Swan Song

by Robert R. McCammon

  “Yes,” Josh said. “But just you and the man.” And he opened the door to let them enter.

  66

  “YOU SURE?” GLORY ASKED as Josh shut the door. She was stirring a pot of root soup on the stove, and she eyed the two strangers cautiously. “I don’t like the looks of ’em.”

  “Sorry,” Paul told her. “I left my tuxedo at the cleaners this morning.” The room smelled like sassafras, and the stove was putting out a lot of heat. A couple of lanterns were set in the room, and by their smoky light both Paul and Sister could see what appeared to be blood stains on the floor.

  “We had some trouble here last night,” Josh explained. “That’s why we have to be so careful about strangers wanting to see Swan.”

  Sister went cold, in spite of the room’s comfortable warmth. She was thinking of that grinning cripple in the child’s red wagon. If it was him, he could be wearing any face. Any face at all. She wished she had that moment back, wished she’d blown the mask right off his skull to see what was hiding behind it.

  Josh turned up a lantern’s wick and examined the tarot card again. “So you found this in Matheson. Okay. But how did this card lead you here?”

  “It wasn’t the card that brought us. Tell me: Is there a tree somewhere that’s in blossom, with Swan’s name burned into the trunk? I remember smelling apples. Is it an apple tree in bloom?”

  “Yes. But that’s back about fifty or sixty miles from here! Did Sly Moody send you after us?”

  She shook her head, reaching into the satchel. “This sent us here,” she said, and she withdrew the glass circle.

  The colors leaped and pulsed. Glory gasped, dropping her spoon as her hand fluttered to her mouth. The walls glittered with lights. Josh stared at it, transfixed by its beauty, and then he laid the Empress card down on the table.

  “Who are you?” he asked softly. “Why are you looking for Swan—and where did you find that?”

  Sister said, “I think we have a lot to talk about. I want to know everything about you, and everything about Swan. I want to hear everything that’s happened to you, and I want to tell you our stories, too. But right now I have to see her. Please.”

  With an effort, Josh pulled his gaze away from the glass ring and looked into Sister’s face. Looked long and deep, saw the tribulations and hardships there; but he also recognized tenacity and a will of iron. He nodded and led Paul and Sister into the next room.

  A single lantern backed with a shiny piece of tin hung on the wall, casting a muted golden glow. Swan lay on Glory’s iron-framed cot, on the mattress that was stuffed with rags and papers. She was covered with a number of blankets that various people had donated, and her face was turned away from the light.

  Josh walked to the bedside, lifted the blankets and gently touched Swan’s shoulder. She was still burning up with fever, yet she shivered and held the blankets. “Swan? Can you hear me?”

  Her breathing was harsh. Sister’s hand found Paul’s and clenched it. In her other hand, the shades of the glass ring had turned to silver and gold.

  “Swan?” Josh whispered. “Someone’s come to see you.”

  She heard his voice, summoning her back from a nightmare landscape where a skeleton on a skeletal horse reaped a human field. Pain shot through the nerves and bones of her face. “Josh?” she replied. “Rusty ... where’s Rusty?”

  “I told you. We buried him this morning, out in the field.”

  “Oh. I remember now.” Her voice was weak, drifting toward delirium again. “Tell them ... to watch the corn. Keep the crows away. But ... tell them not to touch it yet, Josh. Tell them.”

  “I have. They’re doing what you say.” He motioned Paul and Sister closer. “Someone’s here to see you. They say they’ve come a long way.”

  “Who ... are they?”

  “A man and a woman. They’re here right now. Can you speak to them?”

  Swan tried to focus her mind on what he was saying. She could sense someone else in the room, waiting. And there was something more, too; Swan didn’t know what it was, but she felt her skin tingling as if in anticipation of a touch. In her mind she was a child again, staring with fascination at the fireflies’ lights as they glowed against the window screen.

  “Yes,” she decided. “Will you help me sit up?”

  He did, propping a couple of pillows up to support her. As Josh stepped away from the cot Paul and Sister had their first view of Swan’s growth-covered head. Both eyeholes were now sealed up, and there were only small slits over her nostrils and mouth. It was the most horrifying Job’s Mask that Sister had ever seen, much worse even than Josh’s, and she had to fight off a shudder. Paul flinched, wondering how she could breathe or eat through that hideous crust.

