1987 - Swan Song v4

by Robert McCammon

  “He was here,” Josh remembered Swan saying. “The man with the scarlet eye.”

  “Should we send somebody to find them?” Sister asked.

  “What?” He came back from his thoughts.

  “Gene and Zachial. Should we start looking for them?”

  “No, not yet.” He’d wanted to go with them, but Glory had grasped his sleeve and said he needed to stay near Swan. She knows what he is, Josh had thought. And maybe she was trying to save his life, too. “The man with the scarlet eye,” he said softly.

  “Huh?” Robin frowned, not knowing if he’d heard correctly.

  “That’s what Swan calls him.” He did not tell the boy that the lettering on that particular tarot card had read THE DEVIL.

  “Riiiight,” Robin scoffed. “You two must have some strong medicine stashed around here, big dude.”

  “I wish.” Josh decided that Robin was okay—a little rough around the edges, of course, but wasn’t everybody these days? “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. You can go in, but you can only stay for two minutes. Understand?” He waited until the boy nodded, and then he went to the front room. The entrance to where Swan lay sleeping was unblocked.

  But Robin hesitated. His palms were clammy. By the lamplight, he could make out a figure lying on the cot. A blanket was pulled up to her chin, but her face was averted, and he couldn’t see it.

  “Go on,” Sister told him.

  I’m scared shitless! he realized. “What did you mean, ‘she’s changed’? Is she… y’know… messed up?”

  “Go in and see for yourself.”

  His feet refused to budge. “She’s pretty important, isn’t she? I mean, if she made the corn start growing again, she must really be somebody special. Right?”

  “You’d better go in. You’re wasting your two minutes.” She gave him a shove, and he entered the bedroom. Sister followed him.

  Robin walked to the side of the bed. He was as nervous as if he was about to get his hands whacked by one of the nuns for throwing spitballs.

  He saw a spill of golden hair on the patchwork pillow. It shone in the lamplight like newly mown hay, but it was flecked here and there with hints of red.

  His knees bumped the edge of the bed. He was entranced by that hair. He’d forgotten what clean hair looked like.

  And then she shifted position under the blanket and turned onto her back, and Robin saw her face.

  She was still sleeping, her features peaceful. Her hair flowed back like a mane from her high, unlined forehead, and streaks of red coursed through the hair at her temples like flames in a yellow field. She had an oval-shaped face, and she was… yes, Robin thought. Yes. She was beautiful. The most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

  Reddish-blond brows made crescents over her closed eyes. She had a straight, elegant nose and sharp cheekbones, and in her chin was a small star-shaped cleft. Her skin was very pale, almost translucent; its hue reminded Robin of what the moon had looked like on a clear summer night in the world that used to be.

  Robin’s gaze wandered over her face—but timidly, like someone exploring a lovely garden where there is no path. He wondered what she’d look like awake, what color her eyes would be, what her voice would sound like, how her lips would move. His eyes couldn’t get enough of her. She looked like the daughter of a marriage between ice and fire.

  Wake up, he thought. Please wake up.

  She lay sleeping and still.

  But something awakened within himself.

  Wake up. Wake up, Swan, he wished. Her eyes remained closed.

  A voice jarred his rapture. “Josh! Glory! Come out here and look at this!” It was that old bat Anna, he realized. Calling from the front door.

  He returned his attention to Swan.

  “Let me see what’s going on,” Sister said. “I’ll be right back.” She left the room, but Robin had hardly heard her.

  He reached out to touch Swan’s cheek but stopped himself. He didn’t feel clean enough to touch her. His clothes were tattered and stiff with sweat and grime, and his hands were dirty. Anna was right about his hair looking like a bird’s nest. Why the hell had he ever wanted to braid feathers and bones in his hair? he wondered. It had been something to do, he guessed, and at the time he’d thought it was pretty cool. Now he just felt dumb.

