Hazel and this is Russell, Jeff, Malachi, Father Jamey, my cat, Alex, who are you?
One voice: Like you, I’m like you all, going to the same place, to the gate, to the place I have been dreaming of all my life.
Another voice: The call, I was called, we were all called to come here, to this place.
Another voice: ... was drawn here like a magnet, pulled, I didn’t even try to resist.
Another voice: My friend died yesterday—the lightning and the things—they got him. I saw him fall, drop, burning, like a falling star.
The auric colors tumbled and fell and exploded and reformed in the back of the van, and then dropped into Malachi’s still red aura, and for the first time in days, Hazel felt his fever drop.
Ben
Just ahead: the small, narrow, white sign said Devil’s Tramping Ground and it pointed to the right, toward the small, gravel parking lot and dark trees and brambles and thick underbrush. Five North Carolina Highway Patrol cars waited in the middle of the road, two in front, three behind. Jack looked at his watch: 11:33. The blinking blue lights seemed unusually sharp and bright, blue fires in the night. Directly in front of the cars, in the middle of the road, was a fire, and what looked like a door, propped at each corner with cinderblocks—a hastily built altar. Behind the cars was a dark mass, a crowd of people and things and wolves. All of it; them—Ican see them a hundred yards away. Behind and around the church van, a luminous mass of men, women, and children.
“The last battle? The metaphor is real: darkness versus light,” Ben said, more to himself than anyone, but still loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Father, can you stop this thing? Thomas is up there. Stop the van!” Jack yelled, interrupting Ben’s words, hammering his fists on the van’s side.
“Stop? Thomas? Are you sure?” the priest yelled back over his shoulder.
“Stop, just stop. Please.”
“Jack, what are you doing? You promised me you wouldn’t do this, Jack—are you listening to me? Jack?” Ben yelled.
The van, already creeping, slowed even more, the wind beneath it began to die, and those in the air around it started to come down to the earth. The van touched the asphalt, bounced, once, twice, and then stopped.
“Ben: I never promised. I have to do this,” Jack said as he threw open the van’s back door. “I love you, I love you all,” he said, and jumped out.
“Jack—wait—” Russell cried out.
“Jack, come back,” Hazel said, Jeff’s words a beat behind hers.
“He’s gone?” Ben said, throwing open his door and jumping out. “Jaaacckk! Come back, oh come back, don’t do this. Jaaack. Come back—I’m going after you—”
“Ben, don’t—don’t run after him,” Father Jamey cried, running after Ben and grabbing him. “You can’t stop him.”
“You know what he is going to do.”
“I know. I think this is something we have to let him do, Ben.”
Ben, caught in the priest’s hands, could only stare at the priest and then at Jack, who walked slowly across the no man’s land.
The children walked up then, to stand beside the two men, all four of them, Malachi between Russell and Jeff, Hazel in the lead. Alex walked by Hazel, now, without question, a sleek blue-grey mountain lion, with Siamese markings. All five glowed, Malachi the brightest, and a rope of light moved in and around and through them. The twelve-pointed star, shining with a silvery light, pulsed on Malachi’s chest.
“Dad?”
“Son?” Ben jerked back, caught again between his son and his best friend. “You’re awake? You’re all right?”
“It’s the star—I feel strength coming in through it—from Russell, Jeff, Hazel, the others. I’m all right,” Malachi said and looked past his father at Jack. “Dad, Father Jamey is right: Uncle Jack has to do this.”
“I know, son,” Ben said and gently pushed the priest’s hands away and reached for his son to pick him up, hold him against his chest, the pulsing light of the star somehow reverberating in him as well. Ben glanced at his watch: 11:42. He wept.
Hazel
“Jack, come back,” Hazel said again, this time so that no one could hear her. She wanted to run after him, take his hand, pull him back before it was too late. He’s going to let Thomas kill him. He’s going to let Thomas cut out his heart. I don’t want to see this. What am I doing here? I should be at home, in my bedroom, upstairs, with my computer, my Worldmaker game, my desk, my books, with my grand - parents downstairs. I should be at home.
Yes, you should be.
