by Lee Thompson
Red nodded, not fully understanding, but he knew she meant well in wishing that Amy and her mom could have some peace now, be themselves, learn to lean on and love each other.
He moved behind white chairs, hoping to catch Amy’s eye so he could wave her over and give her a hug—if she even wanted one from him, and seeing all these people gawking at their grief reminded him of a train wreck, the way people would slow for an accident, unable to stop themselves from staring because in some small way, deep in their minds and hearts, it reminded them that they were still okay, tragedy had struck someone else for the time being.
Amy’s mom never touched her.
Back at the church’s basement, people sat in front of their plates, their eyes flicking here and there, unable to sit on anything for too long because death had stepped among them and Red knew they were sad, but beneath it they were happy that it wasn’t them, that they still had a chance at finding some enjoyment and some peace, and there were other feelings there, thick in the air, but he didn’t know what they meant because it was like a thousand birds singing different songs.
He sat next to his father, his mom on the other side of the table, and watched as Amy got up to grab some fruit punch, moving as if her limbs were made of stone, and he thought of the butterfly and its gentle touch and simple beauty, and he stood, moved between the tables and the people who glanced quickly his way, and then somewhere else. She turned as he approached, the ladle in her hand, filling her plastic cup. Her eyes were still moist and her dress rumpled, hair a bit frazzled. She said, “You want me to get you some punch, Red?”
He nodded, uncertain what he wanted to say, maybe just wanting to be next to her.
She handed him the cup and they leaned against the counter and looked over the long room, its pale gray floors supporting pale gray people.
Amy said, “No one here really knew him. They didn’t want to. You know why?”
“Because he sold drugs,” Red whispered.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Because they were scared of him, scared of their own impulses too. You think that he was all bad? He wasn’t. He did good things too. He loved us in his own way, and you’re even kind of like him, Red. It’s one of the reasons I was drawn to you.” She looked into her cup for a moment and tightness seized Red’s chest because he didn’t like what she was saying. He was nothing like her dad had been. When Amy looked up, she said, “He gave a lot of money to the school system, the library, the police department. And it wasn’t to look better or make people think differently of him, he really did like helping, contributing, just like you. It made him smile to see other people smile, just like you.”
Red rubbed his mouth. He said, “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Not many people did.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and said, “It’s like people have their own hidden worlds inside them.”
“They do, Red. And if someone had shown interest in him instead of just assuming he was only one thing they might have liked him.”
He wanted to hug her and tell her that he was sorry again for what he did with the mirror, part of him still denying that he did anything at all, wishing he could believe it fully, but he knew Amy was right. He didn’t see anything past the surface with her dad. He stared at the gray people, some of them smiling nervously at the nearest table as a lanky man in a charcoal suit dabbed a napkin at his tie. Red said, “I know people aren’t completely one thing, that we’re all good and all bad at the same time, but don’t you think some people have more badness than good?”
“He might have. Well,” she said, “he did, but what does it matter now? He’s never going to have a chance to do the good things to make up for it now.”
Red walked away, walked the narrow, dark hall that led to the back of the church and the door that led outside. He pushed against the bar and sunlight slashed at his eyes. He squinted, and cried, because he couldn’t forgive himself for snuffing that chance, for taking it from Amy’s father—maybe she was right, and now there was nothing but an empty pit in the middle of him, the bitter taste of regret in his mouth, because words were cheap, and apologies only meant something if your whole heart was in them, and he didn’t feel that his was. Her dad had probably done so many awful things that Amy didn’t know about, that no one did.
Wings rustled and tickled his neck. The raven on his shoulder said, “That’s the ticket, justify it. That’ll ease the sting.”
* * *
Red walked home through the woods, his mind a blank slate, the raven singing songs from another time when people took to the stage in suits with brass bands behind them, everyone just as lost, but seeming happier about it. At home, he sat at the kitchen table, fingers drumming a pen against an open notepad. He didn’t know where to start, but he felt compelled to write Amy a letter, or maybe it was only for himself because he knew that people did things for other people sometimes but once you peeled back the bandages and looked at their healing wound, you saw it healed you too.
He drug the pen across the top of the paper, everything around him appearing so normal—their new home alive with the scents of each of them, and beneath it the thick scent of must from the trailer having been closed up for months before they’d occupied it. But his mom kept the place clean, because that’s what she did and what she was—a keeper, an organizer, a maintainer. But beneath the normal lay something else and it frustrated him that he couldn’t put his finger on it. He stared at the paper and wrote I love you. Then he stopped, unable to write more because it seemed stupid and there weren’t words to portray the emotions he felt for her. He ripped the paper free and folded it and stuffed it in his pant pocket.
He thought, I want to tell her I love her in person but she’s never going to believe me. Not now.
