by Ilsa J. Bick
But then, somehow, he was huddled on the stairs. Below, his father loomed. Bright red spatters of blood painted his father’s face and wifebeater. The hammer was clotted with a gory jam of blond hair and brain and blood.
“D-d-don’t,” Dee quavered—except now Chris saw that it wasn’t Deidre at all but Lena. Lena’s face was a pulpy, misshapen horror. The left half of her head was staved. A glistening slug of pink brain slicked her neck. “P-please.” Lena raised her hands but not to Chris’s father.
To him. Because, now, Chris wasn’t eight. He wasn’t in bed either, or crouched on a staircase, hugging his knees, wishing he were anywhere else. Instead, he stood in a swirl of icy wind and stinging snow, and his was the hand with the hammer now. He hefted it, felt its weight, the handle slick with Lena’s blood. Gore dribbled over his face, bathed his neck. He sucked wet, warm copper from his lips, and it was the best thing he’d ever tasted, and he wanted more.
“P-please, Chris,” Lena said. “H-help me.”
“I can’t help you.” His voice was older, rougher. He liked that, too. “No one can.”
“B-but …” Lena’s eyes dripped blood instead of tears. “I d-don’t want to die.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you Changed. Someone has to die.”
“Yes, someone must.” It was another voice, a person Chris also knew well. Jess was suddenly there, silver hair lashed by wind into a Gorgon’s curls, the snow spinning itself into a long white gown. “Someone will,” Jess said.
“But not me!” Lena cried. “Why does it have to be—”
“You’re already lost, girl.” Jess’s voice was wind. “But you are not, Chris. Leave this place. This is a fight you will not win here. You don’t belong in the Land of the Dead.”
“Hell you say,” said his father, who was now grinning down at another body. This one was jittering and twitching in an enormous lake of steaming gore. Chris looked and saw that it was Peter, splayed on his back, his head as broken and misshapen as a Halloween pumpkin run over by a car. “That’s my boy you’re talking about,” his father said to Jess, “and he belongs to me, with me, my blood.”
“There’s a time you must kill, Chris, but also a time to heal.” Jess’s eyes were black mirrors in which he saw himself doubled: Chris on the right, Chris on the left, like the twin angels of his nature—his father and Jess—but he couldn’t tell which was good. Maybe neither was, entirely. “Leave the thing with a father’s face,” Jess said. “Go back. It’s not yet your time.”
“The hell it’s not,” he said, and then Chris was swinging—both Chrises swung, their hammers whickering—but when they connected, they collapsed into one Chris, one hammer, one desire. There was a dull chock, and a ripping sound as Lena’s scalp tore. The hammer juddered in his hand, the metal cratering bone before passing to the softer pink cheese of her brain. Lena crumpled. When the hammer pulled free, he looked up to find that Jess had disappeared.
“That’s my boy.” Scraping a gob of brains from his cheek, his father stuck his fingers in his mouth. “Yum—”
And then the scene shifted in a quick jolt, as if a hand jammed itself in his back and gave him a huge push, catapulting Chris from this horror to somewhere entirely different—and Chris had one second to think, A nightmare, it’s a nightmare, this isn’t real, it’s not—
Chris’s chest suddenly erupted in a spray of raw agony. An electric blaze streaked through his body, all the connections sizzling to life. Now he registered that the air was warm—inside, somewhere, not on the snow—and was aware of the slosh and gurgle of water, the creak of a spring, the rustle of cloth. The insect-like tick-tick-tick-tick-tick of a clock. Bed, bedroom, where? He lay on his back, quivering, every nerve singing. There was a strange pressure on his chest—hand, a man—and the side of a thumb on his forehead tracing something, drawing down and across, sketching some symbol like a pen over blank paper. What followed was a swirl of sounds, whispers and the guttural murmurs of a dark language, like trees weighed down by murders of crows all muttering in tongues: Durch das Blut und das Wasser seiner Seite …
Where was he? He remembered cold and snow, the trap tearing through the trees—Lena, run, run—and then an oily blight moving through his body, smothering his mind. Water. Something in the water … There was that splashing sound again, close by, and now something wet dragging over his chest. An enormous gust of fear blasted through him. God, no, poison, killing me, no, no!