Hazel quickly looked around. Jeff, Russell, Malachi, Ben, and Father J were all looking at Jack and Thomas. Alex bumped against her leg, pushing his head into her hand. She couldn’t see the faces of the people around Thomas. Behind her, the luminous faces of the other changelings were also all looking at Jack and Thomas.
I should be at home.
If you don’t go home, your grandparents will forget you. And you will see Jack get his heart cut out. Nobody really needs you here.
Who are you?
Silence. No voices at all, none of the other changelings she had heard before, and not even a whisper from Malachi or Russell or Jeff. Alex bumped her again. She felt his thoughts pushing at her, insistent, but she pushed him away. She knew what he was trying to tell her and she didn’t want to hear it.
She took one step back. Nobody seemed to notice. Of course they wouldn’t. They didn’t need her, not really. Nobody needed her. Not little, invisible Hazel. It didn’t matter how good she was or how smart or that her homework was always done or that she was the only one of the four with silver eyes. If she turned and ran, they wouldn’t notice. And she wouldn’t have to see Jack die or be here in this darkness.
That’s right. Go home.
Hazel took one more step away. Then, Alex growled and took her hand in his mouth, his teeth sharp on her skin.
“Alex, what are you doing?”
StayIneedyoutheyneedyoustay.
“Hazel?” Jeff turned around and held out his left hand. Russ already held his right. “Malachi needs us together, as a tetrad. Didn’t you hear his mind-talk?”
Itoldyou.
Go home.
“Hazel, we need you,” Russell said and held out his hand. She could see the light pulsing between them, the light reaching out for her hands from both of theirs. She shuddered, one foot stepping back, the other forward, led by her hand.
“I’m here,” she whispered and stepped forward, Alex rubbing himself against her, and took Jeff’s and Russell’s hands.
Jack
Jack’s chest wound hurt as he walked from the van to the highway patrol car. He could feel a slight, warm wetness beneath the bandages—of course, he was bleeding again. The burns on his back hurt as well, as his shirt rubbed against them. He wanted to tear off his shirt and scratch the hell out of his back. He glanced back at Father Jamey and Ben, holding Malachi, standing by the church van. Hazel, with Alex by her, Jeff, and Russell stood around them, enclosing the two men and the boy in their rope of light. He could see all their auras, bright and moving as if they were the northern lights. A white brilliance shone out from between Malachi and his father: the twelve-pointed star, Jack thought. He looked up for the first time in what felt like a long time, to see a clearing sky. The wind was tearing apart the thick cover of dark clouds, in ragged chunks, as if the sky had been filled with grey cotton candy. Broken swirls and wisps snaked and turned and broke again, vanishing, dissolving. He watched as a grey veil was ripped from a golden orange moon. He could see only a few stars dimly, as the aurora borealis danced behind the thinning clouds.
God, please let this work, let them get to the gate if I do this.
He turned and walked the rest of the way to the patrol cars, the blue lights still flashing. Thomas stood in front of the cars, flanked on both sides by state troopers whose shadowed faces, like the rifles in their hands, seemed to be locked in place, as if they were wearing masks.
> “Hello, son. Left your banking job for one with law enforcement?” Jack asked, wondering somewhere in his head just why was he trying to be funny. Has my son become so powerful he can control men such as these?
Thomas stood very still, dressed in black: turtleneck, pants, shoes. A five-pointed star hung around his neck, pulsing faintly with a sickly green light. “What do you want now? You know I have won—there is no way that boy will reach that gate—not in the next fifteen minutes. And look—it’s right there.” He pointed to his right, through the trees, up a low rise, where a faint white light glowed close to the earth.
“Take me instead, like you wanted to before—like you’ve wanted to for so long. You know what power there is in a parent- or a child-killing. Let Malachi go free and you will still have the power you want when you take my heart,” Jack said and took a step forward, then another.
“How can I trust you? And them—they rescued you before,” Thomas said as he crossed his arms across his chest. The green light began to spread out from the star on his chest, oozing across his arms, up his neck, his face, and his dead eyes. Behind the troopers Jack could see four or five Fomorii, their red eyes pairs of tiny infernos, the moonlight glinting on their scales. One idly twitched its fire whip and sparks hissed and popped. Behind them the dead faces of what must be would-be witches and warlocks, wolves at their sides.
