Where the Dead Talk (14 page)

And just like that, it was all gone with that voice. She didn’t want to see him now, because something was terribly wrong with him. That voice. A boot stepped into the carriage house.

"Please. Help me put my mind back. Please…"

His voice was so dry, parched dirt. The fear lifted her, carried her helpless. Her eyes began to tear up; the doorway went blurry to her and she held on to the side of the carriage as though she might otherwise fly away. With those few rasping words, so much disappeared. Then a thought came to her. It was a simple thought. She could take ten steps, stand in the doorway, and be with him. The thought stuck in her mind like a splinter. She bit down on her lip.

"Hold me, I’m scared, and I’ll kiss your white throat."

The silhouette stepped inside. In one horrid moment, all the romance, all the arguments, all the promise of bright days crumbled. That voice – that feeling – dashed all such hopes. Nothing would be fine again. She turned and bolted to the other side of the carriage house, past the horse – stamping his hooves in fear – to the other side of wide doors. In the blackness, she fumbled with the sliding iron latches.

"The cold deep inside is more real than springtime, you’ll see. I’ll give it to you. My uncle showed me how."

Footsteps shuffled closer. Carolyn didn’t turn around, just worked furiously at the door. With a yell of frustration, she finally slid the bottom latch free and shoved the door open with her shoulder. She stumbled out into the night air. The horse bolted out behind her. Not properly directed, it caught the side of the carriage on the door and struggled, the carriage slamming against the wood, but not giving. The animal kicked and screamed, cracking the wood. The entire doorway was blocked.

Carolyn ran around the far side of the carriage house. Father owned a gun – he’d know what to do. She cut across the drive between the house and the carriage house. Just as she was about to leap to the front porch, she stopped. A thin figure stood before the door.

"Please, Carolyn. I need your skin."

She screamed and tried to go around him. He blocked her path. In the faint light, she saw pale skin and glimmering eyes – not the Jonathon she remembered. Not the Jonathon she’d watched at work or at play, sizing him up, trying to see where she might make him better. A foul smell hung before him. Black liquid quivered from his chin, stringing down onto his dirty shirt. His hands flew up to her face and the mere brush of his fingers was ghastly, the touch of a dying snake, cold and thrashing.

"You'll feel my lips…" he said.

Behind him, the front door of her house opened up. Her mother lurched out, awkward. Her eyes were closed, her face slack. A limp arm raised.

"Mother," Carolyn said.

"Come inside," a voice said, coming from behind her mother. Her mother's arm motioned inwards. That's when Carolyn noticed a pale hand wrapped around her mother's arm, another around her waist, holding her up, forcing her into that gruesome pantomime.

"We'll have such fun," the voice said. A hand rose up and ripped off the front of her mother's dress, exposing her bare bosom. Her mother's head rolled forward, her hair spilling down. Carolyn screamed and fell backwards,. She landed on the dirt. With a twist, she was up and running off, away from the house, away from the terrible sight of her mother, away from Jonathon.

Away.

She was hardly aware of where she ran to – it was all the blues and blacks of night, trees and dark houses, lanes and greens. Eventually, she dared to look behind her. The lights of her house were just visible, up the hill from town. A stitch in her side slowed her. Her shoes and the hem of her dress were covered in mud. She needed help, someone who could escort her past the horror of her yard, into her house, so that her father could help. As she considered what to do, she noticed someone coming up the road in her direction, coming from Boston Road. It was a thin man, staggering. He wasn't wearing a shirt, just a pair of loose britches. .

"Hello," Carolyn called out. The figure stopped and looked in her direction. The eyes were dark hollows.

"I’m lost, you’re lost, I’m lost, you’re lost. Come, come here."

She stepped back, her feet tangling with the hem of her dress.

"If there’s no sun, we can hold each other," the figure said in that harsh whisper.

