Everville (23 page)

She popped into the drugstore two blocks down from the offices, and asked Maureen Scfimm, who had her hair tinted for the celebrations and looked like the local tart, if she could borrow the phone book. Maureen wanted to gossip, but the store was crowded. Armed with Erwin's home address, Phoebe left Maureen to make eyes at every able-bodied man under sixty-five, and headed for Mitchell Street.

It was a quiet little thoroughfare lined with attractive, wellkept houses, the lawns and hedges trimmed, the fences and indow frames painted. The kind of haven Tesla had fantazed about many times on her journey across the Americas; a ace where people were good to each other, and lived, physically and spiritually, within their modest means. It didn't take much guesswork to figure out why Fletcher had chosen to lodge here. He had staged his own immolation back in the Grove in order to imagine from the dreams of its healthy, loving citizens, a legion of champions. Hallucigenia, he'd dubbed them, and left them to wage war in the streets of the Grove after his demise. If another battle was now in the offing, as Kate Farrell had predicted, then where better to seek out minds from which he could create new soldiers than in a haven like this, where people still had faith in a civilized life, and might conjure heroes to defend it? Listen to you, Raul said as Tesla wandered along the street looking for Fletcher's hideaway. "was I thinking aloud or were you just eavesdropping?" Eavesdropping, Raul replied. And I'm amazed. "By what?" By the way you're drooling over thiv place. You hated Palomo Grove. "It was phoney." This isn't? "No. It looks... comfortable." You've been on the road too long. "That may have something to do with it," Tesla conceded. "I am a little saddle-weary. But this looks like a good place to settle down-" Maybe raise some kids? You and Lucien? Wouldn't that be nice. "Don't be snide." All right, it wouldn't be nice. It'd be a living hell they had come, at last, to the whisperer's house, and very smart it was too. Tesla"What?" Fletcher was always a little crazy, remember that. "How could I forget?" Soforgive him his trespasses"You're excited. I can feel you trembling." I used to call him father all the time. He used to tell me not to, but that's what he was. That's what he is. I want to see him again "So do I," she said. It was the first time she'd actually admitted the fact in so many words. Yes, Fletcher was crazy, and yes, unpredictable. But he was also the man who'd created the Nuncio, the man who'd turned to light in front of her eyes, the man who'd had her half-believing in saints. If anyone deserved to have outwitted oblivion, it was him.

She started up the front path, studying the house for some sign of occupancy. There was none. The drapes were drawn at all but one of the windows, and there were two newspapers uncollected on the step.

She knocked. There was no response, but she wasn't that surprised. If Fletcher was indeed in residence, he was unlikely to be answering the door. She rapped again, just for good measure, then went to the one window without closed drapes and peered in. It was a dining room, furnished with anfique furniture. Whoever lived here when Fletcher wasn't visiting had taste.

Something's wrong with the sewers, Raul said.

"The sewers?"

Don't you smell it? She sniffed, and caught a whiff of something unpleasant.

"Is it from inside?" she asked Raul, but before he could reply she heard a footfall on the gravel path and somebody said, "Are you looking for Erwin?"

She turned. There was a woman standing a couple of yards from the front gate: large, pale, and overdressed.

"Erwin@' Tesla said, thinking fast, "yeah. I was just... is he around today?"

The woman studied Tesla with faint suspicion. "He should be," she said.

"He's not at his office."

"Huh. I knocked, but there was no reply." The woman looked distinctly disappointed. "I was going to try round the back," Tesla went on, "see if he's getting himself a tan."

"Did you try the bell?" the woman replied. "No, 1-11

The woman marched down the path and jabbed the bell. A saccharine jingle could be heard from inside. Tesia waited ten seconds. Then, when there was no sign of movement, she started round the side of the house, leaving the woman to try jabbing the bell again at the front.

"Ripe," she remarked to Raul as the smell of excrement tensified. She watched the ground as she went, half-expectg to find that a pipe had burst and the last flushings of Erwin's toilet were bubbling up from the ground. But there was nothing. No turds; and no Erwin either, sunning himself in the backyard. "Maybe this isn't the house," she said to Raul. "Maybe there's another street that sounds like Mitchell."

