Paul, confused, reacted slowly. Running through the living room, he could hear her; she was near the top of the stairs, he guessed. He pulled the door open—Rachel had slammed it shut behind her. He caught a fleeting glimpse of her nightgown as she rounded the top of the stairs and started for the back of the second-floor hallway—toward the boy’s room.
“Rachel, stop!”
He took the stairs three at a time and, on the landing, paused a moment, his wide-eyed and out-of-focus gaze on the bare wood floor, his hand clasped hard to his ribs. He took a deep breath and looked down the hallway. The boy’s door, he saw, was open. He tried to disregard the agonizing pain in his ribs and stumbled down the hallway. “Rachel!” he gasped, the word barely audible, even to himself. “Don’t!”
It was a grotesque and unbelievable scene that greeted him when he reached the boy’s room. But, he knew, as grotesque and unbelievable as it was, he was powerless to affect it.
“Rachel, darling…” A plea. And before he fell to the floor, unconscious, the boy—prone on the cot at the far end of the room—looked over, and Rachel—her arm upraised over him, the broken spoon tight in her hand—looked over. And the boy’s face, as usual, but impossibly, was blank, and Rachel’s face bore the same grim smile that had first appeared on it less than a minute before.
*****
The world from which Paul struggled—first reluctantly, then with desperation—back to consciousness was a world of memory that, once released, became uncontrollable because it had been denied for so long. A world inhabited by himself, and his father and all the forms two such people can take:
Samuel Griffin, new father—his pride and happiness muted by the death of his wife in childbirth.
Paul Griffin, infant, waiting long hours alone at the farmhouse for his father to finish a day’s work.
Samuel Griffin shutting the house up tight against a fierce winter storm.
Paul Griffin miraculously averting death from pneumonia, cradled tightly in his father’s arms.
Paul Griffin listening, barely comprehending, as his father speaks, in tones of deep respect, of “Lumas, my old friend.”
Samuel Griffin remembering his wife and weeping openly, unashamedly, but somehow no longer with sadness.
Father and son wandering the darkened forest, and the father’s words: “Some will tell you, Paul, that the oceans are the source of all life.” Then, with a slow, sweeping motion of his arm, a motion designed to encompass the forest, “But now, this is!”
The whole thing both kaleidoscopic and a process of maturation. And Paul, an integral part of it—as observer and participant—more convinced of its reality than of the reality of Rachel wielding the broken spoon, of fields to be planted, of vandalized and restored farmhouses and the marks of human teeth on screen doors.
Reality so stark, so inescapable, that to finite understanding it became illusory.
And Paul fought to escape from it, its grip on him suffocatingly strong—each scene, as it swept past, a mere fraction of a second long, was timeless, as if painting on a revolving wheel of immense size.
The last day, the day of his father’s death, shimmered by.
Then the following day, a day of torturous silence, at first, as if the land beyond the farmhouse and the farmhouse itself had become separated from the flow and events and noise of existence. And then, with the approach of evening, a merciful silence. To Paul Griffin’s young mind (trying to grope its way out of confusion and grief), existence had hushed temporarily as a show of respect to the man lying dead.
Then the silence was broken by the sound of someone walking very slowly up the stairs to the bedroom where Paul tried to sleep.
“Father,” Paul said, “is that you?”
The footfalls grew heavier.
“Father?”
The noises stopped. Paul Griffin slept.
And was awakened by the knowledge that something was touching him very lightly, as a spider would, on the forehead, the cheeks, the arms.
And barely discernible in the darkness, the face of a child—expressionless, but, somehow, bearing curiosity, not question, and empathy, not sympathy, but bearing it as if in judgment of Paul’s bewilderment and grief, as if finding out if the emotions gave pleasure or pain.
And the wheel had completed its revolution, had once again come to the beginning, the death of Elizabeth Griffin, the birth of Paul Griffin, the long hours alone at the farmhouse, shutting the house up tight against the winter storm, Samuel Griffin weeping openly, unashamedly, but not with sadness.
Paul Griffin fought to make himself more an observer than a participant, fought to question—as he hadn’t, then—his father’s words: “Some will tell you, Paul, that the oceans are the source of all life. But now, this is!” Words so very difficult to comprehend, then, words so damnedly difficulty to accept now.
“No, Father,” Paul said aloud. “You’re wrong. You have to be.”
“Paul? Please answer me, Paul.”
“The only things created here, Father, are the crops we grow, the wood we use as fuel and to build our houses…”
But there was no answer from Samuel Griffin. He lay dead in the far field while his young son waited, grief stricken and confused, in the second-floor bedroom—waited for the dark, expressionless child to speak.
And it was once again the time of death and the time of birth.
“Paul, please, please answer me!”
“Rachel?”
“Some will tell you, Paul, that the oceans are the source of all life. But now, this is!”
“I don’t know what you mean, Father. Tell me what you mean!”
“Paul?”
“Rachel?”
“Please answer me, Paul.”
“Tell me what you mean, Father. Tell me what you mean. Father? Father?”
