Evan had suspected what the goo was made of, but hearing the truth was still horrible. He turned his head away again and stared intently at the wall.
“Or you’ll feed me to the bugs,” he said bitterly.
“They will have you without our protection, no matter what they promised,” the worm replied. “Help us and you live, help them and you die. Bite by bite.” The thing chuckled again.
Evan knew it was true. He knew that Foul was not trustworthy. He had known that when he took its offer. But how could he do it? How could he force other kids into his own fate?
“You will do this in the morning, proem. We both know you are short on time. You will bring us all that you can manage in a day, and tomorrow when the sun goes down, I will meet you back here for your change. It is almost time to bring you home.”
“No!” Evan cried, so loud it echoed in the room. “Not tomorrow! I need more time!” Evan burst into tears. He felt the salt water dripping down his cheeks. It caught in the membranes and stuck there, collecting like rain on an old tarp.
Two doorknobs turned at the same time, one creaking in sorrow, the other in glee.
His mother poked her head into the room. She was wearing a thick old flannel nightgown, ragged at the ends like it had dragged a thousand times across the floor. Her hair was messy. Strands fell limply over her eyes. She looked afraid.
Evan looked up at her. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed.
His mother sat down next to him and rubbed his back. “It’s okay, honey,” she said. “Did you have a nightmare?”
Evan forced himself to calm down a little bit. “Mom . . . I didn’t have a nightmare,” he said finally. “Don’t ask me how I know, but I do. I’m not going to be here tomorrow night.”
She looked at him sadly. Evan thought she must be too tired to freak out. Too tired to cry. She sighed.
“I’ll call Dr. Allen tomorrow,” she said.
“No,” said Evan, shaking his head. “You don’t understand, Mom. I’m not going to die from this. I’m changing into something else.” He paused to see what she would say to that, but she just kept looking at him tiredly. “I know Dr. Allen says it’s impossible, but what does he know?”
“He knows that you’re going to get better, Evan.” She smiled at him, but only with her mouth. She was trying so hard to make it a real smile. “No one is giving up on you.” She removed her arm from his back and gripped his leg with her hand, over the blankets, looking him right in the eye. “I promise.”
Evan put one of his membraned hands over hers. He wasn’t going to hide it anymore. “I’m turning into something like a worm. It’s like a giant worm with fangs. I’ve seen one. They live in the sewers. They’re coming to get me tomorrow night, so I can go and live with them.”
Tears shone in his mother’s eyes. She searched his face. “Why are you saying this?”
He couldn’t tell her the rest, about Foul and the wood square, and Jordan Bates. “Because it’s true, Mom. It is.”
She was silent for a long minute. “You’re right,” she said finally. “Dr. Allen doesn’t know what’s wrong. I don’t know if what you’re saying is impossible or not.” She put her other hand on top of his. “You really think it’s true, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Evan. He looked away from her but then looked back. “I don’t know if I can come back or not. If I can’t handle the sun now, or the wind, or even electric light, then what will happen to me when I change? Maybe I won’t be able to come up aboveground at all.” He thought about the one that visited him, but he didn’t want to get her hopes up. He also didn’t want her to see him like that.
His mother searched his eyes silently. Evan saw her eyes change, saw that she finally believed him. Tears began rolling down her face. “You’ll try, won’t you?” she said. She put her arm around his shoulder and pulled him close.
Evan wasn’t crying anymore. He loved his mother, but he wished she’d let him go. He wished she’d go back to bed. He wished he’d never told her anything, so he didn’t have to face this. He sat there numbly, but his mother didn’t leave. She stayed with him all night, first clutching his body, then holding his membraned hand.
It was all Evan could do to get her to go to work in the morning instead of staying with him. He told her he was exhausted, that he needed to sleep. That it would happen even sooner if he didn’t sleep. It wasn’t a lie, he knew. He wondered if by staying in his own body, he could put it off for one more day. Wouldn’t the worm scream when it saw how it was cheated! But the image of the bugs stopped him. Bearing down with their fangs drawn, their wings covering the sky.
