Stephen Chambers

by Jane;the Raven King

  “Grandma?” Jane said.

  Grandma Diana stopped speaking and cocked her head toward the kitchen. Something moved in the darkness near the TV. “Grandma?” Jane said again.

  “Go back to your room, Jane,” Grandma Diana said. “Shut the door.” “Are you all right?”

  “I am fine. Please go back to your room, dear.” Jane hesitated. “Grandma…”

  A stalk-thin shadow moved into the kitchen with halting steps, as if on stilts. The stickman was black and huge, and as it approached her, Jane stumbled backward into the wall.

  “Grandma!”

  “You will not touch her!” Grandma Diana shouted, and a bulb of white-blue light flashed between Jane and the stickman. In the sudden light, the kitchen and living room were illuminated, and Jane saw many more—dozens—of shadow stickmen. They were hugging the walls like human insects, their long limbs ponderous, their faceless heads dented with hollow eyes. The stickmen moaned like the ocean.

  Grandma Diana began to whisper again—it wasn’t English, but it drew the shadows toward her, away from Jane. Jane was trembling. Her legs wouldn’t work, and she gasped, fighting to breathe.

  “Your room, Jane,” Grandma Diana said.

  Michael’s door opened, and as yellow light spilled into the hall, Jane heard the click-clack-click of his computer keys. A boy stepped out. Behind the boy, Michael sat with his back to Jane, frantically playing a computer game.

  “Can I get you anything?” the boy asked Jane as he shut Michael’s door.

  She smelled finger paint and glue, and she shuddered as if she’d been pushed and was too ashamed of her own helplessness to respond. That smell: A memory from my childhood, Jane thought. Children laughed at me, a teacher ridiculed me, and when I broke down, I buried my face in those smells. The odor brought it all back now. And just as quickly, it was gone.

  “No?” the boy said. “Excuse me then.”

  He stepped past Jane into the kitchen, and she lost sight of him. Then she heard the rustling of heavy wings and glimpsed a shadow on the ceiling above Grandma Diana.

  “Child,” the bird-shadow said. “I will ask you once: where is it?” Grandma Diana looked up, the light around her stronger now. “None of them know. I have told no one.” A low laugh came, and although Jane couldn’t see the stickmen, she heard them moan again.

  “Where?”

  Grandma Diana stood, raised one arm, and said, “When I break you, your evil will die and never return. You will be forgotten.” “Forgotten?” the bird-shadow said, and Jane heard wings flap like the branches of a great tree. “You are afraid.” Grandma Diana’s light dilated, then crackled into glowing barbs that caught the stickmen as if they were metal rods. She raised her fist, shouting in another language—“Ignatio vate!”—as fire burst from her knuckles and flowed into the great black bird over her. The bird screamed and flailed, the stickmen shrank, and Grandma Diana yelled, “Run, Jane!” before the bird shook away the flames and descended on her. Grandma Diana crumpled to the floor. Her light went out.

  Jane ran into the living room. “Grandma!” Grandma Diana wasn’t breathing. Her skin was shrinking like wet paper. There were big blue marbles where her eyes should have been, and her hair wasn’t real—it was fake hair. The skin wasn’t skin anymore—it was plastic. Jane was holding a giant toy: a mannequin of her grandmother. A hand stroked Jane’s chin, and she looked up. The boy from Michael’s room smiled at her.

  “Where is it?” he said. “She must have told you. I only want to see it.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jane said.

  The boy was losing his patience, and Jane glimpsed a rotten, hooked beak and empty, animal eyes. Then he was just a boy with none of those other things. “The name of the world,” he said. “What did she do with it?” “What did you do to my grandmother?” Jane said. “Where is she?” “You don’t have a grandmother,” he said. “You never did. She is that dead. Now, where is it?” Jane smelled mold, but she stepped closer, right in his face. He’s just a boy, she told herself. Anything else was impossible. “Where is my grandmother?” “You will answer me—”

  Jane slapped him. The room streaked and polarized—black to white, white to black—and when Jane blinked, the boy had staggered backward, blood on his lip. For a long second, he stared at her, shocked and terrified. Then, the air sucked, and he wasn’t a boy anymore—he was a man in a bloody cape with huge wings and then a black bird as giant as the wall. Jane stumbled and ran.

