The Fifth Day Page 23

  Now she was pursuing Gary, a thought that sat in the pit of Ben’s stomach like a cold stone.

  Something was wrong. What was it that Stephen Hawking had called it in A Brief History of Time? Symmetry breaking. Ben wasn’t entirely sure he understood what Hawking was talking about in that section, but it sounded portentous, and the phrase came back to him now. Their symmetry had been broken. They were out of equilibrium, and about to spin out of control.

  He walked into the kitchen. Gary was reaching into one of the cabinets, and at the noise of footsteps turned toward him with a smile, a container of cashews in his hand.

  “Hey, little bro. What’s up?”

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure.” Gary plopped down at the table, opened the can of cashews, popped a handful into his mouth. “Have some cashews, dude, and tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “I’m scared.” Ben frowned. He hadn’t meant to begin that way. It made him sound like a little kid.

  But Gary shrugged. “You got reason to be.” He gestured at the bandaged gashes on his own left arm. “You’d be crazy if you weren’t scared of the thing that did that.”

  “Not the monsters. Or not only the monsters. There’s something wrong in here. Don’t you feel it? The new people we found today. There’s something wrong with them.”

  Gary leaned back, tilted his chair back on two legs. “Yeah, Jackson Royce is a mean motherfucker. And his girlfriend seems like she’s got a screw loose. You’d best stay out of both of their way.”

  “What about—what about Mikiko?”

  “What about her?”

  “Don’t you think there’s something weird about her, too?”

  Gary grinned. “I guess. Maybe I’m just used to that kind of weird. I’ve dated my share of chicks who had the Goth or punk thing going.”

  “It’s not how she dresses. She—” Ben stopped, pressed his knuckles to his forehead. “I don’t know how to put it in words.”

  Gary gave him a friendly clout on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. She’s okay. Chicks gotta be kinda crazy, you know? It’s part of the attraction.”

  “You said Olivia had a screw loose.” Ben had the sense that he and Gary were talking past each other, that neither one had any idea what the other was trying to say.

  “Yeah, well, that’s probably why Jackson likes her. You’ll get it in a few years, little bro. Crazy chicks are better… you know, in bed.”

  “Don’t,” Ben said in a breathless voice. “Don’t. Don’t do it with Mikiko. That’s what she wants.”

  “Dude. If a chick wants it, why the hell not? I mean, it’s not like I got a lotta choices, here. Who else is there? If she’s gonna jump me, I’m not gonna say no. It gets lonely at night with nothing but your right hand for company.”

  “But that’s just it. Remember what Z said. You know, the Tarot cards? Your card was The Chariot. Z said that it meant that you were in danger from, you know, from going with your instincts. From listening to your body and not your brain.”

  Gary’s smile faded. “You’re too damn smart, you know what I mean? What makes you think that’s connected to Mikiko?”

  “I know you want her. I’m only a kid, but I’m not stupid. It’s obvious. Everyone sees it. Something about you changed the minute she walked up. And that’s it, that’s your danger. I’m sure of it. The Tarot cards said so.”

  Gary’s voice was wry and dismissive. “The Tarot cards—”

  “You believed it. You believed it that night, Gary. We all did, and you were as scared as the rest of us. Even Lissa was freaked out, a little bit, even though she said she wasn’t.”

  Gary opened his mouth again, but Ben kept going, pushing forward, the stream of words gaining a desperate momentum.

  “They’re all coming true. All the cards. Z’s card was about being a High Priestess, and she can tell the future. Lissa’s was about how she has to learn to figure things out another way than science. Jeff’s said he was some kind of priest guy. They’re all coming true, and if we don’t pay attention to what the warning was, we’ll….” He trailed off, not wanting to finish the statement with, we’ll get killed one by one because we didn’t believe.

  “And what was yours, little bro?” Gary’s demeanor wasn’t quite so cocksure. Maybe he was finally listening?

  “Mine was The Fool.”