Red pushed himself back from the table and sighed. In the distance he heard the thrum of a car and its suspension creaking as it came down the rutted, dusty road. He walked to the door and waited, hoping his parents weren’t mad at him for leaving the dinner after the funeral, but he thought they’d understand. He hoped so. A soft breeze stirred leaves; sunlight brightened everything to a harsh glare that hurt his eyes, but he kept watching the wall of trees where the driveway cut between them and swallowed the lump in his throat. He wondered if his mom talked to Amy. He leaned against the doorjamb, unable to remember what day it was, expecting he’d blink and the new home he was still adjusting to would be gone, replaced with the alien landscape of Glory on the Green, a soft whisper of cloth beside him as Ash moved closer and pulled the cloak from Red’s shoulders.
He heard Amy say, “Red?” and he knew it was only in his head—he wanted her around that much, to see her smile again, for things to be like they were before he’d dug through the rubble of Mr. Blue’s house and taken the jagged piece of mirror and held it up so her dad could see the darkness in his own soul. Red whispered, “I’m sorry, I really am.”
He heard his name again, louder this time, and looked to his right. Amy smiled weakly, drenched in the shadow cast by the trailer and sun. He went to her, wondering what her mother thought when Amy had left the church, or if her mom hadn’t even noticed at all with so many people surrounding her. And he thought his parents would understand her being here too, because right now, they needed each other.
She grabbed his hand and said, “Walk with me,” as she pulled him around the back of the trailer. He followed, unsure what to say, saying nothing, until they stepped into the woods and last year’s leaves swished around their feet as they walked hand in hand deeper into the forest.
Ten
They stood at the foot of the mountain. Red tilted his head back and looked way, way up where the building stood out dark and foreboding against the white-washed sky. His neck cramped and he rubbed it, thinking for a moment about the creature in the cave, and what else might be waiting for them. He turned to Ash and said, “Do they know we’re coming? Is that why you destroyed all the trees with eyes?
”
“I destroyed them,” Ash said, “because he took their beauty and corrupted it.”
“How are we going to get up there?”
“You’re going to take us.”
“How?”
“You have a big imagination,” he said. “Like your mother once had. Use it.”
Red rubbed his nose, believing that Ash asked too much of him. “I don’t know how you think I can help you fight this creature. I don’t want to do it.”
“You have the choice to say no.”
“But then what?”
“I leave you here and take my chances on my own.”
“And it will kill you? Or does it like to have you wandering around out here, like to rub it in?”
“You have no grasp of the true motives involved.”
“So tell me. You want my help, help me to trust you.”
Ash sighed. “You’re a demanding child.”
Red grinned. “I’ve got a giant inside of me.”
Ash smiled. “You do. And you have more power than you can imagine.”
Red cocked his head. “What about my mom?”
“Does she have more power than she knows?”
Red held the butterfly between them. “She’s the one who stunned the Dragonfly Man.”
“Yes,” Ash said. “And that butterfly is nothing more than residue of the hope she once carried in her heart.”
“You kept her hope.”
“I kept, but she gave part of it, Red. They always do, when they love you. Even if they end up hating you, there is always part of a woman that will hope, that will cry and beg and fight for what could have been.”
“She’s strong,” Red said. “Even with this here.”
“Yes. It was one of the reasons she bewitched me.”
Red laughed and it felt good. “I can’t picture her bewitching anyone.”
“You barely know her.”
Red wanted to argue with him, but he thought about how much he’d learned in the last couple of days and shook his head. “What about my dad? Does he…is he…”
“Your father is mundane.”
“What’s that mean?”
“He’s boring. He has no imagination. He lives from paycheck to paycheck. He’s stable. Predictable.”
“Weak?”
“Not at all. The things he does take strength. He could be something much worse. Like…”
“A bully or a drug dealer.”
Ash smiled. “You’re right. He could have been one of those instead, and not only would his life be different, so would your mother’s, and yours, and your sister’s.”
Red looked up the mountain. Fog hung around it like a smoky halo, as if hell and heaven had met and become one. He said, “Okay. So, I just use my imagination and that’s going to get us up there.”
“It will take your courage, as well.”
“All right.”
“Good,” Ash said, smiling. “Let’s crush them all.”
Red wiped sweat from his forehead. He felt Ash take hold of his left hand as the butterfly’s legs tickled the knuckles of his right. He closed his eyes, pictured himself and Ash rising on a hard slab of air, felt it forming beneath his feet, as solid as a chunk of concrete. His heart thudded as Ash whispered, “You’re doing it,” excitement in his voice as they flew higher, sunlight bright against his eyelids. He focused harder, feeling elated, embracing this power, pushing aside the worry that a thousand hardened warriors waited, prepped for battle inside the castle’s walls. And he ignored the eyes he glimpsed in the cliff face.
Wind roared in his ears. He imagined them landing in front of the castle gate, felt the air soften and flow away like running water until there was only soft soil and he opened his eyelids and sucked in a breath as Ash released his hand. They stood on a mound of black dirt, surrounded by a hundred or more identical mounds, all of them taking up at least an acre of land that led right to the castle’s towering double doors. They were rusty, and moss covered the stone walls. It reminded Red of an abandoned warehouse. He looked back at all the graves. “Did you do this?”
