by John Hart
“Yet you want what I can give you.”
He was right, and knew it. Johnny was smaller without the stone. Everything was smaller. He stared at it, remembering the heat of it on his palm, the explosion. Looking at it, he didn’t care about time or even Marion.
But the Hush.
That connection.
“Yes,” John said.
“I can’t.”
“Take the stone. Take my wife.”
“I need…”
“You need what? Time to decide? Don’t be a child. Cree is coming. You must know that.”
“I don’t feel her.”
“We can’t feel the children of Aina. That’s what makes them so dangerous. Take it now, while you still can.”
It would be so easy, Johnny thought. The stone. The power.
The old man leaned closer, the stone in his open hand. The eyes clouded further as Johnny watched. Every breath was a struggle.
“Please…”
He took his wife’s hand. Johnny looked at the gnarled fingers twined into the smooth, pale ones. It was unnatural, and pitiful and sad. “I can’t do it,” he said.
“You mean you won’t.”
“I won’t kill for you.”
Johnny took a step back, and the old man found strength enough to follow. His steps were halting, but electricity charged the air, thickened it in Johnny’s throat. “Then I’ll do it myself,” he said. “I’ll kill the girl and force the stone down your throat. I’ll make you love her.”
“Marion would not want that.”
“Don’t you say her name. You’re not strong enough. You’re not worthy.”
“She wouldn’t want an innocent girl to die, John. Not for her.”
“Yet dozens already have. Old people. Young people. I’ll kill as many as it takes! Do whatever it takes!”
“She never asked for that.”
“Take it!”
He pushed out the stone, and Johnny took two more steps back. “She shouldn’t be alive, John. She shouldn’t be here.”
“Don’t make me hurt you, son.”
“Her life is no gift.”
“Shut your mouth.”
“It’s a curse—”
“I said to shut your damn mouth!”
Something broke, then, in the old man’s heart. The last of his patience burned, leaving nothing but the rage and madness. He lifted Johnny, flung him against a wall. He pinned him on the stone floor, squeezed his heart, his lungs. “I gave you the Hush.” He squeezed harder. “I saved your life.” He hung Johnny in the air, arms spread. Johnny tried to speak, but could not. The old man coughed, and blood burst through his lips. He didn’t care. The hope was burnt. Marion would die. He turned his fist, and Johnny’s arms twisted. So did his legs. Johnny screamed, but the old man wasn’t finished. He made Johnny suffer. He buried him in the pain and screaming, the small releases and the awful pressures. “You’ll be the first to die,” John said.
“Please…”
“First before my wife.”
“Stop…”
“First before me.”
“Stop, please…”
But John did not. He dug for strength, and twisted bones until Johnny screamed. The old man fell to his knees, but kept the pressure on Johnny’s joints, his ribs. When Johnny found a breath, he said the only thing left to say. “You’re not doing this for her.…” More pressure, more screaming. Johnny bit his tongue and tasted blood. “You’re afraid to be alone—”
“Shut up!”
“She’d rather die than be like this.”
“You can’t know that!”
“You made me know that! You showed me! She would despise what you’ve become!”
“No.…”
“It’s true. Look at her face.”
The old man did. He looked at her face and wept and, at last, was dying. Johnny saw it from a red place in his mind. The old man collapsed, and Johnny fell with him. He tried to move, but hurt as if every bone had splintered. Beside him, the old man lay on the stone. His eyes were white as milk, and only his lips moved. “She was the only innocent. Don’t you see that? Don’t you care?” Tears tracked a seam in his face. He coughed more blood, then opened his hand to show the stone. “Take it. Save my wife.”
“I can’t.”
“Kill Cree, and the world is yours.”
“She’s just a girl.”
“She is the final price.”
“Where have I heard those words before?”
The old man blinked, and coughed more blood. “Isaac…”
“You loved him,” Johnny said.
“I did.”
