by David Nickle
His mother cried out, and then Etherton said Good mornin’, Ellie, like he knew her, and Jason’s ma tried to get back into the house, but Etherton was fast and got in her way, and told her there would be no getting the gun this time. No gettin’ the gun this time, Ellie, nuh-uh-uh-huh. . . . That was one thing that Jason remembered clearly, because even though he was small and had only lived through four winters then, those words had the ring of history—ancient history between his mama and Mr. Etherton and somehow wrapped up with Jason himself.
Jason drew his knees up to his chin. It was warm here, but he shivered all the same.
“Jason.”
It wasn’t Ruth this time. It came from across the room, and before Jason could stop himself he said: “Ma?”
“Jason, just tell her the story. Tell us the story. Stop fussing.”
Jason sighed. “Sorry, Miss Butler. It’s hard in the tellin’—”
“Yes,” said Louise sharply. “It is hard. For all of us, Mr. Thistledown. Forgive me if I don’t—”
“Louise!” Ruth was just as sharp, and she took hold of Jason’s arm tightly. “Let him tell the story in his own time.”
Louise cleared her throat, and cleared it again. Soon, Jason figured, she would be coughing. He put his hand on Ruth’s, and was relieved to find it cool. For now.
“All right,” said Jason. “Etherton was a bad fellow. But I can’t recall everything that happened.”
“It was long ago.”
“I know my ma got herself hit too. In the stomach. Made her sick up. I remember watching that—never saw my ma sick up before.”
Ruth gasped. “He struck her? Jason . . . tell me. Was your father murdered by this Etherton? When he came back and found his family terrorized by his old enemy? When he confronted him?” She wrapped an arm over his shoulder and leaned close—like she ought to be comforting him. “Oh my dear Jason.”
Jason shook his head. “No,” he said. “My pa came back, but he didn’t confront anybody. Ma’d cleaned herself up and put a dressing on my cut, and when pa came back, he just gave that Etherton a big hug and the two of them set down to drinking. But . . .”
“But?”
“My mama said it was Etherton that pushed her to do it. Not him—but watchin’ them, Etherton and my pa. After what he did to both of us.”
“Mr. Thistledown,” said Louise in a low tone.
“She—” began Ruth, but Jason finished the sentence: “Took care of my pa.”
There was a silence, and Jason felt embarrassed by it, so he started talking faster: “It was not only that day that drove her to it. My pa would run off whenever he felt like it—he would get himself drunk and do bad things to my ma—he hit me same as Etherton did, for even less reason sometimes. He had it coming; he was no good and so my mama did what she had to, on account of our safety and her dignity and . . .” He stopped again, feeling as though the words were running together. Ruth took his head and drew it down to her breast, and held him there, and he could feel hot tears coming to his eyes as the image of that night, outside the house as the November wind blew black leaves up off the ground and the sky turned colours like bruised flesh and he had watched his ma . . .
“I’m sorry,” he said, and in his ear, Ruth hushed him, and her fingers entwined with the hair on the back of his head, and her other hand brushed down the side of his ribs. He tried to say more—how knowing it or not, he’d brought this fate down on her and Louise, and this whole town, how that sealed-up jar of sickness on the floor was the curse he’d carried here—how in bringing this curse, he’d killed her. He tried to say it, but it was too much for words: even having passed the story, or most of it, of his pa and his mama. Saying he was sorry to Ruth was the same as saying he was sorry to his ma, whom he hadn’t even buried—and saying that right, was more than he could say in words. So all he could do was lift his cheek from her blouse, and try and face her in the pitch black. It was too late after that; her mouth was on his, lips parted, and they were sharing the hot breath of fever.
Hush, darling. No regrets.
Ruth’s fingers danced like the legs of a spider down to the belt of his trousers, and then below, and Jason held back a gasp, as her hand formed a cup, and held him in it. He pulled away from the kiss, swallowing a mouthful of her, and slipped his own hand up to her blouse. He could feel her heartbeat, fluttering like a bird’s through the cloth and the flesh, and he could feel her grow momentarily rigid at the contact. They both knew that the only thing guaranteeing their privacy was the dark; the slightest noise would leave poor Louise with little doubt as to what they were doing.