She turned on her heel, only to find that bell-jabber was coming down the side of the house herself, with a look of slight agitation on her face.

"There's somebody inside," she said. "I looked through the letterbox and I saw somebody at the end of the hall."

"was it Erwin?"

"I couldn't see. It was too dark."

"Huh." Tesla stared at the wall, as though she might pierce it with her sight if she looked hard enough.

"There was something weird about him-"

"What?"

"I don't know." She looked spooked. "You want to call the cops?"

"No. No, I don't think we have to bother Jed with this. Maybe I'll just... you know... try another day."

This is one nervous lady, Raul said.

"If there's some problem in here Tesia said. "Maybe I'll just look round the other side." She started back towards the yard. "I'm Tesla by the way," she called over her shoulder.

"I'm Phoebe."

Well, well... said Raul, the scarlet woman.

It was all Tesla could do not to say: Everybody's talking aboutyou. "Are you a relative of Erwin's?" Phoebe asked her.

"No, why?"

"It's none of my business, but I know you're not from Everville-"

"So you're wondering what I'm doing here," Tesla replied, as she tried the back door. It was locked. Cupping her hands around her eyes she peered through the glass. There were a few signs of life. A carton of orange juice overturned on the table; a small pile of dishes beside the sink.

"I'm not here to see Erwin," Tesla went on. "Truth is, I don't even know Erwin." She glanced round at Phoebe, who didn't seem overly concerned that she was talking to a potential house-breaker.

"I came to see a guy called Fletcher. Don't suppose the nam e means anything?"

Phoebe thought about this for a moment, then shook her head. "He's not a local man," she stated. "I'm sure I'd know him if he were."

"Small town, huh?"

"It's getting too small for me," Phoebe said, unable to disguise her sourness. "Everybody pretty much knows everybody else's business."

"I heard a few rumors myself."

"About me?" said Phoebe.

"You're the Phoebe Cobb, right?"

Phoebe pursed her lips. "I wish to God I wasn't right now," she said,

"but yes. I'm Phoebe Cobb." She sighed, her robust faqade cracking.

"Whatever you heard@'

"I couldn't give a shit," Tesla said. "I know it can't be much fun-"

"I've had better days," Phoebe said, seeming to suddenly catch the defeat in her voice and pulling herself together. "Look, obviously Mr. Toothaker doesn't want to answer the door to either of us."

Tesla smiled. "Toothaker? That's his name? Erwin Toothaker?"

"What's so funny about that?"

"Nothing. I think it's perfect," Tesla said. "Erwin Toothaker." She peered through the window again, squinting.

The door that led into the rest of the house was a couple of inches ajar, and as she stared, a sinuous shadow seemed to move through the gap.

She recoiled from the back door six inches, startled.

"What is it?" Phoebe said.

Tesla blinked, licked her lips, and looked again. "Does our Erwin keep snakes?" she said. "Snakes?"

"Yeah, snakes."

"Not that I know of. Why?"

"It's gone now, but I could swear I saw...

Tesla? Raul murmured.

"What?"

Snakes and the smell of shit. What does that combination remind you oP She didn't answer. Just backed away from the door, suddenly clammy. No, her mind said, no, no, no. Not Lix. Not here. Not in this little backwater.

Tesla, get hold ofyoursetf She was suddenly trembling from head to foot.

"Is it there again?" Phoebe said, taking a step towards the door.

"Don't, " Tesia said.

I'll in not scared of snakes."

Tesla put her hand to block Phoebe's approach. "I mean it," she said. Phoebe pushed her arm aside. "I want to look," she said forcibly, and put her face to the window. "I don't see anything."

"it came and went."

"Or it was never there," Phoebe replied. She looked back at Tesla. "You don't look so good," she said.

"I don'tfeel so good."

"Have you got a phobia?"

Tesla shook her head. "Not about snakes." She reached out and gently plucked at Phoebe's arm. "I really think we should get out of here." Either the grim tone in her voice, or the look on her ashen face apparently was enough to convince Phoebe she was deadly serious, because now she too retreated from the back door.

