Enter, Night

“You would never have come back here, Jeremy, if you had somewhere else to go. Nor you, Christina. You are literally penniless, aren’t you? And you’ve come back here, to me, because there was nowhere else.”

“You bitch,” Jeremy said. “You absolute bloody-”

“If I were you, son, I’d be more careful with my epithets,” Adeline said mildly. “It’s only my love for you as a mother that’s keeping me from using a few of the choice ones that describe men like you.”

“You hate me, don’t you?” Jeremy said, marvelling. “You actually hate me. You wish it had been me who died instead of Jack.”

“No, my dear, I love you,” she replied. “And I do confess that, sometimes, I wish it had been you who died instead of Jack. But the feeling passes.”

Jeremy stumbled blindly out of the dining room. Christina rose from her chair and threw her napkin on the table. She followed Jeremy out into the front hall, leaving Adeline alone. From inside the dining room, Christina heard the tinkling sound of the bell Adeline used to summon Beatrice, and the sound of the door that connected the kitchen and the dining room swing open and shut.

“Jeremy, where are you going?” Christina said.

“Out,” Jeremy said harshly. “Away from here. Home to Toronto. Somewhere… I don’t know.”

“You’re too upset to drive. Stay here, calm down. It’s too dangerous.”

“I can’t,” he mumbled. He reached for the pea coat he’d left on the chair next to the sideboard in the hallway. “I need to think. I need to get away. I need a drink. Come with me.”

“I can’t leave Morgan,” Christina said. “I have to stay here with her. Adeline’s right, you know. We have nowhere else to go, at least until one of us has some money. She has us right where she wants us. We have to make it work. Or rather, I have to make it work. Won’t you stay with me so we can talk about this?”

“No, not now,” he said. “I’ll be back in a bit. I need to clear my head. Don’t worry, she’s vented now, she’ll be fine for a while. Even monsters need to rest between monstrosities.” He put his coat on and felt in his pockets for the car keys. “I’ll be back,” he repeated. “Don’t worry.”

“Just… well, just drive carefully.” The unspoken thought that passed between them was, Please don’t leave me alone the way Jack did. I can’t go through that again. Neither Morgan nor I could survive it happening twice.

Jeremy hugged her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

He held Christina tightly for a moment, then opened the front door and walked to his car. As he turned the key in the ignition, he saw her framed in the doorway of the house, silhouetted in the lights of the hallway. Then he turned the car around and headed towards town.

The clatter of gravel against the undercarriage of the car sounded like shots.

Through the windshield of the Chevelle, Jeremy saw the stars in the night sky over Parr’s Landing as though they were underwater, for he was weeping at this final and unalterable proof that his mother not only regretted his existence, as he’d known since he was fifteen, but actively wished him dead, at least if it would bring his brother back from the grave.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Richard Weal heard the distant passage of Jeremy’s car as he crouched on a ledge above Bradley Lake and waited, invisible as any other night predator. He waited with increasing desperation for his secret voice to speak to him again, to give him one last sign that he could follow, but the voice had been silent all day.

He sifted aimlessly through his hockey bag, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the sour smell that drifted up from it. He had to admit, his hockey bag was starting to stink of blood, old hair, and bits of rotted carrion, but as he had been travelling alone for the most part, the aesthetics hadn’t been much of a priority for obvious reasons. The knives hadn’t been properly cleaned since before Gyles Point, and while he’d rinsed them off as best he could in the sink at the cottage, they had assumed a bronzy-red patina. The hammers were greasy and slick to the touch but, testing the sharp points of them, he didn’t doubt that they could still do the job for which they had been designed- and even a few jobs for which they had not. But he doubted, at this point, that he would have much need for them.

Not after tonight. Not ever again. He would have his teeth. Weal’s muscles were cramped and sore from having spent the previous night sleeping outdoors and he was chilled to the bone. And hungry. The sun had been a warming balm for the brief time he’d been able to experience it this afternoon, and he cursed the stupid cop from town who had interrupted his exploration of Spirit Rock and forced him to crouch in the cold shadows for hours afterwards.

That cop will be the next one to die, Weal swore to himself. He’s going to die for making me so uncomfortable today. And I’m going to make it hurt, too. I’m going to make it hurt a lot.

He closed his eyes and listened for the voice, but it was silent. He felt a momentary flare of panic. His first thought was that his friend was angry at him for wasting another day, for not finding him and rescuing him. But he forced himself to calm down. He rarely heard the voice when he was upset, or when his mind was clouded with other thoughts, or worry, or panic. He mustn’t panic, now more than ever, when he was so close to achieving his- their-goal.

“Tell me where you are,” Weal whined. He lowered himself onto his knees in an aspect of prayer and folded his hands like a child. Tears of frustration welled up in his eyes and ran down his filth-caked face. “I know you’re here, Father,” he sobbed, closing his eyes. “I can feel you. I know this is the place. I know you’re here. Give me a sign. Show me. Please…? Let tonight be the night. I beg you, Father. Give me just one more sign. Please.”

And then the images came to him, redoubled in force and clarity, stronger than ever before, violent and terrifying and euphoric. The strength of them knocked him backwards and he lay on the cold ground in violent convulsion. His jaws worked, and he bit his tongue, tasted his own blood in his throat before it ran pinkly from his mouth, mixing with his slobber, staining his stubbled chin. Weal’s eyes rolled back in his head, and all was darkness, except that it was a brilliant darkness, and he could see more clearly than he ever had in his life.

He saw Spirit Rock and he saw Bradley Lake, but they were different, surrounded by a denser, darker, greener forest, a bluer, clearer sunset sky. The air was pungent, wilder and more savagely northern than it had been that afternoon, or at any other time in his lifetime. He knew, without knowing how, that it was not his lifetime, that it was some other time altogether. He felt the weight of centuries hurtling around him like supernovas, and he knew that the weight would crush his soul to powder if it weren’t for the protection of his friend’s voice that he wore like armour in this waking dream of shredded time.

He found himself standing at the opening of a cave, not the place where his body lay shaking on the ground. He glanced around dumbly in the sunset light and saw great piles of smoking ash heaped around the opening of the cave.

He smelled the stink of burning flesh suddenly over the wild scent of the forest as the wind came up and began to scatter the ash across the cliffs. Some of it blew into his face, burning his eyes and catching acridly in his throat.

Something happened here, he thought. Something marvellous and terrible, something not of this earth. Something beautiful.

Weal looked around dumbly. I’m dreaming. I’m not here. This is not happening. I fell asleep outside on the ledge on Spirit Rock. Or I’m having an episode because I threw my pills away in Toronto, and I have to wake up. There’s work to do. I have to wake up!

But his eyes burned and his mouth tasted like cinder and he felt the ground, solid and real. He felt the cold north wind that carried the stinking soot that smelled like burned meat. He felt the press of sharp stones through the worn soles of his boots.

Weal looked questioningly at the mouth of the cave, but before he could ask, he knew what the answer would be. It came and he followed it into the cave, and was swallowed whole by the shimmering visions.