Strange Seed (28 page)

Something I have to do, Paul.

She got her brown wool coat off the clothes tree, put it on, switched the kitchen light off.

She opened the back door, stepped out onto the porch, paused until her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

She took the steps cautiously.
 
At the bottom of the steps, she turned north.

*****

Paul set the lantern down behind him and stared into the dark mass of the forest just ahead.
 
He was waiting.
 
Each night since that first night it had been the same.
 
He’d come here, to the end of the path and, almost immediately, he’d hear them coming.
 
They moved very quietly, very quickly, their approach betrayed only by an occasional wisp of laughter—laughter slowed, made fluid, so it sounded almost like song, by the cold, and by their hunger.

Paul listened.
 
From deep within the forest, he heard the faintly rasping hoot of an owl.

He set the plastic bag down, cupped his hands to his mouth.
 
“Hello,” he called, and felt suddenly foolish for it, suddenly out of place.

He let his hands fall.
 
He continued to wait.

After a time, he became aware that a light snowfall had begun.
 
He watched the small, widely scattered flakes drift into the circle of lamplight.
 
He watched dispassionately at first, as if the snow were telling him some necessary but often-repeated story.
 
He listened, felt certain he could hear individual flakes settling onto the globe of the lamp and sizzling there, killed by its warmth.

He saw that among the small, nondescript flakes, larger flakes had begun to fall.

He gasped, adrenaline pushing through him.
 

He turned, ran.

Halfway home, he stopped.

“No,” he whispered.
 
“No!” he screamed.
 
He fell to his knees and gathered Rachel into his arms.

“Paul,” she moaned.
 
“I’m sorry, I wanted…”

“I told you to stay at home, Rachel.
 
I told you—“

“I’m so cold, Paul.
 
My clothes.
 
Where are my clothes?”

He glanced about, cursed himself for having left the lamp behind, saw, dimly, her coat at the other side of the path.
 
He coaxed her to her feet; she stood unsteadily for a moment, then crumbled.
 
He caught her, set her down gently.
 
“I’ll get your coat, Rachel.
 
You’ll be all right, don’t worry.
 
You’ll be all right.”
 
He got her coat, coaxed her to her feet again, draped the coat over her, took her into his arms and started for the house, the words “I’m sorry” tripping off his tongue all the way.

MORNING

The snowfall had lasted the night and now the only color on the land was the green of the pines, the brown and gray of the trunks and branches of deciduous trees.

Rachel moved away from the window, got back into bed, pulled the quilt up to her neck.
 
Paul’s words of a
 
half hour earlier were still fresh in her mind:
 
“You’ll have nothing more to fear from them after today.
 
I promise you that, Rachel.
 
And when I get back…when I get back, we’ll make plans.”

“Plans?”

“To leave.
 
We should never have come back, I know that now.
 
We should never even have come here.
 
I know that, too.
 
This isn’t our land.
 
It never was.
 
It belongs to
them.
”

“I’m so tired, Paul.
 
I just want to sleep.”
 
She closed her eyes.

*****

Sandman,
Paul thought.
 
Sandman.

He glanced at the barrel of the rifle.
 
He’d left Lumas’s shotgun at home.
 
Its range was too limited, and it was too messy (he remember the raccoon; bile crept into his throat).
 
The rifle was more of a long-distance weapon.
 
It would also make a nice, neat hole.

Sandman.
 
He grinned.
 
He was a civilized man; it was his duty to enjoy what he had set out to do—avenge, make right, put behind him what had been done to his wife, the perversity he had sanctioned.

Someday, he vowed, he would tell her everything.
 
He had to, for his own peace of mind.
 
Even pledging now that, in time, he would tell her would make life—his knowledge of what had been done, what
he
had done—more bearable.

He heard the babblings of a flight of geese to the south.
 
He looked.
 
It was a large flock, consisting of close to a hundred birds, he guessed.
 
Because of the distance, they were mere black specks against a backdrop of low gray clouds.
 
He raised the rifle, aimed, squeezed the trigger.
 
The hammer clicked.
 
He lowered the rifle, pleased, a feeling of power coming over him.

He reached into his pocket, pulled a cartridge out, loaded the rifle.
 
He was ready, now.

He walked quickly, slowed only a little by the snow and the cold air crawling over him.

“Sandman.”
 
He was bringing sleep to the troubled, peace to the frenzied.
 
If they could, they would thank him.

He stepped across the stream, noted its edges had iced over, ascended the gentle slope, turned left and passed beneath the archway and into the forest.

He paused.
 
It had been a long time, weeks, since he had been here.
 
And years, decades, since he had seen it this way—the winter resting heavily and quietly on it.

He moved further into the forest, head moving, eyes scanning, ears alert all the while.
 
The only sounds that came to him were the sounds his boots made on the new snow.
 
His eyes showed him only the monotony of a gray sky crisscrossed by the bare branches of oaks and honey locusts, and sliced by evergreens.

