The Child Eater

by Rachel Pollack

  “It’s you,” a voice said. “You’re next, aren’t you?” The voice was young and old at the same time, and sadder even than when it was crying.

  Simon looked around again but he knew now he wouldn’t see anyone. Any body. He walked up to the head. Like the voice it was old and young, the features those of a girl about Simon’s age, yet with wrinkled, cracked skin. There were marks on the cheeks and a dark smudge like a burn on the forehead. Somehow she looked familiar and Simon wondered if he’d dreamed about her, or was it just that he dreamed about so many? He said, “Who are you?” It felt safer than anything else he might ask.

  “I thought I might be the last,” the head told him. “I’m almost done, and I hoped, I hoped so much—I don’t know why, I guess I just wanted to hope that somehow I would be the last one. That maybe he wouldn’t find another one. That it would be over, finally, finally.”

  “What would be over?”

  “This. What he does to us.”

  “I don’t understand,” Simon said, though he was terribly scared that he did. “Do you have a name?”

  “I think I was named Caroline. It was a long time ago, I think. You see? I’m almost finished.”

  “I’m Simon.”

  The head—Caroline—made a noise, then squinted at him. “There’s an old poem.” Softly she recited, “Simon, Simon . . .” The voice trailed off.

  “I know that one,” Simon said. “My mother said it. I think it was my mother. It was kind of in a dream.” He didn’t recite the rest of it.

  “Come closer,” Caroline said. “I want to look at you.” Simon hesitated, then walked up. “Is it possible?” Caroline said. “Do you have protection?”

  Protection. Maybe, even with whatever terrible thing was going to happen, he was safe. Then, suddenly, Caroline began to wail and Simon realized there would be no safety.

  “Oh no, no,” Caroline said, “there’s a hole in the shield. Someone—a woman—tried to protect you. When you were a baby. She knew, she knew. But she wasn’t able to finish. Some stupid person stopped her! Your foot—she didn’t manage to protect your foot. He can get you that way. As long as there’s an opening. Now nothing can stop it.”

  Simon didn’t want to ask but he couldn’t keep it in. “Stop what? What’s going to happen to me?” Will he cut off my head? Will he make me like you?

  “I’m getting old,” Caroline said. “I’m wearing out. Tell me, does Reina seem at all weak to you?”

  “Doctor Reina?”

  “Doctor. Yes, that’s a title he would use. Have you seen any weakness?”

  “No. Well, maybe. Not really weak, you know, but he sort of misses things.” Simon told Caroline about throwing the food out of the window and Dr. Reina not seeing it.

  “You didn’t eat anything? Or drink?”

  “No. Nothing. I was really hungry but then it went away.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Caroline said. “Then you still have a chance. Listen to me, Simon. Whatever that food looked like, it wasn’t real. Reina feeds you pieces of himself. His body. And if you take any of it you belong to him.”

  “I didn’t!” Simon said. “I didn’t even touch it.”

  Caroline didn’t seem to hear. Her eyes flickered and she spoke softly, with a shake in her voice, “Then he comes to you. With that stone knife. Oh God. He cuts and cuts, a piece at a time, until there’s nothing left but your head! And then he writes things on your face, and oh God, the last thing is the picture. He cuts it and burns it into your forehead.”

  The Fool, Simon thought. That was why all the Tarot decks had the faces cut out of the Fool! Sickness came over him and he almost fell. “I want to go home,” he said. He started to cry. He was trying to be strong, but it was all so scary and worse even than any of his dreams.

  “You can’t,” Caroline said. “None of us can. You’re on the other side now.”

  “Why? Why does he do this? Who is he?”

  “He used to be a man. Many centuries ago. Then he discovered the great secret. He could live forever if he created the heads.”

  “Then why does he need me? If he’s already got you.” Maybe Dr. Reina would let Simon go if he realized he still had Caroline.

  “I’m weakening, and so he’s weakening. That’s why you were able to trick him. My time is almost up and he needs a replacement.”

