The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy

by Sandy Nathan

  At the bottom of the stairs was a lobby as big as the entrance hall above. It had been built in the days when hundreds of people might attend a party. The ballroom doors were to his right, and his kingdom fanned off to the left. He’d built it over the years, first the computer lab, then the shelter.

  He turned left and held his palm over a sensor on the wall. The door opened. Most would have thought it a strange door: a circle of solid steel, six feet across and a foot thick, screwed into steel casing in the wall. The door sealed the lower level against radiation, assuming the blast didn’t destroy it.

  The computer lab in the Hermitage Academy was what he could get away with in close quarters. His real labs were here. The underground facility ran along a corridor on the right side of the bunker. Here, banks of computers and screens filled room after room, behind tight security.

  Jeremy entered the computer lab. This was his last chance. He sat down and collected himself for a moment. He loved his mother, no matter how much he hated her sometimes. When she had told him she was going with the general, he had screamed at her. They’d been in his room at the Hermitage. He’d chased her down the hall, up the stairs, and out of the school, saying the worst things he could think of. She hadn’t fought back, and she hadn’t contradicted him.

  When she’d walked out the school’s big front door that night, Jeremy had known he had lost her. He hadn’t seen her for a year, and the few times she’d come home the two years before that, the general or his men were with her. They had e-mailed back and forth, but he’d known every word was censored. They’d figured out ways to communicate on the sly, but he never knew everything about her or all that she did.

  Strapped to the inside of his ankle was his last-ditch, the-shipis-going-down-and-the-sharks-are-circling means of contacting his mother. He had made one for himself and one for her. They wore them always. He hadn’t heard from his mother in weeks and had assumed it was because she couldn’t safely contact him. The bit of technology on his ankle was for final good-byes.

  As he sat down, the image of his mother came to him. He could see himself sitting on her lap in her bedroom. He was about four years old. People thought you couldn’t remember back that far, but he could.

  She’d been sitting on one of the fine French lounge chairs in her room, wearing a burgundy velvet robe. He knew exactly what the robe looked like, to its color and cut. He remembered the scene so well, he could describe the wallpaper. His back leaned against the seductive, soft pillows that lived on her chest. If he sat on her lap, they were there.

  He looked down. One of her improbably long legs emerged from under the robe, angled to the right. His mother’s legs were sculptured, flawless extensions. Her thigh tapered to a superbly formed knee, then slimmed to a calf and further to become a finely boned ankle. Her foot embodied the whole limb, perfectly formed, wearing a pointy-toed slipper with a high heel. Her left leg emerged on the other side of him, its slippered foot resting near the other.

  He had no escape: if he leaned forward, removing the forbidden pressure of her breasts from his back, his view of her legs became disturbingly intimate.

  She titillated without thinking, the way other mothers breathed. Whenever she left, phantoms pursued him like the memory of her perfume.

  He realized something. When he’d been in her closet with Ellie, he’d responded to this amazing girl like a normal guy. He wanted her. And he wanted to please her. He talked to her easily, like a friend. He didn’t hide or run to his lab.

  He wasn’t autistic. He’d never told the psychiatrist what his mother had done to him. Running from that was enough to make him work his brains out every minute—and explain the way he was.

  If he ever wanted to get free of what she’d done to him, he had to do it now. Jeremy pulled the device off his ankle and plugged it into a computer. He could use it once, as could she. They each had thirty seconds to compose and send, and the same to receive. One message each way, then it self-destructed.

  He had thirty seconds to extricate himself from a lifetime of abuse. He thought about what he could say fast. Punching in the message took all his strength:

  Mom, can you stop what’s happening? The atomics?

  You fucked me up and you know it. I still love you. And I’m still fucked up. Did you know what you did to me?

  A few seconds later, her answer came:

  We can’t stop it. The general and I tried. Save yourself.

  I was a terrible mother. I’m sorry. I love you with all my heart. Please forgive me. I was wrong.