The immense wheel slowly receded.
Finally, mercifully, it was Rachel whose face was before him, and it was not expressionless; it bore, intermittently, confusion, anger, anxiety.
“Rachel…the child…”
“He’s all right, darling.”
“You didn’t—“
“No.” She averted her eyes briefly. “No. He’s all right.”
“Paul attempted to maneuver himself into a sitting position on the hallway floor. The pain in his ribs stopped him. “Goddammit!” he said.
“Is it your ribs, Paul?”
He nodded a little.
“Do you think you can get down the stairs?”
“I don’t know. Not right now.”
“I can help you, Paul.”
He tried to smile, but his lips only quivered.
“I can, Paul.”
“Just…let me lie here another minute. I’ll be okay.”
Rachel said nothing for a moment, then; “About the child, Paul.” She waited for him to signal her to continue. He said nothing. “About what I was going to do. It was…like before. When we first found him. Do you remember?”
“Remember what?”
“What I said then, about knowing…and not knowing. Do you remember?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“It happened again, Paul. When I saw…when you showed me what you’d found. It happened again. Just like before. And I couldn’t help myself.”
Paul slowly raised himself up on his elbows, right hand pressed firmly to his ribs, gaze on the dark wall. “Why, Rachel?”
“I don’t know.”
Paul closed his eyes a moment in a silent refusal to accept her words. “Help me up, would you?”
With effort, and with Rachel’s arm under his, he stood.
Chapter Fourteen
When she thought about it, and there was rarely a time that she didn’t, Rachel found herself more angry, confused and (looking inward) frightened than ashamed by what she’d done. The only shame she felt was because of her lack of shame. The only comfort for her, she knew, was in the fact that, at the last moment, mercy or cowardice—she wasn’t sure whic
h—had stopped her.
Paul, she realized, did not and could not understand. It was far too much to ask of him. Because she did not understand. The harshly illuminated, but only briefly glimpsed, truth had darkened once again.
Paul hadn’t used the words I don’t understand. If he had, he would have been asking for an explanation, a reason. And the explanation he’d accepted, had been forced by his lover for her to accept, was embodied in the three words she’d used: “I don’t know.” Words at least vague enough, or ambiguous enough, that he didn’t have to center on them, because they were externalizing words, they put the explanation outside her, beyond the scope of her responsibility. And that, in the face of her act, was a comforting thing.
He had watched her. Although his ribs had stopped giving him pain several days after his collapse in the second-floor hallway, and there was much work left to do in the fields, he had found one blatantly false excuse after another to stay in the house with her, or near it.
Until today. Three weeks after her attempt on the child.
*****
“Do you think you’ll be all right alone here for a few hours, Rachel?” He’d finished his breakfast, was carrying his plate and silverware to the sink.
The words Do you trust me? nearly slipped from her mouth; instead, she aid, “I think so. Why?”
“I’ve got something to do.” He set his plate gently into the sink.
“Something to do?”
“Yes. It’s been bothering me—“
“Mr. Lumas?”
“How’d you know?”
“I knew.”
“Uh-huh.” He paused. His back was turned. “It’s not something I want to do,” he said. “I wish to hell someone else could do it. But there is no one else, is there?”
She said nothing; there was, they both knew, a whole townful of people only ten miles north.
“So…” he began.
“You think he’s dead, don’t you, Paul?”
“You don’t?”
“We’ve said he is.”
“And I suppose we believe it,” Rachel answered. “I suppose we have to.”
“For our own peace of mind, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Forget it, Rachel. There are more important things.”
“I know that. There’s no need to remind me.”
A moment’s silence. “Yes,” he said. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She said nothing.
“Anyway,” he began, “I won’t be bring him back, if it bothers you.”
“Jesus, Paul!”
“I’ll…be burying him out there. I think he’d like that. Don’t you think he’d like that?”
Confused silence.
“No one will know except us, darling. He had no family—he told me that. If we were to report his death, well, it would…” He trailed off.
“Yes?” Rachel said.
“It would complicate things. Don’t you think it would complicate things?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well then…”
“I’ll be all right here. Don’t worry.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
*****
He had been gone not quite half an hour. Unless he walked very slowly—in order to postpone the inevitable—he was probably at Lumas’s cabin by now, had found the man’s body, might even be looking for a burial site. Close to the cabin would be good. Of course, as with the two children—Margaret and Joseph Newman—there would be no coffin, only, perhaps, a blanket or a sheet…
Rachel shook her head quickly, as if to shake the thought away (how easily they had slipped out of what had become—what was—their previous life. As if they had been unplugged from it. And the kind of light that life had given them was gone, no longer illuminated much that was worthwhile).
She shifted the tray she carried so it balanced on her right arm and pulled the stairway door open with her left hand. She cursed. Why in hell hadn’t Paul put a bulb in the stairway, as she’d asked so many times. The stairway was dangerous this way. She remembered the last time she’d used it—her foot, on the landing, reaching and readying itself for another step that simply was there.
