by John Saul
Jonas gazed at her with his strange, empty eyes, but said nothing. Instead he silently kept rowing the boat, guiding it effortlessly through the tangle of waterways.
Lights began to glimmer here and there, the soft, warm glow of oil lanterns. They were passing the strange, stilted houses of the swamp rats now, but although the boy did not say a word, Kelly was certain that wherever they were going, it was not here.
It was somewhere else, somewhere even deeper in the swamp.
They moved on, Jonas handling the oars with such skill that not even the faintest splashing betrayed their presence. When they were gone, only the rippling of the water from the boat’s bow gave evidence that they had been there at all.
And only Amelie Coulton, sitting silently on her porch, saw them pass.
Something stirred inside her as she watched the small boat move slowly through the bayou, and she rose up from her sagging chair, then climbed down from the porch into the worn skiff that was tied up to one of the pilings.
There was just enough moonlight to let her follow the rippling trail of Jonas’s boat.
“Kelly?” Jenny called out, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Kelly, it’s me!” She paused, listening, but heard nothing except the chirping of the insects.
She wasn’t sure how far she’d come, but finally the paved path along the canal came to an end. Ahead of her lay a field, dotted with pines and choked with kudzu, with only a narrow trail edging the drainage channel. She had stopped, wondering if maybe she shouldn’t go back home, when she suddenly realized where she was.
Her own house was on the other side of the field and two blocks farther down. Though she’d never been on this side of the field before, she and her friends often played along the other edge, hiding in the vines, pretending they were in the jungle.
And there was a house right on the canal, halfway across the field, that she used to think was a scary place, where a witch lived. But her father had taken her there one day and told her that it wasn’t a witch’s house at all.
“A policeman lives there,” he’d told her. “And if you’re ever playing out here and see a stranger, or get lost, you go there and he’ll take care of you. There’s nothing in that house to be afraid of.”
She’d looked at the house, with all its paint worn off, and propped up on stilts that looked like they might fall down, and wondered how anyone but a witch could live in anything like it. But then her father had gone right up to the back door and knocked, and a man had opened it.
His name was Mr. Duval, and he wasn’t scary at all. He’d even told her he’d take her out and teach her how to fish sometime, if she wanted.
She still hesitated, searching in the darkness for a light in the house. From where she was, all she could see was the roof, barely visible through the trees.
But if Kelly was lost, maybe she knew to go to that house, too.
Resolutely, she started along the dirt trail, trying not to think about how far away the lights of the subdivision behind her were getting, or what might be hiding in the kudzu, waiting to jump out at her.
Off to her right she heard something move in the bushes, and she broke into a run.
And then she was there. The house stood at the edge of the canal, its front porch jutting out over the water just like she remembered it. She ran around to the back door and knocked loudly. “Mr. Duval?” she called out. “It’s me! It’s Jenny Sheffield!”
Her heart was still beating fast, and she listened hard, certain that whatever she’d heard in the bushes might be coming after her. But then she heard a sound from inside the house, and a second later the door opened a crack.
“Mr. Duval? It’s me. I’m looking for Kelly. She’s lost and I thought maybe she came here.”
Judd Duval gazed down at the little girl, his mind racing. When he’d first heard the pounding at the door, he’d been certain it was Kitteridge, come looking for him. But when he’d heard the little girl’s voice, an idea had suddenly come to him. He’d struggled to his feet, every joint aching now, and steadied himself with trembling hands for a moment before he’d been able to get to the back door. Now, as he looked down at Jenny, a surge of adrenaline energized him.
“She’s not here,” he said. “But I know where we can find her. Would you like me to take you there?”
Jenny nodded eagerly, and Judd Duval stepped out onto the back porch, pulling the door closed behind him. “We have to go in the car,” he explained.
Jenny frowned. The car? But Kelly was in the swamp. And there was something funny about his voice, too.
Then Judd turned and the light of the moon fell onto his face.