  That was it. The device emitted a pop and a fizz, and died. That was the last contact he would ever have with her. He felt dizzy. She had admitted she was wrong and said she was sorry.

  But she’d never hold him and wipe what happened from his memory. They’d never get a chance to do it right.

  He wanted to scream, but that was useless. The world would blow up at 7:35 in the morning, no matter what he felt. He was on his own, responsible for all the people in the mansion and in the village, too.

  He ran upstairs. He had things to do.

  34

  Sam Baahuhd crouched in the bushes outside the mansion’s front door, trying to see through the curtains. He knew they were having a big palaver inside, and he wanted in on it.

  The front door flew open. “Sam, get in here, now!” Jeremy stood in the doorway. Light burst out like it was searching for him. “I know you’re out there. Don’t pretend you’re not.”

  Sam stepped forward, mumbling apologies.

  “Knock it off. I know you spy on us. Get in here.”

  Sam took off his hat, exposing matted hair. The lower part bushed out under a sweaty ring formed by the hatband. He trotted after Jeremy like a trained pup, craning his neck to see the main hall. He’d never been invited into the house by the big door. He’d been into the kitchen a couple of times, but not through the main entrance.

  He looked up at the light hanging from the ceiling. Bulbs like candle flames sat on a frame that looked like tree branches. Glass hanging under the branches made the lights look ten times as bright. It threw rainbows all around. The walls had paintings and mirrors. People stared at him from the dining room. The table was loaded with more food than he’d seen, even at a hog slaughter.

  “Get down here, Sam. We have to get started.” Jeremy summoned him to the staircase and scampered down the stairs like the young’un he was. Sam trotted after him, stiff in the knees. The world below the house was as strange and bewildering as the one above. The stairs went down to a big room with more sparkling lights and a carpet like a painting, covered with bright colors and swirls. He’d never seen the like. Closed doors were on his right. That was the ballroom, where they danced until they started staggering and pawing each other. Then they went upstairs. He’d seen them from the bushes outside.

  “I’ll give you a tour later.” Jeremy beckoned him to the left of the room. There was a round thing in the middle of the wall, six feet across. When Jeremy touched the button, the circle began to rotate. It turned and turned, pushing out from the wall before swinging open on hidden hinges. It was the thickest door he’d seen, a foot from front to back, threaded to open and close like a screw. That door looked like it could hold back a flood; it seemed like it came from a story the snake men might tell.

  Jeremy motioned him toward the door, but before either could go through it, the old Afroman called from upstairs. “Jeremy! Are you down there? Answer me.” His voice was shrill. He was upset.

  “We’re down here, Henry,” Jeremy said. Sam noticed the tightness of his face and the anger his young body barely contained.

  Henry grabbed the rail and clambered down the stairs sideways, his eyes on Jeremy. He had arthritis, Sam knew. The expression on the old man’s face and the way he dogged it down the stairs despite his pain told Sam just how upset he was. Henry grabbed Jeremy’s shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m all right.” Jeremy looked into the other man’s eyes, spit
ting the words out. “I just said good-bye to my mom. Forever. No happy ending.” He looked at Henry intently, realizing something. “Why did you come running down here?” His eyes narrowed. “Are you hooked up to her, too? Did she call you and tell you to check on me?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Did she give you something so you could spy on me?”

  “Yes, she did, Jeremy. She’s worried about you.”

  “Why is she worried about me? She’s never given a rat’s ass about me in my life.”

  “Jeremy, the world’s ending for her, too. She knows she made mistakes—”

  “Mistakes! She made every mistake she could. Did you know that she...” Jeremy began screaming at Henry, yelling things about the lady that the village stouts wouldn’t whisper in their deepest cups.

  Henry stepped back. “I heard that, but I never believed it.”

  “I told her what would happen if she went with the general, and it did...” Jeremy’s voice rose and erupted in curses. “She is a slut. She...” Sam’s ears flamed at what he said. He’d never seen Jeremy like this.

  “Jeremy, she’s your mother.” Henry raised his hand to calm Jeremy down. He shrugged him away.

