The Child Eater (6 page)

It was barely six in the morning when Jack arrived at his parents' house. He didn't tell them what had happened—he couldn't bring himself to reveal how crazy she was, as if they might say I told you so, even though he knew they'd always liked her. So he just said that she'd fallen into depression and had refused help and had tried to harm Simon.

Mr. and Mrs. Wisdom loved Rebecca, but they loved their son more, and baby Simon most of all. Over the next days, Grandma took care of the baby while Jack's dad did his best to cheer him up, and every now and then suggest that maybe Jack should talk to her, maybe now she'd accept psychiatric help.

Jack didn't answer. He remembered when he'd had all those terrible dreams, and his mother wanted him to see a doctor but his father refused.
How would it look if someone from the Wisdom family got his head shrunk?
More normal than normal, that was what they were supposed to be. Well, Rebecca was as far from normal as it was possible to get. At times Jack wondered if he was back in his dreams, if he was still nine years old and trapped in an endless nightmare. But then he'd look at Simon, asleep in his crib or laughing at some silly face from Grandma, and he'd think how he could never have dreamed something so wondrous and pure.

And he thought of Rebecca, how much he ached for her.
You can't dream love
, he thought.
You can't command it, or control it. Even anger can't shut it off.

Rebecca called every day. The first time, Mrs. Wisdom picked up the phone and when she heard Rebecca's voice asking for Jack, she got all confused and said she would check if Jack was there. “It's Rebecca,” she whispered to her son, who stared blankly at the television as if it was a wall. Jack shook his head. The older Mrs. Wisdom told the younger that Jack wasn't there, she had no idea when he was coming back, and in fact had no idea where he was.

“And Simon?” Rebecca asked.

“He's fine,” Grandma said, and wondered if she'd revealed too much. Or not enough. Could she have encouraged Rebecca to get help?

“Please tell Jack to call me,” Rebecca said, and Mom promised and hung up. After that, they screened all the calls and followed Jack's insistence that no one talk to Rebecca, though her messages begged Jack to call her.

“Shouldn't you talk to her?” his father said. “She really sounds sorry.” Jack shook his head. What if she said she was all better, and he believed her? And took Simon home, and then when Jack was at work—

One evening, Jack's father took him to a basketball game, leaving his mother alone with the baby. When the phone rang and Rebecca came on the machine, Mrs. Wisdom was tempted to pick it up, to see if she could get through to her daughter-in-law that she had to take the first step of seeing a psychiatrist. Like her son, she remembered, she couldn't help but remember, when she wanted to take him to a doctor, and she let her husband stop her. But this was different—Rebecca so clearly needed help. She was obviously heartbroken, and Jack was definitely in pain. Just as Jack's mother reached for the phone she realized Rebecca was saying something different this time, something crazy.

“Jack,” Rebecca said, “please listen to me. Please. You have to remember. Nine years from now, a man will offer to take Simon on a special trip. To help him.
Don't let him do it
. He'll seem so kind and smart, and promise you every safeguard. Don't listen to him. Don't let Simon go with him. Please, Jack, you have to remember. I don't care what you think about me, what you tell Simon about me. Just don't let him do it.
Remember
.” She was crying when she hung up the phone.

Mrs. Wisdom replayed the message three times. Rebecca sounded so desperate. But that very desperation, about something so obviously
insane, was clearly a sign of her madness. Jack had a right to hear the message. Of course. But what would it do for him, except entrench him even deeper in anger? After the third time, she sighed deeply and erased the message.

Two days later, on a Sunday morning, Jack was sitting at the kitchen table, feeding Simon puréed carrots and occasionally snatching bites of a bagel and cream cheese. His mother had offered to feed the baby so Jack could relax—working long distance from his parents' home appeared to tire him even more than going to the office—but Jack wanted to do it himself. It was late autumn, and leaves swirled around the back porch. Jack's father stood at the window with his mug of coffee. He laughed and took a sip. “There's something you don't see every day,” he said.

“What's that?” his wife asked.

“There's a pair of squirrels scratching at the back door like they want to come in.” Louder, he said, “Sorry, boys. No nuts or berries available today.”

Jack jumped up so quickly he dropped the spoon and Simon began to cry. Jack handed the baby to his mother then rushed to the window. “Jack?” his mother said. “What's wrong?” and his father said, “Son? What is it?”

