The Child Eater Page 3

  And now they all turned, and Jack realized they could see him. Get out of here, he told himself, but he couldn’t move. “Jack, Jack,” they chanted, “don’t go back. Stay and heal the broken crack.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I’m not the one.”

  “Jack!” they all shouted together. “Help us!”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t know how.”

  He woke up screaming, unable to move his body. He strained to free himself before he realized it was just his father’s arms around him.

  “It’s all right,” his dad said. “It’s okay.”

  “No,” Jack said. “I’ve got to go back.”

  “It was just a dream.”

  “But those kids. I’ve got to—”

  “Shh,” his father said, and held Jack so tightly the boy could hardly breathe. “It’s just a dream, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “But I have to—”

  “No. You don’t have to do anything but forget it. Just leave it and it’ll go away. I had scary dreams too when I was a boy. Everyone in this family has them. They don’t mean anything.”

  It was Jack’s father who first thought it might be the woods. He didn’t know about the animals so he just wondered if maybe it was not good for a “normal boy like Jack” to spend so much time alone, in what Dad called “kind of a primitive state.”

  Jack didn’t want to dream anymore, and he wanted to listen to his father, so he stopped going to the woods, stopped going out much at all after school, only watched TV or played on his hand-held Nintendo. Sometimes his mother would look at him with a pinched face and suggest he go outside, or call up a friend for a play date. Jack just shrugged and said, “I’m okay.”

  There was one game he played over and over, though every time he played it he thought how dumb it was, and, well, nerdy, and when he mentioned it to other kids at school they all claimed they’d never heard of it, which made him think no one wanted to admit playing it. The game involved a pair of squirrels, a gray and a red, trying to get out of a maze. You could move them together or separately, though Jack was pretty sure both had to escape in order to win. The fact is, he never actually did win, the squirrels never got out. Because there was a trick. Every now and then a door in the maze would open and a gray-faced man in a black suit would jump out and bite off the head of one of the squirrels. Dead. Game over. Try again.

  Sometimes when Jack lost he would panic, and he would start the game again right away, desperate, for no reason he could understand, to try once more to save the squirrels.

  Jack made sure not to tell his parents about the squirrel game, and how much he played it, for fear they might take away his Nintendo. But his parents seemed hardly even to notice how much time he spent playing his games.

  One night his mother surprised him with a chocolate layer cake after dinner. A single candle burned in the middle. “Congratulations,” Mom said, while Dad grinned at Jack’s confusion. Mom said, “Last night was a whole month without any nightmares.”

  “Now that’s something to celebrate,” Mr. Wisdom said. He held up his glass of Diet Coke and waited for his wife and son to do the same. “To Jack!” he said as they clinked glasses. “More normal than normal.” Jack wanted to run away, but he didn’t want to let down his folks, so he made sure to smile and thank them and say something nice about the cake.

  After dinner he was looking out of the window while he dried the dishes, and he noticed a pair of squirrels in the backyard. There was nothing strange about them. The place was full of squirrels, and chipmunks, and occasional deer, but these were a gray and a red, like in the game, and they didn’t dart back and forth, they just stood on their hind legs, facing each other, as if they were having a conversation. “I’ll be right back,” Jack said, and put down the towel.

  Outside he didn’t know what to do, so he just stood there and watched them. It startled him when they appeared to watch him back. They turned to stand side by side, and then they looked up at him. Though he knew it was crazy to think these actual squirrels could have anything to do with the game, and almost as crazy to talk to them, he said, “I’m sorry I can’t seem to win. To get you out of the maze.” The squirrels looked at him. “I’ll keep trying.” Then, feeling really dumb, and ashamed, as if he’d let down his dad in some way, he went back inside and finished drying the dishes.

  A few days later, a girl in Jack’s class, Tori Atkinson, disappeared. The police came and talked to all the kids, and all the other parents held a meeting to demand that something be done and complain that their kids weren’t protected. After the meeting, Jack’s mom and dad told him he couldn’t go out alone “for a while.” Jack didn’t mind. Now that he’d stopped visiting the woods there really wasn’t any place he wanted to go. For a couple of weeks a policeman stood guard outside the school all day, but when nothing more happened, they sent him somewhere else.

  Jack didn’t know Tori very well. The fact is, Jack didn’t really know anyone well, but Tori was the kind of kid who stuck to herself, didn’t join any groups or say much in class. She was never found, and after six months her parents sold the house and moved away.

  One day in gym class, when Jack was ten, he hit a home run. Jack wasn’t a disaster as a baseball player—he was never one of the last kids to be picked by the team captains—but nor was he a home-run hitter. It felt so good to hear the cheers, even if they sounded a little shocked. As he rounded second base he heard the pitcher say, “Fuck!” as he hit his fist into his glove. Jack grinned at him and kept going.

  That night Jack went back to the schoolyard after dinner. He just wanted to remember what it felt like as he walked around the bases and pretended he could hear the cheers. He was coming around third when he saw a man standing at home plate. The man stood very tall and stiff in a black suit. He was skinny, with bony hands that stuck out from his jacket cuffs, and a pale, drawn face, and gray hair combed straight back from his forehead. He didn’t move, simply watched as Jack came to a stop.