Ash nodded. “I’ve been busy.”
“You murdered them all?” Red swallowed and stepped off the grave, bile rising in his throat because he still wasn’t certain if Ash was a monster. He didn’t think he could be, not if his mom had at one time loved him. He cleared his throat and asked, “Who are they?”
“Creatures like your Dragonfly Man. Worshippers of the Wind.”
Red clenched his hands, feeling a little better. At least they weren’t people, or the imagined like Pig, whom Leonora had given life. He took a deep breath and stared at the castle, clearing his mind of worry and doubts, trying to draw up the feelings he’d felt moments before as they’d flown, but a thought kept worrying him—one where Ash saw him as a potential threat, another thing that stood in the way of renewed Dominion.
He faced the castle and his brow furrowed, imagining the creatures inside trying to destroy his mother’s hope, fantasizing about them crushing the butterfly to draw up hate and anger because he could channel it. He could use his fear too, so he did; seizing the air in his fist, he ripped the rusted doors from their hinges with a giant screech like a monster bird wounded by a blazing comet, and he jerked them to the sides where they landed on dozens of graves with loud thumps. Ash whistled softly, grinning, then said, “That’s it. Don’t underestimate yourself. The more you trust and focus, the more you can use what you have inside you.”
But Red barely heard him because his focus was on the darkened interior of the castle’s guts, waiting for a legion of dark shadows to fly out and pour over them like scalding water, blistering their skin, burning their eyes from the sockets. He shivered and Ash said, “Don’t imagine new enemies. They’ll use that against us.”
Red thought about his mother, which led him down another path to Amy, and he imagined his lips pressed to hers, dreamed with his eyes wide open that she wanted to hold his hand and never let go because what they had was special and different than what anyone else did. He nodded and walked forward, listening for the sounds of their enemies taking position to spring an ambush. He put his hands up and the air pulsed out in front of them, dust and weeds torn from the ground as they crossed over into Ash’s long-lost kingdom.
Inside the castle walls all lay still. An ivory throne sat in the center of an ivory pool. Demons and angels battled on its outer wall, and murk polluted what was once clean and pure water. Red thought of what his mother had told him about this place—maybe all places—Neither side is good nor evil, they only want what they want.
The castle floor was dirt, so unlike the modern civilization Red knew. There was no roof to block sun or stars, and there was only the outside wall, the other three made up of mountain face. A garden sat full of towering trees bearing bright red fruit, lush green shrubbery, fenced in by the remnants of sun-bleached bones. Red swallowed and looked up the mountain, wondering if he would catch a glimpse of the ledge where he’d thrown Leonora down and sent Pig tumbling after her. But the sun stung his eyes, and softly, on the stir of a breeze, he thought he heard weeping. Wind stirred fallen leaves in the empty seat. Ash stepped forward. Red whispered, “Where is everyone?”
Ash put a finger to his lips. He had tears in his eyes. Red could picture the strange man and his wife here for eons, Adam and Eve roaming Eden. He imagined God’s blessing turned curse, picturing Eve in the struggle of labor bringing twins into a world drenched of pain and sorrow and regret, pulling the birth cowl from Leonora’s face, and her sister he knew little of, and Ash as Adam thrown from this place, building a façade outside the forbidden garden and standing watch. He waited for God’s anger to pass, waited for the angel at the gate to be relieved of his duty and sent somewhere else, to guard another place. And Ash and his wife returned home, came full circle, but the devil was there—the Wind with a Thousand Eyes—because he’d never left. And Eve, like any woman who sometimes grew frustrated with her husband and children,
poured her poison and fears and frustrations to the wind because it listened so well. It never judged her.
Red said, “Do you hear something rustling?”
Before Ash could answer, the trees in the garden trembled and bone fencing clacked and Red wondered if it wasn’t ivory at all that the pool and throne were fashioned of, but there was no time to ask because the fruit shook and fell from the trees, splattering, and children and creatures rose drenched in their birth fluid, and he heard Leonora laugh and the wind sigh only a moment before the ground ripped apart beneath their feet.
Red grabbed the old man’s hands and held them aloft in midair as a chasm spread from the castle’s front wall and ended several feet from the ivory pool and its empty throne. Red thought, No. It’s not empty. He’s been here all along, right in front of us, all around us.
Red waited for the god to materialize, to show his true face, but he couldn’t stand there forever waiting because the newly birthed were sliding and crawling and trudging forward, and Ash laughed madly, his left hand stroking the fountain as if it were an altar, his right raised to the sky.
Red thought, Okay, here we go…
The butterfly fluttered its wings and Red felt power surge through him, the air licking his fingertips. He wondered if it was the strength of his mother’s hope that gave him power in this place, and he tried not to think what would happen if that part of her was crushed. But there wasn’t time to focus on that either, because Leonora strode at the head of the creatures moving behind her, a crow on her shoulder, slicing the air with its beak.