Jenny’s eyes widened as she stared at the wrinkles in his skin, and his deeply sunken eyes. He didn’t look anything like she remembered him at all.
He looked old and sick, and there was something about the way he was staring at her that frightened her.
Instinctively, she backed away, but Judd reached out and grasped her wrist. “Don’t run away, Jenny,” he said, his voice rasping.
Jenny struggled, trying to pull away from him, but Judd’s grip tightened. He picked her up, and carried her into the house. Fumbling in the dark, he found the nylon ties he carried instead of handcuffs, and, twisting Jenny’s arms around behind her back, bound her wrists.
“Stop that!” Jenny screamed. “I want to go home!”
Judd’s hand clamped over the little girl’s mouth, and he reached for a dish towel, tying it around her head as a makeshift gag. Thirty seconds later two more of the nylon ties bound her ankles together, immobilizing her. Picking her up again, ignoring her struggles, he took her out the back door and carried her the ten yards to his squad car, which was parked under one of the pine trees. He opened the trunk, put her inside, then closed the lid again.
Trembling more violently than before, he hurried around to the driver’s door, got in, and started the engine. Putting the car in gear, he made a U-turn and steered quickly up his rutted drive to the main road. He paused there for a moment, his own lights out, searching for any other cars. But the highway was deserted, and finally he turned on his headlights. He wasn’t too worried—his destination was in the opposite direction from the village. With any luck at all, he’d have the road completely to himself.
Warren Phillips switched on the porch light and looked through the window to see Judd Duval standing outside, his sunken eyes glowing maniacally in the light from the globe above the door. Unlocking the bolt, he opened the door and pulled Judd inside. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“My shot,” Judd croaked, his voice rattling in his throat. “I got to have my shot. Look at me! I’m dying.”
Phillips’s voice hardened. “I told you the price. I need children, Judd.”
“I got one,” Judd said, his lips twisting into an ugly grin.
Phillips’s eyes narrowed. “Who? There aren’t any—”
“Not a baby,” Judd interrupted. “But she’s young enough. She’s in the trunk of my car.”
Fury welled up in Phillips. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded. “What have you done, Judd?”
“I got you what you wanted,” Judd insisted.
“Where?” Phillips spat. “Who is it? How did you get her?”
“Craig Sheffield’s kid,” Judd replied. “And I didn’t do anything. She came right up to my back door.”
“In the middle of the night?” Phillips demanded. “I’m not a fool, Judd.”
Duval’s lips curled into a malevolent smile. “She was lookin’ for the Anderson girl,” he explained. “There been people lookin’ for her all night, out in the swamp. And then this kid came up to my door, askin’ me if she was there. She was alone, Doc. I figure she musta snuck out.”
Phillips glared furiously at the other man. “And you don’t think anybody will miss her? For Christ’s sake, Judd!”
“So what if they miss her?” Judd whined. “All they can do is look in the swamp, and they can’t find wha
t ain’t there. And you need her. You told me you need kids.”
Phillips’s mind raced. Jenny Sheffield was only six years old, and the magical gland inside her had barely begun to atrophy. But if they started searching the swamp for her and didn’t find her, they wouldn’t give up. Not until they either found Jenny or her body.
And then he realized there was a way.
If they found her body …
“All right,” he said. “Take the car around to the back and bring her in.”
Judd held his palsied hands up. His fingers were shriveled and curling in upon themselves, the nails cracking with age. “I don’t know if I can, Doc. I’m getting weaker.”
“Do it,” Phillips ordered him. “I’ll meet you in the back.”
Three minutes later Judd carried Jenny through the back door. She was still struggling, and incoherent screams, muffled by the gag in her mouth, rose from her throat.
“Put her down,” Phillips told Judd Duval, who immediately lowered the terrified child to the floor. Phillips knelt down and slid a hypodermic needle into the vein of Jenny’s forearm. Jenny’s eyes widened in fear as she watched him press the plunger on the needle, but a few seconds later she slumped to the floor, her eyes closing.