  “Who’s there?” Swan whispered.

  “My name is ...” She lost her voice. She was scared to death. Then she drew her shoulders back, pulled in a deep breath and stepped to the side of the cot. “You can call me Sister,” she began. “There’s a man named Paul Thorson with me. We’ve—” Sister glanced quickly at Josh, then back to the girl. Swan’s head was cocked to one side, listening through a tiny hole at her ear. “We’ve been looking for you for a long time. Seven years. We missed you in Matheson, Kansas; I believe we probably missed you in a lot of places and never knew it. I found a doll that belonged to you. Do you remember it?”

  Swan did remember. “My Cookie Monster. I lost it in Matheson. I used to love that thing when I was a little girl.”

  Sister had to listen hard to understand everything she was saying. “I wish I could’ve brought it to you, but it didn’t survive the trip.”

  “That’s all right,” Swan said. “I’m not a little girl anymore.” She suddenly lifted her bandaged right hand and felt in the air for the woman’s face. Sister drew away, but then she realized that Swan wanted to know what she looked like. Sister gently grasped her slender wrist and guided the hand over her facial features. Swan’s touch was as soft as smoke.

  Her fingers stopped when they found the growths. “You’ve got it, too.” Swan’s fingers continued across Sister’s left cheek, then down to her chin. “Feels like a cobblestone road.”

  “I guess so. A doctor friend of ours calls it ‘Job’s Mask.’ He thinks what’s in the air causes some people’s skin to crust over. Damned if I can figure out why it just screws up the face and head, though.” She reached out and touched the girl’s forehead, then quickly jerked her hand back. Under the Job’s Mask, Swan was running a fever that had almost scorched Sister’s fingers. “Does it hurt?” Sister asked.

  “Yes. It didn’t used to hurt so much, but now ... it’s all the time.”

  “Yeah, mine, too. How old are you?”

  “Sixteen. Josh keeps track of my birthday for me. How old are you?”

  “I’m—” She couldn’t recall. She hadn’t kept up with her birthdays. “Let’s see, I think I was in my forties on the seventeenth of July. I guess I might be in my fifties now. Early fifties, that is. I feel like I’m gaining on eighty.”

  “Josh said ... you came a long way to see me.” Swan’s head was heavy, and she was getting very tired again. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sister admitted. “But we’ve been looking for you for seven years, because of this.” And she held the glowing ring with its single remaining spire up before Swan’s face.

  Swan’s skin prickled. She sensed a bright light beating at her sealed-up eyeholes. “What is it?”

  “I think ... it’s a lot of things, all rolled up into a circle of beautiful glass and filled with jewels. I found it on the seventeenth of July, in New York City. I think it’s a ring of miracles, Swan. I think it’s a gift ... like a magic survival kit. Or a life ring. Maybe anybody could’ve found it, maybe I’m the only one who could have. I don’t know. But I do know that it led Paul and me to you. I wish I knew why. All I can say is that ... I think you’re someone very special, Swan. I saw the corn growing out in that field, where nothing ought to be alive. I looked
into this glass ring and I saw a tree in bloom, with your name burned into the wood.” She leaned forward, her heart pounding. “I think there’s work ahead of you. Very important work, enough to fill up a lifetime. After seeing that corn growing out there ... I think I know what it is.”

  Swan was listening carefully. She didn’t feel very special; she just felt weary, and the fever was pulling at her again, trying to drag her back to that awful place where the bloody scythe reaped a human field. And then what Sister had said dawned on her: “A ring of miracles ... all rolled up into a circle of beautiful glass and filled with jewels.”

  She thought of the magic mirror and the figure she’d seen bearing a ring of light. That figure, she knew, had been the woman who now stood at her bedside, and what she’d been carrying had finally arrived.

  Swan held out both hands toward the light. “May I ... hold it?’

  Sister glanced at Josh. He was standing behind Paul, and Glory had come from the other room. Josh didn’t know what was going on, and all this ring of miracles talk was beyond him—but he trusted the woman, and he let himself nod.