  “I’m sorry,” Simon whispered.

  “No, no, no. I want to end. Finally. But you! You must save yourself, Simon. If you can keep him from taking you, he will finally end. So many years, so many children. And we’re the special ones. He takes others, devours them, just because . . . because he can. But we’re the special ones, the ones who keep him alive.”

  “What do I do?”

  “I don’t know. No one has ever escaped him. Ever.”

  “I’ll run away. I’ll climb out through the window or something. I just have to get to where my phone works and then I can call my dad.”

  “You don’t understand. This is not really a place. It’s hard to describe. It’s his world.”

  “No!” Simon said. “You’re lying. You just don’t want me to get away because you never could. I’m going and you can’t stop me.” He ran for the door. He just had to reach his dad. His dad would send the police or something.

  Behind him he heard Caroline’s sad whisper: “Go, Simon. Maybe you can do it.”

  Simon turned around. “I know you,” he said. “I mean, I’ve met you. Before I came here. But you were old.” He could see her so clearly now. The old woman sitting all alone in the attic that wasn’t really there. Just a dream, his dad had said, but it wasn’t, it was Caroline!

  Caroline’s eyes opened wide. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe . . . maybe that was who I was, who I would have been. If Reina hadn’t caught me. If I’d been allowed to live and grow old.” She began to cry now. “Go!” she said suddenly. “Run!”

  Simon ran down the stairs so fast he hit the walls of the stairwell four times on his way to the ground floor. Out. Get out. Get to the woods. Find a place where the phone works. Call Daddy.

  He hit the front door and fell back, then got up and fumbled it open. Go, go, he told himself. Then he was outside the house and he just had to keep going, run for the woods. It was daylight, how did it get to be daylight? He couldn’t think about that. There were the trees, they looked a couple of football fields away. His sneakers slapped the dirt, faster and faster.

  “Simon!” Dr. Reina’s voice filled the sky, shook the ground. “It is time for you to begin your treatment.”

  Simon couldn’t help it. He had to see. He turned and there was Dr. Reina, in his white suit, his face bright and his hair sparkly. In his left hand, loose at his side, he carried a gray stone knife. It looked very, very old. The sun flickered off red spots along the blade. Dried blood. Caroline’s blood. The blood of all the children over so many years.

  “Come, Simon,” Dr. Reina boomed out. “Soon we will make you a healthy boy.”

  Simon ran for the woods.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  MATYAS

  He dreamed he was walking in a withered garden, past a pair of bent and broken trees. Something had happened to them, he knew, but he could not seem to remember what that was. They looked abandoned, lonely. In the dream, he was called Matyas, and that felt important somehow, something to hold on to when he woke up. “Remember,” he told himself, and immediately thought, Remember what? The name, yes.

  At the far end of the garden, he saw a stone house, long and gray, with wide windows and a red door. He walked toward it, something that for some reason felt both very difficult and important. As he got closer, he saw a tall man in front of the doorway. The man wore a white tunic and pants, and red boots. His gray-brown hair was brushed back and his face was bright and strong, the eyes shiny, the teeth sharp and gleaming. His right hand held a stone knife pointed at the dirt. It was dripping blood onto some shapeless object at the man’s feet.

  Matyas stared at him, te
rrified. He had never seen this man before but he knew who he was. How could he not? He’d known him all his life, seen him in dreams. He’d tried to forget him but could never quite do it.

  “Ah, it’s you,” the Child Eater said.

  Matyas made a noise and tried to back away, but the hand with the knife waved him closer. “There’s no need to run,” the Child Eater said. “You can’t do anything to me, and I won’t hurt you.”

  Against his will, Matyas stepped closer. Now he saw what the object on the ground was—a boy, ten or eleven years old. He looked emptied out, with no life, no trace of life in the crumpled mass. And yet, Matyas thought he knew him, recognized what was left of him. Rorin? he thought.

