Phillips cut away the nylon straps that bound her wrists and ankles, then removed the gag from her mouth. Picking her up, he carried her into the library and laid her on the couch. Finally he went to one of the pictures that hung on the walls, swung it away, and opened a wall safe, from which he removed a small vial of clear fluid and another hypodermic needle. Filling the needle carefully, he slid it into Judd Duval’s arm and pressed the plunger. “Lie down,” he told Duval. “Get some sleep. By sunrise you’ll feel a lot better.”
Judd sank gratefully onto the sofa opposite the one on which Jenny lay, already feeling the rejuvenating effects of the shot. The aching in his joints was fading away, and the deathly raling in his lungs was easing. He could feel the years rolling away as the shot restored his youth, as it always did.
It was like emerging from quicksand, struggling back from the black paralysis of death to the full light and vigor of life.
Smiling, he drifted into a peaceful sleep.
19
Clarey Lambert waited, her eyes closed, her mind turned inward to focus on the children. They were close now — she could feel Kelly and Jonas drawing near, sense that Michael was not far behind. Clarey was tired — it had been hours since she’d first sensed Kelly’s presence in the swamp, knowing instantly that the girl was alone and frightened. She’d tried to reach out to Kelly, tried to show her the way back, but Kelly’s mind, confused, had stayed just beyond her reach, and the best she’d been able to do was steer the child out of danger, keeping her away from the worst of the quicksand and sink holes that lay like traps, concealed by rings of apparently sheltering trees, inviting the unwary.
Then the cottonmouth had appeared, and she’d had to struggle against Kelly’s urge to run from the snake, finally seizing control of her mind, willing the girl not to move. But in the end she’d succeeded, at last searching for Jonas and guiding him through the swamp, sending him ever closer to Kelly.
Now they were only a few hundred yards from her house, and she finally let herself relax. She opened her eyes, blinking in the soft glow of the lantern light that filled the room, and pushed herself out of her chair.
She felt every year of her age tonight, and wondered how much longer she would be able to stay alive, how much longer she would be able to keep her vigil over the children.
Of course the Dark Man had promised that she could live forever, but she had refused the elixir he offered, disbelieving his promises.
The Dark Man had promised her the fountain of youth so many years ago.
Now she was old, and he was still young.
Young, because of what he stole from the children of the swamp.
She didn’t pretend to understand all of it, but knew well enough what the needles inserted in the chests of the babies were for.
“It’s only a little blood,” he’d told her. “It doesn’t hurt the children at all.”
Clarey knew better. What he was stealing from the children was not just their blood, but their youth.
Their youth, and their very souls, as well.
She knew — she’d watched them grow up, seen their empty eyes, watched them follow the Dark Man’s will, doing whatever he told them to do. No, it wasn’t merely blood he took from them.
It was the essence of their being, delivered to the men of Villejeune.
The men who paid the Dark Man, and did his bidding.
The men who should have died years ago, and were living on the youth of their own children.
The men she’d come to hate almost as much as she hated the Dark Man himself.
• • •
Kelly gazed up at the old woman who stood on the porch. The woman’s face was lost in shadows, yet despite the darkness, Kelly still felt a deep certainty that she knew this woman.
“Come up, child,” Clarey said, her voice rough with age. Kelly rose shakily and climbed up the ladder that led from the bayou’s surface up onto the porch six feet above. The woman turned toward her, and lamplight from the open door flooded onto her face.
Kelly gasped.
The skin of the woman’s face, dry as parchment, hung in deep wrinkles, and her thin hair was drawn back in a knot at the nape of her neck. She wore a black dress that hung loosely over her bony frame, and when she reached out toward Kelly, her hands, with their swollen knuckles and crooked fingers, had the look of a crow’s claws.
But though the hands and face of the woman were as grotesquely distorted with age as the image Kelly had seen so often in her dreams and her mirror, there was something in the crone’s eyes that instantly quelled the wave of fear that had risen inside her.
These eyes had no cruelty to them at all, gazing out of their deep sockets with a warm compassion that made Kelly want to put herself into the woman’s arms and be held by her.
“Come, my dear,” Clarey said softly, both her arms extended now. “Come and let me hold you again.”
Silently, Kelly moved to the old woman. As Clarey’s arms closed around her, she felt a sense of well-being come over her.
“So pretty,” Clarey crooned softly, her shriveled fingers gently stroking Kelly’s hair. “Always the prettiest. Always the sweetest.”
Kelly stood still, resting her head against Clarey’s withered breast, hearing the old woman’s heart beat softly within.
Again that strange sense of familiarity passed over her, as though this woman had held her before.
The low throbbing of an outboard sounded in the darkness, and then a second boat appeared. Its occupant cut the engine almost as soon as it came into view, and a moment later the craft drifted up to the house.
Jonas silently took the bow line from Michael, fastening it to one of the pilings. The two boys climbed up the ladder, and as they stepped onto the porch, Clarey released Kelly from her embrace, took her hand and led her into the house.
Michael and Jonas followed.
Clarey closed the door when they were all inside, then turned the lantern up so that its bright glow washed the shadows from the room. She turned and smiled at Kelly.
“Do you remember my little house?”
Kelly gazed curiously around the single room, which held a coal-burning stove in one corner, a sink and cupboard against the back wall, and a sagging bed in the corner opposite the stove. At the foot of the bed there was an old-fashioned iron bathtub, barely large enough for a single person to crouch in. There was a worn sofa against one of the walls, and a rocking chair sitting close to the stove. A braided rug, little more than a rag, covered the floor.
Never had she seen anything like the tiny house, and yet, like the woman herself, it seemed strangely familiar.
“I–I don’t know,” she faltered.
“Come here, child,” Clarey said, leading Kelly to the sink. She worked the handle of a pump, and water spurted into the sink. Taking a washcloth from a hook at the counter’s edge, she put it into Kelly’s hands. “You’ll be even prettier with the mud gone from your face.”
Kelly gazed into the cracked mirror above the sink. Her face was smeared with mud and slime, and her hair was caked with it as well. She bent over, putting her head beneath the pump’s spout, then began working the handle, letting the water gush over her, washing away the grime from the swamp. At last she used the washcloth to wipe away the last flecks from her face, then groped for the towel that hung from the same hook from which Clarey had taken the washcloth. Wrapping the towel around her hair, she straightened up.
In the mirror, she saw the image of the ancient being who had haunted her all her life. She gasped, but then heard the old woman’s gentle laughter.
“It’s all right,” Clarey told her. “It’s not him. It’s only me. Only Clarey.”
