The Broken Ones

by Stephen M Irwin

  She followed his long, thin arm and looked at the other man. This man wasn’t small. He smiled and held up a big pink jacket.

  “Wa?” Taryn thought it was the most beautiful jacket she had ever seen. “My!”

  “Shh, yes. It’s yours. But you have to be nice and quiet. Will you be nice and quiet?”

  Taryn nodded hard. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.

  “Then let’s put it on,” he whispered.

  Taryn wanted to jump and hoot, but she was good. Nice and quiet. She put one arm in, then the other. Outside the window, she could see, up up, some stars.

  “Nigh-time!” she said.

  “Yes,” agreed the pixie-man. His hands were soft as he slipped her shoes on her feet. “We’re going on a nighttime trip.”

  The jacket was warm. Taryn smiled. She was going to see the stars.

  Chapter 17

  Stars were diamonds, the moon a fingernail. The air was ice-cold. “How do we kill a rabbit?”

  The sun had not yet risen, and the sky in the east was a smudge of light no particular color. His new daddy was in a good mood. Oscar followed the man as he walked over tufts of grass that tinkled and snapped under their gum boots. Oscar could not remember ever having been so cold. Frost covered the paddocks, and loops of frozen dew hung from fence wires like dark-gray pearls. The air was so still that the man’s voice, only a whisper, was almost shockingly loud. Oscar’s six-year-old heart pounded, because he carried a gun.

  It was heavy, the rifle, very heavy, and his small bare fingers felt numb. But he refused to let the weapon slip or drop. The man carried a similar rifle. Both had scopes. The man’s was a Weatherby, he’d explained yesterday after they arrived at the farm, “And yours is a Marlin. Like the fish.” They’d gone to the shed behind the farmhouse and the man had shown Oscar how to load the magazine, how to screw on the silencer made by a “friend of a friend,” how to unfold the two legs of the bipod, how to lie on the ground and tuck the stock into his right shoulder with his left hand, work the bolt, and sight through the scope. Satisfied, the man had said, “Tomorrow we hunt conigli.” This morning he’d been pulled up from sleep like a fish hauled from a deep sea, disoriented and a bit fearful. Daddy helped him dress, tucked two magazines into his pockets, and handed the black-and-silver rifle to him. Shivering and excited, Oscar had followed him out into darkness.

  “How do we kill a rabbit?” Daddy repeated, whispering as they walked. The farm was in drought, Oscar learned last night, and the rabbits were fearless and numberless. A plague.

  The night before, from his sleeping bag in the spare room, he’d heard his new parents sitting with Uncle Andino. There had been the loud pop of a cork from a bottle. More talking: something about a trial finally over. Corks and drinking usually meant good news, Oscar had thought, but the voices weren’t happy, so he wasn’t sure. But today the man’s talkative mood was impossible to ignore. Maybe he just had a funny way of showing happiness.

  “He is no fool, rabbit. And nature has given him lots of help. Big ears for hearing. He is brown, like the grass is brown. And he is fast. His eyes work better than yours or mine at the dawn and the dusk. He knows these paddocks better even than your Uncle Andino, much better than you or me. Where rabbit comes from, far across the seas, everything eats him. Hawks, wolves, owls. So he has eyes each side of the head”—the man touched each temple—“to see all round. But we don’t have eyes like the owl, or sharp teeth like the stoat. No? So what is our advantage?”

  Oscar thought, and said, “We have guns.”

  Sandro shrugged, a satisfactory answer. He took Oscar’s gun and held fence wires down with one foot and up with his hand, letting the boy climb into a new paddock. He handed back the rifle.

  “Guns, yes. That’s part of it. Guns and scopes, so if we do it right we can kill the little fellows before they even know we’re there. That’s good. Nothing likes to die feeling afraid. But people have been eating conigli for thousands of years, long before guns. Do we just eat rabbit?”

  Oscar thought about this. “No.”

  The man looked at him from the corner of an eye, and nodded again. “What other animals do we eat?”

  Oscar saw shapes shifting on the glowing horizon.

  “Cows.”

  “Cattle,” Sandro agreed.

  “Sheep. Chickens. Fish.”

  “Yes.”