  “Wake up, Swan,” he whispered. There was still no response. A fly suddenly dropped down, hovering above her face, and Robin snatched it in his fist and crushed it against his leg because a filthy thing like that had no business in here with her. The insect stung his skin just a little bit, but he barely noticed.

  He stood staring down at her face and thinking of all the things he’d ever heard about love. Man! he thought. The guys sure would howl if they could see me right now!

  But she was so beautiful that he thought his heart might crack.

  Sister would be back at any second. If he was going to do what he yearned to, he would have to do it fast.

  “Wake up,” he whispered again, and when she still didn’t move he lowered his head and lightly kissed the corner of her mouth.

  The warmth of her lips under his own shocked him, and he caught the aroma of her skin like a faint breeze through a peach orchard. His heart was hammering like a heavy metal drumbeat, but he let the kiss linger. And linger. And linger.

  Then he ended it, scared to death that Sister or one of the others would barge in. That big dude would boot him so high and far he could hitch a ride on a satellite, if any of those were still up th—

  Swan moved. Robin was sure of it. Something had moved—an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth, maybe a twitch of the cheek or jaw. He leaned over her, his face only a few inches from hers.

  Her eyes opened without warning.

  He was so startled he jerked his head back, as if she were a statue coming to life. Her eyes were dark blue, flecked with red and gold, and their colors made him think of the glass ring. She sat up, one hand fluttering to her lips where the kiss had lingered, and then Robin saw her pale cheeks bloom vivid pink.

  She lifted her right hand, and before Robin could think to duck, a stinging slap was delivered to the side of his face.

  He staggered back a few feet before he caught himself. His own cheek was reddening now, but he managed a goofy grin. He could think of nothing better to say than “Hi.”

  Swan stared at her hands. Touched her face. Ran her fingers along her nose, across her mouth, felt the ridges of her cheekbones and the line of her jaw. She was shaking and about to cry, and she didn’t know who the boy with feathers and bones in his hair was, but she’d hit him because she’d thought he was about to attack her. Everything was confused and crazy, but she had a face again, and she could see clearly through both eyes. She caught a glint of reddish gold from the corner of her eye, and she took a long strand of her own hair between her fingers. She stared at it as if she wasn’t sure what the stuff was. The last time she’d had hair, she remembered, was on the day she and her mama had walked into that dusty grocery store in Kansas.

  My hair used to be pale blond, she recalled. Now it was the color of fire.

  “I can see!” she told the boy as tears slid down her smooth cheeks. “I can see again!” Her voice, without the Job’s Mask pressing at her mouth and nostrils, was different, too; it was the soft, smoky voice of a girl on the edge of being a woman—and now her voice strained with excitement as she called, “Josh! Josh!”

  Robin ran out to get Sister, with the image of the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen stamped like a cameo into his brain.

  But Sister wasn’t in the front room. She was standing at the foot of the porch steps, along with Glory and Paul.

  Josh and Anna stood on either side of Aaron, about thirty-five feet from the porch and almost dead center in the road.

  Aaron was the focus of rapt attention. “See?” he crowed. “I told you it was magic! You just gotta know how to hold it!”

  The two small branches that jutted off at opposite angles from Crybab
y were balanced on the tips of Aaron’s forefingers. The dowsing rod’s other end was going up and down, up and down like the action of a pump. Aaron grinned proudly at his magic trick, all eyes and shining teeth, as more people gathered around.

  “I do believe you might’ve found us a well,” Josh said wonderingly.

  “Huh?” Aaron asked as Crybaby continued to point the way to fresh water.

  At the steps, Sister felt a hand grip her shoulder. She turned and saw Robin standing there. He was trying to speak, but he was so flustered he couldn’t get the words out. She saw the splayed red handprint on his cheek, and she was about to push him aside and run into the shack when Swan came through the doorway, the blanket wrapped around her tall, thin body and her legs as uncertain as a fawn’s. She squinted and blinked in the dim gray light.

