Simon, Simon,
Rhymin’ Simon,
Take the time an’
Stop the crime an’
Set the children free.
What the hell was that about? And why was he thinking of it now, when he’d forgotten all about it for twelve years?
Strangest of all was the sense that Simon was actually very close. Right in the next room. Just outside the door. On the other side of the wall. As if Reina had not really taken his son, but only hidden Simon in some secret passage, like in an old movie. Jack would wake up in the middle of the night, think, Simon, and reach out to touch his son, then gasp with sorrow and fear when there was no one there. I’m losing my mind, Jack thought, and told himself he had to pull himself together, for Simon’s sake.
On the third day, Jack woke with a certainty that Simon was not only close but in danger. He could almost hear him crying to come home. Just a dream, he told himself. Simon was safe. It was hard, but it was for the best . . . They’d all discussed it, Jack and Howard Porter and Dr. Reina. He just needed to trust.
No, he thought. Simon was not safe. He was sure of it. What Jack Wisdom needed to trust was himself. He sat up and grabbed the phone.
For two days, Jack had made no attempt to call the Institute. Whenever he thought about it, he told himself that Dr. Reina had asked for no contact in the initial stage of treatment. Now he had to admit that the real reason was fear he might hear exactly what he was hearing now. “The number you have dialed is disconnected or not in service.” Jack’s hands shook and he had to steady himself to dial again. He tried two more times, then Information in case the number on Dr. Reina’s card was out of date or misprinted. No listing. He had the operator check every variation he could think of, as well as other towns in the area. Nothing. “Oh God,” Jack said as he hung up the phone. “Oh God. Help me.”
He ran to the computer, slammed the keys for the website. No such address. This too he tried over and over, and then used search engines for the Institute or Dr. Reina himself. Nothing. This is crazy, he told himself. He’d spent hours reading and rereading everything on that site. The testimonials. The fucking videos! Where were they? Where was Reina’s goddamn Institute? Where was his son?
He called Howard Porter, asked him for everything he knew about Reina and the Institute. Howard started to speak then stopped himself. “Jesus, Jack,” he said. “I don’t . . . I don’t think I really know anything about him. Jesus Christ.”
Jack began to cry. “How could we do this?” he said. “How the hell could we do this?”
“I don’t know. It’s like I was hypnotized or something.”
If Jack hadn’t needed Howard so much, he might have wanted to travel through the phone lines and strangle him. Instead he said, “What am I going to do, Howard? That son of a bitch has got Simon. I don’t even know what he is, but he’s got my little boy.”
“I’ll be right there,” Howard said. “You better call the police.”
Jack and Howard Porter spent all day with the police: local, state, FBI and on the phone with the cops in Wisconsin, who knew nothing about Reina or his Institute. In the middle of his panic, Jack worried they would blame him, maybe even charge him with something. He kept expecting them to say, “You gave your son away to some pervert with a fake website and a fancy brochure? What the hell kind of father are you?”
In fact, they were kind, patient and thorough. They were also helpless. There were no files on a Frederick Reina, no information about his supposed Institute. When Jack and Howard worked with the sketch program to come up with a picture, it brought no connections from the state or FBI’s lists of pedophiles. There were men who stole children, not for themselves but to sell them, and they checked that, too, including searches of the pedophile websites where predators advertised such things. These sites were heavily guarded, they explained, but their undercover people had infiltrated them. Nothing.
The police managed to track down the organizer of the conference where Howard had met Reina. They too knew nothing, were not even sure how they’d come to invite him to speak. One of the organizers laughed nervously as she talked to the detectives. She said, “I don’t know how we could do that—accept a speaker no one really knew anything about. It was like we were hypnotized or something.”
After nearly twelve hours, Jack finally allowed the police to fill him with hopeful reassurances and send him home. They told him he should eat, get some rest. Try not to worry, they said. They would call him as soon as they had any news.