“No!” Chris heard himself suck in a sudden, ragged shriek. “No!” His eyes snapped open at the same instant that the hands on his side jumped away like startled birds. Someone cried out as he bolted upright, coming alive to a room full of shadows and too little light, and still screaming, “No! Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, get away from—”
“Christopher!” An old man’s face swam from the gloom. “Christopher, stop! It’s all—”
Get out, got to get out! Chris reacted on instinct and raw panic. Lashing out, he felt his left hand hook cloth. There was a startled squawk, and then Chris was yanking the old man close, reeling him in, his arm slipping around the man’s neck, his eyes skipping to a wink of metal at the man’s left hip. Chris’s hand darted; in a flash, the gun was in his fist, and he was jamming the muzzle to the old man’s temple: “Get away from me, get away from me, get away!”
“No, Chris, no, no!” A chorus of voices, boys and girls. Rasps of metal against leather, the sounds of handguns being drawn, the unmistakable clack of a rifle bolt. The voices were still jabbering, overlapping, everyone talking at the same time: “Chris, don’t!” “Chris, it’s all right!” “You’re safe, Chris, you’re safe!” One boy, louder than the rest, booming from behind the rifle: “Put the gun down, put it down, drop it, drop it!”
“No, Jayden!” It was the old man, his voice surprisingly strong. “Everyone, stay calm! Give him a moment to—”
“But I’ve got the shot,” Jayden sang, “I’ve got the shot!”
“Jayden, no!” The girl’s voice was familiar, and then Chris had it: Hannah. “Chris,” Hannah said. “Please, put the gun down!”
“All of you just stay back!” Chris cried, except the words now came in a harsh, grinding choke. A lone candle gave off a thin, uncertain light, but it was enough for him to see that he stood in a tangle of linen and down comforter, half on, half off a bed—and that he was completely naked.
“Where am I?” It wasn’t a dream. Hurt, I was hurt, bad. I was bleeding, I felt … He’d felt that black creep through his chest, squeeze his heart. I felt myself die, I was dying, I was … No, he couldn’t think about that. Get out, he had to get out! He still had the old man by the neck, but his eyes jumped from face to face—Jayden, Hannah, two other boys—and then the long rectangle of this room, with its slanted ceiling and trio of windows. Attic or second-story. Bedroom. A closed door, the way out, was to his left, but the others were blocking his way.
There came a series of muffled barks, and then someone, at the door: “Are you all right? Is he okay? What’s happening?”
“No, no, wait—” Hannah made a grab, but a little girl suddenly squirted through.
“Chris?” The girl’s face was pinched with anxiety. Her blue eyes widened, and he understood what he must look like: naked, in a frenzy, a gun in one hand and an old man in a chokehold. By her side, a dog, smaller than a shepherd and with sable markings, watched him through a black mask. “Chris, it’s all right,” the little girl said. “Remember me?”
“Y-yes.” Chris gulped against a sudden wave of vertigo. No, can’t black out again. He fought to clear his head. “You’re … you’re Ellie.”
“Right, and this is Mina, my dog.” Relief flooded Ellie’s face. “We kept you warm, remember? We rescued you. You’re safe now.”
“Safe?” He heard the whip of his fear. His arm tightened around the old man’s neck. “I’m not safe. Leave me alone, all of you. Just stay away!”
“Christopher.” The old man wasn’t fighting but in
stead stroking the arm Chris had locked around his neck the way you might soothe a frightened animal. “Christopher, I know this is confusing. You’re scared. Put down the gun before you hurt someone.”
“No.” But Chris felt the scrape of panic falter. He was starting to lose it, his weird strength dribbling away. “Who are you people? Where am I?”
“You’re safe,” Hannah said from a swirl of shadow—or that may have been his vision beginning to dim. “Chris,” she said, “let us help you.”
“Help?” His laugh was weak and strangled. “You tried to kill me.” I have to get out of here. He took a swaying half step. His legs were suddenly wooden. The gun was growing unbelievably heavy, as weighty as a boulder, and he understood that in two or three seconds, he would faint. “Please,” he groaned. “Let me go. I don’t want to hurt anybody, I don’t—”
With no warning at all, his strength fled as if he’d been unplugged. His knees buckled. From somewhere distant, Chris heard the thud as the gun hit the floor. There was nothing in his hands now, not even the old man.
