Again and again the cry pierced the afternoon until Nell, unable to stand it any longer, fled inside.
Too soon again, the sounds of terror and pain jangled the thickets and tore at the silence of afternoon. Newly lost, the outcast thrashed on the grassy clearing, wailing and scrambling, until all signs of those who had come before were gone. From a hidden place among the trees, the exile waited with the food wrapped in its blue bundle, but the newly wild lunged to its feet and lurched past, just as so many had fled past the small welcome of the cottage garden.
Years ago, when the first of the lost had come into the woods, pulling at its face and arms, tearing at its changing skin, the exile had tried to say a word of solace, to call the thing back from the abyss. It had not heard. None ever had.
Now the frightened creature ran on, only to fall bloodied and exhausted among the trees, eyes rolling in its head until sleep, merciful and powerful, took it.
Gently, the exile laid the bundle beside it. Outcasts were forever hungry, empty in a thousand ways.
Food could fill only one. And yet that, too, was a mending.
Nell felt that the world was tilting and all the solid things, the up and down of gravity, the bulk of trees and rocks and houses, were poised to fall out of the light of day into the dark. Sober-faced men stood in groups turning people into monsters, nodding and consulting and ripping the mind from a man before walking sedately back to their studies. How could such a thing be? Worse, how could the old man not know about it?
He did know. He must know.
A cold terror wrapped around her bones when Nell understood this, and on shaking legs, she ran back to the room, to Susan, to Kate and Jean.
But it was Max she saw when she came panting through the door. He was sitting on her bed, hands pressed between his knees, rocking. The room was bright with the light of the afternoon sun streaming through the windows from over the mountain, and Nell thought suddenly, It shouldn’t be. It should be dark.
Max jumped to his feet when he saw her.
“Where have you been? Didn’t you hear what happened? We were starting to think it was you they put out!”
He was white faced and unsteady, as unsteady as she felt. He must know. He must have seen, she thought. He must understand, as she did. He’d been there, with the old man, with all of them. . . .
“We have to go!” she said, moving past him to the window. The valley spread out below her, still desolate, and silent now, after the terrible sounds from the hill. “We’ll have to run for it while they’re still inside —”
She was making plans, hastily trying to determine the safest route away. They wouldn’t want to meet it, or the men who had made it. Did anyone follow the thing up the mountain when it fled?
“Nell, what are you talking about?”
Max was staring at her. For a second, he had looked relieved at the sight of her. Now he only looked confused. She glanced at the others. The fear she’d seen when she first rushed in was going. Kate and Jean had been huddled on the bed, Jean squeezing the air out of Barbie’s plastic skull. Now she set the doll in her lap and looked to Susan, who had been slow to raise her head.
They didn’t know. The look on Max’s face, the upset and fear, that was on her account. They wouldn’t look this way if they knew. They’d be worse.
“The sound from the mountain! Didn’t you hear it?”
But they hadn’t. The windows and doors were shut. Only she had followed. After the gong, they’d been sent upstairs, and Max had crossed the gardens to join them. No one else had been in the fields. She looked from one to the next and saw they’d only been waiting for her, half panicked at her absence.
Shakily, she told them what she’d seen, what she’d heard. Max abruptly sat down, and Susan looked sick.
“Slashers?” Max said. “From here?”
She nodded.
“No,” he said. “No, they wouldn’t.”
Nell stared at him. He’d come to his senses in a second, if she’d only wait. She practiced her patience, though it was hard, with her legs shaking so, to sit still.
Again, Max said, “No.”
Nell turned to Susan. Why was she so quiet?
“Susan, say something!”
Susan blinked, her hand pressed to the side of her face. A cloud crossed the sun outside, and the brightness faded from the room. Behind Susan, the image of the golden man emerging from the pool dulled.
“Max, you were with them,” Susan said. Her voice sounded muffled, as if she’d just woken. “You would know. What did the old man say? Did he tell you anything?”
Worry had made Max’s face look young. He shook his head. “He only said something about discipline, and the protection of the sanctuary, and the great gift we have to be grateful for. He means our minds! He’d never do that, Nell. Never! You’re wrong!”
Nell bit her lip. She’d seen the men standing in a group! She’d heard that terrible cry!
But Max was talking fast now, words and words and words that battered her until she wasn’t completely sure anymore. Could she have been mistaken? She remembered the old man’s lovely voice, the warmth of it. Max asked if she’d seen him there, and she hadn’t, or if she’d seen the man who cried out, and again, she hadn’t. She tried to say something, but he kept talking, quicker than ever, rolling over her until she