  And then, as Matyas remembered the boy’s name, he realized suddenly there was something else he remembered. The name! He knew the name of the Child Eater! He could destroy this ancient evil and then he could fly. He’d done it at last. He’d found the right place.

  In the dream, Matyas raised his hands, fingers spread wide to gather power. Nothing happened. It doesn’t matter, he told himself. He had the name. “Federaynak!” he shouted, “I am Master Matyas. I’ve come to destroy you.”

  Federaynak laughed. “Why? You’re just like me.”

  He woke up with a cry of pain, though he couldn’t remember what caused it. He couldn’t seem to remember anything, really, not how he got here or where he was going. In fact, when he thought about it, he discovered he couldn’t even remember his own name! He felt like this should bother him much more than it actually did. He didn’t know why, but he felt almost a relief about losing his name. There’d been something . . . something he was supposed to do, and now he didn’t have to.

  The Sun shone without heat, as if the Sun itself couldn’t get warm. He stood up all stiff and hungry, with no idea how to find food. Looking down at this strange, green robe he wore, he saw again the lines and squiggles and wondered what they were. Then it struck him and he almost burst out laughing. Writing! He was wearing a robe with writing on it. How did he ever come to wear something like this? Suddenly he looked around nervously. Had he stolen it? Were people searching for him? He might have thrown it off and hidden it, except there was nothing else to put on, and he didn’t think it was a good idea to walk around naked. He felt around the robe and discovered there were pockets, subtly made so that they were hardly there. Hoping to find some money, he reached inside, but all he came up with were scraps of paper with marks on them—more writing—and some leaves, and an envelope. He opened it, still hoping to discover money, or maybe gold, but all he found was a foul-smelling yellow powder. If it hadn’t reeked so badly, he might have tried to sell it, but he couldn’t imagine anyone would want it so he threw the envelope away. A little of the powder got onto the heel of his hand and it itched for most of the morning.

  He shook his head and sighed. He wasn’t going to solve anything just standing here so he began to walk.

  He walked for many hours, until he finally came to a city.

  It was very large, with grand buildings of all sizes and colors, some with gold roofs, others made of stone or glass or iron. There were simpler houses as well, made of dried mud bricks or wood.

  In the center stood a castle and he almost set out in that direction, but then he noticed another structure off to the side, at the top of a steep hill. There was a stone wall with a large gate that he could just make out from so far away, and the elaborate tops of what must have been elegant multi-story buildings. Off to one side, but higher than everything else, stood a simple stone tower whose top was lost in the bright Sun. He discovered he wanted very much to go there. He took a few steps in that direction only to stop. How could he even think of just walking up to something so rich and important? He was only . . . he was nobody. Someone who couldn’t even remember his own name.

  And besides, he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten in . . . a long time. Instead of going to powerful places and presenting himself as if he was some kind of great prince, he should just try to feed himself.

  He wandered aimlessly, confused, wondering what to do. When he saw people with food, he asked if he could have a little. Some laughed, as if he’d made a joke, others hurried away, still others looked angry, as if they wanted to say something nasty but didn’t dare. He couldn’t understand why people would act that way—what had he done to them? He didn’t even know them.

  As he tried to figure it out, he realized that whatever the reaction, they all appeared to look first at his clothes. Maybe he was someone rich or important! Maybe people were afraid of him. More likely he really had stolen the robe and people knew it. He didn’t feel like a thief, but how could he be sure when he couldn’t remember anything?

  Nevertheless, if his robe really was the problem he should get rid of it. It would be a shame, it was so well made, but it clearly wasn’t doing him any good.

  When he came to a street with vendors selling old clothes and broken tools from blankets on the ground, he looked around until he spotted an old woman wearing a robe a little like his own. It was much thicker, lumpier, with crude designs, but there was a resemblance, as if . . . as if she had in fact copied the one he was wearing. He became suddenly very frightened. Had people reacted so strangely not just because the robe looked wealthy, but because they actually recognized it? He must have stolen it, because how could someone as worthless as he be wearing a robe that was not only rich but famous? But how had he got it? The horrible thought struck him that he might have killed the original owner. Snuck up on him when he was sleeping, crushed his head with a stone or something. No wonder people were afraid of him! If only he could remember. Could he really have done something so terrible? All he knew was that he had to get rid of it.