  Oscar fell silent, thinking. He willed his frozen fingers to grip the gun tight. He knew the man wanted an answer, and Oscar wanted to please him. He was a policeman, and made Oscar a little afraid.

  “Ducks?”

  Sandro smiled. “Yes. Lots of things. What do we do before we eat them?”

  “Cook them?”

  The man laughed. “And before that?”

  “Kill them?”

  The man nodded. “We kill them. We kill everything. Rabbit, cattle, fish, seals, ducks, insects, little tiny bacteria, giant whales. Everything. Even each other.” The man fell quiet for so long that Oscar wondered if he’d forgotten his new son was even there. Then he whispered, “The difference between us and the other animals is we kill even when we’re not hungry. That’s our advantage. We are good at killing, because we enjoy it.”

  Oscar frowned. “Do you enjoy it?”

  “Every man does,” Sandro replied after a long moment. “You just have to decide how much. Shh, now.”

  The man motioned for Oscar to follow quietly, then stopped at a large tuft of grass and nodded ahead. Oscar looked. Beneath the fence line was a cutaway of dirt and a dark, almond-shaped hole. The burrow entrance. The east was behind them, and the stars overhead were fading. The man nodded. Oscar lay down. The ground beneath his belly was cold. He felt his heart tripping fast in his chest as he set up the gun. He did what they’d practiced yesterday afternoon: tucking the butt tight against his shoulder, steadying it with his left hand, gently lifting the bolt, drawing it back, and locking it forward with an oiled click. The man leaned over and peered through Oscar’s scope, checking. Oscar could smell the oil in the man’s hair, and the pleasant scents of soap and tobacco. The man leaned back and nodded.

  Oscar squeezed one eye shut. The view through the scope juddered with every heartbeat. In this half-light, the crosshairs were barely visible over the black eye of the set entrance. Oscar’s small index finger slipped over the cold metal of the trigger. Thoughts and instructions swirled in his head like bright embers above a bonfire, impossible to control. Gun, recoil, rabbit, gun, I’m going to shoot a rabbit, steady, breathe in, hold my breath shoot a gun, rabbit—

  “Remember,” the man whispered in his ear. “Don’t jerk. Squeeze.”

  Then the man made a noise that sounded like a cartoon kiss, a squeaking through the lips that sounded like an enormous mouse. Silence. Another kiss-squeak.

  It arrived. It moved silently into the circle of the scope, the glow in the eastern sky just enough to pick its bark-brown fur out from the dirt behind it. Its ears were tall and its dark eyes glittered as it turned its head this way and that, looking for another rabbit. The man kiss-squeaked again, and the curious hare took another half hop forward.

  Oscar hesitated. The crosshairs willed themselves down over the animal’s body, dancing wildly.

  “So?” came a whisper in his ear.

  He squeezed. The gun suddenly coughed—Ptap!—and kicked back into his shoulder.

  Oscar blinked in surprise, then made himself look through the scope. The rabbit was lying at the mouth of the set, motionless.

  He felt his face break into a wide smile, and he turned to the man.

  He was nodding, but not smiling.

  “You’re a natural,” he said. “Fun, yes?”

  Oscar wondered if he should lie, but he knew the man would see right through it.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Another?” the man asked.

  “Yes.”

  He watched Daddy retrieve the body, return, then kiss the air again. Another curious animal crept from th
e burrow. Click-click—Oscar loaded. Ptap! The animal fell. This time he did not feel elation.

  “Good shot,” Sandro said. He fetched that dead rabbit and laid its limp, blood-furred body next to Oscar. Its eyes were dull. “Another?”

  “Can we go back now?” Oscar asked.

  The man shook his head and pulled something from his pocket. It was a box of cartridges.

  “Not till you’re sick of killing them.”

  He made Oscar chamber round after round, kissing the freezing air again and again, and the little brown bodies fell down.

  Click-clicketty.

  Click-clicketty … Click-clicketty

  Get up.

  But he was so cold.

  … Click-clicketty … Click-clicketty …

  Get up. Got to get up.

  Shivering. Lying on the frozen earth, wondering why he could no longer see through the scope. He was so ashamed about crying.

