That was one change; there were others. Weeks before, he no doubt would have taken the opportunity to engage in one of his many games, of which he was the only participant needed or wanted. He would have liked to do so now. But as before, when he lifted his hands into position to wield the imaginary rifle that was the trusty weapon of Private First Class Surrey, he felt only acute embarrassment, and just as quickly he dropped his arms to his sides again. This upset him perhaps more than any of the other turbulence that was disrupting his life right then. It was as though he had lost a trusted friend, and Tad, as has been documented, never had many friends. He felt that something had been taken from him. But what? His imagination. That’s what had been taken. And that was disquieting, new approach and attitude toward life aside. That imagination had meant much to him, and it was a sore loss. What if it was permanent? How might he regain it?
Then there was another change, and at least this one could be traced back to one particular action of the previous evening. By the drinking of the Essence that he had begun thinking of as the lifeblood of all the strangeness, he had awoken or implanted voices in his head that even now would not be silent. For as he limped along, he heard a rustling and a sighing that was not the wind, and a conversation started of its own accord. He’s waiting for you, a voice whispered in his ear. He wasn’t pleased to hear it. The continued presence of the voices indicated that some of the effects of the Essence were residual, and for the first time since impetuously sticking his head in the fountain, he wondered if he might not have made a mistake. He’d acted without knowing what he was dealing with. Though he’d hardly tasted alcohol in his life, Tad had seen its effects several times, especially amongst his father and his friends. In the back of his mind, he supposed he’d been thinking that the Essence would be the same, in that there might be a brief period of discomfort the day after the ingestion, but that the effects would then dissipate. But what if they didn’t? When would they go away? In a week? A month? What if they, too, were permanent? He might go about hearing voices in his head for the rest of his life! And as the thought crossed his mind, he heard a laughter in his ears that was not his own, and another voice answered the question for him. It never goes away, never, never, never. We’re part of you now, brothers in arms, till death do we part, forever and ever. Dry, rustling laughter. We’re here to help, here to help. We shall be friends, friends, friends. How’s it all going to turn out? “Shut up!” he said. Nearby a cricket chirped, unconcerned with any voice but its own.
He’d been traveling without a specific goal in mind, trusting that his feet would know where to take him, and he thought he’d wind up back at the house, most recently sight of the mind and life altering experience, Decadence, the sequel for which he’d have to wait another seven years. But he found himself turning left at the fence, and moving downhill in the direction of The Bottoms. The ground sloped down, turning softer. The trees thinned out, gradually. Fernlike vegetation began to appear on either side. Small winged insects, displaced by his old, beat up sneakers, flew away in all directions. A night bird called from overhead, and he could hear, some distance away yet, the voices of the tireless bullfrogs rejoicing in the still summer air. It was difficult to worry in such surroundings, even with the knowledge that he had just left a tense situation and might well be heading into another one. At least he no longer detected any hostility from the elements that surrounded him. He was mindful of the sleepy thoughts of the trees. They would watch from beneath droopy lids his interaction with Daddy, but he felt sure they would not side with one or the other, and this pleased him. Their neutrality leveled the playing field, he felt. Whether that was true or not remained to be seen.
The frogs were in rare form on this night, their throaty bass voices like tuba blasts competing with the crickets for control of the still July air. The lightning bugs with their Morse code blinking reminding Tad of the soft pulsating lights in the walls of the house in the woods that had come alive for Decadence, and the way they had danced for him in reaction to his movements, his thoughts, his voice. He had such strong contradictory feelings about everything that had happened and everyone he had met. There was so much about the lifestyles on display that he had seen that appealed to him, the attitudes, the accents and outfits. The unabashed show of flesh. Even here, with no one but the frogs and insects to see, he blushed. So unlike anything he’d ever encountered, a glimpse of a world literally beyond his dreams. But there were the other things he’d witnessed that were so daunting. Such a callous contempt for human life he’d seen! The fate of the jovial peasant, Much, still turned his stomach, and the rapidity of the crowd in switching from his team to that of the snobbish Brit when it had been he who had emerged victorious. Even the cheering section that had been composed of Much’s countrymen had jumped ship. But even though the display had repulsed him, there was an element of the scene that Tad felt he would be remiss in discounting. The fact was, he had not actually seen Much die. How was Tad to know what had actually happened to the man, in the senses-shocking burst of light during which his material body had vanished? He had to remind himself that he was dealing with things of which he was largely uneducated, and the wisest course of action would be to remember that. Perhaps what he thought he had witnessed wasn’t truly what had happened at all. But at this line of thinking the voices in his head spoke up again. You saw what you saw, came the whisper, causing him to shiver, though the night was warm. Don’t kid yourself. You watched him die, die, die. You know you did. And although Tad hardly knew what the voices spoke to be credible, he sensed, once again through his intuition that was his only sextant in these dark skies, that they spoke the truth in this matter. He had seen murder done, and delight taken in it. And he would be a fool to omit this detail from his memory. It elevated the level of the game, the rules of which he was even now still trying to learn, though he’d been playing since that day weeks before, when his eyes had first lit upon Daddy, the man in white, drawn by forces that he’d been powerless to ignore.