Ten
JORDAN WAS STANDING at his locker with Angela. They were talking in low voices, their faces nearly touching. Jordan had to bend down to reach her. His hair was disheveled. Angela’s face had a scared look. Jordan’s face was pale, and he had dark circles under his eyes.
Evan was sorry. He was so sorry that he thought he could feel his own heart, beating inside Jordan’s as he jumped into Jordan’s body. But I don’t have time to be sorry, he thought.
He turned Jordan’s body around and ran. Angela screamed after him, but he didn’t stop. He dodged the waves of students, knocking into several, and burst through the front doors.
Jordan fought hard. There were no words, but there was anger. It boiled through Jordan’s body, and Evan barely maintained control.
He ran into the street, as fast as Jordan’s strong, athletic legs would take him. Rain pelted his body, but he ignored it. The houses got thinner and the yards got bigger, until the yards turned into fields.
He was soaked through, but he didn’t stop until he reached a tall chain-link fence with a faded yellow sign that said PRIVATE KEEP OUT.
Evan stared through the fence and across the field. He was breathing heavily from running, and from the fight that was going on inside.
He wasn’t sure exactly where the goo was, and the field was bigger than he remembered. The rain had changed everything. Pools of mud and water filled every dip. Had he walked straight into the middle, or had he veered off to the side? The grass was tall, and anything in it was hidden from view. But he didn’t have time to waste. He had to just go look for it. He grabbed on to the fence and started to pull himself up.
But Jordan’s body was different from Evan’s. He was too big, not skilled enough at climbing. The water didn’t help him. His feet slipped from the wires and he fell back to the ground, nearly twisting his ankle and covering himself in mud.
Evan thought back to when he had climbed the fence as himself. He tried to remember how it had felt. How his hands had moved and where his feet had planted. He tried to expand inside Jordan. He had been controlling Jordan’s movements, but his primary focus had been on Jordan’s mind. Now he moved down, into the rest of Jordan. He pushed his focus into Jordan’s muscle and bone, replacing Jordan’s feelings with his own.
He jumped onto the fence again. This time he was able to hang on. He wasn’t as good as when he’d been Evan, but he clambered up and dropped heavily over the top into the mud.
Suddenly, Jordan turned back to the fence. He grabbed on to it with both hands and began pulling himself up again, then slipped and dropped back to the ground.
Evan pushed back into Jordan’s head, willing to take control again. But Jordan fought him more than ever. Their minds thrashed around each other. Without real muscles, there was only will. And Jordan’s fear rose to Evan’s desperation.
I’m going to be eaten! Evan thought. I’m going to die!
Something came back from Jordan, but there were no words. It was a scream in Evan’s mind that vibrated through him into their shared skull.
Jordan’s body turned toward the field, back toward the fence, then back again. He stopped with one hand on the fence and the other reaching away from it, like two giants were pulling on his tiny arms. His face was tightened in a grimace.
I am not going to die! Evan thought. He threw himself, whatever he was, agains
t his rival. They knocked around inside the body, mixing with each other in a vapor of steaming souls.
Jordan fought hard, but Evan had more experience. Just as Evan would have no chance in a basketball game, Jordan was no match for an experienced body stealer. Evan turned and tore and thrust Jordan away.
He let go of the fence and ran the body through the grass, faster than he had ever run. In the middle of the field, he turned and looked wildly around him. Where was it? He ran to the left, then to the right. Where was the puddle deeper? Where was the mud pink?
Jordan was still pushing. Evan couldn’t hold on for much longer. Then he saw it. A faint pink glimmer to the left and back, toward where the field met the forest. He ran to it and nearly pitched over the edge but pulled back from it just in time, staring down into the pit.
How could he do this? No one deserved this! But they’ll eat me! he thought. They’ll eat me alive!