At home, Jack stared at the telephone. Any moment, he told himself. Any moment the phone would ring, and it would be the police, or the FBI, to tell him it was all a mistake. They’d found Simon and he was fine. It would all be okay. Try not to worry, the police had said.
Worry! Fuck, worry was what you did when your son’s grades went down. This was so far beyond worry—what could he do? He had to do something. He thought of what his mother would tell him to do. Pray. He’d been sitting in the kitchen, and now he walked stiffly to the living room, as if God might appreciate the more formal setting. He got down on his knees alongside the couch, in imitation of how his mother had taught him to kneel by his bed at night. Hands clasped, he said, “Please, God, spare my son. I know I don’t deserve your help. I haven’t gone to church or anything for years. But please. Not for me, for him. He’s just a little boy. Whoever this Doctor Reina really is, don’t let him hurt Simon. Please.”
He stayed there for a little while, then got up. Who was he fooling? He didn’t know how to pray. He’d never really done it, not seriously. Was it even fair to ask God for help after ignoring Him for so long? Should he offer something? Jesus, he thought, he’d already given up his firstborn. What the fuck else could he offer?
In a wild gesture of despair he spun around. His eyes fell upon the photo of Rebecca on the piano. Even in his time of deepest anger he’d never taken it down. He picked it up in both hands, sighed at the memory of her eyes. She was sitting almost formally on the bench he’d put in the back yard in honor of their first meeting, that time in the park. Both feet were on the ground, her hands were in her lap and she was staring right through the camera.
“Bec, Bec,” he said. “What have I done? Oh God, Rebecca, I’ve screwed everything up. I’ve killed him. I know it, I know it, I’ve killed our little boy. That’s what I thought you were going to do, and now I’ve done it. I got it all wrong. I got it all so fucking wrong.” Tears gushed from his body. “Help me, Rebecca! Please!”
Exhausted suddenly, he sat down on the sofa with the photo still in his hands. Lights flickered around the picture but he only half noticed them. He didn’t think he could sleep, but he closed his eyes and in seconds was gone.
He dreamed he was outside, behind the house, but it also was the lawn of Dr. Frederick Reina’s Institute. He could see the huge building, just past the trees, just like in the picture. And then he saw Simon. His son was running toward him, mouth open in terror. Behind Simon stood Dr. Reina, calm and sleek in a white suit. He held something gray and sparkly but Jack couldn’t make out what it was.
Jack wanted to call out to Simon, tell him Daddy was coming, but Dr. Reina said, “No, no, Mr. Wisdom, you must not interfere. Simon’s treatment has begun.” Jack wanted to shout him down but couldn’t, for Reina’s words had taken on solid form, a syrup that covered Jack’s body and filled his mouth. He fell down and couldn’t get up, could hardly breathe or see. He would die here. He would suffocate and die, unable to help his son.
It was then that the squirrels appeared. With quick efficiency they gnawed away at the thick coating, first around his eyes and mouth, then his arms and legs—
Jack woke to see Rebecca standing in the living room.
Chapter Thirty-Six
MATYAS
He might have died there, against that wall, with snow all around him, and inside, the sounds of people laughing, warm, safe. Vaguely he thought of entering and asking for help, but what good would that do
him? He was a beggar. His whole life he’d been beaten, kicked, thrown out, and now he would die where he belonged. He was ready, he told himself. He’d tried to fight back and he couldn’t do it. He’d never had a chance, he was just a child, a helpless boy. It made sense he couldn’t remember his name, or anything else about his life. He was nothing. He’d always been nothing. He sat down against the wall, arms wrapped tight around his cold, hurt body.
And yes, he might have died there, alone and broken, except . . . he heard a noise. Weeping. Somewhere nearby someone was crying, a sound so piteous the boy could not seem to shut it out. So he pushed himself to his feet and as best as he could he followed the sound, moving along the wall, around the corner. There he saw a man on the ground, his head in his hands. The man looked old or sick. He might have been burly once, but now his skin sagged, and the muscles along his arms shook like strings as he rocked back and forth. He’d had red hair, apparently, and a thick beard, but now most of his hair had fallen out and his beard had grown irregularly and both looked the color of rust on old metal.