Carolyn yelled and ran off the road, following the edge of a meadow. She looked back, but didn’t see him. The meadow finally ended where the road turned and crossed the River Road. A pair of figures – faces pale ovals – moving toward her, revealed as the moon came out from the clouds. The road wasn’t a safe place to be. She crawled back to the corner of the meadow and ducked beneath low branches and cut into the trees. She turned south, towards the center of town. The woods were black, heavy with the smells of earth and fallen leaves. The footing was difficult among the roots, branches, and wet leaves that covered the wood’s floor. Thick bushes and deadfalls drove her deeper into the woods. She tried to keep the road in sight as much as she could through the trees, but it became difficult the farther she went. Noises were all around: the creak and groan of high branches shifting on the gusting wind, the constant drip of rainwater. Every splash of moonlight was Jonathon’s face, every glint of rainwater the shimmer of his eyes, every shadow his long arms. The panic drove her and tears blurred her vision. She pushed through wet hemlock branches, finding the going easier once she entered a grove of the tall, long-branched trees. The ground wasn’t as wet and her steps quiet. The trunks of the trees rose up around her, the branches forming a roof above. Small twigs snapped underneath her feet as she hurried through the stand.

"We can play house-time, mummy. And I’ll nuzzle your neck."

Carolyn froze. The whisper floated in the darkness. Drops of rainwater hit her face, landed around her. She looked up. Silvery eyes gleamed from a pale face, in the trees above.

"My bones are cold. You’ll see, mummy."

The eyes dropped toward her. Carolyn screamed and stepped aside just as the figure crashed through the branches and hit the ground where she’d been. She bolted through the trees. A high giggle rose up in the blackness behind her. The skin on the back of her neck crawled. She crashed through the low branches and came out past the thick hemlocks into lighter trees, maples and slender birch that shone bone-white. There was movement just in front of the black of the hemlock stand. A pale face, low to the ground. The eyes shone cold silver that danced, hinting at golds and emeralds. Carolyn stared. It began to feel like falling through warm air. The face was coming closer, but the sounds of shuffling leaves and snapping branches seemed far off to her.

"He wanted you, he wanted you – but I got you. I get to climb on you, you, you."

The child’s voice was a terrible sing-song. A gust of wind in the branches brought her back. She took a pair of steps backward, tearing her gaze away from that pale face with the cold eyes. She turned and barreled in the opposite direction. It was all a panic, heedless of the branches and roots and briars that grabbed at her dress and scratched at her skin. She crashed through twisting pricker bushes and finally burst out onto the road. Winded, she looked back. The branches behind her began to jostle. A small figure came out onto the road, pale in the moonlight. It was a toddler, stumbling through the brush. Wispy hair and tattered clothes, with a rotted leaf clinging to her face. Her skin was as white as the bark of the birch trees. The silver eyes found her.

"Don’t run, don’t leave me, don’t run, come hold me, I’ll wrap your head, your head."

Sing-song. Carolyn ran, staying to the edges of the road, where the mud wasn’t as treacherous. Ahead, she could see the center of West Bradhill. The stars were clear and the moon – a slender presence – climbed above the horizon.

The Firelight Was Pain

The firelight was pain and the darkness a welcome shawl. Even the candlelight hurt, in sparks and bursts that traveled through his swollen eyes, deep into his head. Something bad had happened and he’d only wanted to go home, wanted to be with his mother, with Thomas, to be with his blankets. To be where he could be safe. But it was emptiness, cold and hard and agonizing; he couldn’t find them in the burnt timbers of his house. And in that silence, he’d changed further, down in his bones, down in the back of his skull, down where the sound of churning wasps filled his own head. It had driven him out into the fading day, on to where his smashed memories hung in shards, broken and destroyed.

And then she’d arrived, clear to him as a last glimmer of sunlight to a man sinking into watery depths. He wanted her, wanted to tell her things. Wanted to give his new mind to her. He still couldn’t walk right, even though the new strength was growing, hour by hour. His legs and arms felt like branches sewn to a sack, loose and no longer connected right, not letting him chase her as she dwindled. He couldn’t swallow or make a sound. So room to room he went, the scent of them overpowering and inarguable. He knew what to do, the darkness in his lungs snaking out. After, he crawled down the stairs, pushing out the door. The light of the stars was almost too much, the openness. He groaned.

Carolyn.

Outside, he couldn’t understand the road or the fields anymore. What was inside him drew him forward to the darkness – he looked for the glint of radiance that she had. When the wind came, it was like a beating, but he kept going.

Carolyn.

