The Shibboleth

by John Hornor Jacobs

  “Oh, Shreve. This ability will separate you from the rest of humanity. We will all become pawns to you. Tools for you to use. Like your Rollie. Despite her obvious imbalances. Her—how do you say? —‘iffy’ state. No, you are not to blame for her death. But you were a factor. A catalyst. In that sense, you bear some responsibility.”

  “I—” I have nothing to say for myself.

  I think of the roof again, the burning sun and the taste of birdshit-tar soup and the countless little match heads beneath me waiting to be lit as I sat upon that great height. I think about the shibboleth and my power now. About Quincrux and Ilsa Moteff and their ability to play people on the board. And Rollie. The ammonia taste of her mouth and how her tongue wormed against my teeth, trying to enter, desperate and lonely.

  My heart expands in my chest. It’s the burn in the back of the throat that hurts, trying to keep the sobs from coming. Jerry watches me, placid and calm. If I can just choke it back and forget about everything, I’ll keep control. I need to keep control.

  It’s like a flood. And when the sobs hit, I double over on the kitchen seat. And weep. For Rollie. For myself. For Jack and Vig and Booth and Moms. For us all.

  You’re born into pain. Never a moment free of it.

  Jerry watches. He doesn’t pat me on the back or coo comforting words to me. He doesn’t offer sympathy. He just watches.

  Finally, when I’m done, he snatches a paper towel off the roll by the sink and hands it to me. It’s rough against my face.

  He walks to the bar, takes out a bottle of wine, pops the cork, and then surprises me when he pours me a glass. I wipe my streaming eyes, my running nose. I feel husked out by the crying jag. And I hate that he saw.

  “Growing up, my parents always served the older children wine at dinner. It was a symbol of our increasing maturity.”

  The glass stands before me. I pick it up. Smell it. It holds spices and the fragrance of smoke. And it smells like Moms. I put it down.

  “I thought you wanted a ‘real’ drink?”

  “Now that I think about it, no. There’ll be time enough for that, I guess, later.”

  Jerry takes his glass, tilts it back, and pours half of it down his throat. “I do not have your mental abilities.” He pauses, thinking. He drinks some more wine, sipping this time. “However, I knew you would decline. Which is why I offered it.”

  Some people know things just by intelligence and wisdom. Not by mind reading and psychic whizbangery. They kind of suck, the smart ones. My cheeks burn with embarrassment of it all—the titty-baby behavior, the predictability of my not drinking the wine. My damned situation.

  “The way I see this is—” He counts his points off on his fingers. “One, you have to learn the nature of this thing in Maryland and stop whatever it’s doing. The insomnia. The craziness that’s taking over the world.”

  I say, “The Riders.”

  He nods. “Ahh. Yes. The Riders. I can’t help but think their role in this will be revealed soon.” He raises another finger. “Two, you must confront this Quincrux, or you’ll never be able to have a life for yourself.”

  He drinks more wine and thinks for a long while without saying anything. His eyebrows make interesting shapes.

  “Three, you must use this ability of yours to help people as you can. If not, you’ll become less and less human, Shreve. This is important. We will all become pawns to you.”

  “That won’t happen. The shibboleth—” I don’t know how to say it. “It’s like I’m more connected to everyone and everything. Not distant.”

  “Be that as it may, you must do this thing that you did to the people of the Tulaville Hospital. You must do this thing wherever you go.”

  “It’s my job to save the world?”

  “No, it’s your job to save yourself. Doing this will help with your grooming.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll be able to look at yourself in a mirror.”

  “Ha. So funny. You import that stuff?”

  He waves his hand, shooing my comeback away like a fly. “And finally, you must free your friend. Jack. You and he are bound up in this business. Quincrux too. But Jack is the thread that strings the pearls. He will be your partner in this great work.” He sighs, pulls out the photo from his pocket, and tosses it on the island counter. “It is yours, Shreve. In the morning, I will have some money for you.”

  “For what?”

  “So you do not have to steal.”

  “Nah. You don’t have to do that.”