  “Here.” Sister put it into Swan’s hands.

  Her fingers curled around the glass. There was heat in it, a heat that began to spread into her hands, through her wrists and forearms. Under the bandages, the raw skin of her hands had begun itching and stinging. “Oh,” she said, more in surprise than in pain.

  “Swan?” Josh stepped forward, alarmed at the sound. The glass circle was getting brighter and pulsating faster. “Are you o—”

  The ring flared like a golden nova. All of them were blinded for a few seconds as the room was lit up as if by the flaring of a million candles. The memory of the white-hot blast in front of PawPaw’s grocery streaked through Josh’s mind.

  Now a searing pain coursed in Swan’s hands, and her fingers seemed locked to the glass. The pain rippled through her bones and she started to cry out, but in the next instant the anguish had passed, and left in her mind were scenes beautiful beyond dreams: fields of golden corn and wheat, orchards where trees bent under the weight of fruit, meadows of flowers and verdant green forests stirred by a breeze. The images poured forth as if from a cornucopia, so vivid that Swan smelled the aromas of barley, apples, plums and cherry trees in full bloom. She beheld dandelions blowing in the wind, forests of oaks dripping acorns into the moss, maples running sap and sunflowers thrusting up from the earth.

  Yes, Swan thought as the images continued to flood through her mind in brilliant patterns of color and light. My work.

  I know what my work is now.

  Josh was first to recover from the glare. He saw that Swan’s hands were engulfed by golden fire, the flames licking up along her arms. She’s burning up! he realized and, horrified, he shoved Sister aside and grabbed the fiery ring to pull it away from Swan.

  But as soon as his fingertips touched the glass, he was flung backward with such force that he left his feet before crashing into the wall, narrowly missing breaking most of the bones in Paul’s body. The air was forced from his lungs with a noise like a ruptured steam pipe, and he crumpled to the floor, dazed from the worst knock he’d taken since Haystacks Muldoon had thrown him from the wrestling ring in Winston-Salem eleven years before. Damn thing repelled me, he thought, when thinking was possible again. He tried to struggle up and realized that the flaming ring had been cool under his fingers.

  Still half blinded, Sister saw the strange fire, too, saw it crawling up Swan’s arms; it snapped like the uncoiling of a whip and began to wrap itself around the girl’s head.

  The fire—noiseless and without heat—had shrouded Swan’s face and head before Josh could get up from the floor. Swan made no sound and lay motionless, but she could hear a sizzling over the wonderful scenes that kept swirling through her mind.

  Sister was about to grasp the ring herself, but as she reached for it Josh charged toward the cot again, almost flung her through the wall, braced his legs and got ready to withstand the jolt as he clenched his fingers around the ring.

  This time it came smoothly free from Swan’s hands. As he turned to smash it against the wall he heard Sister scream “No!” and she was on him like a wildcat.

  “Wait!” Paul shouted. “Look at her!”

  Josh held Sister at arm’s length and swiveled his head toward Swan.

  The golden flames that covered her hands were going out. The bandages had turned black.

  As they watched they saw the fire—or what had appeared to be fire—being drawn into the Job’s Mask like liquid into a dry sponge. The flames rippled, flared, and then disappeared.

  Sister wrenched the ring from him and backed out of his reach. He went to Swan’s side, put his arms beneath her shoulders and lifted her up, supporting her head with one hand. “Swan!” His voice was frantic. “Swan, answer me!”

  She was silent.

  “You’ve killed her!” Glory shouted at Sister. “God A’mighty, you’ve killed her with that damned thing!” She rushed to the bedside, while sister retreated against the rar wall. Her mind was reeling, and the explosion of light still burned behind her eyes.

  But Josh could feel Swan’s heart beating like the wings of a captured bird against a cage. He rocked the girl in his arms, praying that this shock wouldn’t be the final burden. He looked up fiercely at Sister and Paul. “Get them out of here!” he told Glory. “Call Anna! Tell her to lock them away somewhere! Get them out before I kill them my—”

  Swan’s hand drifted up, touched Josh’s lips to silence him.