  He was immediately sorry he said it. He should have known how it would sound.

  Gary roared with laughter. “Yeah, okay. That’s what I’m sayin’.”

  “No, that’s not what Z said it meant.” And just like that, the opportunity was gone. Whatever chance he had of convincing Gary had passed irretrievably.

  “Yeah, okay.” Gary gave him another playful smack on the shoulder. “You know, you were a little older, I’d think you were after Mikiko yourself and were trying to scare me into backing off and giving you a shot at her.”

  Ben’s mouth twisted with disgust, and he said, “Yuk,” before he could stop himself.

  Gary laughed again. “Yeah, I remember the ‘girls are icky’ stage. Wait till it passes. Pretty soon you’ll be like the rest of us guys when you see a hot chick, trying to think about something else and using whatever you’re carrying to hide a boner. Only a matter of time, dude.”

  “It’s not that I think girls are icky….”

  Gary took another mouthful of cashews. “It’s okay. Nothin’ to be embarrassed about. We all started that way.”

  “Listen.” The intensity in his voice made Gary stop munching for a moment and frown at him. “Listen to me. I know you think I’m making stuff up. Or that I’m only a kid and that you don’t need to pay attention. It’s not that I don’t want you to have a girlfriend. It’s Mikiko. There’s something wrong with her. Something bad wrong. And she’s trying to make you not see it.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “I don’t know.” He found himself near tears of frustration, and struggled to keep his voice from cracking. Crying would only make his argument collapse faster. “I know that sounds stupid. I don’t know. But it’s something, something real.” He stopped, and the two locked gazes for a moment. Gary’s eyebrows rose, and for the first time, he seemed actually to be listening, but Ben sensed the older man was still unreachable, light years distant. “Gary. Promise me. Promise me that you’ll be careful. There’s something wrong, and Z tried to tell each of us what to watch out for, and I’m scared you’re running right into it. Be careful.”

  Gary gave him a solemn nod. “Okay, little bro. Fair enough. I promise. I’ll be careful. You be careful too.”

  “No. I’m not the one in danger. It’s you. You, and Z, and Lissa. I don’t know how I know it, but I do.”

  “And Z is out with Jackson and Olivia.”

  Ben nodded. “If I thought they would have listened, I would have tried to stop them. What are we going to do if they don’t come back? Or if Jackson comes back and Z doesn’t? Without Z here….”

  “I know what you mean. She’s the leader. We didn’t elect her or nothing, but it’s the way it is.”

  “That’s why Jackson hates her. I’m afraid he asked her to go with him so that—so that if something happens, he can get her out of his way without anyone knowing.”

  “Man, kid, you have a suspicious mind for a thirteen-year-old.”

  “I don’t know how I know it. But if Z doesn’t come back, I’m going to leave. Run away. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I’m going to take my chances with the monsters. At least those monsters, you know they’re monsters.” Tears overflowed from his eyes, sent hot trails down his cheeks. “It’s worse when the monsters look like people.”

  11

  MILE AFTER MILE, footstep after footstep. Some grumbled that they should never have listened to the Sibyl, should never have entered the forest, until it became apparent that those were always the ones who were not to be found when they stopped next to rest.

  But some saw the truth; that the only way to su
rvive was to treat the forest on its own terms. Its rules might seem capricious, but here they were law. And the most important of the rules was: Stay on the path, keep walking, be watchful; and always be as fluid and responsive as water, for those who freeze into the certainty that the world be as they say it is are the first to be broken.

  —

  BREATHING WAS PAINFUL.

  Lissa tried to sleep, but even with ibuprofen the dull, throbbing ache in her chest kept her wakeful. For the first hour after Z and the others had left, she did little but wait for the crash and roar as Grendel smashed his way into the room and finished her off. If Grendel returned he would kill her. There would be no contest. She doubted she could even get up off the couch and run. But knowing that brought a kind of calm—there was nothing she could do, one way or the other.

