Rusty was trying to twist to see me now as he stammered out words fast and hard. “Tommy, don’t do it, man. I’m fucked up, I know it. But I’m your brother. I love you. This thing…I think it messed with me. Made me do bad things. It’s some kind of fucked up monster, and I don’t blame you for abandoning me, for leaving me with it, but I need you now. We can beat it together, just don’t let it…”
“Shut the fuck up.”
I felt Rusty tense slightly. “What?”
“I said shut up. I should have stopped you when we were kids, but I can’t change that. But I can sure as shit stop you from hurting him or anyone else ever again.”
Rusty gritted his teeth. “You picking that fucking thing, that fucking monster, over your own brother?”
I dug my forearm into his neck so hard I felt his tendons creak. “The only monster down here is you.” Looking up at Harvey, I nodded. “Do it.”
It really did happen quickly. Harvey trailed his fingers over Rusty’s face before pressing hard against his forehead. In a deeper, rumbling voice, he spoke a phrase as Rusty began to wail again for the final time. “Kravosch enlea. Selah.”
And then Rusty was just…gone. It was strange, because it wasn’t like he vanished, not exactly. It was more like he was sitting in the corner and I just kept forgetting he was there. I looked around, and I thought I saw a faint shadow nearby, but when I tried to focus on it, it went away. Turning back to Harvey as I sat up, I asked if that was it.
He nodded with a sigh. “Yes. Rusty’s part is finished.”
Standing up, I bent down and reached for the hammer. “Then let me finish getting you out.”
It took another twenty minutes to break enough of the barrier to free Harvey, and when I was finished, I set the tools down and asked him if it was time for me to pay my price too. He made a sound that might have been a chuckle as he slowly moved out of the circle.
“Help me outside if you will. We can talk about it there.”
I took his large, slender hands and felt myself wince at how fragile they felt in my grip. Trying to be gentle, I walked with him through the door and into the afternoon sunshine. The moment the light hit him, Harvey began to change. His head filled out and his body thickened from a slight figure to a massive frame that dwarfed my own. All across his body I could see new leaves and branches growing and filling in ragged gaps that had been there moments before, and across his broad, barrel chest I could see flowering moss spreading like deep green fur.
I couldn’t help but smile at him. “Are you feeling better now?”
He returned a toothy smile that was somehow warm instead of terrifying. “Much better, yes.”
“Good.” I almost stopped there, but I felt compelled to go on. “Look, I know I’ve said I’m sorry. Sorry for what we did to you, sorry for everything you went through. But I want you to know that I mean it. Fuck, more than anything in my life, I wish I could take all of that back.”
Harvey nodded. “I believe you. I’m sorry for your regret and pain. But that pain isn’t the price. Part of the price was what you did in there. Helping me balance things with Rusty. The other part…well, it is up to you if you want to pay it.”
I frowned. “I told you I’ll pay whatever price you think is fair. I know I deserve it.”
The rumble that might have been a chuckle rose in his throat again. “Hear what it is first, then decide.” When I nodded, he went on. “Your sadness and regret are based on what you know. But there is much you do not know. I can show you everything that Rusty did that I remember. I can show you what my time in that circle was like. You will know and feel it as profoundly as if it were your own memories, and unlike some memories, these will not fade with age. Or you can choose not to see those things and go your own way.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘go my own way’?”
“Tommy, you are my friend. But the love of friendship is a precious thing. It must be paid for just like everything else. If you are willing to see the rest, the whole truth, we will remain friends forever. I will be going back to my land soon, but it may be that our paths would still cross from time to time, and in-between, you will always be in my heart.”
“And if I don’t see the whole truth? If I don’t pay the full price?”
“Then our paths will never cross, and while I’ll still love you, our pact of friendship will be broken.”
My legs trembling, I met his eyes as I stepped forward. “I think I understand. Show me, Harvey.”
****
I won’t try to describe all the terrible things that he revealed to me. The torture and cruelty he endured. The slow rot of Rusty’s soul as he continued to feed his darker appetites. I saw many, many things, and when it was all over, I lay in a broken heap on the ground weeping. After some time, I felt Harvey’s large hand gently stroking my back.
“You have done well, Tommy. I know it wasn’t easy.”
I looked up at him and smiled. “It wasn’t, but it’s nothing compared to what you went through.”
Harvey sat down next to me and shrugged his large shoulders. “It wasn’t always as bad as that. Where I’m from, there is no such thing as sleep or dreams, at least not as you know them. But while I can’t truly sleep, I can…submerge myself. Live inside myself. It makes it easier to survive. To stay sane.”
I rubbed my face. “So you did that a lot? Stayed inside yourself?”
“Not at first, no. I hoped Rusty would change his mind. Or you might come back. But as time passed, I saw little hope of anything getting better. So I sunk deep inside myself for longer and longer periods.” He sighed. “It was a selfish thing for me to do.”
I frowned. “Why is that selfish? You were being fucking tortured.”