  “Don’t touch me! Fuck! Fuck!” He stomped around, waving his arms, cursing. “Now you’ll say I’m autistic, won’t you? Because I had a screaming fit. That’s what she did.”

  Sam stood there, unable to move. Other people came running down the stairs, Henry’s wife first, and then the two jolly boys. Not the angel. Sam didn’t know where Arthur was, either.

  “Jeremy, no one thinks you’re crazy.” Lena approached him, arms open, beseeching. “You’re entitled to a screaming fit. I’m surprised we’re not all having them. I never thought you were autistic. You’re a boy who works very hard who’s never had what he really needed. Henry and I tried to give it to you, sweetheart, but we’re not your parents.”

  Jeremy sagged a bit and she wrapped him in her arms. She turned her back to the rest of them so they couldn’t see Jeremy well. “You go ahead, honey. You just said good-bye to your mom.”

  If he cried, Jeremy put up a good fight first. He made noises somewhere between sobs and snarls. “Oh, I loved her.” His hands were balled in fists behind Lena’s back.

  “I know, honey. We all did.”

  “He took her away, Lena, and he won’t let her go.”

  “I know, Jeremy. We lost her. We all lost her. And we all loved her. She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Everything about her, her eyes...”

  Sam jumped like a bull had snuck up and tossed him over its back. That fast, he was on the riverbank that day, the wind soft and the sun lighting up everything.

  He’d been in love with her all his life. He and the lady were the same age: forty-one, born the same day. When she’d been a tot, he’d thought she was an angel, dressed in lace and ribbons. But Veronica Piermont wasn’t an angel. She was a queen. Acted like it from the first time she walked through the village holding her da’s hand. Sized them up like she was pickin’ out chops for supper.

  He’d known her family owned everything they had, the whole village. He’d known that she was so far above him that kissing her foot would be a stretch.

  The Piermonts came out a few times a year. He watched for her. She’d climb the trees and run all over with the village kids. She’d rather be in the village than the big house, it seemed.

  She’d noticed him as fast as he’d noticed her. They were pals, but always with something between ‘em. A spark. They used to ride horses together, runnin’ ‘em hard ‘til his da said he’d whip Sam if he ruined his livestock.

  The time it happened, they were thirteen years old. They’d got off their horses and walked them to the river, not talking much. They’d stood and watched the water. He’d held his hands tight at his sides for fear he’d grab her.

  They’d stood under the trees. The water had made its slipping noise. The sun and the softness of it had melted what held them apart. She’d ducked close to him, right next to him, so he could feel her breathing. He was big, even then, but he didn’t know nuthin’ about nuthin’.

  She’d leaned up against him, so close he could smell her. She had stood with her dark blue eyes, white skin, and those soft wide lips barely parted—all of them so close he couldn’t move. She’d slid her hand down there, on his pants, where he bulged. She’d touched him, just a second, and he’d realized that she knew everything about a man.

  Before he could do anything, she had jumped back, climbed on her horse, and run to the barn. She didn’t talk to him again unless there were other people around.

  She’d brought a parade of silk-jacketed rich boys out to the mansion over the years. They’d lolled around, climbing on each other wherever they wanted, like the village didn’t have eyes. Like what he thought didn’t matter.

  By then, he’d known he was from the village and wasn’t going anywhere else. She’d been to Vassar College and had the world in front of her. He saddled her horses and looked the other way.

  Except one day, she’d snuck up to him, as slippery and fast as she’d been that day by the river. She had spoken in a soft, hushed voice, going right to what had happened.

  “I want us to be friends forever and never have it spoiled. That’s why I ran away. Do you understand?”

  “Ah thought ah were too low fer ye.” The broad speech of the village came out of him, maybe to show her he was even plainer than she thought.

  Her eyes were just as blue as ever, a dark blue that almost glinted. She had looked at him and said, “No, Sam. You’re not too low for me. Maybe the opposite.”

  Years passed and the parade had gone on. Rich boys, but not up to her in any way. She was taking whatever was around, whether it fit or she really wanted it. And she didn’t seem able to stop. “Somethin’s wrong with her,” Sam whispered.