“They did that; I didn’t ask them to. I’ve never lied to you.”
“You miserable, pathetic old man. No, you never lied to me. How could I ever have believed you loved me—not that love itself isn’t a lie. There’s the fire and the altar. Prepare him.”
“No, let me,” Jack said and as a frozen-faced woman stepped out of the crowd to pull at his shirt. She looked at Thomas, who nodded. Jack slowly took off his clothes, dropping them one garment at a time to the ground until he stood again naked before everyone. For a brief moment he was cool as the wind that was scouring the sky clean of storm clouds rushed over him. Then, a step, two, three, toward the fire and the altar, he felt the heat close to his skin, the sweat coming to his skin as it had been waiting just below the surface.
He glanced quickly back at the others. He could only see their outlines. Malachi was now standing by his father, and the light from his star was almost blinding.
Jack lay down on the altar, spread-eagled, arms and legs pointed to all four corners. The fire was a few feet away and roared and snarled. The burn on his back hurt like it had never hurt before and the wound on his chest had reopened, the blood painting his skin scarlet. He looked up into the aurora borealis. Surely that meant something, he thought, surely that is a good sign. That and the moon, still golden and large, even though it was high in the sky. He could hear Thomas’s people moving closer; they were humming aaaaaeeeeeiiiiiooooouuuu. His son chanted in a language he couldn’t recognize.
Jack raised one hand and reached out for Thomas.
The shining knife fell.
Ben
He looked at his watch as Jack lay down: 11:48.
Malachi
The instant Thomas reached his hand into Jack’s open chest and lifted out the heart, a red light flashed, seemingly from within the heart itself. The twelve-pointed star on Malachi’s chest grew even brighter still, in response to the heart’s fire. The star and the heart pulsed in union.
Malachi did not look away. He wanted to, as he knew his father, weeping, was. This is for you, Uncle Jack. He held up the star and pushed. Jack’s heart shone even brighter and Thomas screamed and screamed. The altar fire went out, and the table fell over, and Jack’s body suddenly grew incandescent. Jack’s heart shone even brighter as Thomas tried to cram as much of the heart into his mouth as he could, blood covering his hands, his arms, his face. Then Thomas screamed, spitting out pieces, pulling the heart out of his mouth, as he kept screaming: “It’s burning me—my mouth —tongue—my hands—I’m burning up!” Thomas, his screams beyond words, finally tore the fiery heart out of his hands, as he writhed on the ground. All the others—even the Fomorii—stopped, as if whatever had animated them had left. Malachi pushed again with the star and the blue lights on the state police cars exploded and more screams, more falling to the earth in pain. Blue fires consumed the cars. Jack’s body still glowed, as if all the fires had come to rest in his flesh, to guard it and keep it safe.
“Dad, Father J, guys, come on—now, let’s go. It’s time,” Malachi said and lowered his arm. The twelve-pointed star’s glowing had dulled, until only a pale outline shone around it, against Malachi’s chest.
“Jack, oh, Jack,” his father whispered, the words between his sobs.
The others came up, slowly, staring at the blue fires, the ones in front of them in pain on the ground. Russell spoke first, softly: “I could have helped you, Malachi. I can make fire, too.”
“I know, Russ, but I was barely able to control what I was doing. Let’s go. If Uncle Jack hadn’t let happen what he did, we would have lost.”
Malachi took his father’s hand and the others followed him, across the gravel parking lot, into the brambles and briers, their clothes tearing and ripping, skin snagging, onto a narrow, almost invisible path, into the woods. Above them the aurora borealis glowed even brighter, in even more fantastic shimmering colors.