  Ben sat in the kitchen with Gary for a time, talking in low voices. It sounded serious, and she wondered what two such different people could possibly find to talk about. Then Mikiko minced her way into the room, asked where Gary was in her high-pitched little girl’s voice, and minutes later she and Gary disappeared upstairs. Jeff still sat in vigil with Margo, leaving Lissa alone with her thoughts in the dimly-lit living room.

  Soon after Gary and Mikiko went upstairs, Ben came in and sat in the recliner, his eyes red, his fair face set in a frown.

  “Everything okay, Ben?”

  He nodded.

  “Maybe you’d like to keep me company for a while, then. If you have nothing better to do.”

  He cleared his throat. “I’d like that.”

  So he read to her from the physics books his parents had, and the ones he’d gotten from the library, and asked questions about the stars and quarks and the Big Bang. The distraction was nice. She relaxed into the conversation with Ben on her favorite topic, and let the fear slip away from her.

  The boy was pleasant company, eager to understand. The hallmark of a scientific mind, that. Even when her explanations drifted into the abstruse, and she thought she’d lost him, he’d make a comment or ask a question that reassured her he was with her.

  A fine physicist he’d have made, if there were any colleges left to train him. If the world hadn’t changed.

  So she lay on the couch, listening to his clear alto voice and the distant murmur of the ocean and the breeze stirring the leaves of the eucalyptus trees. Finally, her mind was so clouded with the pain of her injuries that she said, “Ben, dear, I think I need to rest from talking. I’m one big bruise, you know, and if I can sleep it would be nice.”

  Ben’s brow wrinkled in concern. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. I enjoy our conversations, and we’ll talk again. But I’m done in for now. Perhaps you can read to yourself for a while, and then, when I’m awake, we can talk about what you read.”

  He gave her a tentative smile. “Okay.”

  She smiled back, and closed her eyes, trying to relax despite the fact there was no position her lean body could assume that didn’t hurt somewhere. She slipped into a light doze, rousing often, and giving a moan and wince as she turned, trying to get comfortable.

  It was only a half-hour later that she heard Ben say, “Lissa. I’m sorry, wake up. I have to tell you something.”

  She opened her eyes, and saw Ben sitting in the big recliner across the room. A large hardbound book lay across his lap, and his blue eyes were wide. Not with fear. He looked like a boy who had just discovered something astonishing, something stupendous.

  “What is it?” She hoped that her thought of Quantum mechanics really could have waited a few more minutes didn’t show too badly in her face.

  “When you fell asleep, I didn’t want to go further into A Brief History of Time without you, so I started reading this.” He held the book up. It had a painting of a many-armed Hindu god on the front, and the title, Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Folklore. “I thought I’d look up Grendel, because you said that was the thing that attacked us. So I read about Grendel, but it didn’t say all that much except that he’d been killed by a warrior named Beowulf. So I figure that Grendel can’t be what was in Mister Gray’s house, because he’s dead and all. But then I started looking through the book, you know, what do you call it….”

  “Browsing?”

  “Yeah. Browsing, and I found this.” He frowned at the page in concentration, and read, “‘The will-of-the-wisp is a part of many folklore traditions; some form of the legend exists from the British Isles all the way to the southern regions of China, and also in parts of North America, especially the swamps of southern Louisiana, where it is called the feu follet, or ‘foolish fire.’”

  He pronounced the last word to rhyme with wallet. Lissa smiled, but didn’t correct him.

  “‘There is a tremendous commonality between all of the manifestations of this legend, however,’” he went on. “‘All describe a colorful, flickering flame that hovers in the air, beckoning the unwary to follow. It is uniformly considered an evil apparition, capable of everything from scorching the skin of those who displease it, to stealing the souls of children, to sending the susceptible into a charmed sleep.’”

  Lissa’s smile vanished, and a chill shuddered its way down her spine. “That’s remarkable,” she said, while simultaneously her brain told her that it was only a superstition. It was in a book of mythology, for heaven’s sake. But then the answer came back immediately—so was Grendel, and he had almost killed her.