The Strangest Feeling Of All

Pannalancet sat by the fire at the edge of the lake, chanting. Beside him was a pile of the plants he’d gathered; in the proper order, he tossed them onto the flames, where they sputtered, rolling off fragrant smoke. The night sky cleared, revealing the stars. The words flowed out. Most were remembered, the rest somehow came to him. The rhythm of the chant pulled them out. He grabbed a small pile of the thick green to’ka branches and threw them into the flames. They snapped and the piney smell rose up around him. The words were taking on their power. He was their vessel.

The lake stretched into darkness. When the to’ka branches had blackened and then turned to red and white embers, he gently picked up the final pile of plants. These had taken him the longest to find, the tooth-root plants with their tiny orange blossoms. Delicate on the tops – the petals all but falling off at the lightest movement – and stubborn below the ground, where the thick, pointed roots bit into the earth. He held the flowers in front of him and paused.

A string of words came out of him that he’d never heard before. He spoke them over the flowers, moving them in a circle in front of his mouth as they came out.

"Akone ah tan’ah shewa. Osho tak’wa inhi ta’tune."

He said it four times, then tossed the plants into the orange flames. There was a whoosh and the burning petals of the flowers rose up on the heat, spinning and dancing above the fire before blowing off towards the lake. Pannalancet was silent. His head thrummed with the feeling of the words and of the songs. He stretched his legs out. His body felt good, as though he’d spent a morning running and fishing, a morning of youth. He got to his feet – the effects of the winter thistle driving back the pain in his hips – and went to the water’s edge, where he’d placed some of the other items for the ceremony. The easy part was over. The songs had been time-consuming, but they had worked – he felt it inside, and felt it in the air around the lake.

Now to shut the gate.

Clenching his jaw, Pannalancet leaned over and picked up the basket of clay from up the stream. He thought of his people, the ones that were gone: the ones who'd died in the fevers, the ones who'd been driven off, the ones who'd fled. He also thought of the doom that awaited those last two groups if he didn't succeed. He carried the basket to the water and took a step into the lake. As always, the water was icy – the sun couldn’t warm it even on the hottest day of high summer. His feet slid into the soft muck. Holding the basket across his left forearm, he reached into it with his right hand and scooped out a palm full. The voices started up around him, just a few. Not loud.

"I can’t find my arms."

"Be quiet," Pannalancet said. He shook his head. They were always there, the voices of the dead.

"Norri slandia ra puk," another voice, guttural.

Pannalancet ignored the voices and spoke the words, dragged the clay across his forehead, down each cheek. Then, he tossed the clay out into the water. Suddenly, the voices grew in number and surrounded him. Whispers, screams, crying. He almost stepped back – he’d never heard this many voices before, nor this close. English, Pennacook, Abenaki. Other tongues.

"Osh toa’wha eh tawenta," he said.

He pulled out a second handful of the clay and leaned over, holding it in the water. He repeated the words. The water around his hand and ankles trembled, and the clay in his palm felt like a living thing. The voices grew louder. Horrifying whispers competed with shouts out in the darkness of the lake. Straightening up, he held the clay aloft, towards the stars and shouted the words a third time, yelling to hear himself over the dozens of voices that gathered around him.

A power shot up through his legs, spreading out across his torso like a swallow of strong alcohol. His arm shook, though, as he held it up. Holding the clay off to each of the four directions for a moment, he took a deep breath. He said the words a final time. They were almost lost in the torrent of voices all around him. At the last word, he hurled the clay up and toward the center of the lake – as far as he could manage. It landed with a deep ploomp and sent out ripples that glimmered with starlight as they rolled outwards. There was a deep vibration underneath his feet and all the water shook. The voices were making it hard to concentrate.

Pannalancet looked around, his head beginning to ache with the incongruity – his eyes saw a still, empty lake; his ears filled with the sounds despair coming from an unseen crowd. He snapped himself back to what he needed to do. Turning, he reached back on the shore and grabbed the sack that lay on the grass. With a careful set of motions, he opened it and reached inside and pulled out the skull of a toke-nata, the tiny corpse that held the spirit-dweller, found all too easily in the woods at break of day. He’d put the head into a pot of hot water, kept that fire well fed, and let the boiling water do its work. Now the skull was mostly bare, the bone white in the light of the rising moon. The feel of it repulsed him. It was still somehow alive with whatever had entered it from the lake. The jawbone was gone; even after hours in the pot, the tiny jaw had opened and clacked closed with surprising force – so he'd broken it off with a mallet.