  … Click-clicketty …

  Up! Awake!

  Through the red sea of his lids, shapes waved like seaweed, or drowned men’s arms.

  Oscar forced his eyes to grind open.

  A skull lay beside him, staring.

  Oscar yelled. He flailed and tried to roll away, and struck his nose against the cold metal of the exhaust pipe and rolled back.

  It was not a skull but a face. A face with no eyes. Behind each lid was a black, depthless well that fell into nothing. The dead boy’s empty eyes widened and he, too, skittered backward, away from the underside of the car and out of sight.

  … Click-clicketty. On the cold concrete, Oscar’s phone buzzed and skittered on tiny grains of dirt. He fumbled for it, grabbing with numb fingers. He saw blood on his nails. His head throbbed, and he was so damned cold.

  “Hello?”

  “Where are you?” Neve sounded annoyed.

  “Uh,” he said. “Under the car.”

  “Broken down?”

  He suddenly remembered the sight of that huge, scaly, taloned foot stepping carefully on the concrete, and his skin crawled. He looked around, turning his head carefully so that he wouldn’t scrape his raw scalp on the ground. Daylight coming through the high windows showed the walls of the garage, the collection of oil tins and boxes, the twisted curls of the garbage bag that held the broken idol. But there was no sign of the creature.

  “I’m okay,” he said, and slid toward the side of the car, wincing at the thick, pulsing ache in his head.

  Neve continued, “Moechtar came looking for you. Something about a request for a DNA sample from the Roths.”

  Oscar carefully poked his head out from the underside of the car. Above him, the high hopper windows were all shut. The chains that secured them closed were tight, each linked securely over its hook. He blinked. “Did Moechtar sound receptive?” he asked.

  “No. He wants to know what’s going on.”

  Oscar rolled out from under the car. Everything hurt. As he moved, the scabbed wound on the back of his head opened up and he felt blood creep on his scalp. He stood, and the edges of his vision turned a fragile, sparkling white and a wave of nausea rose from his belly. Concussion. His shaking breaths plumed in the cold garage. No giant bird. No scent of dry, dead rot.

  “I’ll come in later,” he said.

  “Oscar—”

  He ended the call.

  He leaned down to look in the car’s side mirror. A rivulet of blood crusted on his forehead, and a scratch across one cheek had freshly reopened and wept ruby pearls of blood. He walked painfully to the front of the car and knelt over the formless rumple of the garbage bag. He picked it up.

  Shards of terra-cotta tinkled inside. Dream or no dream, the idol had been destroyed.

  Gelareh Barirani squinted in the doorway. Her hair was an electric frizz, and a little spot of dried saliva rode the corner of her mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” Oscar said. He’d forgotten that she was a shift worker. “I’ll come back.”

  “It’s okay,” she replied, pulling her hair back from her face. He watched her eyes rove over his cut and bruised face. He had washed and changed, but combing his blood-matted hair had hurt like hell, and he was sure the job looked less than half done.

  “Rough night?”

  “Interesting night,” he replied.

  She stood aside and let him in. “Tea?”

  His stomach was still a precarious tightrope, but he nodded. She went to the kitchen and put water on the gas flame.

  “I got your better photos,” she said. “But I haven’t had much time to work on them.”

  “I have something else, aside from those,” he said. “Quite a tricky thing.” He lifted the clanking plastic bag and pointed to her tabletop. “May I?”

  She nodded.

  Oscar set aside the candlesticks and placed the bag in the middle of the table. He folded it down, revealing the dozens of earthenware fragments.

  Gelareh sauntered over. “This is not old pottery,” she said, inspecting the edges. “Contemporary. Brand-new, I think. Recently broken.”

  “Yes,” Oscar agreed.

  She looked at him archly.

  “An accident,” he said, shivering at the memory of the leathery, sharp-clawed foot that had flung the bag with such purpose into the oilcans.

  Gelareh began picking over the potsherds with careful fingers. “So, what was it?”

  “I’m not sure. Some kind of idol. About yea high; this round. That’s a horn there. It has two horns.”

  “A bull?” She began sliding pieces together.

  “A demon, I think. An owl. Wings. But it’s a she.”

  Gelareh’s eyebrows rose a little.