Phillips cut away the nylon straps that bound her wrists and ankles, then removed the gag from her mouth. Picking her up, he carried her into the library and laid her on the couch. Finally he went to one of the pictures that hung on the walls, swung it away, and opened a wall safe, from which he removed a small vial of clear fluid and another hypodermic needle. Filling the needle carefully, he slid it into Judd Duval’s arm and pressed the plunger. “Lie down,” he told Duval. “Get some sleep. By sunrise you’ll feel a lot better.”
Judd sank gratefully onto the sofa opposite the one on which Jenny lay, already feeling the rejuvenating effects of the shot. The aching in his joints was fading away, and the deathly raling in his lungs was easing. He could feel the years rolling away as the shot restored his youth, as it always did.
It was like emerging from quicksand, struggling back from the black paralysis of death to the full light and vigor of life.
Smiling, he drifted into a peaceful sleep.
19
Clarey Lambert waited, her eyes closed, her mind turned inward to focus on the children. They were close now—she could feel Kelly and Jonas drawing near, sense that Michael was not far behind. Clarey was tired—it had been hours since she’d first sensed Kelly’s presence in the swamp, knowing instantly that the girl was alone and frightened. She’d tried to reach out to Kelly, tried to show her the way back, but Kelly’s mind, confused, had stayed just beyond her reach, and the best she’d been able to do was steer the child out of danger, keeping her away from the worst of the quicksand and sink holes that lay like traps, concealed by rings of apparently sheltering trees, inviting the unwary.
Then the cottonmouth had appeared, and she’d had to struggle against Kelly’s urge to run from the snake, finally seizing control of her mind, willing the girl not to move. But in the end she’d succeeded, at last searching for Jonas and guiding him through the swamp, sending him ever closer to Kelly.
Now they were only a few hundred yards from her house, and she finally let herself relax. She opened her eyes, blinking in the soft glow of the lantern light that filled the room, and pushed herself out of her chair.
She felt every year of her age tonight, and wondered how much longer she would be able to stay alive, how much longer she would be able to keep her vigil over the children.
Of course the Dark Man had promised that she could live forever, but she had refused the elixir he offered, disbelieving his promises.
The Dark Man had promised her the fountain of youth so many years ago.
Now she was old, and he was still young.
Young, because of what he stole from the children of the swamp.
She didn’t pretend to understand all of it, but knew well enough what the needles inserted in the chests of the babies were for.
“It’s only a little blood,” he’d told her. “It doesn’t hurt the children at all.”
Clarey knew better. What he was stealing from the children was not just their blood, but their youth.
Their youth, and their very souls, as well.
She knew—she’d watched them grow up, seen their empty eyes, watched them follow the Dark Man’s will, doing whatever he told them to do. No, it wasn’t merely blood he took from them.
It was the essence of their being, delivered to the men of Villejeune.
The men who paid the Dark Man, and did his bidding.
The men who should have died years ago, and were living on the youth of their own children.
The men she’d come to hate almost as much as she hated the Dark Man himself.
Kelly gazed up at the old woman who stood on the porch. The woman’s face was lost in shadows, yet despite the darkness, Kelly still felt a deep certainty that she knew this woman.
“Come up, child,” Clarey said, her voice rough with age. Kelly rose shakily and climbed up the ladder that led from the bayou’s surface up onto the porch six feet above. The woman turned toward her, and lamplight from the open door flooded onto her face.
Kelly gasped.
The skin of the woman’s face, dry as parchment, hung in deep wrinkles, and her thin hair was drawn back in a knot at the nape of her neck. She wore a black dress that hung loosely over her bony frame, and when she reached out toward Kelly, her hands, with their swollen knuckles and crooked fingers, had the look of a crow’s claws.