Despite the man’s withered shape, he wore a heavy robe and some kind of moth-eaten animal skin thrown over his shoulders. And boots. Warm, fur-lined boots. The boy stared at them, the boots, the cloak. He could just take them and run. The weeping man looked too weak to put up a fight.
Instead, he knelt down and said, “What’s wrong? What happened to you?”
The man shook his head. “I can’t do it anymore,” he said. “I’m finished. I can’t do it.”
“Do what?” No answer. The boy said, “Maybe you need some rest. Maybe if you go inside they can give you a room.” The old man cried out as if in pain, but the boy had no idea why. Awkwardly he put his arm around the man and tried to lift him to his feet.
“No!” the man said, and twisted away.
“It’s all right,” the boy said.
“You don’t understand,” the man said. “I slept there last night.”
“And what, you made them angry?” The boy thought how he was starting to get pretty angry himself, but he just said, “It doesn’t matter. When they see how much you need to be inside they’ll have to take you.” And what about himself? When did anyone ever take him in?
“No, no,” the man said. “It’s the curse. The spell.”
Spell, the boy thought. Was this man some kind of wizard? He scrambled backward, frightened at what the man might do to him. Could wizards read people’s minds? Would he know that the boy had wanted to rob him? He looked around, nervous that the man whose wallet he’d tried to steal might come up and denounce him. There was no one there, but he noticed something odd in the snow near the old man. A broken stick lay there, or the remains of one, for it was just a splintered shaft around two feet long. It looked like there had been some kind of red stone attached to the top, but it too was broken now, just a jagged, dull red shard at the end of the wood.
The boy stared at it, then again at the boots, the fur. Maybe he could sell the stone. Keep the boots and the fur. He might even get the robe off and sell that, too. But he looked at the man, slumped over and helpless, and the thought of hurting him, even just leaving him there, made the boy feel sick. He didn’t know why. What had this man, this wizard, ever done for him? All the great wizards in the world, and none of them had ever protected him.
And yet, he bent down and reached out carefully to touch the man’s shoulder. When no lightning bolt of magic knocked him backward he laid his arm more firmly over the ragged fur. “It’s all right. I’ll take you inside and you’ll be safe.”
“No! You ignorant, stupid . . . Get out of here. Let me die.”
Rage shook the boy. They were all the same, wizards, innkeepers, old women . . . He looked around for a weapon, something to give the old man what he deserved. He saw the broken stick with the jagged stone and grabbed it. A stabbing pain went through him, but only for an instant. The stone seemed to brighten, casting a glow over his hand. Or did the effect come from the swarm of small lights that suddenly had appeared in the air, darting every which way all around him? What a strange sight. If it hadn’t been winter, he might have thought they were fireflies.
The man stared, open-mouthed, at the boy, the lights, the boy. In a rough whisper, he said, “How . . . what are you . . . how can you—?” He stopped, only to say a moment later, more loudly, “My God. It’s you.”
The boy ignored him. He wanted to ask what the man meant—could he possibly know who the boy was?—but he knew he had to go ahead and do whatever he was supposed to be doing. Even though he had no idea what was going on, he felt sure this was his only chance to help the old man. He raised the stick in his left hand with the jewel pointed at the night sky, then reached out to place his right palm on the old man. He tried the forehead first but that felt wrong, and he moved his hand to lay it over the man’s heart.
“No,” the man said, “you don’t know what you’re doing. No one can help me. You’ll just hurt yourself.”
The boy thought he should jerk his hand away, but he didn’t move. Instead, he looked at the swarm of lights and whispered, “Please. Help us.”
Heat ran through his body, hotter and hotter, and he kept telling himself to drop the stick and run. He didn’t move. Suddenly the stone broke, shattered into dust, and in that same instant something heavy and dark lifted from the old man’s chest. It hung in the air for less than a second then blew away.
