Dust (15 page)

If Abram was here, no one would be at the rainmill. Maybe, Robert thought, I should sneak away. It's only a mile. I could look around. Just peek, really. And leave before Abram gets home again.

Robert ran to the edge of town, hopped across the tracks, and kept running as fast as he could. After what seemed like hours, he glanced over his shoulder. Abram's truck was tiny now, and three toy-sized men continued to load it. Robert dashed over the grid road and into the fields, pushing through brambles, his feet slipping on the grass.

He felt older with each step. Ancient. He thought of the Greek messengers who used to run barefoot, bringing news of victory or defeat. One messenger had raced so hard and long his heart had burst. It had to do with a battle for Marathon against the Persian army.

He climbed a drainage ditch thick with weeds and flowers, grabbed onto the slick, leafy plants, and pulled himself over the edge. An image of his Uncle Edmund flashed through his mind. Going over the trenches.

And getting a bullet in his heart.

Robert shuddered. Edmund had been at Horshoe today, in a reflection. Was maybe somehow watching right now. Edmund wouldn't have hesitated when he went over the trench, knowing there was something bad on the other side.

Robert knew he had to
do
something, finally. By summer it would be too late. The rain would have washed everything from his mind. He would have crossed the cusp. He ran harder, his boots sinking deep into the soil and growing heavy with mud.

Finally, he caught sight of the rainmill: large and majestic, the vanes poised on the edge of motion, the bricks glistening. Beyond it the land was flat, the sky a blue dome. Robert didn't want to stare too long; he might lose his resolve.

Several yards later he stopped and scanned the farm. No sign or sound of Abram's truck. Robert padded up to the house and peeked in the front window. Gray shadows fell across the table; the room was empty. He crept around the corner. There, parked next to a fallen pig barn, was the RCMP car.

He couldn't see anyone inside it, but he ran over and opened the door anyway, hoping to find Sergeant Ramsden. The front seat was bare. Not even his Stetson was inside. Robert backed away, glanced around. The farmyard was still. He couldn't think where to look. Was the sergeant even here? He might have ridden into town with Abram, just talking away about adult things. Fooled by Abram's fancy words.

Robert gulped some air. He'd have to go inside the house where Abram kept all his secrets. Maybe he'd find a clue that would lead to Matthew.

Robert climbed the steps to the front door, found the courage to turn the knob, and pushed. The hinges creaked, but the door swung easily. A rotten-meat smell escaped, the stench ugly in his nostrils. He breathed through his mouth and sneaked into the front room.

The kitchen was clean, the table bare. One of the cupboard doors sat open. No plates. No bowls. It was as though Abram didn't eat at all.

The table reminded Robert that his mother would wonder why he hadn't come home for lunch. Maybe his parents were searching the fields for him right now and would get here in time to help find Matthew. Or were they sitting at their table, talking about the rain, the crops, and the rainmill, both of their sons forgotten?

He inched down the hall and pushed on a door. Inside was a flat bed of wooden slabs; no mattress, no blankets, not even a pillow. The sight of it disturbed him. Didn't Abram eat or sleep?

Robert knew exactly where to look next: the butterfly room. He was sure which room it was—the one facing east. It seemed like only yesterday that he'd stood outside it and stared in.

He slid the bolt to one side and gently opened the door a crack. A moist, rotten-crabapple stink drifted out. He peered in. The thick vines had climbed up to the ceiling, delved into every corner of the rafters with their feelers, and now hung down, brown and dripping with slime. Nothing was flying around inside.

He opened the door and slipped in. All the vines were dead. This room, once green and burgeoning, was a wasteland. The butterflies were gone. Not a sign of a lost wing or anything to indicate that they'd ever been there.

Robert's feet stuck to the sludge, and he stepped through it carefully. He stood below the oval window; the sun's light was dimmed by a brownish ooze that coated the pane. He gingerly parted some of the sticky vines, looking for the butterflies. There was nothing but a wall underneath, its paint peeling, the wood rotting.

Then a rustle—a whispering of wings and a lilting song, so light and familiar.

He turned slowly, as though he were caught in amber. He knew, as sure as anything, who he would see, even before his eyes fell on her glowing blue shape.

Kachina.