“He paid a final price, too. So did the men you hanged. So did Aina, who was younger even than Cree. What about your son?” Johnny tried to move, but was broken. “What became of Marion’s child?”
“I had to let him go.”
“What price did he pay? No father. No family.”
They felt like last words, but John was shaking his head, his voice the barest whisper. “She wanted to be a mother and a wife. I wanted her to have those things.”
“She had them.”
“Not for long enough.”
“Don’t you see?” Johnny found another swallow of air. “There will always be another final price. Isaac. Your son. I won’t kill an innocent girl. Marion had her time. So did you.”
“Please…”
“No.”
“Johnny…”
“It stops here. Now. No more killing.”
The old man closed his eyes, and Johnny saw all the ways that he was broken, too: the last of his will, the last of his hope. “There is a grassy place on the hill.…”
He was dying; Johnny understood. “I’ll find it.”
“Side by side…”
“I promise.”
“This is all I have left.”
He closed his eyes, and the air around them stirred. Johnny felt power and warmth, a dark moment that was a shadow of the old man’s death. He touched Johnny’s arm and poured the last of himself into the link that bound them. Johnny burned and hurt, and, in time, was healed. When it was done, the stone rolled from the old man’s palm, his voice failing at last. “I wanted her to have those things.” Johnny opened his mouth, but had no words for such a moment. The old man nodded blindly, then crawled into the skins beside his undying wife. He took her perfect hand and held it. He kissed the beloved cheek. He breathed his very last.
* * *
Johnny sat for a long time after that. The stone was near his hand, but he had not yet touched it. He thought of John and Marion, and all their long years together. He thought of his own life and of the stone, and was still there when Cree appeared. She stepped into the chamber, and Johnny watched her in the firelight. She moved with confidence and calm, and Johnny had the strange thought that he knew nothing about her, that she had changed in some magnificent way. “He said that you would find me.”
“I can see you with my eyes closed.”
“And the soul of Massassi?”
“She is the sun rising.”
Johnny studied her face and the deep, still eyes. She shone as if the sun had risen, indeed. She looked older, wiser. She moved to the bed and looked down on the dead man, his still-breathing wife. Her gaze moved from Marion’s face to John’s, to the twisted limbs and distortions. “I could have told him it would end like this.”
“How could you know that?”
“I’ve lived a thousand lives before my own.” Cree sat on the floor, but not so close Johnny couldn’t reach the stone first. “I knew John Merrimon when he was young. I knew his wife when she was burning with fever.”
“He asked me to take the stone.”
“Will you?”
“Marion will die if I don’t.”
“Then she should die.”
Johnny swallowed past an unexpected pain. Dream or not, he knew Marion in intimate ways. Some part of him loved her. Not as John had, but still …
“That l
ife was never yours,” Cree said. “The power is not yours, either.” Johnny said nothing, but felt the stone beside his hand. He felt the life it offered, all the things he could be and do, the knowledge of all things that were first in the world. Cree tilted her head as if she saw the struggle. Perhaps she actually did. “Do you know,” she asked, “that John Merrimon was the first to break faith? That but for his actions, Marion would have lived a full and normal life as Aina promised?”
It was an ugly truth to which John Merrimon never confessed. But Johnny had seen it in his dreams, and understood. “He gave the land to Isaac instead of Aina.”
“He broke the deal first.”
“He loved Isaac, I think.”
“Yet betrayal comes at a price, does it not?”
Johnny looked at Marion, thinking, as he’d done before, about that final price. “I’m sorry about your mother,” he said. “I would have stopped Verdine if I could.”
“My mother was at peace when she died. At the end, she understood.”
Cree smiled serenely, and Johnny thought again that she was changed in some powerful way. She had not yet looked at the stone, though it sat on the ground between them. “It’s time to do the right thing,” she said.
“What will happen to Marion if I do?”
“She will die, in time.”
“When?”