  “Breasts?” she asked. “Sex organs?”

  “Both. Quite exposed. And a seven-pointed star on her back.”

  The corners of the researcher’s mouth turned down. And suddenly her fingers stopped moving. She leaned closer.

  “This is writing.” Her fingers traced the patterns that Oscar had mistaken for feathers or scales. She looked up at Oscar. She was smiling. “I can read this,” she said.

  “You can put it back together? Translate?”

  “Transliterate,” she murmured, excited. “Again, it’s not just one language.” She leaned close. “Wait.”

  “What is it?”

  She headed over to the shelves at the side of the room.

  “I found something like this on your photographs.” She returned with the blowups and tracings. “From the girl. I didn’t know if I was reading right, but now I think I am. So, here.”

  On the paper were small traced ligatures that looked like arrowheads and staves. She pointed.

  “This here, it looked to me very much like Akkadian cuneiform.”

  “Arcadia?”

  “Akkadia. The empire before Assyria and Babylonia. About 2400 BC. Akkadian has a small alphabet—fourteen consonants, four vowel sounds.” She picked up a shard of pottery and her fingers traced over the wedge-shaped symbols.

  “What does it say?”

  “Door,” she replied, delighted. “And that ties in with the vévés, don’t you think? And this, I’m almost sure it’s Assyrian cuneiform. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. It says, Li-lit. Lilith.”

  “Lilith?”

  “Lilith, the first wife of Adam. From the Babylonian Talmud. She bore him devils and spirits.”

  The water bubbled on the stove. Gelareh handed Oscar the shard and went to carefully measure tea into a pot. He recognized the leaves he had given her.

  “The Catholic Church removed references to Lilith when they decided the canon in the fourth century,” she continued. “Lilitû, in Akkadian, means ‘female spirit.’ A demon. It also means ‘black,’ or ‘night bird.’ Or ‘evil,’ depending on context. Some scholars interpret the lilitû to have come from the desert, like jinni, envious of human women, particularly women giving birth. They commanded disease and lions, fed on children, fucked men in their sleep.”

  She handed Oscar a steaming cup of te
a.

  “What does that all have to do with this?” Oscar waved his fingers at the broken idol.

  Gelareh shrugged. “At least one scholar believes Lilitû was a single entity, and she was the handmaiden of Inanna. You remember Inanna?”

  Oscar nodded. “The queen of heaven.”

  “Yes, and sister of Ereshkigal.” Gelareh sipped her tea, thinking. “So you could draw a connection—a loose one—between Ereshkigal and Lilith. Early depictions were certainly similar.”

  They fell silent, drinking their tea. Oscar looked at the dozens of broken pieces of pottery, each marked with tiny symbols and arcane letters. And suddenly he knew where he had to go.

  He stood. “Will you keep track of how long it takes you?”

  She nodded, running a careful finger through the patterned potsherds, already lost in the mystery.

  He hurried to his car.

  The late-morning sky looked as fragile and colorless as a dusty lightbulb. Under its dull gray curve, the market tents were like a field of flowers—some fragrantly bright, others faded and drooping, some poisonous-looking. Vendors shouted, children laughed, charcoal fires sizzled, a stricken fiddle stitched the air with notes. Oscar dodged hawkers and the fingers of beggars, and wound his way to the row of tents where the fortune-tellers plied their trade.

  Mother Mim had her back to the stall front and was humming an old Rolling Stones song while she made herself a cress sandwich on hard bread. Oscar approached quietly and looked over the items she had laid out on bright-colored cloth. Among the broken watches, the pencil stubs, the incomplete decks of playing cards and dusty Christmas baubles were some small terra-cotta figures, none larger than a sardine tin. Three represented signs of the zodiac—the maiden, the archer, the scorpion; each had been carefully inscribed with words and sigils. Oscar recognized Florica’s handiwork.

  “The man in the hat,” Mim said, her back still to Oscar. “You’re back.”

  “I’m back,” he said, impressed.

  She turned; again, she wore sunglasses. “You have a distinctive walk,” she said, chewing. “A bit slumpy. And you’re still wearing your hat,” she chided. “Are you looking up, like I told you to?”