  Sister could have been knocked over by a snowflake, and then she heard Robin whisper, “Oh,” as if he’d been physically struck—and she knew.

  Anna looked up from the bobbing dowsing rod. Josh turned around and saw what the others had already seen.

  He took one step, a second and a third, and then he broke into a run that would have bowled even Haystacks Muldoon flat on his back. The people who’d gathered around scrambled out of his way.

  He bounded up the steps, and Swan was already reaching out for him and just about to fall. He swept her off her feet before she tumbled, and he squeezed her to his chest and thought, Thank God, thank God my daughter’s come back!

  He sank his deformed head against her shoulder and began to cry—and Swan heard it not as a hurting sound this time, but as a song of new-found Joy.

  Twelve

  True Faces

  Mr. Caidin’s son / A visit

  with the Savior / A lady /

  Storming the fortress /

  The lair

  Seventy

  Mr. Caidin’s son

  Swan walked amid the rows of green and growing cornstalks as flurries of snow hissed upon the bonfires. Josh and Sister walked on either side of her, and they were flanked by two men with rifles who kept a sharp lookout for bobcats—or any other kind of predator.

  It had been three days since Swan’s awakening. Her slender body was warmed by a patchwork coat of many colors that Glory had sewn for her, and her head was protected by a white knit cap, one of dozens of gifts that the grateful people of Mary’s Rest left for her on Glory’s front porch. She couldn’t use all the coats, gloves, pairs of socks and caps that were offered, so the excess clothing went into cardboard boxes to be distributed among those whose clothes were almost worn out.

  Her intense, dark blue eyes with their flecks of red and gold took in the new cornstalks, which were now about four feet tall and beginning to turn a darker green. Around the edges of her cap, Swan’s hair flowed back like flames. Her skin was still very pale, but her cheeks were reddened by the chill wind; her face was bony, in need of food and filling out, but that would come later. Right now all that occupied her attention was the corn.

  Bonfires burned across the field, and volunteers from Mary’s Rest watched around the clock to keep away the bobcats, crows and whatever else might try to destroy the cornstalks. Every so often another group of volunteers would come with buckets and dippers to offer fresh water from the new well that the pickaxes and shovels had hit two days before. The water’s taste blossomed the memories of all who sipped it, reminding them of things half forgotten: the smell of clean, cold mountain air; the sweetness of Christmas candy; fine wine that had sat in a bottle for fifty years awaiting appreciation; and dozens of others, each unique and part of a happier life. Water was no longer melted from the radioactive snow, and people were already beginning to feel stronger, their sore throats, headaches and other ailments starting to fade.

  Gene Scully and Zachial Epstein had never returned. Their bodies were still missing, and Sister was certain they were dead. And certain also that “the man with the scarlet eye” was still somewhere in Mary’s Rest. Sister kept her leather satchel in a tighter grip than ever, but now she wondered if he’d lost interest in the ring and had shifted his attention to Swan.

  Sister and Josh had talked about what kind of creature the man with the scarlet eye might be. She didn’t know if she believed in a horned and fork-tailed Devil, but she knew well enough what Evil was. If he’d searched for them for seven years, that meant he didn’t know everything. He might be cunning, and maybe his intuition was razor-sharp, and maybe he could change his face as he pleased and burst people into flame with a touch, but he was flawed and dumb. And maybe his greatest weakness was that he thought himself so damned much smarter than human beings.

  Swan paused in her inspection, then approached one of the smaller cornstalks. Its fronds were still speckled with the dark red spots of blood her hands had shed. She took off one of her gloves and touched the thin stalk, felt the prickling sensation that began at her feet, moved up her legs to her spine, then through her arm and fingers into the plant like a low current of electricity. She’d thought of that sensation as normal ever since she was a child; but now she wondered if her entire body wasn’t, in a way, like Crybaby—she was receptive to and drew up power from the battery of the earth and could direct it through her fingers into seeds, trees and plants. Maybe it was a whole lot more, and maybe she could never really understand what it was, but she could close her eyes and see again the wonderful scenes that the glass ring had shown her, and she knew what she must devote the rest of her life to doing.