  Jerry sighs and then finishes his wine. He looks at me gravely. “Stealing is the most callous of crimes. It assumes that you are above the needs and rights of your victim. It dehumanizes you. And we need you to stay human, Shreve.”

  “Why do this?”

  “I like you, you stubborn fool. And I do not have your gift. Or the will and youth to use it. I am old.”

  “Yeah, but all this …”

  “My wife. My son and daughters. My grandchildren. None of them can sleep. You must help them.” As he said it, the sound of glass shattering somewhere on a floor above us comes, bright and cacophonous. Bellows and thumps through the floor, as if men are fighting. Jerry stared at me like it was some sign.

  “I hear you, Jer-bear.”

  “You will accept the money?”

  “Yes.”

  “And commit no more thefts?”

  “I can’t swear to never steal again. Necessity, you know, is a real bitch.”

  “No, necessity is the mother of invention.”

  He looks tired now. And I feel it as well. The long-ass day grinding to its end. The weight of the conversation. The rawness of my throat from the crying jag. Being a titty-baby can take a lot out of a boy.

  The responsibility of what he laid on me.

  “I have a sofa for you, Shreve. We used to have another bedroom, but Miriam converted it to her office once our boy left home. You will stay here tonight?”

  I’m yawning as he says it. I can sleep in the car. I’d rather sleep in the car, really; I’ve already made a nest in the backseat of new, scratchy clothing stinking of the factory they came from and dangling price tags that I bought with money I stole.

  But that’s too much like some animal. Like the shadows that move beyond the firelight illuminating the wild New York night.

  So I say, “Okay. You got an alarm clock?”

  Jerry tries to grin, but it sort of dies on his face.

  “You are a wary young man. I wish you could relent.”

  “Just love the early morning sunshine, Jer-bear.”

  His face clouds. “Please explain this name to me. ‘Jer-bear’?”

  “Well, there’s this cartoon and there are these bears, right?”

  “Okay. That explains part of it.”

  “And they care. They’re care bears.”

  “What do they care about?”

  “Hell if I know. Kids, I guess.”

  He nods. Puts his hands on his waist, arms akimbo. “Then this is okay. You may continue to call me this.”

  Well, that takes the fun out of it, I think, but he’s already heading to the hall to get blankets and a pillow.

  Before sleep my mind unspools into nighttime air and I send my awareness out, through the building, lighting fires in the minds of everyone in it, flames jumping from match head to match head. Then farther out, to the next building, and the next.

  So many people. Thousands and thousands within a few feet, a few yards, from me. Pacing, cursing, screwing. Hating and hurting their loved ones. Crying and moaning and gibbering into the sleepless night.

  I touch their minds. I set their heads on fire, and they burn down the matchstick and fade into slumber, sigh into sleep. Into death maybe, when someone wants to die. To sleep. To dream.

  Turning on lights and turning them out.

  Farther and farther afield I fly, dashing like a forest fire from treetop to treetop, leaping from mind to mind until I can touch no more. For a moment, hover
ing and intractable above the city’s multitudes, I have an instant of vertigo, a yawing, teetering sensation, as if I’m going to have all the memories come crashing back in and begin babbling in French once more. But the memory of sun and the rooftop and the taste of tar on my tongue and the flapping and clatter of raven wings comes to me and I steady. Become myself again. Or less of myself.

  It takes a while to find my poor lost body, lying in Jerry’s posh apartment on Twentieth and Irving, New York City, New York State.

  Thousands will sleep tonight.

  But I don’t know if I will.

  FIFTEEN

  I hear his phone start buzzing and rattling on the granite counter before I realize Jerry’s been puttering around in the kitchen for a while now. I haven’t slept, but I did enter a trancelike state where images and memories flickered across the dark cinema of my eyelids, fleeting. Not asleep enough to dream, but asleep enough to have strange catfish from the murky depths of my subconscious come up and slap at the surface of my awareness.

  Jerry says, quietly into his phone, “Ahuvi! I’ve missed you. Yes, I’m fine. I have a guest here now—yes, this early. I understand that it is strange. Yes, dear.” He pauses and remains quiet for a long while. “It would be best if I explain it to you when you get home and have an opportunity to meet him.”