So they made quiet work of it. Ruth found the buttons of Jason’s fly, and in no time she had undone the top two of them, which was enough: the cool, soft flesh of her wrist touched him first, and then she drew him into her palm. Jason could not breathe a moment—yet somehow he managed to find the buttons at the side of Ruth’s drawers and with only a little help from her, was able to loosen them enough that she could wriggle free. Louise might have heard that, but she must have been coughing at that instant; there was no comment from her. Jason trembled as he traced the smooth curve of Ruth’s hip with his fingertips; he drew a sharp breath as she twisted her wrist somewhat, in drawing him between her thighs. He thought—he was sure—that he heard her declare love for him, as she gasped, and pulled him deep inside her. But Jason could be no surer of that, than he was of Louise. Jason drew a sharp breath, and in doing he felt Ruth do the same thing—and he recalled—
—the moment on the rail platform, a cool spring breeze catching her as he spied her standing next to Louise, the tiny half-smile that touched only part of her face—as he wondered: did she spy me too?—and now knowing, that yes, it was, as Ruth herself had said, a moment of Fate. And so it was, when that smile widened, and—
Hush, my darling.
He clutched both her shoulders with his hands, and in so doing thrust himself deeper inside her. Her pantaloons were tangled around one ankle, and the fabric wrapped the back of one thigh as she pressed her legs around him, and drew him inside—
—widened, and reached—
Jason thrust in deeper. He fell into an easy rhythm—he was surprised at how easy. It was like he’d been doing this all his life. In his ear, Ruth whispered things that he could not understand; and he whispered them back, and they moved together more quickly, and finally, although they both fought against it, they cried out—first Ruth, and then Jason.
They lay quietly for a moment, wet with each other’s sweat and juices, and slowly returned to themselves. Jason pulled away enough that he could sit up, and as he did so, he was overcome by a sudden shame. He was not a complete fool; he knew what they’d done was private, better kept behind the doors of a saloon, or best yet, the vows of a marriage. But his will had fled him in her embrace, and here he had taken Ruth Harper, in the dark, in a sick room, right next to her good friend Louise.
The same thought might have occurred to Ruth, but she responded differently—with a laugh that only slightly betrayed her embarrassment. “Oh my,” she said, running her hand down Jason’s forearm and entwining his fingers with hers. “Oh Louise,” she said, “I can’t imagine what you are thinking.”
Jason could—and he waited in the dark next to Ruth for a few heartbeats, for the rebuke.
“Miss Butler?” he finally said. “I’m sure sorry about that; I sure wasn’t brought up to . . .”
“Louise?” Ruth let go of his hand then, and scrambled away from him. Jason, slower on the uptake than she, didn’t work it out until he heard Ruth’s gasp, and then a sob.
“Oh,” he said. And he rolled to his knees, and crawled over to where Louise lay. He found Ruth first, and took her shoulders, and brought her to his arm as she let go of the cooling, lifeless hand of her friend and chaperone.
“What have we done, Jason?”
Jason swallowed, and with his other hand reached over to touch the wax-sealed jar that had travelled from Africa, to Crac
ked Wheel, and now, in secret, to this cellar. “We haven’t done a thing,” he said. “Not a God-damned thing.”
Not you.
“Not us.”
But that’s not to say you’re not going to do anything, is it my boy?
“No mama,” Jason whispered.
Ruth pressed in close to him, and he held her tight. And She, come from the shadow of Montana, tall and beautiful and strong as the sky, held them both in her arms.
27 - Gods and Oracles
They’ve gone Feeger, thought Andrew as the quarantine appeared through the trees. That was what Hank had said, back in the Tavishes’ little village on the mountainside. They were afraid of going Feeger, and so they kept to themselves, and—until the end—the Feegers kept from them. Then one day, Sam Green sent them a doctor to kill a Juke. And the Feegers came down the mountain, and they killed those stubborn Tavishes.