  Sister stared at the glass ring; its colors had paled, and some of the trapped jewels had turned ebony, like little burned-up pieces of charcoal. But the colors were getting stronger again, as if drawing power from her own body. Glory grasped her arm to pull her from the room, but Sister jerked free. Then Glory ran out to summon Anna McClay, who came with the rifle, ready for business.

  “Get them out!” Josh shouted. “And get that thing away from her!”

  Anna started to reach for the ring. Sister’s fist was faster; she struck the other woman with a noise like a hammer whacking a board, and Anna McClay went down with a bloody nose. Anna struggled to her feet and aimed the rifle point-blank at Sister’s head.

  “Stop it!” Swan said suddenly, her voice frail. She’d heard the shouts, the scuffling and the sound of the blow. The majestic scenes that had so ignited her imagination began to fade. “Stop it,” she repeated. Strength was returning to her voice. “No more fighting.”

  “They tried to kill you with that thing!” Josh said.

  “No, we didn’t!” Paul protested. “We came here to see her, that’s all! We weren’t trying to hurt her!”

  Josh ignored him. “Are you all right?” he asked Swan.

  “Yes. Just tired. But Josh ... when I held it ... I saw wonderful things. Wonderful things.”

  “What things?”

  “Things ... that could be,” she replied. “If I want them to be, if I work hard enough.”

  “Josh?” Anna was itching to put a bullet through the scraggly old woman who’d decked her. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “You want me to lock ’em up somewhere?”

  “No!” Swan said. “Leave them alone. They weren’t trying to hurt me.”

  “Well, this bitch sure hurt me! I think my damned schnozz is busted!”

  Josh eased Swan’s head down onto the pillow. His face felt strange—itching and burning—where Swan’s fingers had touched. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked. “I don’t want you to be—” And then he glanced at one of her hands, and his voice trailed off. “Don’t try to hide it if ... you’re ...”

  The bandages, black and oily-looking, had come loose. Josh could see a glimpse of pink flesh.

  He took her hand gently in his own and began to unwind the bandages. The cloth was stiff and started coming apart with little crackling sounds. Sister pushed the rifle barrel out of her face and walked past Anna to the side of the cot. Anna made no move to stop
her, because she came forward to see as well.

  With nervous fingers, Josh carefully peeled part of the black bandage away. It came off with some of Swan’s injured skin adhered to it, and revealed underneath was bright pink, healing flesh.

  “What is it?” Swan asked, breaking the silence. “What’s wrong?”

  He cracked part of the other bandage off. It crumbled like ashes between his fingers, and he saw pink, clean, unscarred skin across a section of Swan’s palm. He knew that it should have taken at least a week for Swan’s hands to scab over, and maybe a month for them to heal. He’d been most worried about her wounds getting infected, that maybe her hands would be scarred and ruined for the rest of her life. But now ...

  Josh pressed his finger against her pink palm. “Ow!” she said, pulling her hand away from him. “That’s sore!” Her hands were stinging and tingling and as warm as if they’d been deeply sunburned. Josh was afraid to peel any more of the bandages off, not wanting to expose the tender skin. He looked up at Glory, who stood beside him, then over at Sister. His gaze fell to the gleaming glass ring in her protective grip.

  A ring of miracles, she’d said.

  And Josh believed it.

  He stood up. “I think we’ve got a lot to talk about,” he said.

  “Yes,” Sister agreed. “I believe we do.”

  67

  THE SHOUT OF THE Lord shook the trailer’s walls, and the woman who lay on a bare mattress with a coarse blanket wrapped around her moaned in her tortured sleep. Rudy was crawling into her bed again, and he held an infant with a crushed head; she kicked at him, but his rotting mouth grinned. “Come on, Ssssheila,” he chided her, his voice hissing through the blue-edged slash across his throat. “Is that how you treat an old friend?”

  “Get away!” she screamed. “Get away ... get away!”

  But he was sliding up against her with slimy skin. His eyes had rolled back into his head, and decayed holes cratered his face. “Awwww,” he said, “don’t be like that, Sheila. We got high and happy too many times for you to kick me out of your bed. You let everybody else in these days, don’t you?” He offered her the blue-skinned infant. “See?” he said. “I brought you a present.”