he doing up at six A.M.?
There were no alarm clocks, of course, anywhere in the choir room. The closest thing was a metronome on top of the piano and an old clock on the wall. The wall clock was broken: the glass was gone and somebody had managed to snap off the minute and hour hands. The second hand remained, stuck between four and five.
Jack didn’t have an alarm wristwatch. None of the boys did, either. Nor Hazel. So, what had woken him up? What had rang?
“I must have been dreaming,” Ben whispered and stepping over Jack, went to check on Malachi.
The four children lay together in a nest of bodies on the opposite side of the room from Ben and Jack. Ben could see Malachi’s luminous bright head between Russell’s reddy-gold and Jeffs brown, a darkening brown, almost black, Ben realized as he stood over the children. And Hazel’s honey-brown—the same? The bruises on Russell’s face were almost gone. The blue-grey cat was bigger. Malachi glows all the time now, just like his mother did when she was pregnant. The cat was awake and staring back at Ben through half-open eyes, bright blue slits that cast a thin, blue light on the worn carpet.
“Good morning, Alexander,” Ben said and knelt down to rub the cat’s big head. The beast had grown to the size of a German shepherd, but it still acted like a house cat. As Ben stroked Alexander’s head and back, the cat started purring, sounding like the rumbling of a small engine. To Ben’s surprise, it rolled over on its back and let him stroke the soft white-grey belly fur.
“You are something else, kitty-boy-oh-boy—”
Ben stopped mid-stroke. He had heard again the sound that had awakened him. It wasn’t an alarm, but a bell, a single, clear bell rung once. It couldn’t be the church—the earliest mass wasn’t until seven—no, eight, Father Jamey had said. No one wanted to be out before the sun was good and up, even when there hadn’t been a curfew.
All that was left was a bare patch of earth in the front yard. I planted bulbs of every kind, fertilized, watered, aerated, everything I could think of, and nothing grew.
Ben resumed his stroking and was rewarded with another note from the mysterious bell. This time he could localize it: the sound was right by him—right in front of him.
The bell rang again.
“You are a good boy, Alex,” Ben whispered and walking on his hands and knees went around the cat. He knew where the bell was and it wasn’t a bell.
Ben sat down beneath the window, by his son. He leaned back to press his back against the wall: that always took away some of the soreness. He gently stroked his son’s hair, the warm light twisting around his fingers. “Malachi? Wake up, son, tell me what you’re dreaming.”
“Dad? What?” Malachi opened his eyes and looked up.
“Tell me what you’re dreaming. Quick, before you forget—the star your mother left you—it was ringing—”
Malachi sat up, holding the star in his right hand. He eased himself into the crook of Ben’s arm. “A circle without grass, like the one in the front yard, where Mama died, but bigger and not here, it’s glowing, and I’m above it, high in the air. Dad, feel what happens when I move the star.”
He’s so frail and that fever is burning him up. There was nothing left to bury after Valeria and the Fomorii burned up in the front yard. Just that circle where nothing has grown since. There might be another place like that—near—but where? I know this; the name is in my head; I’ve read about it. But I’ve read so many books, looking for a clue, any clue—
The star rang again. Malachi moved the star to his left and it rang yet again. To his right: no sound.
“You dreamed of the gate, didn’t you, son? Your mother’s star is a compass—see, that long point glows when you move it to the left. And the star rings.”
“Yes,” Malachi said, whispering, as he leaned into his father. “That’s the way to the gate—now we can find it.”
“Don’t say anything yet to the others. We have to be sure, son. It’s just like a compass—if we only had a map—a map, that’s it,” Ben said half to himself, half to Malachi, “a map.” But his road maps were in the car, outside, and it wasn’t safe to go outside. Father Jamey had to have a map somewhere—in his car, the church, the rectory.
Father Jamey will be down here soon, with breakfast. I can wait until then to get the map. Malachi can sleep a little longer—he’s already fallen asleep again, even with all this noise. He is so very hot. And he’s so light; he feels like a bird. His arms, his wrists are so thin. His body seems to be melting away. Those golden eyes are enormous. Now I can get him home; I can save him. Jack? If he doesn’t die first, the fairies must know how to save people. with black magic wounds. What am I going to do without Jack? If I can get Malachi and Jack and Jeff and Hazel and Russell and that cat out of this church, past the sheriff, past Thomas and his witches—know he hasn’t given up—if.