  Another silence, longer.

  “Yes. Mir, we have been married a long time now and you can trust me, no? I have not brought home some mongrel stray—” He catches himself. “Or maybe I have, at that. But mongrels are always the best dogs, are they not? We can talk about this when you get home.”

  After a bout of protestations of love he hangs up. I stay where I am, lying on his couch, listening to the building. It’s quiet except for some creaking, the normal expansion and contraction of wood and stone and steel. The chuff of the air-conditioning and the ticking of a thousand clocks.

  Finally, I rise, creaky in places, just like the building.

  “Ah, you are up!” Jerry grins at me from the kitchen. “Are you hungry?”

  “I could eat.” I could eat a whole loaf of bread and a package of bacon. But I imagine there’ll be no bacon here.

  “Wonderful! Come! I will make you my specialty.”

  I slip on my shoes and make sure the photo is in my left pocket, the Accord’s keys in my right.

  Turns out Jerry’s specialty is toast and eggs. He fries them up nice while I slurp at a glass of orange juice.

  “There is an envelope for you, there.”

  I pick up the envelope and peek inside.

  Cashola. Green. Lots of it.

  “Jerry…”

  “No, no more discussion on this matter. You have a hard path to hold to.”

  I take it, stuff it in my pocket. It doesn’t feel right, this massive gift, but nothing feels right. And where did he get all that money this early in the morning?

  “And you earned it, I think,” Jerry says, smiling.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “I walk every morning with Al Rosen—” He points to the ceiling. “On the tenth floor.”

  “So?”

  “He texted me this morning, telling me he was going to go back to sleep.”

  Ah.

  “And judging by the lack of explosions or ambulance sirens, the whole neighborhood slept.”

  I go to the bay windows. It’s early, but everything seems calm. No trash fires. No crazy preachers around Gramercy. Some cars move through the streets, but not a lot, especially for a city with so many people jammed together so tightly.

  Jerry, who’s standing behind me, says, “You did a good thing, I think.”

  “Well, I didn’t want the building to catch fire while we slept.”

  “Strange, but you don’t look as if you have.”

  I don’t say anything but go back to my plate and eat the eggs and toast, finish my juice.

  “You will set out today?”

  “I guess so.”

  Jerry places a set of keys on the counter. The BMW logo is very conspicuous on the large black key.

  “You’ve got to be crazy.”

  “At some point, whatever car you’ve stolen will be reported, if it hasn’t already.”

  “It’s not that. I just can’t …”

  “I, however, will not report my car missing. So you’ll be safe.”

  I remain quiet. The money? Okay, because I need it and Jerry obviously has quite a bit of green fluttering around his private stash. But the car? It’s too much. He’ll never get it back.

  “I can’t. I can switch out cars easy. But taking this one …”

  There comes a jangle of keys and the sound of the front door opening, not visible from the kitchen. A woman’s voice rings as clear as a bell, “Dearest, I’m home early!” Another jangle as keys are plopped down in the bowl on the table by the front door. “I couldn’t sleep, and your mysterious guest made me want to get home …”

  She walks into the doorway, smiling, looking from Jerry and then to me. She’s a looker, decked out in tight, hip-hugging capris with cute little tennis shoes and a white button-down shirt. Expensive sunglasses perched on top of her head. Nice leather purse in her hand. Silver jewelry at her wrists, throat, ears. She’s tanned and exuding the look and scent of money.

  “Ah, ahuvi, let me introduce you to Shreve Cannon. I told you about him. We met when I had the gallstone attack in North Carolina …”

  Her face goes blank. The purse falls to the floor. She turns, not quickly, toward the small desk nook where the calendar hangs over a pile of paperwork and a telephone. Turns like a robot, picking up the receiver and beginning to dial.

  “Ahuvi…”

  I snatch the envelope and jump from the stool. “Jerry, she’s been—”

  But Jerry’s moving toward her, looking worried.