  “Please,” he said to the woman, “would you like to buy this?” He fingered the front of his robe, praying silently she would say yes. “It’s like yours,” he said, “but nicer.” Her eyes narrowed and he was scared he’d insulted her, but she said nothing, just stared at him so long he wondered if she might not speak his language. Finally she held up a few tarnished coins. “Here,” she said. She thought a little, then reached over to her neighbor’s blanket for a brown tunic and pants. “And this to change into,” she said.

  He heard laughter as he walked away in his brown clothes but at least he had money. He was very careful with it, buying only the simplest food and eating as little as possible. At night, he slept in alleys or under stars. Vivid dreams troubled him, but he could never remember them when he woke up. At least people had stopped staring at him.

  His money ran out just as winter brought the first frost to the city. Now he needed warmth as well as food. All he had for his feet were the sandals he’d been wearing when he came there. He should have told the old woman she had to give him boots along with the money. Maybe if he found her again . . . No, she’d only laugh at him. Sometimes he looked up at the sky and thought how wonderful it would be if he could just fly away, disappear and then come down again somewhere warm and safe.

  He tried begging but never seemed to make enough in a day for even the most meager meal, let alone extra for new shoes. There was something about him that made people turn away, even now that he’d got rid of the robe. Oh, he knew he was dirty and smelly, but so were the other beggars. Something in him bothered people, maybe they didn’t realize it themselves, but they rushed away as soon as he approached them.

  He would have to steal. He didn’t want to. The thought of whatever he must have done to whoever had owned the robe made him queasy, and now he was going to steal again. But what choice did he have?

  He watched people walk by and wondered how he could knock them out and take their money. When he realized he could never do that, he began to stare at shops closed for the evening or darkened houses. This too he didn’t dare. Finally, one evening, almost delirious with hunger, he attempted to pick someone’s wallet from his pouch. The man was out with two friends and he stopped to buy a bottle of wine from a street vendor. When the wou
ld-be pickpocket saw the tan leather wallet full of coins bounce back into the open bag, he could not help but follow them.

  They caught him immediately. The intended victim did nothing, only smiled while the others beat and kicked him and threw him back and forth like a toy. When they left, all he could do was stagger a few feet away, spitting blood, until he fell into a snow bank against the wall of a small inn.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  JACK

  Jack Wisdom knew something was wrong almost immediately, but it took him three days to admit it. As soon as the car had gone around the corner, he’d wanted to run after it, open the door and pull out his son, before . . . before it could swallow him. That was the image that filled his mind, Dr. Reina’s Mercedes was like a monster that would gulp down his helpless little boy.

  Ridiculous, he told himself. If he seriously thought that Simon was in danger, he wouldn’t have let him go, right? If he really thought he’d made a mistake he would get in his car and chase him down, or call the cops, not fantasize a sprint down the block like some character out of a comic book. Separation anxiety, that’s all it was. Possessiveness. Maybe he didn’t want Simon to get better. Maybe he was scared he’d lose his tight hold on his son. Maybe he was jealous. Selfish bastard, he told himself. Care more about yourself than your own child. But that wasn’t how he felt. How he felt was terrified.

  For two days, Jack used anger at himself to ignore the alarm bells that rang up and down his body. The surges of panic that almost doubled him over. The tears that finally caused his boss to tell him to take some time off. The prayers that ran through his mind when he was watching TV or washing dishes. He found himself thinking of that horrible night when Rebecca had tried to kill their baby. Strangely, it wasn’t the horror of the fire or his wife’s insanity that caught him up, it was the peculiar poem or lullaby she’d been chanting.