She floated between him and the door. Alive. Beautiful. Graceful wings stroking the air. Her song was in his head, his bones. A melody that called him away from the world, urged him to follow her to a mystical place where he would sleep in peace.

She was so perfect. Her singing so gentle.

His eyelids grew heavy, slid closed. Peace. That was what he wanted. And sleep. No more fear.

Time passed slowly. He breathed deeply, the air scented with flowers. A breeze caressed his cheeks. He opened his eyes and she fluttered closer. Her black, all-knowing orbs reflected star-like lights. There was a universe of harmony and warmth inside her.

He let his eyelids slide closed. No sadness. No pain. No worry.

Worry. The word stuck in his mind. Responsibility. Another word that grew heavier. I have a responsibility, he thought, a duty.

He opened his eyes. Kachina was only a few inches away, her singing insistent, higher in pitch. Her eyes were so close now that he could see he'd been mistaken about them: they were black insect eyes, barely able to reflect the light. They held nothing. No compassion. No wisdom.

She was Abram's tool. She had led the children away. There was nothing beautiful about that.

"I have a duty," he said plainly, reaching out. She flapped her wings as he tried to grasp her body. But he found nothing of substance. Instead the touch of his hand made her singing grow sharper and she began to fall apart. She shed her color, the bright, hypnotic blue breaking off and twirling down, disappearing before it hit the ground. Tattered shreds of yellow and green burst out of her like tiny fireworks, until only a black husk remained, floating before him. Then, with a tiny, shrill noise, she flashed bright as the sun, folded in on herself, and was gone.

Robert blinked and lowered his hands. His fingers tingled. His eyes felt as though they'd been burned by a flashbulb. He stumbled out of the room, rubbing his eyelids. With a shaking hand he closed the door, Kachina's final moments still blazing in his mind's eye.

He stood unsteadily in the hallway. He wasn't even sure exactly what had happened. His hands were numb and coated with a bluish, oily dust which he wiped on his pants.

It seemed as though hours had passed, but light still brightened the kitchen window. No sound of Abram's truck. It was so loud he was sure he would hear it from miles away. He was running out of time, though, and there was still one more room to explore.

He went to the end of the hall and pushed open the door. He felt a chill, as though he were at the entrance to a mausoleum full of cold cemetery air. There was no window and his eyes didn't appear to be adjusting to the near darkness. A band of light revealed a table in the center of the room dominated by a glowing glass globe—a crystal ball. The rest of the room was dark. He gathered his courage and went inside, feeling colder with each step.

Jars were stacked on the floor. They looked like the broken one he'd found the day they discovered Matthew's hat. Robert touched the edge of one. It was smooth and cold. Pink dust stained his fingers.

The scent of roses wafted up and an image entered his head. He saw a girl running through a pasture, laughing, her pigtails flopping against her back. She had blond hair.
You can't catch me, na na na
, she sang. It was spring.

The vision disappeared. It wasn't a memory; he'd never seen the girl before. But the picture was so vivid.

He examined the dust on his hands. It was like the dust on the wings of butterflies. Was this what Abram collected? Robert pawed inside the jar, but there wasn't any more. Nor did he find any in the other jars.

On the table he discovered two old books, their black covers in tatters. An unlit candle in a brass holder sat next to a neatly laid out collection of tiny doctor's instruments: scalpels, razor-sharp scrapers, and pokers with thin handles.

Robert lifted a scalpel. It was as light as air. He brushed the side of the blade and the image of a boy playing in a bed of flowers appeared in his head, then vanished. He looked at his finger. Dust.

He dropped the scalpel. Abram had said that there was a way to gather the dust—the stuff that surrounded people. He thought of Matthew and the other missing kids. All of them gathered and ... and harvested.

His guts clenched, as though he was about to throw up. There was too much to understand. Too much to fear. He couldn't make sense of it.

A bursting light drew his attention to the crystal ball. A shooting star was falling through it. It faded out, then another appeared, and another. He edged nearer. Glowing sparks drifted behind the glass like a universe unfolding. He'd never seen such a display of light and beauty. His eyes moved back and forth, trying to follow each tiny firework. They were forming something, a shape. Like a flower. Or wings.