  I slam into him, knocking him sideways. He claws at the counter and drawers to slow himself as he begins to fall, an expression of surprise and outrage crossing his features.

  “She’s been touched by Quincrux!” I’m yelling, but I can’t help it. “You have to get away from her or she’ll—”

  Into the phone, she says, “He is here. Visual confirmation.”

  She turns to us, phone still to her ear. Jerry’s saying, “Ahuvi! Miri! What is going on?”

  I grab Jerry’s hand, pulling him up and away from her. Keeping the island between us.

  She judders. She shakes. And then she smiles.

  “Mr. Cannon. So good to see you again.”

  “Ahuvi.” Jerry’s voice sounds terrible. Forlorn and broken. I grab his arm and turn him to me.

  “Jerry, it’s Quincrux. I’ve got to run. Once I’m gone they’ll let her go.”

  “No, you must stay—”

  In the corner of my eye, I can see her moving. She opens a drawer and sticks a hand inside.

  Throwing myself over the island, I slam my foot against the drawer, pinning her hand inside. Her eyes go wild and she begins to judder once more, howling and crying in pain, crying for Jerry.

  “Shreve, what are you doing?”

  I keep my body pressed against the drawer, keeping her hand inside. She hasn’t lowered the phone.

  “It’s Quincrux. He’s got her. Programmed and now he’s in her. Don’t you understand? I told you about this!”

  “But how … why would he?”

  “Because he wants me.” I try to calm myself, but my voice still sounds high-pitched and terrified. Deep breaths. Miriam—Quincrux, really—squirms against me, trying to withdraw her hand. “Jerry, what’s in this drawer? Knives?”

  She’s still moaning, but the sounds are quieting now. I can tell by his expression that, yes, this drawer is full of slicers and dicers.

  “Quincrux wants me. And he’ll hurt you to get to me. So, go to your room or the bathroom and lock the door.”

  “I can’t. Not with her like that.”

  Miriam says, “Yes, Mr. Cannon. Not with her like this. Did I ever tell you t
hat I can stop my vessel’s heart?”

  I don’t believe it for a second. Because I can’t and I should know. But the demon inside her is a damned good liar.

  I say, “Jerry, he lies. He can’t. And she can’t drop the phone or he’ll lose the connection with her. So go lock yourself up, and I will yank the cord from the phone before she can go all stabby on you. Okay?”

  He’s shaking his head. So I really put my back into it and grind her wrist in the drawer. Miriam screams. Her nicely tanned wrist has some breaks now, and for that I’m truly sorry. But damn. She’s possessed. There’s gotta be some dispensation for those of us just doing what we have to do, right?

  Miriam doesn’t drop the phone.

  “Okay, Jerry?”

  He nods and takes a step backward, toward the living room and the hallway to the bedrooms. And another. Another until he’s out of sight.

  When he’s gone, Quincrux says, “Nicely done, Mr. Cannon. You have removed a pawn from the board. But I am still in possession of this one.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t get too comfortable, boss. Did you get my message?”

  Her face clouds a bit. Then brightens. “‘I am coming for you’? Of course I did. But, my dear boy, I want you to come to me. It is time you join our ranks. We will welcome you.”

  “You know what?”

  She cocks her head slightly, phone cradled in hand. “I do not ‘know what.’”

  “I just don’t like how you asked, asshole.”

  It’s stupid. It’s risky. But I’m always stupid and risky.

  I shoot forward out of the meatsuit. I go in fast, not trying to drive him out. Not trying to hurt him. I’m trying to catch his scent. Catch his trail. To snatch up the invisible tether.

  And maybe that’s the trick. Not to go in to destroy, but to suss out. To trace. He can’t stop me, and I feel his mental fingers scratching at my ethereal body. I feel his mind trying to grapple with the greased pig of my psyche.

  He’s my truffle.

  It’s a golden filament I see, stretching off out of the kitchen, into the west wall of the apartment. And right then, I’m gone, off into the wild blue yonder, into the etheric heights, following it home. The earth, the ground, the sky, the water. All a blur. Racing home.