"Maybe I was just imagining it," Tesla replied, hoping to any God who'd listen that this was true. She was ready for anything but Lix.

With Phoebe trailing after her she made her way back round to the front of the house, and up the path to the street.

"Happy now?" Phoebe said.

"Just walk with me, will you?" Tesla said, and set the pace until they'd put fifty yards between themselves and the Toothaker house. Only then did Tesla slow down.

"Happy now?" Phoebe said again, this time a little testily.

Tesia stood staring up at the sky, and drew several long, calming breaths before she said, "This is worse than I thought."

"What is? What are you talking about?"

Tesia drew another deep breath. "I think there's something evil in that house," she replied.

Phoebe glanced back down the street, which looked more serene than ever as the afternoon drew on. "I know it's hard to believe-"

"Oh no," Phoebe said flatly. "I can believe it." When she looked back at Tesla she was wearing a small, tight smile. "This place is cruel," she said. "It doesn't look it, but it is."

Tesia began to think maybe there'd been a certain synchronicity in their meetings. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," she said. "Okay. I'm not going to try and-2'

"I mean yes," Phoebe said. "Yes, I do want to talk about it."

Six

"There's something wrong with the sea."

Joe sat up, and looked down the shore towards the booming surf. The waters were almost velvety, the waves large enough to tempt a surfer, but curling and breaking more slowly than those on any terrestrial shore. Flecks of irides cence rose in their lavish curl, and glittered on their crests.

"It's beautiful," he said. Noah grunted. "Look out there," he said, and pointed out beyond the breakers, to the place where the horizon should have been. Black and gray and green pillars of clouds were apparently rising from the sea as though some titanic heat was turning the waters to steam. The heavens, meanwhile, were failing in floods and fires. It was a spectacle the scale of which Joe had never conceived before, like a scene from the making of the world, or its unmaking.

"What's causing all that?"

"I don't want to speak the words until I'm certain," Noah said. "But I begin to think we should be careful, even here."

"Careful about what?"

"About waiting for the likes of that to come our way," he said, and pointed along the shore.

Three or four miles from where they stood he could see the roofs and spires of a city. Liverpool, he presumed. In between, perhaps a quarter of that distance away, was an approaching procession. "That's a Blessedm'n," Noah said, "I think we're better away, Joe."

'Why?" Joe wanted to know. "What's a Blessedm'n?"

'One who conjures," Noah said. "Perhaps the one who opened this door."

"Don't you want to wait and thank him?" Joe said, still studying the procession. There were perhaps thirty in the line, some of them on horseback; one, it seemed, on a camel.

"The door wasn't opened for me," Noah replied.

"Who was it opened for?" There was no answer. Joe looked round to see that Noah was once again staring out towards the apocalyptic storm that blocked the horizon. "Something out there?" he said.

"Maybe," Noah replied. Half a dozen questions appeared in Joe's head at the same time. If what was out there was coming here, what would happen to the shore? And to the city? And if it passed over the threshold, would the storm it brought go with it? Down the mountain, to Everville? to Phoebe?

Oh my God, to Phoebe?

"I have to go back," he said.

"You can't."

"I can and I will," Joe said, turning and starting back towards the crack. It was not hidden here, as it was on the mountain. It crackled like a rod of black lightning against the shifting sky. was it his imagination, or was it wider and taller than it had been?

"I promised you power, Joe," Noah called after him. "And I still have it to give."

Joe turned on his heel. "So give it to me and let me go," he said. Noah stared at the ground. "It's not as easy as that, my friend."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't grant you power here."

"On the other side, you said."

"Yes, I did. I know I did. But that wasn't quite the truth." He looked up at Joe now, his oversized head seeming to teeter on his frail neck.

"I'd hoped that once you got here and saw the glories of the dream-sea, you'd want to travel with me a little way. I can give you power. Truly I can. But only in my own country."

"How far?" Joe said.

There was no answer forthcoming. Infuriated, Joe went k to Noah, moving at such speed the creature raised its s to ward off a blow. "I'm not going to hit you," Joe said. Noah lowered his guard six inches. "I just want an honest answer."