Benny must have called Crow from the inside. Is this about the 8K owed or is there more? A girl missing. Indian medicine. Someone’s daughter. A reward or a sale to a higher bidder? What’s in it for Benny? What’s his “in,” Creator? Show me.
I keep walking and see tracks from the brothers walking into and away from the house.
But wait: there is a third set. Someone walked behind them, after—stepping in Torchy’s footsteps. The dogs growl as I kneel. I go slow and make my way.
It looks like someone came with them or came after them, but whoever this was paused three times and looked back.
Suit shoes. Moolah shoes. White man shoes from a store in the south.
Who could it have been?
Crow’s mukluks stand in their rubbers in the porch, but I don’t see her jacket. No. It will be close to wherever she is. She has gone to bed. I hand Benny his money and he takes it, thumbs it. He already looks stronger. He hands me two one hundred dollar bills from the bills I hand him. He then points with his lips to the bowl and spoon waiting for me by the pot that smells so good.
“Eat. Tell me what you saw.”
“How much?” I ask.
He looks at me and acts more tired than he really is. “How much what?”
“How much are you being paid to find her?”
He looks at me and he’s the old Benny, focused, hungry. “Nothing. Did you see the gloves?”
I shake my head.
“Shit. Tell me what you saw.”
I take the money and grab my spoon and bowl. I move slow and think carefully of how I’ll answer. He’ll ask me three times to retell, retell, retell. That’s how he sees. I am his eyes again. I tell him everything before I sit down and eat, even about the scraping I felt. He listens and nods and tells me to eat when I’m done. That’s when I remember the one thing.
“What is it?” Benny asks.
“She said, ‘Happy Full Moon.’”
“So?”
“It isn’t.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Maybe that was code for ‘help me.’”
“I’ll tell the old woman in the morning.” He looks at his room. “Listen to me,” he says. “There are men in the world who are taking girls and shipping them far away, making them do things you never want to see. Lester’s what they call a gatekeeper to something called the Scream Factory. We’re going to stop him. We’re going to save that girl and then we’re going to find out who he works for.”
“But how?” I ask. “How do they get them?”
“They call them ‘Vampires.’ They’re handsome men, charming men. They ask these women out on dates and, of course, the lost ones say yes. The men show up and ask to use their bathrooms. Once they’re in, they’re in. They get down on all fours and sniff for hair, nail clippings, Kleenex where the girls have blown their noses. Once they have something of yours, they have you. After that, you’re in a spell. Soon you’re giving them your PIN numbers for your cards; you’re buying them a truck. You’re one of maybe twelve to twenty women they have under their spell, but it’s all leading the girls to something else.”
I feel a cold seep into me and I don’t like it. It’s like we’re talking about Hell, Creator. I don’t like this.
And I feel that thing again: that plan. Darkness. Over two thousand women now in the starving mouth of hell. It passes through me and I catch a glimpse of hooks, rusty and cutting harnesses that lock, women bending backwards until the purple meat inside them bursts.
I think of Lester. His auntie is Bodacious.
“What is it?” He watches me.
“Lester. His auntie…”
“I’m meeting with her in the morning.”
“Do you need me?”
He shakes his head. “Go see your mom. Tell her I said hi. Tell her I will take care of you… Tell her that we’re going to start hunting the men who are hunting the women of this country.”
I hang my head and nod. Did Crow tell him about how much time Mom has left?
And that’s when I see it: behind him. It wasn’t there before but it is now: a samurai sword in its sheath. It looks old, not the pretend kind that you can get from the head shop van that comes every summer to sell glass pipes and flags. It looks real, ancient.
“Where did you get that?” I ask.
He turns and winces. “Card game.”
“When was this?”
“You just missed it,” he smiled.
So that would explain the tracks in the snow. I want to ask if I can touch it but know that I can’t. Not now. Not until we’re done. It will be my reward to take it out and feel it.
“Things are going to happen—and I mean this with everything I know—as I get better,” he says. “After your mom and after me… when you are free of this town, I want you to go to BC. I want you to work for some friends of mine. They call themselves the Night Crawlers. They’re like you: superheroes. They’re cleaning up the bad guys. Work for them in my name and you make this world a better place. You get on in years… the deals we make as men… the deals we make with ourselves… the deals we make with God and the world… Jesus, listen to me… these guys are doing research on this network and it’s global. I’ve told them about you. They need a giant like you to do what you do best.”
“And that is?” I ask and sit up.
“You bring peace in your own way. I’ve had years to think about it. In the wind of your thoughts, when you think about it… all the scores we’ve done. They’ve made the town safer, haven’t they?”
I think about it. All those bad men. All that blood. All the times I hit trying to put the meat back in. “I hope so.”
“My boy,” he said. “There will be a day when I’m gone, when your mom is gone. On that day you will be free. Go to them. Help this world. Haunt it in my name. We both know what you are.”
I don’t want to understand this now. I feel something pass through me that I don’t see. I take the bowl of rabbit soup and bow my head to pray. I will eat what I have killed to touch you, Creator.