An inexplicable sadness overcame him as he walked.
 
It was the sadness of loss and hope gone.
 
It was, he knew, the sadness of winter and the knowledge of his part in it.

He stopped at the edge of the clearing, saw that a few of the larger bones were jutting above the snow—cream on white; death on sleep.

He wept hard and long.

And realized as he wept what his sadness was telling him.
 
That the winter had done its work.
 
That the children were sleeping at last.

The euphemism annoyed him.
 
He sought to correct it mentally, but found that he couldn’t, that the proper word would not come to him.

He turned and started for home.

At the archway, he paused, turned, and threw the rifle hard into the forest.
 
Before seeing where it had fallen, he turned again, toward home.

“Rachel, are you asleep?”

“I’m awake.”

“They’re…gone, Rachel.”

“Gone?”

“Yes.”

“For good?”

“For now.
 
Until spring.
 
I don’t know..
 
Until spring, yes.”

“And us?”

Us?”

“You said we’d talk.
 
You said we’d make plans.”

“We’re going to leave, yes.
 
Not right away.
 
Not tomorrow.
 
In a week or so.
 
We have to be sure, you see.
  
I
have to be sure.”

“You’re not sure?”

“Yes.
 
Yes, I am.”

“Then we not tomorrow?
 
Why not right now, for Christ’s sake!”

“I’m sorry.
 
I have to be sure.”

“You said you were sure, Paul.”

“I am.”

“Okay, then.
 
I trust you.”

“And I love you.
 
Remember that always.

“I will.
 
I’d like to sleep now.
 
I’ve been waiting for you.
 
You’re back, now.
 
I’d like to sleep.

LEAVING: DECEMBER 1, EVENING

Rachel closed the book she’d been reading and looked up at Paul.
 
“Did you say something?”

He was standing at the back window, had pulled the curtain aside.
 
“No,” he said tentatively.
 
Rachel waited.
 
After a ;moment, he continued, “Could you turn that light off for a moment?”
 
He glanced around and nodded at the lamp on her writing desk.

“Turn it off?” she said.

“Yes.
 
Just for a moment.”

She reached over the desk and did as he’d asked.

“Thanks,” he said, and gazed quietly out the window for a long moment.

“Do you see something, Paul?”

He harrumphed.

“Paul?”

“You can turn the light on, now.”

“Did you see something?” she asked again, set her book on the floor and prepared to stand.

He waved at her to stay seated.
 
“It’s okay.
 
No.
 
I didn’t see anything.
 
Just the lamp reflected in the window.”

She switched the lamp on, picked her book up.
 
“How long are you going to stand there like that, Paul?
 
You’re awfully jumpy.”

“Jumpy?”

“Yes, very.
 
And there’s no reason for it that I can see.”

He closed the curtain, went over to the fireplace.
 
“Sorry,” he said, stopped over and spread the grating.
 
“It’s getting cold in here.
 
What do you think—should we put some more wood on the fire?”
 
And without waiting for answer, he went to the left of the fireplace, got two logs from a small pile, and shoved them into the fireplace.
 
He watched as the logs caught and started to burn.
 
He smiled.
 
“Yes,” he said, “that’s better.”

He went back to the window.

Rachel said, “Would you like me to bring the heater in here?”
 

He caught the sarcasm in her voice and sighed.
 
“I was cold, that’s all.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Don’t you think it’s cold in here?”

“Not anymore, certainly.”

“Well, then—“

“Okay, okay.
 
Forget it.
 
I guess I just didn’t realize.
 
I’m sorry.”

“Realize what?”
 
He turned his head toward her.

“I guess I didn’t realize how sensitive you were to the cold, that’s all.”

He turned back to the window.
 
“Well, now you know.”

“Now I know,” she said, and returned to her book.

DECEMBER 2

Rachel held the screen door open as Paul stumbled past her, a heavy load of firewood in his arms.
 
“Jesus,” he complained, “it’s going to be quite a night.”
 
He nodded at the firewood.
 
“Take a few of these, Rachel.”

She let the screen door close, took several logs off the top of the load and followed him into the living room.
 
They set the logs down next to the fireplace.

“Do you think it’s going to snow, Paul?”

He settled into his wing-backed chair.
 
“No.
 
The sky’s clear.
 
Lots of stars.
 
It’s just going to be goddamned cold.”

She pointed at the base of the north wall.
 
Paul looked.
 
“Well,” she said, “I got the heater going.
 
It should help.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Paul said.

The cat, Mr. Higgins, trotted in from the kitchen, padded over to Paul and leaped into his lap.

“Oh, Jesus,” Paul muttered, and watched, clearly annoyed, as the cat circled a few times, trying for the most comfortable spot.
 
“I don’t know why this cat finds me so damned attractive, Rachel.”

Rachel, grimacing a little, lifted the cat gently off his lap, held it, stroked it.
 
“I guess he just knows your true nature,” she said.