  At Swan’s suggestion, rags and old papers had been bundled around the bases of the stalks, to keep the new roots as warm as possible. The hard dirt had been broken up with shovels and holes dug every four or five feet between the rows; into these holes clean water was poured, and if you listened hard and the wind was still, you could hear the earth gasping as it drank.

  Swan went on, stopping every so often to touch one of the stalks or bend down and knead the dirt between her fingers. It felt like sparks were jumping off her hands. But she was uncomfortable having so many people around her all the time—especially the men with the rifles. It was weird having people watch you and want to touch you and give you the clothes right off their backs. She’d never felt special, and she didn’t feel special now, either. Being able to make the corn grow was just something she could do, like Glory could sew the patchwork coat and Paul could make the little printing press work again. Everybody had a talent, and Swan knew that this was hers.

  She walked on a few more feet, and then she knew someone was staring at her.

  She turned her head to look back toward Mary’s Rest, and she saw him standing across the field, his shoulder-length brown hair blowing in the wind.

  Sister followed Swan’s line of sight and saw him, too. She knew Robin Oakes had been following them all morning, but he wouldn’t come any closer. In the past three days he’d declined any offer to enter Glory’s shack; he was content to sleep by the bonfire, and Sister noted with interest that he’d cleaned all the feathers and animal bones out of his hair. Sister glanced at Swan and saw her blush before she turned quickly away. Josh was occupied with watching the woods for bobcats, and he didn’t notice the little drama. Just like a man, Sister mused. He can’t see the forest for the trees.

  “They’re doing fine,” Swan told Sister, to take her mind off Robin Oakes. Her voice was nervous and a little higher-pitched, and underneath the crust of her Job’s Mask, Sister smiled. “The fires are keeping the air warmer out here. I think the corn’s doing just fine.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Sister answered.

  Swan was satisfied. She went around to every bonfire, speaking to the volunteers, finding out if anyone needed to be replaced, if they wanted water or any of the root soup that Glory, Anna or one of the other women was always cooking up. She made sure to thank them for helping watch the field and chase the circling crows away. Of course, the crows needed to eat, too, but they’d have to find their own food somewhere else. Swan noticed a teenage girl who had n
o gloves, and she gave her her own pair. Dead skin was still flaking off Swan’s palms, but otherwise her hands had healed.

  She stopped at the plank of wood that marked Rusty’s grave. She still didn’t remember anything of that night but her dream of the man with the scarlet eye. There had been no time to tell Rusty what he’d meant to her and how much she’d loved him. She remembered Rusty making red balls appear and disappear as part of the Travelin’ Show’s magic act and earning an old can of beans or fruit cocktail for his work. The earth had him now, had folded strong arms around him so that he would sleep long and undisturbed. And his magic was still alive—in her, in Josh, and in the green stalks that swayed in the wind with the promise of life yet to be.

  Swan, Josh and Sister walked back across the field, accompanied by the two armed guards. Both Swan and Sister noted that Robin Oakes had already slipped away. And Swan felt a twinge of disappointment.

  Children hopped and jumped around Swan as they continued through the alleys toward Glory’s shack. Sister’s heart pounded as she watched every alley they passed for a sudden, snakelike movement—and she thought she heard the squeak of red wagon wheels somewhere nearby, but the sound faded, and she wasn’t sure if it had been there at all.

  A tall, gaunt man with pale blue keloids burned diagonally across his face was waiting for them, standing at the foot of the steps talking to Paul Thorson. Paul’s hands were stained dark brown from the mud and dyes he and Glory were mixing, to be used as ink for the bulletin sheet. There were dozens of people in the street and around the shack who’d come to catch a glimpse of Swan, and they made a path for her as she approached the waiting man.