In the night, I hear Benny cry out but it’s not in pain. It’s release. And I have a flash of Crow floating upside down above Benny, her long hair unbraided, sweeping over him. Her mouth open with tusks. She has four hands. Like dragonfly wings. Two we can see. Two we can’t. The ones invisible reach inside him, pulling the poisoned meat out and placing a hornet’s nest inside of him.
What offerings does he bring her now?
At eleven am the next morning, we pull into Lester’s parking lot. Lester’s truck was in the back yard. We block any escape. I sit in the back of Benny’s. It starts to snow so gently and the flakes are so thick, I can light them on fire as they twirl their way down.
I step out of Benny’s truck and stand behind Torchy and Sfen. Torchy looks at Benny. “You know he belongs to Bodacious, right?”
Benny takes a deep breath and holds his side. “Yup.”
I wince. No matter what was agreed, this will be hard and cold, what happens next for all of us. I feel it.
Torchy spits beside him. “This is gonna cost us.”
“It always does,” Benny says and looks at the silver sun. It was always his favourite, he once told me. When I miss him most, I look at it for him. When he was a child, no matter what happened to him, he always had the silver sun in winter to give him hope. “We’ll pay up. I’ve already spoken to her.”
“What does she want?”
“We’re to fill her freezers three times with moose and caribou.”
“Wow,” Torchy said.
“We’ll do it.” He places his hand on Torchy’s shoulder, the same way he used to with me.
And that’s when I know: I am no longer his disciple. He is already distancing himself from me.
“How do you want this to go?” Sfen asked.
&nb
sp; “Watch the front of his house in case he runs,” Benny says. Sfen nods and takes off in a flash. “Crow?”
Crow kneels, squints at the sky and draws her fingers through the snow. The way she holds her wrists out, it’s the way women walk towards something they’re about to skin and butcher. “I know what to do.”
Benny looks at me and squeezes my arm. To see Crow, Torchy and Sfen working with him fills him with strength. “Do you want answers first or do you want to free the girl?” he asks Crow.
“Free the girl.” She rises and speaks to the group. “He has to tell her what he did. He has to admit it.”
Crow looks at the house. “Get her out here.”
Lester’s porch light turns on as he opens the door and stops cold when he sees us standing and that he is blocked in. “Benny,” Lester said. “I was just coming to see you.”
“Shut up,” Benny said. “Get your skinny ass out here and bring the girl.”
Lester is about to say something when he sees Torchy and me. “Fuck you guys. I paid you back—”
“Get the girl,” Crow orders and Lester backs into the house.
“I fuckin’ dare you to run,” Torchy said.
Lester walks out of his house in his winter jacket and Kamiks. Behind him walks Crystal. She has on her fur coat and boots. I start flexing my hands. They start burning and I feel the scraping inside again.
“You sonofabitch,” Benny said. “She’s like a young Pearl.”
Lester bows his head. “I know.”
So this is why I thought I saw her before. She isn’t Lester’s daughter. She looks like his dead wife, but alive and younger.
Crystal turns in our direction but looks blind. “Mom?”
Crow turns to her and is quiet. She sniffs the air once.
It is Crow who walks towards Crystal. “My girl, come to me.”
Crystal turns to Lester. She turns away from the group.
“My girl,” Crow says. “Come.”
Crystal starts to tremble in her coat and she puts her head all the way down, as far as it can go. “No.”
“Lester,” Crow says. “Come to me and bring her with you.”
The colour drains from Lester’s face. He takes Crystal’s hand and walks down the stairs towards Crow. “Who fuckin’ told you?” He looks at me, scathing. “The freak?”
Crow reaches out her hand. “Send Crystal to me.”
“Fuck,” Lester says. “I’ll leave town. I’ll leave today. I promise I never meant to hurt anyone. Once I started it, I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t give her back. Those gloves,” he says.
“I want them,” Benny says.
“I burnt them,” Lester says.
“You didn’t,” Benny says, his mouth open with disbelief.
“It’s not the only way,” Crow says. “Send Crystal to me.”
Lester looks at Crystal and then he looks at all of us. He looks terrified. “Go to Crow, sweetie.”
Crystal turns into Lester and trembles. “I’m scared.”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” he says. “I give you permission.”
Crystal walks backwards towards Crow and stops. She starts to cry. “What’s happening?”
“You come now,” Crow says, pointing to Lester.
Lester does as he is told. With each step, Lester ages. He drags his boots through the snow like he is on a death march. Soon, he is within grabbing distance of Crow and Crystal.
“Tell Crystal to face you,” Crow says.
Lester looks at his feet. “Shit,” he says.
“Do it,” Crow says. “We’re setting this girl free today.”
Lester takes a big breath and starts to weep. “Ever since Pearl died,” he starts.
“Shut up,” Torchy snaps. “Do what Crow says.”
“Face her,” Crow says.
Lester’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry.”
“Do it,” Crow says. “You tell her. Get her to face you and you tell her what you did. Admit it.”