  The bird screamed, “Kill her!”

  She threw open Michael’s bedroom door. “Michael, come on!” He didn’t look away from his computer. “Hold on…”

  She yanked him away from the screen. “We have to go.” “What is your problem—?” He saw the stickmen lumbering closer in the kitchen and ran with Jane into her bedroom.

  The top of the iguana tank had fallen. Iz was gone.

  “What are those things?” Michael said.

  Jane shoved open her bedroom window, then glanced back as stickmen came into the hall. “I don’t know.” It was still raining outside. “But we have to go.” “What about Mom and Dad?”

  “They’ll be fine,” Jane said, and she slipped one leg outside.

  Michael was pale, but he didn’t let go of her hand. “Where are we going?” “I don’t—”

  A voice outside said, “This way.”

  The blind man and his dog waited in matching yellow raincoats. The man caught Jane’s wrist and helped her down. “Quickly!” he said. “Quickly now! Finn, watch the front lawn.” Michael hesitated at the open window as a stickman ambled into the bedroom behind him.

  “Hurry!” the blind man said. “Out, out!”

  Michael said, “Jane…”

  “It’s all right,” Jane said. “Give me your hand.”

  The stickman neared Michael, ten feet away. Now eight feet. Six.

  “Michael, come on!” she shouted.

  “That man with you is crazy,” Michael said.

  Four feet from Michael, the stickman stretched one formless hand toward his shoulder.

  “Now Michael!”

  “I—” He saw the stickman out of the corner of his eye and jerked backward, banging his head on the window as he somersaulted out. Jane and the blind man caught him. Shaking in the wet grass, Michael said, “Now what are we supposed to—?” The stickman slipped one arm out the window. Its shadow-head and torso followed, then a leg, and the blind man said, “Run!”

  After sprinting three blocks, they stopped, panting and drenched, outside a parked RV camper. Painted in khaki-brown desert camouflage, the mobile home looked as though it had dropped from the sky or been hauled out with the driveway garbage cans.

  The blind man opened the RV door and said, “Watch your step.” “Are you nuts?” Michael said. “We’re not going with you.” “It’s pouring rain,” Jane said, but she didn’t follow the blind man. Sure, our clothes are already soaked through, she thought, wiping strands of hair from her eyes, but who is this blind man?

  “We don’t know him!” Michael shouted to her over the thunder.

  The rain hammered them, and Jane hugged her dripping shirt. “What’s your name?” she asked the blind man.

  He cupped a hand to his ear. “Eh?” The dog, Finn, hopped into the camper to wait, his tail wagging.

  “Your name?”

  “My name is Gaius,” he said.

  “Gaius?” Michael said. “What kind of name is that? Jane, what are we doing out here? We should go back.” “Let me think,” Jane said, pacing in the rain. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gaius, but my brother is right. We don’t know you…” “You can’t go home,” Gaius said, as if that were obvious. “It’s too dangerous now. We have to leave before they follow you.” “And go where?” Michael said.

  “Where do you think?” Gaius said. “To Hotland.” Jane shook her head. “‘Hotland?’ Where—?” “Where else? At the center of the Earth. Now watch your step. The stairs are wet.” “He’s crazy,” Michael said
. “We’re not going with him.” Jane turned to her brother. “You let that boy, Nolan, in through my window, didn’t you?” “What?”

  “You did, didn’t you?”

  “No, why would I do that?”

  But the way he looked away and crossed his arms meant he was lying. “Grandma Diana is dead because of you!” Jane said. “And why—for a computer game?” “Grandma Diana isn’t dead,” Michael said, and he sneezed in the rain. “Come on, let’s go home.” “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “Did what?”

  “Wake up, Michael! We are standing in a thunderstorm because your friend let a bunch of shadow people into our home—” “Sansi,” Gaius said. “They’re properly called sansi—stickmen.” Jane jerked her fist down. She wanted to slap Michael the way she’d rattled that monster-boy, Nolan. “You’re not stupid,” Jane said. “You knew, but you wanted a new game.” “Shut up,” Michael said. “I don’t believe you. Grandma Diana isn’t dead, and there’s no such thing as stickmen.” Jane said, “You saw them!”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Gaius said, “Nolan is an old joke. It’s a trickster name.” Michael said, “I don’t care.”

