“We’re gods,” he said in that flat voice. “It’s time we started acting like it.”
In the morning Bertram knocked lightly, then backed into the room carrying a breakfast tray. “Room service!” he said with forced cheer, and stopped short. “Del, what’s the matter?”
“I’m fine.” The boy scraped at the inside of my head with something that felt like claws, and I clenched my jaw. It had been like this since Valis left. I couldn’t maintain my concentration, and the pain from my ribs spiked with every movement.
I breathed carefully. “How’d you sleep?” I asked.
“Me? Fine, out like a light.”
He set down the tray across my thighs. Coffee, bagel, newspaper. One of the headlines read “Jungle Lord Frees Chimps at Brookfield Zoo.” Nothing had changed. The world was as demon-haunted as ever.
“You want cereal?” Bertram said. “I can make you cereal. How about aspirin?”
I nodded toward the doorway. “How is she?” I asked.
“Your mother? Yeah, well, not good. She came down for a while, and I could tell she’d been crying,” he said. “She called Lew, and Amra’s driving him over in a little bit. They’re all very . . . worked up.”
He stepped back from the bed, knocked into a stack of Rubbermaid boxes, and stopped them from wobbling. “What did you say to her?”
he said.
Del lurched, and I winced. I covered it by looking away, out the window. I could see the whole backyard—the big willow tree with the stepping blocks still nailed to the trunk, the top of the garage, the new wooden fence Lew had put up a few years ago. Beyond the fence were the buildings of the industrial park. When we were kids it was open fields, a creek, a small forest. They’d kept some of the trees, put in a walking path, built a bridge over the creek.
“Bertram, I need you to do me a favor.”
He came around the bed, sat in the chair, and leaned forward. “I told you, I owe you. Anything you want, Del. Anything.”
“This is a big one,” I said.
I told him what I wanted. He blanched, but he stayed in the chair; he hung with me. He asked a dozen questions, most of which I couldn’t answer. But he agreed.
In half an hour he was packed. I heard him saying his good-byes to Del’s mother, their words indistinct. I’d told him what to say if she questioned him, but she didn’t seem to put up much of a fight. The taxi must have arrived then. The front door opened and closed, and Bertram was gone.
Lew and Amra arrived a short while later. They talked for a long time in the kitchen, and then they were coming up the stairs. I put my hands under the blanket, where I could clench my fists unseen. Del pitched against the inside of my head. I’d done this to myself, I realized. I’d let him out, and I didn’t have the will to shove him back in. Del’s mother opened my door. “Are you awake?” she said. She looked years older than last night.
Lew and Amra came in behind her. Amra leaned over the bed and hugged me gently. I inhaled, memorizing her perfume. Lew still limped, his knee gripped in a complicated brace. He looked much better than he had in the hospital, but his color was still a little gray, and he seemed thinner. He carefully sat in the chair, and patted my shin through the blanket.
“We both look like shit,” he said.
My face heated and my throat closed, the body’s response to signals for guilt, shame. I’d almost killed him that night at the lake. Killed him without thinking.
Lew said, “Hey man, don’t—don’t sweat it. I’m fine. The doctors say I’ll be fine. I don’t look that bad, do I?”
The three of them stood around my bed for a few minutes. Amra tried to make small talk, but conversation proved too awkward, too full of silences. Under the covers I dug my fingernails into my palms. Finally Amra said, “Why don’t we let you two catch up.”
Lew watched the women leave. “Mom’s been telling us some wild stuff,” he said.
“It’s all true,” I said.
He grimaced. “Maybe not. You’ve had some crazy shit go down, and it’s easy to get confused, to jump to conclusions.”
“Yeah.” I coughed, cleared my throat.
A minute passed. “Shit,” Lew said.
“He’s still here,” I said. “The little kid.”
Lew nodded. “That’s what Mom said.”
“You’re going to have to start all over,” I said. “Dad’s gone now, and Mom’s too old to do this on her own. You and Amra are going to have to help.”
Lew looked stricken. “What are you talking about?”
“I can’t stay, Lew. I’m barely holding on here.”
“Oh Jesus.” He pushed himself to his feet. “You can’t just . . .” He walked to the window.
“The last time, he woke up screaming. He was freaked out, that’s all. He was surrounded by strangers. Just hold him down, keep talking. He’ll recognize you. I know he’ll recognize you.”
“This is bullshit,” he said. “This is total bullshit.”
“Lew.” He finally looked at me. “Come here. Come on.” He walked toward me. “Put your hands on my shoulders. That’s it.”
He leaned over me. His hands gripped my biceps. “Like this?” he said.
“Harder.”
“I don’t think I can do this,” he said. His tears were running into his beard. “You’re a lot bigger than you used to be. I just had a heart attack a couple weeks ago.”
“You big baby,” I said through gritted teeth. “You’re saying I can take you now?” Del threw himself against my skull. I grunted, closed my eyes.
The Black Well blossomed above me. Bobby Noon was dead, but the network of souls, the well’s myriad tunnels, remained. I’d been born somewhere in that dark.
At the bottom of Harmonia Lake I’d relearned the secret of jumping. All you have to do is break this habit of breath and blood. Take everything and everyone you love, and throw them away. All you have to do is die.
Lew yelled, “Mom! Amra! We need you!”
“Shut up,” I said. “And hold on.”
THE HELLION
MT. PROSPECT, ILLINOIS, TODAY
There were six candles on the cake. The boy scrunched himself tighter into his seat at the patio table, hugging himself to contain his excitement. He held his breath as his mother used the big grill igniter to light the candles one by one. It was windy, and she had to light some of the candles twice. They sang to him: his mother, his big brother, and his brother’s wife. The boy, whose body was that of a grown man with a baritone voice to match, didn’t sing along. He had trouble with words. He could say “Mom”
and “Lew” and “no.” His doctor, Dr. Aaron, said that more words would come back in time. She was sure the temper tantrums would settle down too. They’d learned some of the things that could set him off: he didn’t like small spaces; he couldn’t stand tight clothes; he didn’t like the dark. He slept with the lights on, and once when the fuses blew during a thunderstorm and the house went black he screamed and screamed.
“Go for it, my man,” Lew said. The boy blew out all the candles at once, and they all clapped.
The boy pushed his chair back from the glass table, scraping metal legs along the cement. He drew up his