Harvey’s eyes flickered as he looked at me. “You didn’t see any memories of Rusty killing anyone did you? Of him using me to kill anyone?” I shook my head. “That’s because I was buried down during those times. I still did it, and I know I did it, but at the time…well, I can’t dream, but that’s what I imagine having a dream must be like. A nightmare.” He stood up with a soft rustling sound. “I still have my price to pay for that too.” He looked troubled for a moment before offering me a smile. “But that’s for later. For now, I’m glad I had some time with you again.”
I stood up too, a knot growing in my stomach. “It sounds like you’re about to go.”
He nodded. “It’s time. But it may be that we see each other again some day. I really hope that we do.” Before I could say anything else, he reached forward and pulled me into a tight embrace. My feet barely brushed the ground as my face was buried in a soft bed of fragrant, furry moss. I found myself crying again a little as I hugged him back, but I realized I wasn’t really sad any more. Just grateful.
Because I realized that the final price Harvey had asked me to pay hadn’t been a punishment, it had been a gift. It freed me from any guilt about Rusty’s fate, and sharing the burden of Harvey’s pain…rather than making me feel weighted down, it made me feel lighter and happier. Made me hate myself less. Because I had finally stood by my friend after all this time. I had done the right thing for once in my life. And I had helped stop a monster from ever hurting anyone, including me, again.
I gave Harvey another hug as I began to sink back to the ground. He was starting to fade away, and in a matter of moments I was watching as a large leaf devil whirled and danced out of sight. I waved a final time and began walking back toward my car with a smile on my face.
I knew I would miss him in time. I knew I’d miss Rusty as well. But for now, all of that seemed very distant and unimportant compared to the wonderful truth burning in my heart.
We were both finally free.
Marrowtooth
I was frightened of my grandmother when I was a little girl. Her house lay at the edge of a foul-smelling bog filled with snakes and strange bugs during the day and alien bird cries and flickers of green swampfire at night. My mother would always reassure me tha
t she had grown up there, and while yes, there were some dangerous critters roaming around, as long as I stayed in sight of the house and watched where I put my hands and feet, I should be fine. That eased my fears of the house and yard a bit, but it did very little to help with my fear of the woman that lived there.
It wasn’t that she was unkind, and she acted as though she was happy whenever we came to visit, but I still found her off-putting all the same. I’d like to say it was her odd ways—the small furtive movements of her thin lips as she sucked idly on hard candy, her dark eyes darting this way and that as though she was following the invisible motions of some internal metronome. Or perhaps the way she seemed to panic as it grew closer to dark, wanting to make sure that we were all inside and her “safety candles” were lit at the threshold of every door and window. But to be honest, my mother seemed to take these things in stride when we visited, and so I quickly grew used to them as well.
No, the main problem was her leg. She wore a brace on her right leg—an ancient-looking metal and leather contraption that may not have been the same one she first got as a teenager sixty years earlier, but I couldn’t have said for certain. She always wore it for support, and the soft metallic creak creak creak it made as she puttered around the house always set me on edge during the day and terrified me in the small hours of the night.
But even the brace wasn’t the worst part. It was the smell.
For as long as I knew my grandmother, she had kept her lower right calf wrapped in gauze. She was a very clean woman and would change the gauze at least twice a day, but it never stopped it from oozing a brown stain across the fresh dressings and wafting out a smell of hot decay at certain points throughout the day. Much like the swampy marsh that surrounded us, I associated that smell with death and some terrible unknown, and I was horrified by it.
I still am.
****
When I was eleven, I walked in on my grandmother changing her dressing. I was a little less scared of her by then, but I still froze at interrupting this secret ritual I’d never seen before. I’d also never seen what was under the bandage.
In the side of her leg was a large hole the size of a half-dollar. My eyes were transfixed to the wound, which looked old but was somehow still wet and shiny in the dim lamplight coming from her bedroom nightstand. It took a moment before I even realized she was speaking to me.
“Clarissa. It’s okay, honey. Come on in.”
Part of me wanted to retreat, to run away from that macabre scene and forget it ever happened. But another part of me seemed to sense that this was a chance, maybe my only chance, to find out more about what had happened to my grandmother. She never talked about it, and when I asked my mother, she would just awkwardly change the subject or say all I needed to worry about was minding my granny when we were near the swamp.
So I went on in and sat in a chair opposite where she was applying a fresh bandage. She worked with the speed and ease of ingrained routine, and within a few moments she was finished and looking at me again with a small smile.
“Wondering what that place on my leg is?”
I nodded with a child’s honesty and she gave a laugh. “I don’t blame you, honey. It’s funny looking, ain’t it?”
I leaned forward a little, wrinkling my nose at the still dissipating rotten smell. “Are you sick?”
Her smile faltered a little before she shook her head slowly. “No, not as such. I’m old…and I guess that’s a form of illness. Time’s a disease they’ll never cure, my grandmomma used to say. But no, I’m all right.”
“Why do you have a big hole in your leg then?”
I saw her glance toward the door before her eyes found me again. Her voice was slightly lower when she spoke next. “That was from something out of the swamp. The dark. Folks around here call it Marrowtooth.” She paused a moment, giving me a considering look. “You sure you want to hear this? You can be a skittish little thing at times, and I don’t want no trouble with your mama if you can’t sleep tonight.”
My curiosity piqued, I nodded and asked her to go on.
