And something quick and wet and warm flicked at his face, just under his left eye, it may have been only the corner of a blanket shifting, yes, of course, that's what it was, rats don't eat little boys, that's not tiny feet pressing against your legs, it's only your imagination, and you always had a good imagination, didn't you?
And you lived long enough to learn that the darkness doesn't spread out forever, that rats don't own everything, just your dreams, AND DREAMS ARE THE ONLY THING YOU GOT IN THIS WORLD.
And Mama came home finally and opened the door and turned on the light and held you but it was too late, days too late, years too late, the rats had EATEN you, eaten your eyes, now it's dark all the time and they own the dark and Mama can't open the door because they ate her eyes, too, and she's sitting in her rat's-nest chair back in Sawyer Creek and 'Looks like you're in a right smart pickle.'
The voice, from nowhere and everywhere, seemed part of the dark. And darkness had to have different colors, because the deep black tunnel opened like a throat before his closed eyes. Standing at the edge of the tunnel was Ransom Streater, dripping wounds and all, a perfect row of punctures across the chest of his overalls, one buckle bent. Ransom with his grinning possum mouth and old freckled bald head and dead, dead, dead eyes.
'Korban fetched me up to your bad place,' Ransom said. 'You ought to see mine. I got it worse than you do, believe me. But Korban says if I'm a good helper, then I get out of my bad place for a little bit. All I gots to do is walk you out.'
'Where am I?'
'Why, in the heart, that's where. 'Cepting Korban wants to send you back. Says you got chores to do.'
'What chores?' Mason forced his eyes wide, even though the rats were hungry and eyes were soft and juicy. But the image didn't change, Ransom stood shimmering before him, the tunnel stretched out black and deep and cold, only now there was a light at the end, precious light, beautiful light, a ratless light, Mama was opening the door.
Mason stood, heard the rats slither back into their unseen holes. He said the only thing he could think of to say. 'You're dead.'
'And it ain't no Cakewalk, let me tell you.' Ransom touched his wounds, his eyebrows lifting as he fingered a hole in his ribs. 'At least you got a choice.'
Mason stepped closer, the light beckoned. He took one glance backward in the darkness, heard the noise of whiskers and claws and wet, sharp teeth. He shivered. Korban would keep this place waiting for him.
But the best thing to do was put your fears behind you, as least for as long as possible. Deny their existence. Bury them.
'Where does the tunnel go, Ransom?'
'Why, to the end. Where else would it go?'
Mason swallowed. He remembered Ransom, the old, living Ransom, had said the tunnel led back to the manor's basement. He thought about running for the ladder, but he heard a squeak and a whisper of tongue. Then, Mama's voice, unmistakable, poured from the dark throat of the tunnel. 'Dreams is all we got, Mason. Now get in here and make Mama proud.'
And it wasn't only Mama's voice, here in the damp, dark dirt of Korban's estate, that bothered him. It was the suggestion of squeakiness in her words, as if they had spilled from between large, curved, rodent teeth.
Mason followed Ransom into the black tunnel, blinked as the light grew unbearably bright, then softened. A lantern was burning on the table. Mason was in the studio, his unfinished statue waiting before him.
'Tunnels of the soul, Mason,' Mama said. 'I'll be watching.'
Mason turned just in time to see the long hideous gray rope of tail disappear into the dark tunnel. Ransom stood by the shadows of the basement. 'We all got chores. My batch is waiting back in the tunnel. Yours is on this side, for now.'
Mason knelt, trembling, and selected a fluter. He took up his hatchet and approached the statue, studied the rough oak form. Ephram Korban was in there somewhere, just as he inhabited everything. At the heart of it all.
Mama lied. She 'd said dreams were all we had in this world. But we have nightmares, too. And memories.
And sometimes you can't tell the difference.
Mason attacked the wood as if his life depended on it.
CHAPTER 23
Sylva opened the door just before Anna reached the cabin. 'Been expecting you.'
Anna moved past her without waiting for an invitation. Sylva looked at the folded cloth on the mantel, the one that held her spelling charm. Every trick in the book, and a few she'd only heard whispered around long-ago campfires, were ground up and sprinkled inside the cloth, and words had been said over the concoction that few lips would dare speak. But this wasn't a time for the scared or the faint of heart.
'Warm your bones,' Sylva said, motioning to an old cane chair by the fire. 'Tonight's one of them that lets you know winter's right around the corner.'
'You didn't tell me everything,' Anna said, going to the hearth but kneeling instead of sitting.
'They's such a thing as knowing too much. Bad enough you got the Sight. But if you don't mind your step, you're going to end up too soon on the wrong side of dead.'
'But why does my mo-no, not my mother, I mean Rachel Hartley-think I'm some kind of savior for the haunted? Why did she summon me here? If Korban's already got them, what can I do about it? Just because I can see ghosts doesn't mean I have any special powers.'
'Remember what I told you about power. It ain't what you believe that matters, it's how much.' Sylva kept her eyes fixed on the leaping flames, wouldn't let her gaze slide over to the folded cloth, no matter how hard they itched for a look.
'I don't owe Rachel anything,' Anna said. 'You said blood runs thicker than water. But that's not all that makes people belong to each other.'
'Child, I know how it hurts. I've hated myself for my weakness, my sin with Korban. I tried a hundred times to tell myself that he caused it, he spelled me and made it happen. But it's always easy to lie to yourself, ain't it? It's easy to just push it down into the dark where you hope nobody will see the truth of it, least of all yourself.'
Oh yeah, woman, you know the truth of it, don't you? Ephram let you kill him under the blue moon so his spirit could go into the house. But you never knew that Ephram would take up collecting, would fetch over everybody who died on his grounds. And you surely to goodness never knew he'd keep Miss Mamie young, turn love into poison like that.
'Your sin was a long time ago,' Anna said. 'You ought to be able to forgive yourself after all these years.'
'I was always afraid to let loose and love him,' Sylva said. 'You don't know the times I wanted that night to happen again, at the same time I was knotted up inside with the frights. Maybe it was all Ephram's doing, one of his tricks. But it's a scary and wondrous thing when your heart gets plumb stole away. And it's scary and wondrous to burn with hate over something, too.'
'But Rachel-'
'I loved her, same as she loves you. I reckon as much as Ephram loved me.'
'You said Miss Mamie was keeping him alive. That, and the spirits of those he's trapped at the manor. The ones he uses for fuel, some sort of soul siphon, feeding on their pain and dreams.'
'What do you reckon Ephram burns for?' Sylva bent and took up the poker, stabbed at the back log until sparks spat up the chimney. 'The dead is just like living. They want things they can't have. Ephram's got unfinished dreams, a big appetite. That's why you're here.'
Sylva felt the trembling in her old limbs, the rough coursing of her blood through narrowed veins. She had been old far too long. She had too many regrets, had been played for the worst kind of fool. If only she could close her eyes and rest in peace. But Ephram Korban wouldn't allow it.