“John Merrimon projected the power of Massassi onto the things for which he cared. It is steeped into this place, as it’s steeped into her and even into you. She’ll last a day or a week, but not long. Life, after all, is the largest of things.”
Johnny’s hand moved closer to the stone. He wanted it and feared it. The conflict frightened him even more. “What if I take this right now?”
“Then we will struggle, you and I.”
“To what end?”
“I am the last of the line, and the strongest. You would lose.”
“And if I did not?”
“Massassi is the soul of women. In the end, that is the only truth that matters.”
The stare between them held. She remained at peace. “Where would you go, if I agreed?”
“The world is wide, and the sufferings of women are many. Massassi will guide me.”
“And this place?”
“Hush Arbor means little to me now.”
“What about us, our families?”
“Do the right thing, and there is no us.”
Johnny looked at the stone, and thought about all that power. John had used it to keep Marion safe, to intimidate and kill, to preserve Hush Arbor at any cost. Was it the stone that drove him mad, or was it something as simple as loneliness and time and grief? All Johnny knew for sure were the words he’d said to John. There would always be a final price, one after the other. But that was not his only concern.
“Are you a good person?” he asked.
“I am what God and my people have made me.”
“This stone can change the world. It’s dangerous.”
“That depends on the person holding it.” Cree smiled for a second time. “Aina was made hard by war, and harder still by slavery. Others are gentle and kind. You must have faith.”
In that, she was right. What else did Johnny have besides faith in himself and his judgment, the faith that, after everything, the universe made sense? A thousand lives, she’d said. Johnny had no wisdom to compete with that. Worse, he had no right. Even John Merrimon had known as much.
No man was born to hold Massassi’s soul.…
“I’m sorry for what John did to Aina, and to your family.”
“Some people are weak,” Cree said. “I will try to be otherwise.”
It was a fine answer, Johnny thought. He watched her face for long seconds, then passed his hand above the stone. He felt its warmth and power, but Cree did not flinch. She remained at peace, he thought, and that was the finest sign of all. “Take it,” he said; and rising gracefully, she did. She placed it on her breast, and seemed older and taller and splendid. Turning as a queen might, she left the cave without looking back, and Johnny followed, but slowly. He stood at the fire and stared across the Hush, which was purple in the night. There was no sign of Cree, but he felt Jack in the distance, and cops, and Verdine and Leon. Would he feel as much tomorrow? He didn’t know, but Cree said that he was steeped in the power of Massassi, and that the Hush, too, was steeped.
Was he ready to live without it?
Could he?
EPILOGUE
It took Marion a full month to die, and Johnny rarely left her side. The first time he did, it was to bury John on the hilltop above the cave in which he’d lived for so long. The grassy place John mentioned crowned the eastern edge where land fell away, and Johnny dug the grave so the sun would touch it early. Even then, it was hard to leave John alone in the earth, and Johnny sat with him for most of that gentle day. He spoke little, and when he did, it was to describe the view or the breeze, or to explain the choice he’d made. There was no point belaboring it, so Johnny kept it simple.
It was the right thing to do.
John wouldn’t understand, but Johnny was at peace with the decision. Every day, Marion lost a little color, yet every morning the same slight smile was on her face. She was a statue, fading; and that, too, was the natural order of things. Even the hardest mountain yielded in time, and so it was with Marion. In a week, she’d aged. In three, she was old. But Johnny held her hand when he could. He spoke to her of John and his faithfulness and all his lonely years. He promised her a place on the same sunny slope, and told her John was waiting. If she heard or understood, she never gave a sign; but Johnny had reason to hope.
The bloom faded.
The smile remained.
Once a day, Johnny sat at the cave’s mouth to follow the search below. Thirty or forty people usually looked, but sometimes it was more. They stayed in groups of six, and moved slowly from one part of the swamp to the next. They were determined to find him, and for a while it was amusing. But Johnny tired of people on his land. He tired of helicopters and reporters, of the distrust and fear that rolled like a fog up the hillside. When Johnny left Marion the second time, it was to meet Jack near where the old cabin had burned. It was not the first time Jack had come into the swamp, looking for Johnny. He stumbled around—just as determined as the cops—but he was always followed, as if Johnny might wander blithely in to say hello.