  Her being married to Chaz Egerton just added his girlfriends to the stew.

  And then she had caught the general. That man was a stone-hard killer. Sam never understood why she was with him—other than the fact that he ran all of Russia. She’d hit the top at last.

  He remembered the day when she had run from him like it was then. He could feel her hand pulling away, and the pain of it. He looked at the others now, rubbing his chest. “Somethin’s wrong with her,” he said softly.

  They didn’t hear him, clustered around Jeremy, who was waving his arms and cussing. They were saying, “It’s so sad. We lost her.” Makin’ a fine scene, like the pain was all theirs.

  Fury shot up inside him. He had lost her years before. He’d spent his life wantin’ her back. And they stood there, whining and crying like babes still pissin’ themselves. What about him?

  His face hardened. They should be whoopin’ glad she did what she did by the river—it was the only reason Jeremy still had the estate. It was the only reason any of them were standing there.

  Her eyes were clear and such a dark blue. Both times, the day by the river and later, when she had told him why she had run, she’d looked into his eyes. He’d seen down into her as deep as she went. She’d loved him and hadn’t wanted to give him up. What she was doin’ was as good as she could do. She was trapped somehow.

  He could have taken the big house any time, gotten in no matter how Jeremy rigged it to stop him. He and his wives would have rolled in her bed, drunk all of her wine, and torn up the rest.

  But if he did that, he’d never see her again. So, he played the pussycat and ran her farm, waitin’ until she came home. They rode together. He saddled her horse and acted like he wasn’t a man achin’ for her. Sometimes they ran the horses, far from anyone, laughing. But they never went back to the river.

  His eyes squeezed shut. He and the lady were friends, the way she wanted it.

  Jeremy kept stamping and swearing and the others said things to make him feel better. “She was deeply disturbed, Jeremy. You have to realize that,” Mel, the dark-haired jolly boy, said.

  “SOM
ETHIN’ WAS WRONG WITH HER,” Sam shouted, stepping forward. His voice was much louder than he intended. “SHE WAS DOIN’ TH’ BEST SHE COULD, SAME AS ANY O’ US. LEAVE HER BE.” His mouth kept running, but it wasn’t so loud at least. “Ye oughta feel sorry for her. She’s in a worse place than ye.”

  They turned and looked at him, as though he’d shown up from nowhere.

  Before anyone could respond, Arthur burst out of the computer lab and ran toward them. He was decked out in his black commando suit. No one would have thought him a mild driver now. He was a trained killer. “The surveillance equipment isn’t working. I’ve been monitoring the forest and it stopped working.”

  “What?” Jeremy exclaimed.

  “There’s some kind of electronic force out there. Overwhelms everything. The satellite feed just quit.” He addressed Sam, “Are federal commandos on their way? Can you tell?”

  Sam was silent, listening to psychic currents he could perceive again, now that the hooch had worn off.

  “Nah. Nowhere close. Ah got ma boys all about in th’ woods, they’ll let us know.” Sam had sent his men as far into the woods as they’d go. The haunt had them scared into sissies. “Ah’ll know if they come.”

  “Let us know if you pick up anything,” Arthur said. “If they come after us, they’ll be so loaded on combat packs that nothing will stop them.”

  Sam thought that the haunt, if it was real, probably would stop them. The people around the village were pretty near insane from fear of it.

  He’d seen soldiers on those drugs that made them into killers. They were worth fearing. He looked up the stairs. The fairy girl had stayed in the main house.

  “Commandos are not a problem,” Jeremy said. “We can go into the shelter and lock ourselves in. No one can get us there.”

  “What about this shelter, Jeremy?” Mel asked. “I’ve heard about it for years. Let’s see it.”

  “Yes,” Henry echoed, “I’d like to see it now that it’s done.”

  Lena added, “Ellie said something to me about her people possibly coming for all of us tomorrow. I’d like to see what my options are before I go running off into space.”