The boy dropped the stick and pitched forward onto his hands and knees. When he’d caught his breath and could look at the old man again, he saw him slumped against the wall and for a moment he was terrified that instead of helping the man he’d killed him. But no, his chest was rising and falling—he was just asleep.
Exhausted, the boy almost lay down next to him, but then all his effort would have been wasted. So he shook the old man awake and said, “Get up. It’s time to go inside.” The man looked about to object again but all he did was nod and allow the boy to raise him to his feet then lead him to the door.
Inside, the inn was bright with oil lamps, and crowded with travelers and drinkers. They were laughing, arguing, whispering. Over in a corner, a group of men were playing cards, with small stacks of money in front of them, and something about that made the boy—the young man—uneasy, but he ignored the feeling. More important was how people might look at him. Some did glance at the old man held up by the ragged young beggar, but they soon returned to their sausages and beer. The only one to pay any real attention to them was the landlord, a bald, skinny man in a stained apron. “Well,” he said to the man, “so you’ve changed your mind and will stay another night with us after all. Good, good. And you’ve brought a friend?” He smirked at the young man, taking in his wretched condition but not looking particularly worried. The old man must have money.
The boy—the young man—looked longingly at the plates of food, the fireplace with its eager flames. He turned to the old man, hoping to be invited to stay, but instead the man took his hands and said, “Bless you. May the Creator and all the Guardians bless you forever.”
Guilt, like a shock of pain, made the young man pull his hands away. Guardians. He’d done something—something terrible . . . The memory slid away from him but it made no difference. The truth remained. He did not deserve a warm fire or food or even the hope to sit quietly among people. He ran outside, back to the snow. Behind him, the old man called, “Wait!” and the innkeeper laughed. He paid no attention.
Now he knew it would be a race for what would kill him first: hunger or cold, or maybe even blood loss, for he was still injured from the beating he’d taken when he tried to steal the wallet. He collapsed into a deep snow bank, hoping he would fall asleep and miss the actual slide into death.
If he’d been hoping for a soft bed, he didn’t find it. There was something hard in the snow, just where his head lay. Something small and rectangular, with sharp corners. Groaning, he pushed himself up and stared at it. It looked like a package wrapped in blue cloth, about
the width of his hand and not quite as long.
And then he began to shake, and it was not from blood or hunger or cold. He shook as if the world itself was breaking apart. Memory was returning to him, wave upon wave. He knew who he was. Knew what he’d done. He knew why he did not deserve to live. But most of all, he knew what this was. He knew it even before he fumbled off the blue wrapping. Before he saw the stack of painted cards. Before he looked at the first picture, a joyous man hanging upside down by one foot over an abyss of light.
He knew who he was. Matyas, the most undeserving of men. And he knew what these cards were. A miracle.
For this was the Tarot of Eternity: the original, painted by Joachim the Blessed thousands of years before Matyas’ birth, and hidden from the world for nearly as long.
Matyas clutched the cards against his chest and wept. He wept with all his might and all his heart and all his soul. His blood became tears, the snow became tears, the fires of the city became a river of tears.
There was a saying about these cards, from Joachim himself. Medun had told it to him, long ago, but he’d forgotten it, just as he had forgotten everything important. But now it had come back. Whosoever touches the Tarot of Eternity, he shall be healed of all his crimes.
Strength was returning to him now. He knew that no one would harm him and he should rest. It was what the cards wanted, he could feel it. He clutched them tightly against his chest and fell asleep.
He woke to sighs of sorrow. He looked around, only to discover he was sitting at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac of dirt houses. He understood then that it was the Earth’s pain he was hearing. This was what Veil heard, he realized. All those times she sat in her chair, hands in her lap, eyes on nothing, she was listening to the world’s sadness. He shook his head. How could he not have known that?
The Child Eater Page 33