That wouldn’t happen, of course.
Not while Johnny felt.
But the question haunted. Cree had said the magic was steeped into Johnny, but that was an imperfect word. It didn’t mean owned or attached or forever. So Johnny lived with worries of blindness and loss and amputation. He watched Marion fade, yet feared his own dissolution. Did that make him insincere? Possibly. He couldn’t help it. Life in the cave was like that—two worlds—so that when Jack appeared alone, Johnny set off beneath a sky that was low and white and hot for late September, so close to fall. He wanted a touchstone to his old life, and Jack was there to deliver it. “They’re not filing charges,” he said. “They’re calling off the search.”
Johnny reached out, and saw that it was true. People were pulling back. The old church was empty. “Why? How?”
“Jimmy Ray Hill is off life support. He’s talking.” Jack seemed calm, but touched Johnny on the shoulder. “He doesn’t know what killed the sheriff, but he swears it wasn’t you. Tom Lee pushed, but Jimmy Ray wouldn’t change his story. And that’s not the best part.” Jack waited, but not for long. “James Kirkpatrick is talking, too. He’s not entirely rational, but whatever he thinks it was that killed William Boyd, he won’t say it was you.” Jack made air quotes. “‘He was floating; he was crucified.’ Don’t you get it? Don’t you see?”
Johnny did, but then again, he’d never really worried. Maybe he’d never truly cared. “Will I have to speak to the police?”
“Captain Lee has an agenda,” Jack said. “But they’re not charging you, so what can he really do? He’ll ask his questio
ns. You answer or you don’t.”
Johnny doubted it would be that simple. Strong people were afraid, and that made for dangerous business. No charges, though. He smiled, as Jack wanted, but his relief was a muted thing. He’d not thought about life for weeks, not this life. “Listen,” he said. “I have to go.”
“What? I just got here. Don’t you get it? The bodies in the cave are old, too old. You’re off the hook for the new ones. People in town—now, that’s another matter. You wouldn’t believe the stories floating around, the speculation about you, this place. Point is—it’s all good. Let’s celebrate. Dinner! Drinks! The cabin burned, but we can go into town, my place. We can go anywhere. It’s over.”
He wanted more, but Johnny was looking north. Marion was aging faster now. It wouldn’t be long. “I need a couple of weeks,” he said.
“Weeks? Are you serious?”
Jack’s disappointment was hard to see, but Johnny had no choice. “Tell Clyde I’m all right, would you? Tell my mother, too.”
“Of course, but—”
“Thanks, Jack. You’re a good man.”
Johnny started to turn, but Jack wasn’t finished. “Listen, buddy. I hate to mention this, but taxes are due in nine days.”
“Jesus, Jack.” Johnny had forgotten. In all the other worries, he’d lost this one. Would he lose the Hush after all, and for something as stupid as money? “Why are you smiling?”
“It’s more of a smirk.”
“Damn it, Jack—”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
“Then say I’m your lawyer.”
“You’re my lawyer.”
“Excellent. Good.”
“What’s happening, Jack?”
“Don’t worry about it. But dinner can’t be in two weeks. Eight days, all right? Eight days at the cabin. I’ll bring everything.”
* * *
The lawyers met five days later at three o’clock, four of them in the big conference room on the top floor. Jack came in wearing jeans, a linen shirt, and boat shoes worn white at the tips. The men from his old firm were serious in their expensive suits. Leslie was beautiful, as ever. “Gentlemen. Lady.” Jack breezed across the room, and took a seat at the middle of the table. He dropped an old law-school backpack on the surface, and met every gaze in turn. The smile never wavered.