“You tried to kill me, y-you t-tried … oh God …” His eyes rolled; there was no more light and nothing to see, and he was hurtling fast in a black swoon.
“Quick, catch him!” someone said. He thought it might be Ellie. “Don’t let him fall—”
“Chris?” A voice from the dark. “Chris, answer me. Are you okay?”
“I … I don’t kn-know.” His tongue was bloated, his mouth numb. His chest was heavy, a huge weight pressing him down, down, down into the black.
I’m on the snow again. I’m under the trap.
“N-no.” When he tried to turn his head toward the voice, his neck locked tight. “Don’t k-kill me again. P-please. I don’t w-want to d-die.”
“Shh. Don’t be afraid. I’m here now, Chris. I won’t leave you.” A hand, strong and sure, cupped his cheek. “Open your eyes. It’s time to come back. It’s time to see.”
“I c-can’t.” He was shivering. “I d-d-don’t want to see.”
“You have to. No more hiding in the shadows.” The voice was calm but remorseless. “You’re not eight anymore. Come on. Come back now.”
“N-n-nuh …” But his lids were lifting, the darkness peeling away, a film seeming to dissolve from his eyes. At first, there was nothing but a glaring bright fog, like strong light bleeding through heavy mist. Then he saw the fog curl and eddy as Peter’s face pulled together, the pieces knitting from the neck up: chin and mouth, nose and forehead.
But no eyes. Only blanks, smooth skin over bone.
“Where are y-your eyes?” A fist of horror squeezed his heart. “P-Peter, wh-where …”
“Oh, silly me.” And then the skin over Peter’s sockets peeled apart. “There. Better?”
Chris felt the scream boil up his throat and try to crash from his mouth. Peter’s eyes were caves, not deep black mirrors like Jess’s, but red and vast and filling fast. They brimmed in bloody rills that oozed down his cheeks and leaked over his lips. When Peter smiled, his lips skinned to reveal a bristle of too many teeth that were wet and orange.
“Peekaboo,” Peter said. Thick scarlet teardrops trembled on his upper lip to drip directly onto Chris’s face and splash into his own staring eyes. There was a sssss sound, the hiss of a snake, the boil of acid, and then the pain, and Chris was blind and he was screaming—
“Huh!” Chris heard the cry bolt from his mouth.
“Christopher?” Not Peter or Lena or his father, but an old man. A dry, cool palm found his forehead. “Christopher, are you back with us?”
Is this another dream? He lay absolutely still for a long moment. A new nightmare? He was under a thick down comforter and still mostly naked, although someone had slipped on a pair of underpants. There was also something unfamiliar around his neck. Cord?
“Christopher?”
“Y-yes,” he croaked. He dragged his lids up, wincing against bright spokes of yellow-white light jabbing through two windows directly opposite the bed. He would’ve raised a hand to shield his eyes, but he couldn’t move his arms. Sheets were noosed around his wrists, and his ankles were tethered to the bedposts.
“There you are. Welcome back.” Reaching for a stoneware jug on a nightstand, the old man splashed water into a clear glass. “Thirsty?”
He was about to ask why he was tied down but then considered that if a kid had grabbed his gun, he’d have done the same thing. “Is it drugged?” he rasped.
“No. Here.” Slipping an arm under Chris’s shoulders, the old man propped him as he drank. The water was clean and odorless and cool as a balm. He felt the chilly slide of its course from his tortured throat down the middle of his chest and then the cold explosion in his empty stomach. When he’d drained the glass, the old man lowered him, then settled back into his own chair. “That should stay put. We fed you a bit of broth yesterday, so …”
“Yesterday?” When he ran his tongue over his still-dry lips, he tasted old blood from where the skin had cracked. “How long have I been here?”
“In this room?” The old man laced his fingers over his stomach. His hair, which floated around his shoulders, was as snowy white as his beard, although his upper lip was bare. But the resemblance was clear, especially the eyes, which were as bright and black and keen as an old prophet’s. “Six days ago. I arrived last night just before sunset. I was here when you surfaced the first time.”
He caught the emphasis. “What do you mean, in this room? Where was I before?”