And Daddy was close. He hardly needed to search for him. It was as if his very presence hung over the swamp like a stench. Tad had come to a familiar place; even in the dark he recognized it from their previous meetings. It was the inlet which ended in the pond a little ways ahead. Before him were sandy banks and thin fingers of shallow water trailing in two directions, and in their center a thick patch of reeds, growing strong and tall, some higher than his head. Here, with the underground springs fed from the marsh, even the severe drought had not been able to affect them much, although if it had been light enough, Tad would have seen that by the base they were a pale, unpleasant yellow, rather than the healthy green they should have been at this time of year. His shoes pulling and sucking in the mud, he made his way carefully forward, struggling with the more stubborn of the reeds. He wished that he’d thought to bring his fishing boots, but then, he hadn’t known he was going to be in this inhospitable section of the woods this time around. He could feel one of his shoes slipping off. If he lost it in the mud he would never be able to find it again, and the next morning if he showed up without it his latest indiscretion would be discovered for sure. Reaching down into the cool, soft mud, he removed the shoe, sinking as he did so further into the muck. With a titanic effort he pushed himself forward on his other leg, shoving his way through the last of the reeds and hopping on his one shoe up onto the bank.
Before him lay the pond, a gently rippling figure eight just visible in the slight moonlight penetrating the cloud cover. It was the same clogged mass of branches and lily pads that he remembered, and as before, there was a figure on the bank near him. Daddy was standing in the shadows of one of the huge trees native to this part of the woods, a cousin, perhaps, of the one in Tad’s backyard that he’d spent so many happy hours playing under as a child. Back when he’d had the capacity to play, and to take joy in it. Daddy took a step forward, into the light, but for the time Tad did not look at him, instead busying himself with ringing the water out of his
shoe. “Dirty, dirty child,” Daddy said. His voice this time deep and resounding, and when Tad replaced his sopping shoe and turned to look at him he saw why, and laughed. Daddy was dressed in the garb of a Catholic priest, with the flowing robe, collar, and a wooden cross hanging around his neck. His hands were folded neatly at his waist, and he wore an expression no doubt meant to convey the utmost piety, though those unsettling eyes rather diminished the effect.
“Bless me, father, for I have sinned,” Tad said. “But I don’t know if you’re the right person to be asking absolution from.”
“Who better than I, my son?” the false priest replied. “My conscience is clean. Can you say the same for yours?”
“Why should it matter? Concerned about my soul?”
“I am concerned for all your many parts, oh spirit of impetuous youth. Did you enjoy our little gathering?”
“Parts of it. Others not so much. It was…informative, at any rate. A learning process. I’m glad I got through it more or less in one piece, but I paid for it after with some of the skin off my hide.” He noted how the blasphemous priests’ expressive eyebrows gave a little jump of pleasure at the mention of this, though the rest of his face remained smooth, and Tad felt again a brief intense sensation of anger. It was similar to that he felt around his father or his brother sometimes, and when he had it, it was usually accompanied by the thought of violence, violence that he’d never acted upon. But never did he feel it as sharply as he did when in the presence of this man. “You’re heartbroken about that, I’m sure.”
“Naturally! It always pains me to hear of the misfortune of one of my loyal parishioners.”
“I’m sure. Listen, Father Insincerity. I’d love to stand here and chew the fat all night, but I’m sore, covered with rapidly drying mud, and the voices in my head won’t leave me alone. I’m sure you can relate to that one. You wanted me to come here. You summoned me, and don’t try telling me you didn’t. Do me the world’s biggest favor, won’t you, and tell me why, but for once since I met you tell me straight out, no bullshit, and no riddles, and no double talk, and no condescension, because I just don’t have the patience for it anymore. Can you do that? Are you even capable of it?”
Daddy nodded his head slowly, keeping his eyes on the ground, as if considering carefully. The frogs continued their throaty serenade for the space of a full minute before he spoke. “Very well. My favorite part…we show our hands. No more games. I have to say, you handled yourself admirably at my soiree, and I respect you for it. I admit you surprised me, and that is a rare occurrence. You are an exceptional boy, spirit of impetuous youth. And I will respect you enough to speak without condescension, and without riddling or trickery. I have something to say to you, something to ask, both request and proposition.” He paused again. Tad realized that he was holding his breath, and he forced himself to exhale. He dearly wished that he could take the man at his word, that whatever was to come, he could trust Daddy when he said the games had ended. But all he had to go on was the reputation that the man had forged with Tad until that moment, and Daddy had hardly proved himself trustworthy. He was a walking conundrum who appeared as literally a different person at each new meeting, and how can such a person command trust? But Tad would hear him out. That much he knew. He had no choice in the matter; he had come too far. All that had come before had led to this.