Ben
The Devil’s Tramping Ground, at any other time, Ben thought, would look plain and ordinary and even a bit trashed. A circle of packed earth, with beer cans, Styrofoam cups, hamburger wrappers, and other debris at the outer edges, and grass and weeds and rocks in the middle. Tall scraggly pines, oak saplings. But at 11:53—all that with Jack took only five minutes?—on Samhain, the circle was no longer plain; rather it glowed and shimmered with an intense white light, as something luminous beneath the earth was coming to a slow boil. The air was charged. Hazel’s hair, unbraided, twisted and coiled, like golden brown snakes. Russell’s fire-red thatch and Jeffs dark brown sparked and popped. Malachi’s curls—no, tendrils, golden snakes—were as bright as the circle. Alex’s fur shone like polished silver. And all of their eyes—Ben looked away. He knew his eyes didn’t have the same fires.
Five explosions, one after the other, rocked the night, and pine branches and cones and needles rained on them. Ben looked back to see through the trees what had to be the patrol cars burning, their gas tanks blown, and God knows who and what else that had been near by.
Jack died so we could be here. Please let it be worth it.
“Thomas is on his way. Those explosions didn’t get him,” Father Jamey said from behind Ben. “I have this new vision—just now, as if my eyes just changed, I can see things, through things. Never mind. Thomas can’t hurt you anymore—what he tried to do with Jack’s heart backfired. But join hands and set foot on the circle. I don’t think he can even touch you once you do that.”
“Father J, aren’t you coming with us?” Jeff asked as he took Russell’s hand. Ben took Hazel’s hand and waited for the priest’s answer, one foot on the circle, the ground pulsing, the other on the still earth. Malachi took his other hand and stepped with both feet onto the Devil’s Tramping Ground. Whatever sickness lingering in his body vanished then.
“No, I’m not going. You are all called to go; I’m called to stay. All of you, on the circle, join hands altogether. Nine times, counter-clockwise—go on, it’s 11:56.”
Ben stepped onto the circle, followed by Hazel, then Russell and Jeff. Immediately he was cut off, surrounded on both sides by diaphanous walls of light. Alex followed Hazel onto the circle and stood as close to her as he could, his fur touching her skin. Ben could see through it dimly, the priest’s smiling face, the pine trees, the narrow path, and what must be Thomas.
They began to walk, counter-clockwise, around the circle. Russell kept count: “One. Two. Three—”
Ben could see some of the others who had waited in the road following Thomas, coming through the trees. They were dark shapes through the light barrier around them; he couldn’t make out individual faces, hand
s, arms, jackets, shirts. Their eyes were red. Thomas tried to attack the priest, but Father Jamey easily pushed him away.
“Four,” Russell said, his voice high with excitement.
Thomas struggled to his feet, with the bloody knife in his burnt hand. The priest grabbed his arm and took the knife and tossed it away. Then Thomas charged the light barrier and bounced off, screaming again in pain.
“Five. Six. Seven.” No one else spoke except for Russell.
“Eight. Nine.”
“Okay, keep holding hands. Don’t let go,” Ben shouted. Why am I shouting? Then, he heard, muffled, but louder, Thomas’s mob. And inside the circle, in the exact center where there had been grass and weeds and rocks and the ashes of an earlier fire, there was now a singing blue fire. Malachi’s star glowed blue in return and it sang back to the fire.
“Your mother said it was also a key. Unlock the door, son. Russell, let go of his hand, but keep your hand on him—don’t let go—he can get the star off. I’ll keep hold on this side.”
As Russell moved his hand from one part of Malachi’s body to another, Malachi lifted the star over his head. He held it in both of his hands for a moment and then, gently, swinging the star on its chain, he tossed it into the heart of the blue fire.
For a long moment, nothing happened. They all could see the star, a brighter blue, then a blue-white, then white, then the fire exploded, flames shooting out in spirals and tongues, caroming off the light barrier. The blue fire raced around the circle, around them, through them, and the white where the star had been began to distend, as if it was being pulled into a line. When the line was seven or eight feet tall, it began to expand until a door stood in the middle of the circle, a door of blue and white fire.
“You go first, Mal,” Hazel said.
Then, Malachi, holding Russell’s left hand, and Russell, holding Jeff’s left, and Jeff, holding Hazel’s left, and Hazel, holding Ben’s left, Alex right beside her, then Ben—one by one—they went through the door.
Harvest of Changelings Page 38