Jordan pushed, thrusting Evan down into the body. Jordan whipped around too quickly. His feet tottered on the edge of the pit and his arms waved. Evan thrust himself into Jordan’s brain, but it was too late. Jordan fell backward into the goo.
Evan watched from above as Jordan rolled over onto his stomach and tried to push himself up, his hands sinking in deep. His feet were still partly free, and he kicked them as he squirmed. He finally turned himself face-up again but was now totally covered in the pink goo. Evan was sure that he would sink, not having both hands and a leg free as Evan had, but Jordan was strong.
On his back, he pulled his arms up sharply until they were free. Then he reached them out to the banks of the hole and pushed with both his hands and feet. When his back was almost free, he pushed with his right hand and threw himself up onto the ground where his left hand had been.
He lay in the mud, panting and crying.
Evan felt sorry. Jordan had no idea what was about to happen. And he was no more deserving than Evan. All the jealousy seeped away from him as he looked down. Now Jordan was just like him. Another proem.
The rain washed off some of the goo. It separated on the ground into pockets of pink. The water seemed to run off it, leaving it pure. Jordan lifted himself up and looked around.
Evan rode with him as he walked, not interfering until Jordan needed a little bit more skill to climb the fence. He felt the weight of the soaked jeans, the increasing chill as the rain dripped through to Jordan’s skin.
Jordan walked back to the school, becoming even more soaked with each dejected step.
Evan left him before he reached it. He could not go back to school. He could not do this to anybody else. He let his consciousness drift to the ground, almost into a puddle on the sidewalk. He had no idea what to do.
The worm would be angry, Evan thought, and it would threaten him. But surely it wouldn’t kill him? Surely it wanted him too badly. It was logical, but the more he thought about it, the less he was sure that the creature worked by logic. Sinking further into the ground, he knew that he should not have taken even one other kid.
He thought of Jordan’s mother. How would she react when her son began to fall ill, after just having lost another?
It doesn’t matter, Evan told himself. It’s my last day on earth. It doesn’t matter what happens now. He wanted to stay there on the ground, sink into it, and never go back to himself. He would expand and drift into nothing. It would be better than becoming a worm.
He would have done it, but there was one person he still cared about.
Eleven
HE FLOATED INTO THE STORE. It was the end of her shift, but there was still a line at the register where his mother stood, scanning items, taking money. She looked exhausted. Her graying dark hair was pulled back into a messy bun, with pieces falling everywhere. It looked like she had slept on it, but Evan knew she hadn’t slept.
A customer wanted to chat, but Evan’s mother only gave a sad little smile, and the customer went away again, replaced by the next one and the next.
Evan jumped into a man as he was handing his mother a twenty-dollar bill. He was a burly man, stout and strong and tall. He looked down on his mother’s graying head. Evan had never seen her from this angle. She seemed smaller. For the first time in his life, he didn’t see her as his mother, but as a person. A worn-looking woman who was much too young to look the way she did.
Without really looking at him, she took the cash. There was a tension as she pulled it, as if she wanted to pull harder. As if she wanted to rip the bill in two and everything else with it. She slowly put the bill inside the drawer and gave him the change back, still not really looking at him. He tried to catch her eye, but she looked down.
“Tough day?” Evan asked. He cursed himself for saying something so ordinary, but it was all he could think of.
His mother forced a tiny smile and tapped the fingers of her right hand shakily against the counter. “You know, same old.” She glanced up at the clock, wiping a stray hair out of her face with her left hand.
“Roy late again?” asked Evan.
His mother squinted at him. “Do I know you?”
“I come here a lot,” said Evan. He noticed that his mother was wearing a name tag. SHARON, it said.
His mother shrugged. Her eyes were wet, and now that Evan was really looking, he could see that they were bloodshot. “Yeah,” she said. “He’s late.”
“They should fire him,” said Evan.
His mother smiled, her eyes lighting up a little bit. “That’s what my son says.” Her smile faded again. She chewed her lip and looked down at the counter, fingers still tapping.