  “What does it mean?” Jane asked.

  Gaius said, “What does it sound like?” Jane said it: “Nolan, Nolan, No-lan.” She shivered in the rain. “It sounds like no one.” “Exactly.”

  “That’s dumb,” Michael said. “It’s just a name.” “But it isn’t his name,” Gaius said. “He hasn’t had a real name in a long time. The Raven King is a broken god, not a boy or even a bird. He is something else entirely. He is the old wickedness at the heart of the world.” “I don’t care,” Michael said again. “I’m going home.” “You cannot,” Gaius said.

  Jane said, “Michael…”

  “No, I don’t believe any of this. I was dreaming or something.” Jane grabbed his shoulder, but Michael shook her away. “Please,” she said.

  “Go with your new friend,” Michael said.

  “Don’t be stupid. Those things are probably still there.” “What things?”

  “The stickmen.”

  Michael walked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Let him go,” Gaius said. “Jane, please let him go. I need your help.” He paused. “I know why the animals are leaving.” Jane hesitated, but Michael was walking faster. She smiled at Gaius and his dog. “Thank you, but I’m sorry. I have to go with him—I can’t let him go back alone.” As she hurried after Michael, Jane heard Gaius mutter to his dog. As she caught up to Michael, she said to him, “You are so stubborn sometimes.” Their house came into view at the end of the next block. All the lights were on.

  Jane stopped on the front lawn and grabbed her brother’s shoulder. “Wait.” “Make me.”

  It’s late and still raining, Jane thought. Mom and Dad must be worried. That’s why all the lights are on. But what if something else is going on? Should we walk in the front door?

  “Michael, stop.”

  He stepped onto the porch and said, “You stop.” “Don’t—”

  He rang the doorbell.

  Jane went to stand beside him on the floral doormat. At least the front porch was out of the rain. When no one answered, Michael pressed the button again, and they heard the doorbell chime in the entry hall. Still no answer. Something is wrong, Jane thought. Even in the upstairs bathroom with the shower running, they should be able to hear the doorbell.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Michael frowned and jabbed the button again.

  “Michael, let’s go.”

  “The lights are on,” he said.

  “That doesn’t mean—” Jane shivered as she noticed the surrounding houses. They looked like ships made out of brick and glass in the midnight rain. All the windows glowed through blinds and drapes—the porches bathed in fuzzy white light. All the lights are on, Jane thought. In every house on the block. In the middle of the night.

  “Come on,” she said.

  “No. You can go stand in the rain if you want.” “Don’t ring the doorbell again.”

  After he did anyway, Michael shrugged. “Maybe it’s broken.” “It’s not broken—we can hear it.”

  “Let go of my arm,” he said. “I’ll climb back in the window.” “Michael, listen to me—”

  “Shut up.”

  When he tried to push past her, Jane blocked him, and Michael grabbed the doorknob. It turned, and the door opened. As it creaked wide, Michael hesitated. The hall light, the lamps—even the upright flashlights on the plant table were lit. Men talked seriously in the living room—it was the television—and Jane heard at least one radio voice deeper inside the house, along with the background rhythm of reggae music.

  “This isn’t right,” she said.

  “Don’t be stupid.” Michael stepped inside. “Are you coming?” No, Jane thought. Every part of her—especially the jittery hollow in her belly—told her to walk away. Don’t go in. But Michael was already in the main hall, calling, “Mom? Dad—we’re back!” Jane came in and shut the front door behind her. “Michael…” He disappeared around the corner, heading for the kitchen. Jane’s pulse quickened as she crept into the entry hall. As she edged closer to the main hall, she checked the living room; the lamps were on, and the ceiling fan whipped like a helicopter blade, shaking the yellow overhead lights. Grandma Diana was gone. Cowboys from a grainy Western murmured solemnly on the television, and the shot panned across a desert vista of cacti and sunset rock mesas. She heard one of the cowboys say, “Round ’em up.” “All of them? Ain’t time for that.”

  “Keep the women inside and round ’em up…” From the kitchen, Michael shouted, “Mom! Where are you?” Jane went into the main hall, and Michael returned, his face pale. “Did you see Mom and Dad?” he asked.

  “No,” Jane said. “We have to get out of here.” Michael stepped past her, heading for the stairs. “Mom? Dad?” “Michael, stop it.”