He had to touch it. Maybe then he'd reach right through the glass and feel the energy inside. He slowly extended his right arm, fingers trembling. The moment he pressed his fingertips against the ball, he felt a shock, but he couldn't pull his hand away. Without planning, almost as if it wasn't his intention at all, he lay his left hand on the globe.

The winged shape vanished. The ball grew dark and empty, filled with black forever. It was cold now, as though it had been carved from ice. He felt he might be sucked right into it.

Why are you contacting us again?
A chorus of voices invaded his head, somber and otherworldly, coming out of the globe, from some far, far place where it was frigid and bleak. Where the locusts were large.
We are ready to deal. We are on our way. Why do you disturb our thoughts?

He tried to pull his hands away, but they were frozen.

The offerings are secured, are they not? Why so silent? Do not test our patience.

Tendrils of thought were coming out of the globe, probing him. He had a vision of dark, insect eyes. Of misshapen mouths and mandibles opening and closing.

Robert yanked his hands back and the ball clouded over. The voices still echoed in his mind. Their anger. Their malevolence. Their power.

Abram had sent a message to the stars. Robert had no doubt that these were the voices of the traders, and he never wanted to hear them again. He stumbled from the table, turned to leave, but stopped short.

A man was hiding behind the half-open door, had perhaps been there all along. He floated a few inches from the floor.

Robert remained still, breathing in and out through his mouth. He took a step, but the man didn't move. A second step. Robert's heart thudded like a drum. He was ready to flee if the man so much as flicked his fingers.

Then he saw the Stetson on the floor, the yellow stripe on the man's pant leg.

"Sergeant Ramsden!" Robert edged closer. The sergeant's feet weren't touching the hardwood. His eyes stared straight ahead. "It's me, Robert Steelgate." He reached out and touched Ramsden's arm. No reaction.

He tugged the sergeant's sleeve and Ramsden tumbled toward him, landing with a wet thud on the floor and striking the side of his face. He'd been hanging on a hook. Robert felt his neck; it was cold. No sign of a beating heart.

Then a slight pulse—blood moving in the veins. There it was again, seconds later. Ramsden's heartbeat was so slow it was as if he were hibernating. His chest rose and fell in tiny increments.

The sergeant's .455 was still in its holster. There was no evidence of a struggle. Robert lifted the Mountie's arm and dropped it. "Wake up, Sergeant. Wake up!" He grabbed Ramsden's lapels. "This is a special command. I
order
you to wake up, Sergeant Ramsden!"

Nothing. Not even a twitch.

Then the rumbling of Abram's truck sounded in the driveway, loud enough to rattle the crystal globe and the doctor's instruments. Robert shook the sergeant furiously but failed to wake him.

Robert ran to the front room and looked out the window. The truck was backed into the rainmill. Abram easily carried what looked to be a metal gear about the size of a tire into the mill, then returned for a second and a third. He spent a few minutes working out of sight. A bright light flashed inside.

Slowly the vanes turned, and gradually gathered speed. Robert watched, fascinated. Soon they were whirring like a propeller. Already a cloud had appeared on the horizon, dark as the eyes of a grasshopper. The air hummed.

The butterflies were gone, so Abram had to be finished gathering dust and sending messages to the stars. Robert guessed he was bringing something other than rain this time. The traders. To barter for the souls of the children he had gathered.

Including Matthew.

Abram walked out of the rainmill and stood twenty feet away, watching. He'd taken off his hat, and the wind rustled his white hair. He turned toward the distant vortex of clouds unfurling from a hole in the sky. They were so black and vast they looked as though they were devouring the world.

Suddenly sparks shot out from an alcove halfway up the tower. One of the batteries exploded, showering the ground with glass. Abram watched the electrical display for a moment without reacting, then walked slowly to the small barn and stepped inside.

Robert slipped out the front door and ran toward the rainmill, his legs pumping hard, but the more he ran the farther away the mill seemed. He stopped. He was in-between the house and the tower, in the wide open. He ran again, this time harder, but he didn't get any closer. Any moment now Abram would step out and spot him. He fixed his eyes on the mill, the tower seemed to be leaning over him, somehow tricking his mind. The thought of turning back flitted through his mind, but he ignored it. He closed his eyes and concentrated on moving his feet, the sound they made on the ground. It felt like he was moving. He had to be.