Lester looks at the group and then at Crystal who is staring at her feet, shaking. “Crystal,” he says, “face me…please.”
She turns in the snow. How she moves is unnatural. It is slow motion. She looks at Lester with glassy eyes.
“Baby girl,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“Tell her,” Crow commands.
Crystal stares at him blankly. The life has gone from her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” He swallows hard. “I used Indian medicine to get you.”
She looks up at him and blinks twice. “What?” she whispers.
Lester starts to cry. “What did you say?” Crystal asks again, this time louder.
“I used black medicine to get you,” Lester says.
“You did what?” Crystal asks.
“I did a bad thing,” Lester says.
“You did what!” Crystal’s voice breaks as she yells.
Lester starts to breathe through his nose. He begins to shake. “I lost my wife years ago and I been—”
“YOU DID WHAT?!” Crystal screams. She looks at the entire group and I watch her eyes change. They are hers again. Lester hisses when he sees this and Crystal is upon him. She digs her fingernails into his face and begins clawing and pulling. “You did what to me? You stole me? How could you? You know I have no one. You know I’m an orphan. Did you rape me? OH GOD! How could you? HOW COULD YOU?”
As she claws his face, Lester does not resist. He yells as she tears his face apart with each clawing. Blood begins to rain in spots all over Lester’s Kamiks and the snow. I look away as Crystal begins to wail. I want to plug my ears so I cannot hear the sorrow in her cries. “I’m sorry,” Lester keeps saying until his blood mixes with his spit. “I’m shorry.”
I feel like gagging when I realize Lester is swallowing his own blood. I close my eyes when I start to hear Lester choking and gagging.
“Jesus,” Sfen says. He must have come running when he heard the screaming.
“Enough,” Crow says. “It’s broken.”
“Take her to my house,” Benny says. “Torchy, Flinch, you stay.”
Crow nods to Sfen. “Let’s go.”
I cannot look at what is left of Lester’s face, but I catch a flash of meat hanging in a strip with an eye open.
“Get in the house, Lester,” Benny growls.
Torchy starts pulling on skin-tight leather gloves. Black ones. He smiles and looks at Benny. Benny nods. When things get bloody, he once told me, they get sticky.
How long have they been working together? I wonder. What don’t I know about them?
Benny holds my arm for support. “Get him in his house.”
Torchy does as he is told. He grabs Lester and starts pulling him into his own home. Lester starts howling.
“Think of your mom,” Benny looks at me. “We need those gloves.”
I look at him. His eyes are changing. No, I think. You need them. Just like Lester did but for something else. Something more.
“Those gloves could save me and your mom,” Benny says. I try to steer him around the blood slush from Lester’s face but he chooses to step directly on it. “Let’s find them.”
“And then?” I ask. I have to ask now. I have to know where I stand with him. This is part of one of his plans, something bigger than I can see right now.
Benny stops. “You and I are going to go through that entire house. In his basement we will find matchboxes in a shoebox filled with hair and nail clippings from every girl he’s ever stolen.”
My hands go numb. How does he know this?
“He’s the Keeper. Listen to me. Flinch, I need you to become the two-headed bear again. Call it. And we’re going to find those gloves.” I am so suddenly tired. All I want to do is sleep. It always starts this way when I call it—or it calls me
.
My hands get numb and then the sirens start inside of me.
What did he used to call it when he was strong? His reign of blood.
“It’s okay,” Sfen says. “Wash the blood in the snow. Like this.”
I turn and see him crouch. Sfen washes his hands in the snow and holds them up. “See?”
Crystal stands crying. She then kneels and does the same. The snow is caked with blood. I see streams of blood running out of her own fingers. Crystal has snapped her own fingernails digging through Lester’s face.
The numbing travels through my legs.
“You’re safe now,” Sfen says. “You’re safe.”
Crystal begins to wail into her blood-slushed hands.
Benny walks back to his truck and slowly opens his door. He reaches behind his seats to pull the samurai sword in its sheath out. “Torchy,” Benny calls. “Whatever he’s used, it’s in the basement. Look for shoeboxes.”
I make my way into Lester’s. Torchy has already turned on the oven elements. The two big ones.
Lester is zip-clipped to a chair. “Are you sure you want this?” he whispers. “Get me out of here and I’ll save you.”
I must have left because I don’t remember if I did this or Torchy did.
I close my eyes and think. The way Crow marvelled at the girl, I know that she’s found her apprentice. But the orphan is not from here. Will her community even want her back? I look around and fill my nose with how fresh and clean the snow is before I start to make my way.
Torchy comes upstairs. “There’s a safe. I can’t crack it.”
Benny stands behind me. “Flinch?”
I nod. The bear is inside me now. Both heads. Looking.
I need to search for the signs.
I bow my head and listen. I listen with everything. The ringing starts behind my ears and behind me and moves to the front. I am vaguely aware that my hands are shaking and so are my legs. I’m vibrating across the floor.
“What the fuck?” I hear Lester say.
Night Moves Page 12