But though the hands and face of the woman were as grotesquely distorted with age as the image Kelly had seen so often in her dreams and her mirror, there was something in the crone’s eyes that instantly quelled the wave of fear that had risen inside her.
These eyes had no cruelty to them at all, gazing out of their deep sockets with a warm compassion that made Kelly want to put herself into the woman’s arms and be held by her.
“Come, my dear,” Clarey said softly, both her arms extended now. “Come and let me hold you again.”
Silently, Kelly moved to the old woman. As Clarey’s arms closed around her, she felt a sense of well-being come over her.
“So pretty,” Clarey crooned softly, her shriveled fingers gently stroking Kelly’s hair. “Always the prettiest. Always the sweetest.”
Kelly stood still, resting her head against Clarey’s withered breast, hearing the old woman’s heart beat softly within.
Again that strange sense of familiarity passed over her, as though this woman had held her before.
The low throbbing of an outboard sounded in the darkness, and then a second boat appeared. Its occupant cut the engine almost as soon as it came into view, and a moment later the craft drifted up to the house.
Jonas silently took the bow line from Michael, fastening it to one of the pilings. The two boys climbed up the ladder, and as they stepped onto the porch, Clarey released Kelly from her embrace, took her hand and led her into the house.
Michael and Jonas followed.
Clarey closed the door when they were all inside, then turned the lantern up so that its bright glow washed the shadows from the room. She turned and smiled at Kelly.
“Do you remember my little house?”
Kelly gazed curiously around the single room, which held a coal-burning stove in one corner, a sink and cupboard against the back wall, and a sagging bed in the corner opposite the stove. At the foot of the bed there was an old-fashioned iron bathtub, barely large enough for a single person to crouch in. There was a worn sofa against one of the walls, and a rocking chair sitting close to the stove. A braided rug, little more than a rag, covered the floor.
Never had she seen anything like the tiny house, and yet, like the woman herself, it seemed strangely familiar.
“I—I don’t know,” she faltered.
“Come here, child,” Clarey said, leading Kelly to the sink. She worked the handle of a pump, a
nd water spurted into the sink. Taking a washcloth from a hook at the counter’s edge, she put it into Kelly’s hands. “You’ll be even prettier with the mud gone from your face.”
Kelly gazed into the cracked mirror above the sink. Her face was smeared with mud and slime, and her hair was caked with it as well. She bent over, putting her head beneath the pump’s spout, then began working the handle, letting the water gush over her, washing away the grime from the swamp. At last she used the wash-cloth to wipe away the last flecks from her face, then groped for the towel that hung from the same hook from which Clarey had taken the washcloth. Wrapping the towel around her hair, she straightened up.
In the mirror, she saw the image of the ancient being who had haunted her all her life. She gasped, but then heard the old woman’s gentle laughter.
“It’s all right,” Clarey told her. “It’s not him. It’s only me. Only Clarey.”
Kelly felt the blood drain from her face, and turned to face the old woman. “H-How do you know about him?”
Clarey smiled, revealing worn teeth. “Now, never you mind how I know. There’s lots I know.” Her eyes fixed on Kelly. “Do you want me to tell you who you be?”
Kelly said nothing, watching the old woman mutely.
“He stolt you,” Clarey told her. “The Dark Man stolt you from your mama, and brung you to me before you was even a day old. Then he took you away ag’in, and said you wouldn’t never be back, that he were lettin’ you go.” Her chin quivered and a tear ran down her cheek. “But it were too late, wam’t it?” she asked. “He’d already took your soul, an’ I couldn’t give it back to you.”
Kelly’s eyes darted toward Michael, who was listening raptly. “That’s what’s wrong with us, isn’t it?” he asked softly. “That’s why we never feel like other people.”
Clarey nodded. “It’s what he takes from you. He says it ain’t true, but I know it is. It’s how you feel, ain’t it? Like you’re dead?”
“It’s always been that way,” Kelly breathed. “Ever since I was a little girl. I—I thought I was crazy—”