Jack stood at the window, his mouth open as if he couldn't breathe. The squirrels turned toward the window, stood on their hind legs and tilted their heads up to stare directly at him. One was gray, the other red. “Oh my God,” he said, hardly more than a whisper.

His father touched his shoulder. “Jack?”

The squirrels ran off now, along the path to the driveway and under Jack's car. Jack turned, stared at his father, and then his mother, as if they, not the squirrels, were strange and alien. Finally he said, “It's Rebecca. I have to go to her. She's dying.”

His mother gasped, and his father said, “Dying? What are you talking about?”

Jack didn't answer, only ran for his keys. “Take care of Simon!” he yelled.

When he arrived home late that afternoon, Rebecca's car was in the driveway, and he didn't know if that was good or bad. At the back door, he dropped his keys twice before he discovered it was unlocked. “Bec?” he yelled as soon as he was inside the house. “Rebecca? Are you okay?”

The first thing he saw was the word
Remember!
written in red marker all across the blue living room wall. He stared at it a moment, shook his head and ran into the kitchen, the den—He found her on the floor of the bedroom, her red and black silk dress scrunched up around her knees, her face as empty as the rumpled bed, her hair bunched up under her neck. He wanted to rearrange her, lay her out properly, but he knew from television that that wasn't allowed.

He didn't even realize he'd squatted down until he saw his own hand touch her cheek, her neck, her forehead. Cold. She was cold and thick and empty. He lost his balance and fell back against the bed.
How long?
he wondered.
How many hours?
He tried to remember how long it took for a body to get cold but nothing came to him. Was she already dead when the squirrels showed up? Is that what they'd wanted to tell him? He'd thought they were summoning him, but maybe it was already too late. He couldn't decide if that made it worse or better.

He needed to call someone. 911? Was it an emergency if it was already too late? And he needed to call his parents, they would want to know. And Simon. He had to tell their perfect son that his beautiful, crazy mother would never see him again, never hold him—He shook the thought away. He didn't have to tell Simon. Not now, at least, not for many years. But he had to call the police, or the doctor, someone.

Abruptly he jumped up and rushed down to the basement, where a leftover half-gallon of paint stood on a wooden shelf with a couple of brushes. Upstairs he painted over the giant command to memory with great slashes of blue. No one would see her craziness, no one. Did she really think he would forget her? He wanted to shout, “How could you think that? You were everything to me.” But his voice wouldn't work, only his arms and shoulders as they obliterated the insults of madness.

At last he called 911, and then his parents. They didn't ask how he'd known.

At the funeral, Jack's father and a cousin had to hold him up. At least it wasn't suicide. Brain aneurysm, the coroner said. Sudden, quick and unforeseen. “It just happens,” he told Jack. “There's no way to predict something like that.”

When they got back to the house, Jack let his parents take care of Simon and set up for visitors. “There's something I have to do,” he said. He searched the bedroom and everywhere else he could think of for
Rebecca's Tarot cards. He wanted to tear them up, piece by piece. They were gone, or at least were nowhere he could find. Maybe, he thought, she'd come to her senses before the end.

Jack went home after that. His mother—once again the only Mrs. Wisdom—came for three months, not leaving until she was sure he was okay. Before she left, she helped Jack find a good day care for Simon, who was almost a year old. Jack resisted at first, said he was fine to work at home, but his mother told him he needed to get back with people. At the Happy Hands Center, Jack's mother did almost all the talking. Near the end, as they were filling out forms, Jack suddenly said, “You don't have anything to do with Tarot cards or anything like that, do you?”

Mrs. Beech, a large woman with muscular arms and tangled black hair, frowned at him. “Tarot cards? Now why would you think that?”

“Oh no, I didn't—” Jack stopped, not sure what to say.

“Maybe you'd be happier with a religion-based center,” Mrs. Beech said.

“No, of course not. I just . . . I had a neighbor who was always throwing Tarot cards, and it just seemed . . . I don't know, a bad influence, I guess. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything.”

“Well, I can promise you we don't do anything like that here. We're pretty traditional.”

“Good. Good. Thank you. Oh, one more thing. Simon has a kind of, I guess phobia, about squirrels.”

“Squirrels?” Mrs. Beech said, and Jack's mother stared at him.