And now . . . now, the Feegers were upon Eliada. And the folk here were losing themselves . . . going Feeger. He saw it as they hauled past St. Cyprian’s—and a crowd of folk, who stood faces upturned to the rain, hands reaching for the sky beyond it. He heard it, in the off-key voices that sang along with the whistling dirge that seemed to come from every cranny. Fifty of them, maybe more, shuffled outside the sawmill as they passed it.
Andrew gasped, and shut his eyes a moment against the pain, which was beyond anything he’d felt before—even at the moment of his beating by the Klansmen. When they pulled him from the mud, the men who’d attacked the Harpers’ mansion had spread his weight between two of them—without any consideration for his injuries, particularly not his elbow. The pain from it was brilliant—it drowned out any song he could have heard, and blinded him to anything but its own light.
Just like it had for Jason, when he was locked in this building with Mister Juke and had sliced his hand—agony brought Andrew back to flesh.
They let go of him at the front steps to the quarantine. The door hung off one hinge, and it was clear the two men who had carried him this far wouldn’t go further. Andrew stumbled and nearly fell against the wall, but he managed to stand.
The little girl Lily stepped into the doorway and looked at him. “You got an honour,” she said seriously. She extended her hand. “Walk wi’ me.”
Andrew looked back at the men. The two who were hauling him had stepped back among the rest: about twenty of them, all told. Any one of them looked powerful enough to kill him—but all of them were staying well out of reach of the door. And the little girl.
What would happen, he wondered briefly, if he tried to hurt her?
She took his good hand in her thin, cool fingers. “You kin walk, caintchya?”
“I can walk,” he said.
“Then come,” she said. “Oracle’s waiting.”
The girl tugged at his hand, and Andrew followed obediently. As they passed over the threshold into the quarantine, Lily squinted up at him.
“Don’t be crying,” she said. “It’s only darkness.”
§
It was dark. Once they got through the entry hall, the quarantine swallowed memory of day, of sunlight. It was only Lily’s hand, her sure foot, that gave Andrew any bearing at all.
They travelled down a corridor where the walls seemed to chitter with birdsong. At a point, they wandered into a room that stank like a privy. Andrew gagged and Lily, leading him forward, giggled. They climbed stairs for a step or two or ten, and Andrew felt a cool breeze on his cheek, and caught a smell like the sort of river that might run through a grand city. It was when the texture of the floor became soft, like a mown English lawn, that Andrew made a point of flexing his elbow, and gasping at the pain of it. Lily started to sing then, and stroked his hand in a mothering way, and Andrew heard trumpets behind her voice—and as that happened, the darkness began to dissolve like spots of ink, and he saw that he was in a great chamber lit by ten thousand candles. At the far end, a woman sat demurely, long raven hair combed down as far as her waist.
He had arrived in the presence of the Oracle.
“Might wan’ t’ bow down,” said Lily.
Andrew grimaced, and bent his elbow once more.
“Think I’ll stand,” he said.
§
Seen through the lens of pain, the Oracle wasn’t all that demure.
She stood tall like her brothers, and her black hair hung near her waist, and she seemed strong, with thick hips and large, full breasts and flushed cheeks and lips. But the Oracle paid a toll, and Andrew could see it in her eyes, at once wide and sunken, ringed dark; and her odd posture, bent and swaying in the dark cloth of her homespun dress. She held a bundle wrapped in cloth and twigs, the way a mother might hold a baby. The room was not lit by ten thousand candles or even a hundred, just four kerosene lamps that cast scant light in the wide room. It looked as though it hadn’t been put to use as much but a storeroom for broken old furniture. She stood by an old roll-top desk, not far from a tall blank wall with two big barn doors. Lily pushed him: “Go see ’er,” she said to Andrew, and across the room to the Oracle: “Smell ’im!”
“No need,” said the Oracle. “I c’n smell him from here. Need a look, though.”
Lily pushed him again, making it plain that there was no option. “Go see ’er,” she whispered. “An’ try bowing. She’s the Oracle.”
Andrew made his way forward, jostling painfully against the furniture as he did so. Lily followed close.