  “It’s what attacked Margo,” Ben said, with complete conviction.

  “It does sound like it.”

  “And I—” He looked at her, swallowed. “I know how to get rid of it.”

  “Get rid of the will-of-the-wisp? How?” Again, her rational mind squawked its objections. Four days ago she’d have laughed at anyone who asked this. Now she was seriously wondering if a thirteen-year-old boy might have discovered a way to free a woman from possession by an evil spirit. That’s it.

  She was losing her mind.

  But she came back to the touchstone she had always had—evidence. She said more than once in her life, when confronted by religion and superstition, that she would accept anything—revise her entire worldview—given sufficient evidence.

  Time to walk the talk.

  “I have to get a needle.” Ben slammed the book closed, and ran off upstairs, toward his mother’s study.

  “A needle?” she called after him, then winced at the jolt of pain. “What do you need a needle for?” Oh, hell, she had better go see what he was on about. With many groans, she brought herself to a sitting position, then stood, and laboriously made her way to the stairs.

  Whatever the boy had found, she needed to see it with her own eyes. If this world was turning her understanding upside down, there was to be no doubt left in her mind when it was done.

  The stairs were a trial. She was aware of every muscle in her body as they pulled against her fractured ribs with every step up.

  “I’m moving like my grandmother,” she said through clenched teeth, but she kept going, all the while listening to Ben rummaging around in the study.

  There was the sound of a drawer closing as she got to the top, and Ben emerged from the room holding a needle between his index finger and thumb, his eyes never leaving it as he walked down the hall toward Margo’s room.

  “A needle? What are you going to do with a needle?”

  “I’m going to do what the book said.” Ben pushed open the door into Margo’s room, and Lissa followed, pressing her palm against the wall for support.

  Jeff was still sitting by Margo’s bedside, and looked up drowsily as they entered. “What….” He glanced from one face to the other, frowning. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m going to help Margo.” Ben advanced on the sleeping woman, arm outstretched, the needle held vertically, eye upwards.

  “But—”

  Lissa held up one hand. “No. Wait.”

  In the dim light of the bedroom, the rainbow aura that played over M
argo’s body was clearly visible, like a flickering flame. But as Ben approached, the luminescence changed. It shuddered, and the warm gold and green turned to a cold blue. The light pulled back, withdrawing toward her skin, as if trying to keep its hold on her.

  All at once, the eerie phosphorescence swept upwards from her, pulled toward the eye of the needle. There was a rush like a high wind. Ben squinted against it, and his outstretched arm vibrated like a guitar string. The boy was in the center of a maelstrom of energy, the eye of a hurricane, although not one hair on his head moved. The lights twisted into a shimmering vortex of color, and sucked into the narrow slot. And what came out of the other side was—

  —fireflies.

  Hundreds, thousands of fireflies. They fluttered, gleaming in the shadows. Three landed on Lissa’s hand, still pressed against the wall, and sat for a moment, flexing their long wings before taking off again. The entire cloud spun upwards in the room, and dove toward the window, opening a gap to let the warm afternoon air in. The swirling mass of wings and light poured through the opening and out. Within less than a minute, the room was empty except for its three human occupants.

  Margo opened her eyes and blinked twice. “Well, that was a peculiar dream.” She smiled a little sheepishly. “Why are you all in here staring at me? Was I talking in my sleep?”

  PART THREE

  The Created Ones

  1

  HOURS OR DAYS later—none there could be sure how much time had elapsed, for it seemed that they had always been in the forest—there was a glimmer of light ahead.

  The forest has an end! cried one woman, her voice joyful, pointing toward what looked like sunlight in the gloom.

  But as they approached, they saw that it was not so; it was only a small clearing, a circular space where many paths met, radiating outward like the spokes of a wheel. A patch of dazzling blue sky was above the clearing, and the travelers looked at it as a hungry man looks at a fully-laden table.