  He started upstairs, and she ran after him. “Michael—” They froze near the top. From the end of the second-floor hall, they heard the click of a keyboard and the staccato drone of a radio reporter’s voice. All the lights were on here too: the hall lights, the lights in her father’s office—in the bathroom, even the electric-socket night-lights were lit. Michael opened his mouth and shut it again.

  Jane whispered, “Come on.”

  He ignored her and walked down the hall. “Mom…?” No answer.

  Jane’s heartbeat throbbed in her ears. “Stop it,” she said. “Please…” “Mom?” Michael said again, and he crept toward their parents’ open bedroom door.

  I can’t leave him, Jane told herself and watched Michael near the bedroom doorway. The keyboard-radio noises were coming from in there.

  “Mom?” Michael said.

  When Jane mouthed, “No!” he continued inside, looked at the bed, and stiffened.

  Jane went after him. Their parents sat on the king-size bed, laptop computers on their legs, cell phones wedged between their ears and shoulders. Their father even had a cordless phone pushed against his right ear. The voice on the alarm clock radio said, “…A flash flood warning is in effect for Mercer County until 3:00 a.m. Winds are expected to exceed forty miles an hour, with severe gusts in excess of sixty miles an hour possible. A tornado watch is in effect until…” Michael said, “Mom? Dad?”

  Both of their parents pounded their laptop keys. Their father cleared his throat into the phone and grunted, “Uh-huh. Um.” “Dad?” Michael said again.

  “…Residents are advised to avoid unnecessary travel and to stay tuned for further advisories. In the event a tornado is spotted, proceed immediately to the basement or to an interior, windowless room…” Thunder cracked, and rain battered the bedroom window. Jane held her brother’s hand.

  “Dad,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  He didn’t look up.

  Michael began to tremble. “Jane…”

  Jane stepped closer to the bed. “Mom?”

/>   “Uh-huh,” she said into her phone. “Okay.” When they still didn’t stop typing, Jane clapped her hands in front of her father’s computer screen—he was closer—and he frowned, as if she were a stranger. Slowly, he noticed them.

  “Jane, Michael,” he said and returned to his keyboard.

  “Mom, Dad, stop it,” Jane said.

  They didn’t look up.

  She slammed her father’s laptop shut and braced for his irritated shout. But he didn’t shout. Instead, he blinked at her, through her, his mind elsewhere.

  “…This is a severe weather alert for Harrison County,” the radio said. “A flash flood warning is in effect…” “We have to go,” Jane said.

  “I’m not leaving.” Before Jane could argue, Michael said, “If you want to, then go. I’m going to bed, and when I wake up, all this will be back to normal.” “Michael—”

  “Get away from me.” He ran downstairs to his room and slammed the door. Jane knew that when he was like this, it was pointless to argue—Michael was too stubborn. I can’t just leave him here, she thought and went downstairs.

  “Please Michael,” she called. “Don’t—”

  “Go away!”

  I have no idea where to go, Jane thought. But that wasn’t true, and she knew it.

  Still wearing a yellow poncho, Gaius met her in the street. “We don’t have much time,” he said. “Does your grandmother still live in England?” “She’s dead,” Jane said. “I saw it.” Jane’s voice twisted when she said this, and she felt tears behind her eyes. Talking about the horrible, impossible murder suddenly made it real. She lost her balance on a sewer grate, and Gaius caught her.

  “Be careful around pipes,” he said. “All pipes lead to Hotland.” “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s all right,” he said, but she could tell from the drop in his voice that it wasn’t.

  They went to Gaius’s RV. He opened the door and ushered her inside Like a bric-a-brac shop on wheels, the camper was crammed with junk: bicycle wheels; stone statues with lamps attached to their heads; afghan blankets of red, orange, and yellow-green; a pile of water-stained road maps; a tiny television with contorted antennae; jars of motionless butterflies; and mounds of ivory dice—some with the usual six sides Jane recognized from Monopoly and dozens more with intricate, tiny numbers and symbols. One die was as large as a tennis ball, divided into at least one hundred numbered sides. Painted model airplanes dangled from the ceiling, and the German shepherd, Finn, sprawled comfortably on a black couch matted with dog fur. There were snake skins, soccer balls, and a trash can overflowing with crumpled, used tissue.