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “come to me, black man. Let me a look at you.”
Andrew kept the desk between them. “I think I’m close enough,” he said, and the Oracle nodded. She sniffed the air, and looked him up and down. Then she bent and sniffed the bundle in her arms.
“What is that you got?” asked Andrew, and Lily smacked his arm. “Hush!” Then, to the Oracle: “He got the smell of Him! Of the Lost Child. So I brung ’im.”
“I know you did. Good girl.” The Oracle squinted at him. “You ain’t like th’ others here, are you? Black man.”
“I guess I’m not,” he said, carefully, studying this girl. She was just a girl—he didn’t expect that she was any older than Jason Thistledown, and might well have been younger. And yet, they called her Oracle. “And you aren’t, either. Can I see your baby?”
The girl took a possessive stance, sheltering the bundle with her body.
“Ain’t my baby,” she said, her voice going high. “Ain’t larder.”
Andrew made a hushing noise. “May I see?”
For a moment they stood still, the only sound being the pattering of rain on the quarantine’s roof. It sounded like it was coming harder. At length, she looked up at Andrew.
“It’s the Lost Child,” she said in a small voice, and reached over with a hand, and pulled aside some cloth. “Like you.”
A tiny claw revealed itself, talons gleaming in the lamplight.
“We saved him,” said Lily.
And the Oracle said, “Too late, too late. So we brung ’im here.”
Andrew stared as she removed more of the cloth, drawing the bent claw out, caressing the thing’s chest.
“Heathen did this. So this is our reminder—of what we do with Heathen that bring harm to the Old Man. To the Son.” The Oracle pulled the cloth back over the corpse. “And you—you smell of him.”
Andrew bit down on the inside of his cheek. No wonder, he thought. This was the thing that’d ripped itself from Loo Tavish. And these girls had it—they had it, because of course they were Feegers, and the Feegers had torn through the Tavish village with knives, and now . . .
“What are you going to do with the Heathen here?” asked Andrew.
“Same thing,” said the Oracle, “but we can tell the difference. There’s the ones that hurt him. They got one smell. There’s the ones that don’t know yet. They got another.”
“Kill the one,” said Lily. “Learn the other.”
“Then there’s another kind,” said the Oracle. “Smell different. Not one of either. And
then—there’s you.”
“Smell of the Lost Child.”
“Black man. With that smell.”
“A mystery.”
“So Mr. Harper—the people in the mansion—the big house—they were harming him?”
“Took him away,” said the Oracle. “Not this one. An elder. They twisted him around, hurt him. Made him do things. That ain’t the order.”
And so they were murdered—cut down by old swords and axes, and the house burned, by this entire community—this extended family—of criminals, bowing to service this animal—this Mister Juke.
How apt, he thought, that the folk of Eliada had named the creature Juke. Apt, but off the mark. The real Jukes were these Feegers—men and women if not congenitally criminal, then made so by the spoor of this parasite. And so it became with anyone who encountered this beast, and its young.
“You have one inside you,” said Andrew to the Oracle, “don’t you?”
At that, the girl beamed.
“And a baby,” said Andrew. “It’s early, but you have a baby too.”
“No,” she said. “He’s got the baby. Larder. It’s better for Him, with larder. As might you know.”
Andrew opened his mouth to speak, and shut it again. This was as he’d surmised and as Norma Tavish had explained to him—the Jukes did better in a womb with child than on their own, by killing and eating the child, stealing its nourishment and so on. It was one thing to understand the behaviour, another to see these . . . children, apparently understanding what was before them, well enough to deliberately set it in motion.
To make a child for food. A deliberate sacrifice.
And what did they mean: as might you know?
“Why would you?” he asked.
But it wasn’t only the thought. He felt a deep vibration up his back: a deep, basso rumbling, or a moan, as of great timbers drawing against one another.
The Oracle and Lily heard it too. The two girls bent their heads back, and began to hum and sing, in high, broken voices. They mingled with the deeper noise into a harmony as Andrew had never heard before. He flexed his elbow, and the shooting pain drew him back from reverie.