  For a moment both of them just stood there, facing each other, but then the man began to walk slowly toward third base. Run, Jack thought. Go home.

  The man smiled, his teeth bright against his thin lips. He said, in a slow drawl, “Jack, Jack, don’t go back. Let’s just try to keep on track.”

  Jack couldn’t move. It was exactly like that dream, the one with the black woods and all the children’s heads, when he couldn’t even try to move. He just stood there as this strange man came up to him and slowly walked all around him. Jack tried to speak but the gasping sounds that came from his throat weren’t even words. Now the bony hands were touching him, only his head, his face, covering his mouth, pressing into his closed eyes. The hands smelled like something very old and hidden away for years. The skin was so rough it scratched Jack’s cheeks, and Jack felt his tears roll over the gray fingers.

  And then the man dropped his hands, and smiled, and said, “No, no, you’re not the one. You’re not ready. You’re not ripe enough.” He slapped Jack’s face so hard, Jack’s head snapped to the side.

  Suddenly Jack was able to move. He ran as fast as he could and didn’t stop until he got inside the house and slammed the door.

  “Jack!” his mother said. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  As soon as Jack had told his parents, his father called the police. They spent two hours searching the area, going up and down streets, knocking on doors all around the school. Nothing. Finally they came back and asked Jack if he was sure the “gray man” had really been there, if maybe, just maybe, he’d imagined it. Jack stared at the floor and shook his head.

  The policeman looked at Jack’s father and shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what else we can do. If your son remembers something else—or of course if he sees the man again—make sure you call us.” He sounded annoyed and trying not to show it. Suddenly he smiled slightly, just the side of his mouth. “You know,” he said, “with all that family wisdom, m
aybe you guys could help us solve a crime or two.” Before Jack’s dad could say anything, he gestured to his partner. “Let’s go, Becky,” he said. “We’ll let the Wisdom family sort things out.”

  “Dad,” Jack said, “it’s true. The guy was there. He held my head.”

  His father looked about to yell something. Instead, he turned around and walked to his and Jack’s mom’s bedroom and shut the door.

  “Mom?” Jack said. “You believe me, don’t you? He was there.”

  “Of course, honey,” said his mother. “Of course I believe you.” She pressed Jack’s head against her shoulder, and Jack had the awful thought it was so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

  Later, in his bed, Jack wondered if maybe he had made it up. Maybe he’d dreamed it or something. “More normal than normal,” he whispered. He would make his father proud of him.

  Chapter Three

  MATYAS

  Matyas returned to the dark grove whenever he could. It was not easy, as his father seemed to find more and more chores for him, as if he feared Matyas was cheating him any time the boy did something for himself. And when Matyas could get away, Royja was often there, wanting him to tell stories with her about all the wonders they would see. But he did go sometimes, not sure what he expected to find. He looked for the lights—the Splendor, the wizard had called them—but except for one or two brief flashes there was nothing.

  One night he was sitting on a bare hillock a little way from the grove, putting off the moment he had to return, when he saw a large object move against the moonlit sky. At first he assumed it was a bird, but as he stared at it a shock jolted him, for he realized it was a man. He was right! “No one can fly,” that pompous old wizard had said, but look, there was someone flying!

  As fast as he could follow on the lumpy earth, Matyas took off after the man. Several times he stumbled over rocks and bushes, only to get up and run faster. He could see the man clearly now, tall and thin with no shirt or shoes but only a rough brown jacket and torn and filthy pants. His hair was thick and dark and matted with dirt.

  He descended to earth at the edge of the tangled and blackened trees. The wizard—a real Master, Matyas thought to himself, not like that red-haired fake—squared his thin shoulders and tilted back his head. “Come around me,” he said. Matyas wondered if the wizard was talking to him. Did he know Matyas was spying on him? What terrible punishment would he enact? He remembered that moment when the old man—this wizard was much younger, only a few years older than Matyas himself—had begun to turn him into a toad. He was trying to decide if he should run away when the lights, the Splendor, appeared all around the man’s body.

  “Open the way,” the wizard said. The lights moved toward the trees. Where they touched them, the black branches parted so that the wizard could enter. Matyas bent low and tiptoed forward, until he could see through the tunnel opened by the light.

  After the sight of a flying man, he might have thought nothing could amaze him, but now he had to stuff his fist in his mouth not to cry out. In the center of the trees there was a circular clearing, the ground shiny and smooth like glass, and in the center of that circle there stood a black pole as smooth as ivory and inlaid with spirals of gold, and on top of that pole, perched like a bird, was a human head!

  The face was strong, Matyas’ idea of a warrior, with a sharp nose and high cheekbones, and yet it also appeared soft and gentle, almost like a girl’s. The eyes were closed, with long lashes. Thick black curls set off delicate golden skin.

  The man said something in a language Matyas had never heard from any of the inn’s guests. The words all flowed together like white water over sharp rocks. Wizard talk, Matyas thought, but when the head answered, everything that had sounded hard or sharp vanished, and Matyas knew it was in fact the language of the head itself. A language of angels. He could have listened to it forever, until he died of hunger without even noticing.