****
When I was young, just a few years older than you, I went caterwauling with some friends of mine. That’s what we called it when we went to wandering the swamps looking for something to get into. We had headed out in the early afternoon, and all three of us were raised here. We knew these lands better than most anyone. But somehow, on that day, we got lost.
That by itself isn’t overly remarkable. Swamps are tricky places. Lots of places look the same, and the same place can look different depending on the weather and the time of day. If you roam the swamps all the time, you’re going to wind up lost once in a while. The main thing is that you don’t panic. You either orient yourself or backtrack until you find something that you recognize.
I was with my best two friends at the time, Jesse and Orry, and though Jesse had only lived in the area a few years, she recognized we were lost before me or Orry did. She said the trees looked funny, and she was right. I couldn’t rightly say what kinds of tree they even were, other than that they were twisted and sinister, with pale white bark and bright purple berries that I had never seen before. Orry was usually full of beans when it came to stuff like this, puffing up his chest and making jokes to impress his best friends who also happened to be the only girls his age he wasn’t awkward around. But he wasn’t laughing now. Instead he just grabbed our hands as we turned and started heading back the way we came. We all knew something was wrong, but we didn’t want to say it, as though speaking it would give it more power. Instead, we just wanted to follow our trail back home.
Tracks are a tricky thing in the swamp. They can fill in if the ground is too wet or not take at all if the ground is too hard or uneven. It took us a minute, but we found them—Jesse’s cowboy boots, Orry’s sneakers, and my old work boots I had saved up for the summer before. The sun was starting to go down, but we were making good progress and every time we’d hit a patch without any tracks, one of us would spot some sign or recognize some landmark. Within a few feet of that, we’d pick up our old trail again.
We had been backtracking for probably ten minutes when Jesse froze. “What’s that?” I looked to where she was pointing, farther up the path we were taking. At first I didn’t see anything, but when I heard Orry let out a curse, I eased forward and looked again.
It was our tracks. But it wasn’t just our tracks. Because instead of three sets of footprints, there were four.
I knew the tread of our shoes, but the other tracks didn’t seem to have been made with shoes at all. Instead they looked like the marks left by bare feet, only feet that were strange—long and narrow and ending in spindly toes that seemed to sink deep into the ground. I sucked in a breath and saw my own fear mirrored in their faces. Me and Orry said it at the same time.
“Marrowtooth.”
****
There was an old legend around these parts of a coven of witches that used to roam the swamps late at night. They made wicked deals with old things that lived in the rotten heart of this place. One of those things was Marrowtooth. I never knew what he was supposed to be exactly—some said a demon, but I don’t know if that’s right. But if his origins and nature were unclear, his habit was not.
The stories went that if you got caught off by yourself in the dark parts of the swamp, you might find yourself being followed by Marrowtooth. He’d follow you for awhile, tricking you and getting you more turned around. And once he grew bored, he would fall on you and drain you dry.
The reason he was called Marrowtooth was because of how he looked and what he did. His head was slick like that silly putty you used to play with. Bare slits for eyes and a nose. But his mouth…well, his mouth was wide and strong, and when he opened it, you saw a single thick tooth coming down like a reaper’s scythe.
When I was a little girl, Marshall Reaux was found just a few hundred feet from his house after having been lost for days. He had a hole in his back and all the marrow ha
d been sucked from his bones. I overheard my papa say once that his bones had just crumbled like powder when they moved the body. Now my father, like most, could be prone to fanciful tales, but he hadn’t been fanciful when he was saying that. In fact, it was one of the few times I remember ever hearing him sound scared.
As the three of us looked around the forest for whatever had been following us, I understood that fear. I had never been much for ghosts and goblins, but I had seen the trees and the tracks and I knew something was wrong. There was an electric warning on my skin and a taste in my mouth like I was sucking on a penny.
Something was coming.
We started moving again at a quicker pace, our eyes now torn between the path back and the trees around us. Jesse wasn’t as familiar with the stories as me and Orry, but she had heard of Marrowtooth and knew enough to be scared when her best friends were. Orry was a bit on the heavy side and was getting winded as we went, but he was still whispering that we needed to hurry, that the tracks must have left ours at some point, that this thing could be anywhere…
And then Orry was just gone.
We looked for him for what felt like an hour, but I have a feeling it was much less. Me and Jesse took turns calling out to him, and we were never more than ten feet from each other the whole time. I was terrified, but I was also determined that we weren’t leaving until we found him. Orry had been my best friend as long as I could remember, and I kept telling myself he must have stepped into a bog or fell out somewhere and we were just missing him. But then I realized I was searching alone now, because Jesse was gone too.
I ran then, any idea of following tracks or searching for my friends lost in my fear. I had seen a fox run down a rabbit once, and I had always wondered what that tiny, screaming thing must have been thinking as it ran for its life. After that day in the swamp, I didn’t have to wonder no more.
I cried a little when I broke through some brush and saw I was only half a mile from home. I found my mama and told her what happened, and the next three days the whole community was out searching for Orry and Jesse, but they never saw any sign of them. I wanted to go back out and help search, but I was terrified to leave the house.
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