“I ask,” Daddy said, “that you come into my service. You have proven you are made of stern stuff. I have watched you. I will admit, I have studied you. Ours has not been a casual friendship meant to pass the time, as you no doubt have surmised for yourself. It has been an initiation, a series of physical and mental trials. I will not apologize for that. It was necessary, to gauge your character. But I am pleased by all that I have seen. You have, no doubt, many questions. Permit me to say that I have the answer to every one, and that these answers can be yours. I know many truths of this world, and more importantly, many deceptions. Many falsehoods. Fall in with me, and I promise, you will know all.” He paused again, looking at Tad with that serious expression, as if he would see how the boy judged his words. But Tad was no stranger to the poker face either, and now was the time for it, if ever there had been one. “You may be skeptical. I don’t blame you. But consider this. I know much about you, young Surrey. I know of your unhappiness, your restlessness, your dissatisfaction with your lot. I know you think yourself alone. You have trouble confiding in others, trouble making friends. You are most alive inside your mind. That is where you put your faith, your trust. It needn’t be so. I was once like you, alone and lonely, and I can tell you, there is another, better way. You only need find the proper confidant, the proper channels through which to apply your unique gifts, gifts of which you are not even yet partially aware. You are lost in a cave, floundering in a darkness born of your own abilities. I can be the light that guides you out of that darkness. And if you doubt, consider this. We are being honest, so I may tell you this. Some short weeks ago I was moving about in my domain, and I was preoccupied. My heart was heavy. It was the heaviness of solitude I felt. But something happened. I have said that I am rarely surprised, but I was on that day. Surprised when I felt someone near who was…like me. And I called to them.”
At this point, Tad opened his mouth to speak. One of those many questions that Daddy had spoken of; here was one of them. But the robed man held up his hand for silence. “Please. I know that you would ask that I reveal the method by which I reached out. Allow me to finish. There will be time enough for that. Time enough for all. As I said, I reached out. I sat down, I might tell you, in a place not easy for all to find. Just as my humble dwelling in the trees is not always accessible to all. I sat, in a state of great agitation, and I waited. I knew not who I waited for, who I could expect. And who should come along, but you. I didn’t know what to think. It is embarrassing to me (another sensation that I rarely feel), that I was…nervous. Me, nervous!” He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “I spoke to you, and I enjoyed our conversation more than any I’d had in a longer time than I could even remember. When we parted company on that day, I thought I’d seen a glimpse of something. Something that might be, in time. Something that the two of us might be able to achieve, together. And I know that you felt it too. Don’t try to deny it. It’s why you came back, and since then, in the times we’ve spent together, you’ve felt it growing, gaining strength, as have I. It has led you to reexamine the dull existence you’ve been saddled with, that you’ve always sensed was beneath you. It was, and it is. And I swear to you, the doors that I have opened, they are only the tip of the iceberg, they are only the slightest fraction of what is just out of reach. You’ve dreamed of more, but you never thought to realize those dreams. I’m here to tell you that you can.” Daddy’s voice as he spoke was becoming more urgent. At least he believes what he’s telling me. That much I’m sure of. He’s speaking the truth, or at least what he perceives as the truth. “I’m offering you what I never thought I’d offer anyone- the chance to share what I know. What I’ve learned. To become my protégé.”
“May I speak?”
“Yes. Yes, you can.”
“What about Stitch?”
“What about him?”
“You speak of being alone. Like me. But you’re not alone. You have him.”
Daddy snorted. “But he is not like us. He is an onlooker. A bumbling pretender. He might have been capable of being more, once, but he didn’t have the heart to go further. To take the next steps. He’s achieved as much as he can, and he’s content to sit until he grows blind, sewing and mumbling like a feeble old woman. Forget him. He’s irrelevant.” You don’t even matter. You are so irrelevant. This time the voice in Tad’s head was recognizable as his own. The very words he had spoken to Walt Surrey, only hours before, under the blind fury of the lash. A coincidence. But with this man who offered the world, were there any coincidences?
“Let me ask you something else.”
“Do so. Please.”
“If I’m hearing you right, and I consent, then everything would change. My life, I mean. I would come to stay…with you. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“And that would mean separation from my family, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s right.” Daddy chuckled. “Oh, now don’t tell me that upsets you. You’ve spoken of the troubles you have at home. How much you wish you could be out of there, how you wish you were already of legal age so you could move out and get away from your doormat mother, your mindless jock brother who is the bane of your existence. Your abusive father.” A pointed look, when he said this last. Then just as swiftly his face blank again. “Yes, you would be leaving them all.” And Daisy. I would be leaving her too. It was one of the most tempting aspects of the entire package, no mistake about that. Leaving it all behind. There are many for whom leaving the nest, when it comes, is the most difficult part of growing up. But for others it has been waited for with bated breath. In the most extreme of cases, it is practically escape from enslavement, and it was true, that’s how Tad felt sometimes. He had spoken of it with Stitch and Daddy often enough, and yes, it was a key selling point. But what of Daisy? Daze, in her world under the eaves, who lived, in a sense, more sequestered in her own head than Tad ever had. If he accepted Daddy’s offer, he would be abandoning her. Could he justify it to himself? Pros and cons. Though he had tried to keep his poker face during this mental deliberation, some of it must have shown, for when Daddy spoke again, he was right on target. “Of course it’s not easy to think of leaving everything that you’ve known. Change can be frightening. So can growth. And that is what I’m offering you- the chance for growth, and so much more. The realization of your potential. And I am the only one that can do this for you.” The intense edge was returning to his voice again.
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