  The head and the wizard spoke together for just a few minutes and then the wizard turned to leave. Matyas barely had time to scurry around the curve of the trees and crouch down behind a rock. He looked up just in time to see the wizard rise back into the sky. Matyas stared and stared and thought how he wanted nothing else in the world but that.

  The trees had closed up again, dark and vicious. It made Matyas want to cry to think of that beautiful head trapped in those hateful trees. He stood at the edge of the wood for a long time, mouth opening and closing, until finally he called out, as firmly as he could, “Come around me!” To his great surprise the Splendor appeared, stronger than ever, their flash so sharp they sent bursts of light up and down his skin. Before they could vanish he ordered, “Open the way.”

  The trees parted like high grass blown in the wind, and there, at the end of the narrow tunnel, stood the head on its black and gold pole. The eyes were shut again. They looked forever closed, as if the wizard had never been there. Matyas moved forward with tiny steps. He longed to say, “I want to fly,” but he didn’t know the words. Even if he knew how, he wouldn’t have wanted to hurt that gentle language with his clumsy teeth.

  Then suddenly he heard that voice again, the lights speaking to him. In a soft chant the voice said:

  Matyas, Matyas,

  Master Matyas,

  Will you fly as

  Straight and high as

  A dark and lonely hawk?

  “Yes!” Matyas cried, thrilled beyond his fear. He could see himself soar through the sky, just like that wizard (except he imagined himself dressed better, more magnificent). He would circle the inn, laughing as everyone pointed up at him in wonder. And then he would take off, escape this wretched world of the Hungry Squirrel and never return.

  He waited for the head to say something but nothing happened. It looked asleep. It looked like it would sleep forever. Matyas said, “Please. Will you help me? Help me fly?”

  Nothing in the perfect face moved, but it spoke, wondrous rolling sounds, like liquid silver. “I’m sorry,” Matyas said. “I don’t understand. Please.”

  Now the mouth curved in the thinnest smile, though the eyes stayed closed and not another muscle twitched. It spoke again, but this time the words were chopped, harsh. Matyas concentrated a moment, then said, “That’s the same thing. Isn’t it? A different way of saying it, but the same idea?” He had no idea how he knew that, nor what the two versions, either one of them, might have meant.

  It didn’t matter, for the effect was dramatic. The eyes opened wide—little puffs of dust came off them—and the voice, that glorious sound, cried out, in Matyas’ own tongue, “How did you know that?”

  With a great effort Matyas stood his ground. “I’m Master Matyas,” he said.

  The eyes looked him up and down. “Hardly,” the voice said. “But the Splendor have come around you, no doubt for reasons only they would understand.”

  Matyas said, “Are you an angel?”

  “Angel?” the head answered. “Do I look like a wing-slashing beast? I am a High Prince of the Kallistochoi!”

  Matyas waited for more, then finally said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that is.”

  The head—the Prince—made a sound of disgust. “How wonderful,” he said. “Something new has come into the world. An ignorant Master.”

  “Can’t you just tell me?”

  The face looked startled a moment, then the Prince laughed. “Well. Ignorant perhaps, but impervious to insult. A valuable quality. Very well, then. The Kallistochoi are the original rulers of this world. Indeed, some have claimed that we created the Earth as a haven, but I cannot speak to that. Origins were never my concern.”

  “Haven from what?”

  “The Great Above.” When Matyas looked confused, the Prince rolled his eyes. “Heaven.” He went on, “We were the First, the original beings to emerge from the Greater Light, behind the Curtain of the Creator. We descended only when the Creator brought forth the Lesser Lights, the Angels of Purity and the Demons of Desire. We wanted no part of the
ir wretched war, and so we came here. We fashioned bodies for ourselves, taller than the giant pines, our eyes like oceans, our voices like hurricanes of wonder.

  “Oh, how we delighted in this world. It was ours, and we poured all our beauty into it.” He stopped for a moment, as if waiting for Matyas to say something. But the boy could not think of anything, and so the head continued, “For many turns of the Great Year, as the stars moved slowly around the Earth, we sailed the oceans and roamed the forests. We walked in the Garden of Origins and danced with the Guardians of the Seven Trees. And then the great disaster happened.”

  Again he paused, and now Matyas said, “What was that?”

  “The war ended. The Host Triumphant cast the Rebels down into the Great Below. And then they came looking for us.”

  “Why?”

  “To punish us, of course. For our refusal to take sides. They descended to this world in a thousand chariots, each one brighter than the Sun. Their vicious wings slashed open the sky itself, so that the jewels of Heaven rained down like hail. At long last, the Kallistochoi had no choice but to fight.”

  “Did you win?”

  The Prince looked startled, then secretly pleased. The voice was scornful, however, as it said, “Obviously not. Would I be here, would I talk to you, if we had won?”

  “I’m sorry,” Matyas said, and was instantly angry at himself. Should a Master apologize?

  The Prince said, “We fought with courage and ingenuity, but at last we fell. The Host did not cast us Below, however. Instead, they shredded our glorious bodies and left our heads on poles, immobile, forced to watch as our lovely world passed to the brutish hands of, well, creatures like you.”