“Hey!” a lady behind him said. “Are you done?”
Evan moved out of the way. The man was pushing against his mind, but he couldn’t let him go just yet. He moved over to the magazine rack and picked up a newspaper, still watching his mother out of the corner of the man’s eye.
“You know people are waiting, right—Sharon?” said the lady, slamming a Diet Coke down on the counter. There was no one behind her.
“I’m sorry about that,” said his mother.
Evan watched the struggle of his mother’s hands as she stuffed the lady’s wrinkled bills into the rusting cash register. Her hands shook, and she looked up at the clock again. She was obviously trying not to cry—over him. Why had he told her what was happening to him? He could have waited until the very last second, at least spared her a little bit of this.
The lady left, leaving the store empty except for Evan and his mother. His mother wiped a tear away, then glanced at him, then looked down, wiping her eyes fiercely.
Evan had forgotten who he was in. This strange man must be making the situation even worse. He jumped out of the man and hovered in the air above the magazine rack.
The man looked around him, put down the newspaper, and headed for the door. As he pushed the door open, he bumped smack into Roy.
“Watch where you’re going,” said Roy. He was tall and thin, except for a potbelly that stuck straight out from his middle, and older than Evan’s mother. “Hey, Sharon.”
Without thinking about what he was doing, Evan jumped into Roy. Suddenly, he had a close-up of his mother’s face.
“I am so sorry,” said Evan. “I know what I’ve put you through.” He stopped, closed Roy’s eyes, remembered who he was in. “I know how much it means to you to spend time with your son. I promise it won’t be a problem again.” He wanted to reach out and put his arms around her, but he knew Roy couldn’t do that. He had to stand there, watch her try to hold the tears back.
“Goodbye, Roy.” She grabbed her purse from under the counter and rushed out, not looking behind her.
Evan jumped out of Roy and followed her.
She slid into her dirty old station wagon and peeled out of the parking lot. She was crying freely now, speeding and careening around corners.
Evan wanted to cry too, floating inside the car, rolling with the turns. Which would be worse for her? he wondered. Having him here, or having him gone?
As
she pulled into the driveway, Evan slid back into himself. He tried to lift his head, but it barely moved. While he had been out of his body, his head had lolled forward and the membranes had grown from his chin into his chest. As he struggled to move, they stretched only a little. His webbed hand lay, twisted, on the wood square. From the way his fingers were now curled, he knew he would never be able to open them well enough to use the square again. And a thick membrane had grown down from his nose, sewing his lips almost completely shut.
The light fixture fell from the ceiling and landed on Evan’s leg. He yelped. It was a strange sound, weak and whiny. He could not look up, but he didn’t have to look to see what had fallen with it.
“Running children into their trap, proem,” Foul hissed. “Shall I trust you? Shall I presume it forced you?”
“It was only one,” Evan whispered. His voice was barely audible and garbled by the membrane. “You should be happy. It’s just more for you to eat.” Evan heard its wings beating the air.
“Never mind what they have offered. Or what they have threatened. You will meet us here in this room, at this time, three weeks from now. You will deliver on our bargain. Or it will not be just you who we tear into, piece by piece, then bone by bone.” Its wings flapped harder. “We don’t like to eat humans, but we can.” The sound of its wings flapping rose up and up, and with a sucking noise, the thing was swallowed into its hole.
Without knocking, his mother burst into the room. Her tears were worse than just a few minutes before. And then she really saw him.
“Evan!” she cried, and raced over to his bedside. She tore the blanket away from his body and sobbed over him. His legs were now fused together, too, the thick yellow membranes like plastic tubing, not flexible at all like the webbing of his hands. His toes were curled under, and the membranes glued them to the bottom of his feet. “It can’t be true. Don’t go yet!”
“Don’t . . . watch . . . this . . .” he growled, but it came out like a painful squeak. His mother just went on sobbing. Tears fell from Evan’s eyes and filled up the membranes covering his face, so it looked like he was in a fish tank.
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