But, cautious, she climbed the stairs without incident and moved, still cautious, down the darkened hallway toward the boy’s room. At his door, she again balanced the tray on one arm, fished the skeleton key from her pants pocket, and opened the door.
The boy’s light was on, though it did little more than alter the darkness a little.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” the boy said, his voice, as always, disconcertingly close to hers.
He was at the window, his back to her. And he was naked.
“Are you hungry?” Rachel said.
“Hello,” he said.
Perhaps, Rachel thought, studying him, it was the light, or that her eyes were adjusting to it, or had over-adjusted and would soon be returning to normal.
“Are you all right?” she said.
“Hello,” he said.
Or maybe it was a combination of the feeble artificial light and the sunlight coming in through the boarded-up window.
“Did you sleep?”
“Sleep?” he said.
It was his color, she thought. It appeared to have faded.
“I’m sorry,” she said. It was a phrase she’d used often since her attempt on his life. But, she knew, it encompassed much more than that.
“Are you all right?” she repeated.
“Hello,” he said.
She set the tray of food on top of the dresser, took a few steps toward him. Damn, if only the light were better.
“I’ve brought you your breakfast. Are you hungry?”
“Sorry?” he said.
She pursed her lips. As she had done a dozen time, she thought she could go on like this with him for hours, hoping that he’d make a sensible reply at last. But not this morning.
*****
She felt in back of herself for the doorknob, found it, pulled the door open an inch. There was much to do. Because the child had repeatedly torn off the various articles of clothing she’d fashioned for him, she’d devised what Paul grimly referred to as “the straitjacket”—a one-piece green corduroy suit which, when finished, would fit snugly around the boy’s neck, terminate at his thighs, and lace securely down his back. She and Paul had agreed that the boy would have to be a contortionist to get out of it. It smacked of cruelty, but if the child did not soon to learn to wear clothes, at least before Autumn, Rachel thought, he might fall victim to the same fatal illness that had taken Margaret Newman. She wondered, suddenly, why the poor girl had occurred to her. What did she have in common with this young boy?
She pulled the door open wide, turned. From below, she heard the back door open. “Paul?” she called. She almost added, Is Hank all right? but realized it would be a foolish question. “Paul? Is it done?” Silence.
She locked the door behind her and walked quickly down the hallway to the top of the stairs.
She stopped and confusedly at the closed door at the bottom of the stairway. Had she closed it when she’d gone up to the boy’s room? she wondered.
“Paul?” she called again.
Silence.
*****
Greased paper normally covered the one east-facing window in Henry Lumas’s cabin. The paper had been torn from the frame and, through an opening between the pines beyond, the morning sunlight sharply exposed what lay on Lumas’s bed. The rest of the room was in near darkness.
Very slowly and quietly, as if not to disturb the room and what it contained, Paul pushed the cabin door shut.
“Hank?” he said. He cursed himself. It was all too clear that what lay on the bed was not the man he’d come to bury, that Henry Lumas was far beyond the pathetic and essentially empty gesture of burial. For, Paul thought, you do not bury a man’s clothes. You don’t say comforting things over a man’s clothes.
He cursed himself again and took a few halting steps forward.
Lumas’s red flannel shirt had been shredded viciously; only the arms remained more or less intact. His faded brown pants had been torn in half down the crotch and down the back; the two halves lay crumpled at the foot of the bed. There were smatterings of blood on the remains of the shirt, but nowhere else, except randomly on the floor around the bed. It was apparent that, mercifully, Lumas had been attacked long after he’d died. If not, the room would have been awash with his blood.
Several emotions swept over Paul—confusion: what animal would, or could, go to the trouble of removing Lumas’s clothes before making a meal of him? Fear: not because of the scene itself—it was frightening only by extension—but because he knew that whatever had attacked Lumas was probably still lurking somewhere in the forest. Grief, though muted by the circumstances of Lumas’s death. Despite his apparently senseless attack on the child—made only a little less senseless by what Rachel had done; that apparent and silent conspiracy spoke only softly of sense or reason and shouted of hysteria—Lumas had been a good, kind and sensitive man, in many respects much like Paul’s father. And when such a man dies, there’s good reason for grief.
Paul buried his face in his hands and closed his eyes tightly, as if to strengthen the grief he felt. A tear moistened his fingers, then another. And he realized that the tears were not for Lumas—they were for him self, and for Rachel. They were tears of confusion, and of the agony that life here had become. Tears that now flowed freely through his fingers, down the back of his hands, and onto the crude, dark floor. “Hank,” he murmured. “Hank, goddamn you!” It was a curse of necessity. Something had to be cursed.
He let his hands fall. For a second, he flirted with the idea of burning the cabin to the ground, as if that would erase all that had happened in the few months—erase it or cleanse it. But it was a foolish thought and he knew it.
He turned and looked up at the cabin’s severely peaked ceiling. Were those small sounds the sounds of rain? But that was impossible. All morning the sky had been pale, quiet and cloudless. Too beautiful a day to perform the grim task he’d come here to perform.
Strange Seed Page 9