“What do you remember?”
“Snow,” he said, hoarsely. He didn’t want to think about the dreams. “The trees. Spikes and green glass, and the sound of the limbs breaking, like bombs.”
“That was the tiger-trap. What else?”
“Weight on my back, and I remember the cold, and it hurt … my chest, whenever I tried to move. I couldn’t breathe, like kn-knives …” He was starting to shiver. “I c-couldn’t …”
“Easy.” The old man laid a calming hand on Chris’s forearm. “That’s in the past.”
“But how far in the past?”
“Two weeks.”
“I’ve been out for two weeks?” His heart skipped. “What month is it?”
“It’s the end of the first week of March. Take it easy, Chris. You’re safe now.”
“That’s what you keep saying. Was I in a coma? What happened to me?”
“You got caught in the tiger-trap. Hannah said you couldn’t breathe, were in intense pain, had lost a tremendous amount of blood. Every time they tried to move you or the trap—”
“It hurt.” His heaving chest was suddenly prickly with sweat. “I … I couldn’t …”
“Take it easy.” The old man patted his arm. “Slow down.”
“I thought I was dying,” he whispered. “When Hannah gave me that water … I thought it was poison and she was trying to kill me. I guess …” It was all a bad dream, like the one about my dad and me and Lena and then Peter. He didn’t know whether to laugh or break into tears. “I dreamt that I died. I thought I was dead.”
“That’s because, for all intents and purposes,” the old man said, “you were.”
56
“What?” When he tried to start up from the bed, knots dug into his wrists and ankles. “What are you talking about? What are you saying?”
“Easy, Christopher,” the old man said. “Calm down.”
“Calm down?” He thought he was screaming, but he could only muster a tortured squawk. He strained against the sheets, his neck so stiff he heard the creak of bone. “You’re telling me I was dead? That Hannah really poisoned me?”
“Yes. She wished to ease your suffering, to help you let go. She stayed with you until you slipped away. It didn’t take long. You were quite weak already. If Ellie hadn’t found you when she did and sent Eli for help, you might’ve been stone-dead long before Hannah and Jayden got to you.”
“Ellie and her dog k-kept me alive. Th-they …” His throat suddenly clogged
as he collapsed back onto the bed. “They kept me w-warm.” Chris’s eyes burned, and when he closed them, he felt a tear leak onto a temple. Why am I crying? Embarrassed, he rolled his face away.
“Yes, our little fisherwoman’s quite resourceful,” the old man said, and then Chris felt the slight pressure of a thumb wiping away the wet on his face. “It is not weakness to become emotional after a shock. You’re clearly a very strong boy, Christopher.”
“But how can I still be alive?” Chris whispered. He opened his eyes. “You said I was dead. I f-felt myself die.”
“I know what I said. You were given poison that should’ve killed you but didn’t. You should be dead, but you’re not.” The old man laid a gentle hand on Chris’s cheek, a touch for which Chris was almost absurdly grateful. “I can’t explain it.”
“Maybe it wasn’t as bad as Hannah thought.” He could feel the tears dribbling into his hair. “She shouldn’t have done that. I’m not a horse with a broken leg.”
“Fair enough, but would you have drunk poison willingly? Would you have had faith in a girl you’d never met, that she was right: you were going to die and this was more merciful?”
“Well, she was wrong, wasn’t she?”
“She may have been … mistaken about the extent of your injuries. Hannah’s quite skillful. She’ll be a fine healer someday. But no, she’s not a doctor.”
“Are you?”
“No. But I’ve been a healer for a very long time, and I know that tiger-trap.”
“How did they …” He heard himself hyperventilating but couldn’t stop it. “They couldn’t get the trap off. It hurt too much. I heard them argue. Hannah was worried I would bleed even more.”
“That’s right.” The old man’s tone was dry, factual. “After you slipped away, they turned you over and pulled you off. I believe they cut a spike or two to do it.”
Cut me off. The image of them flipping the door and his limp body, tacked on iron spikes like a frog pinned to a dissecting pad, stroked the small hairs along his neck. They would’ve bundled him up, too, before throwing his wrapped corpse onto a horse. Or had the horse drag me if it got spooked. He supposed he was lucky they hadn’t decided to bury him under rocks.