Father Jamey brought in the North Carolina map he had fished out of the glove compartment of his car, and spread it out on the floor in the choir room. The children, all four awake by then, their questions squelched, followed Malachi’s direction and each sat on one side of the map, Malachi to the north, Hazel to the south, Russell, the east, Jeff, the west. A very pale looking Jack sat behind Malachi, to the boy’s right, on the piano bench, leaning back against the piano, as if he needed its weight to bear him. Ben sat on the floor, to his son’s left. Malachi held the still-glowing silver-grey twelve-pointed star in his hand, the chain looped around his wrist.
“Well,” the priest said, looking at each of them, “are you ready? Malachi? This is your show, sort of. Your mother left you the star.”
Malachi nodded and unlooped the star and held it over the map, letting it sway like a pendulum. “Nothing’s happening, and it’s stopped glowing,” he said, frowning and looking at his father.
“It’s a compass,” his father said. “Hold it flat in your hand, close to the map, see where it pulls.”
Father Jamey watched as the star glowed back to life and pulled Malachi’s hand over the map, east on 40, then south on 15-501, away from Durham, around Chapel Hill, and south again, and into Chatham County, into Pittsboro, around the Courthouse, and southwest on 902. Each road lit up on the map, as if someone was drawing with a luminous marker, as Malachi let the star pull his hand. And as each road lit up, the star rang, a sure sweet note that rose up above all of them, almost visible, a brightening in the air.
“It’s warm,” he whispered, looking up once at his father. “Just like that game. Hot or cold.”
Ben nodded.
Over the Rocky River, then Dewitt Smith Road, NC 2176, over 421, and Bear Creek, another crossroads with a name, and streets, roads, all spinning out from it: Old US 421, Barker Road, Roscoe Road, Bonlee School Road, Bear Creek Church Road. Harpers Crossroad and Malachi and the star were still. A slight twitch, up, another stop, and the star rang. This time it sounded like a gong, a long, low tone, which reverberated, bouncing off the walls, and settling over them.
“Here it is, this is the place,” Malachi said and bent over the map to read the words naming the road. “1100. Devil’s Tramping Ground.”
Of course. A perfect circle where nothing grows, has ever grown. I remember the stories—we read about it in school. If something is left on the path, anything, overnight, the path is clear the next day. The circle in the yard—that was all she left.
“Dad?”
Ben looked over at Father Jamey, who shook his head. “I’m not from North Carolina, Ben.”
“I know the place. I’ve never been there, but I know it. A big circle in a grove of trees where nothing grows. It’s the gate.” Ben said.
“We can really get there—we can get to Faerie,” Russell shouted and jumped up. “We can do it—we can go home.”
“We’re almost there,” J
eff shouted, joining in Russell’s chorus. Hazel, then Jeff and Russell, started playing tag with the cat, knocking over the chairs and music stands. Music sheets became airborne, sailing around the room, making great circles in the air. Jack didn’t stand, but he managed to sit up and watch, one hand on his chest, the other waving in the air, as if he had a baton and was directing the show.
From the journal of Ben Tyson, Monday morning, 28 October 1991
Father Jamey was able to go back to the house yesterday afternoon, after the noon mass. He told me the house had been ransacked. The doors had been knocked down, the windows smashed, the furniture turned over, torn apart. He said it was as if they were DEA agents looking for drug stashes. Cushions, pillows, and chair seats had been slashed open, foam and feathers torn out and scattered everywhere. Every plate, every glass, every cup and saucer—smashed. The kitchen floor crunched. Even the salt and pepper shakers, the sugar bowl, the jelly jars—smashed into a sticky mess. The computer, the TV, the stereo. Books with pages ripped out, spines broken.
Everything.
I had wanted him to get one book—just one, The Devil’s Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Mystery Stories. He had to go all the way into Raleigh, to the Cameron Village Public Library.
“None of the books in your house, Ben, were salvageable.”
Somehow the books hurt the most. I know I can’t go back and get them—I know I will never go back to that house again. Where I am going to go—after Faerie—I don’t know. Is there an after Faerie? Do I stay there? Can I? She’s gone.
It wasn’t just Thomas’s goons or the sheriff’s boys, Father Jamey said. My neighbors helped. He caught a handful in the house taking things.
“They’re normals, Ben; their kids aren’t Changing. They aren’t Changing. They’re scared.”
Harvest of Changelings Page 33