“When he was just a few months old, a squirrel scared him. He cried and cried. So if you see any squirrels around, could you chase them away?”

“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Beech said.

Outside, Mrs. Wisdom looked about to say something, then changed her mind. In the car she said, “I'm so glad you're trying this. You know, Jack, Simon needs to be with other children as much as you need to be with grown-ups. I know it's hard, but really, it's for the best.”

And maybe it was. Simon emerged into childhood sturdy and curious, with a wide smile that attracted other children as much as adults. He had his mother's curly hair and large eyes, his father's wide hands. He appeared to like puzzles, or at least objects you could put together into some kind of shape. He could play for hours, it seemed, with blocks, or the soft, colorful pieces of a baby jigsaw puzzle, arranging them
into different forms, none of which made sense to anyone but himself. Though the other children liked him and often looked to him for directions, he was just as happy all by himself. He learned to read very early, and soon the house was filled with books aimed at much older children.

Jack had to be careful, though. He didn't want any fairy tales, especially stories about talking animals. It wasn't easy. From television to comics to toys, the child universe was filled with jabbering animals. But at least Jack controlled the books. And he always made sure Simon knew the difference between fantasy and reality.

One night Jack had a dream. He managed to keep them away most of the time—more than ever, he needed to stay normal, for Simon—but now and then one would sneak up on him. In this dream he went to check on Simon and lights were flickering all around his son's head. Simon laughed and grabbed at them, but they danced away from him. Jack ran at them, waving his hands as if they were flies or mosquitoes, and the lights streamed out through the window. When dream-Jack looked outside, he saw a whole line of squirrels staring at the house. He yelled and ran outside, only to discover more squirrels by the front door and all around the building. “Leave us alone!” he yelled, and woke in his bed.

Quickly he ran into Simon's room where the boy was sleeping peacefully, hugging a stuffed elephant his grandma had given him. Jack made sure the windows were shut, then glanced outside. The trees and the grass were clean and empty in the early dawn. Only, if he looked beyond the first line of growth it seemed to him that the trees became denser, dark and very old. He thought for a moment of when he was young, and “troubled,” as his mother used to say, and his dad decided it was the woods.
Maybe Dad was right
, Jack thought. He glanced over at Simon asleep, then back at the twisted trees. Suddenly a light flashed within their dark heart, so bright Jack took a step backward. For some reason he thought suddenly of
Remember!
scrawled across the living room wall. He closed the curtains so he couldn't look at the trees anymore, and then he went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.

On that first day after his climb up the tower, Matyas awoke excited to begin his studies. Instead of instructions, however, Veil gave him a list of chores to do. All day he cleaned, or ran up and down the stairs, or just put books away. In the evening he cooked a carrot stew then once more brushed her hair until she fell asleep. This went on for weeks. Every time Matyas protested that he had not run away from home only to do the same work, Veil simply said, “When you are ready.”

“I'm ready now,” he would say—or shout—but Veil just ignored him or gave him another task.

Sometimes, when his chores took him downstairs and out into the courtyard, he looked around at the buildings and wondered what went on inside them. The Academy was not a large place, really, just a group of buildings set around an open square paved with stones worn smooth by generations of Masters and apprentices. Often there'd be no one around when Matyas made his way to the old stone well, or out through one of the gates on an errand, and he stared at the buildings, but at other times he saw apprentices studying, or practicing, or else the Masters themselves, and he moved along, pretending to ignore them in the hope that they would ignore him.

Occasionally, if he thought the Masters weren't watching, he stared at their robes. The shape was usually the same, plain, made of heavy material that might be silk or wool, usually belted, sometimes with a rope, sometimes with leather shaped like a snake biting its own tail. What fascinated him were the colors, some just gray like the old wizard's that night at the Hungry Squirrel, but others bright red, or yellow, or blue, or mixed, maybe a red cloak over a white robe. What kind of robe would
he
wear when he became a Master? Something bright, and dazzling, so that people would have to shield their eyes when he passed them. He thought about Veil and that shapeless gray dress she wore. Anyone who didn't know her would think she was a beggar. Why did she do that?

If there was just one Master in the courtyard, he would always appear to be in a hurry, but if there were two or more they might walk together, their hands and heads in motion as they argued some doctrine or spell, or maybe just laughed at some joke only a magician would understand. Matyas watched them with a tightness in his throat, and an invisible hand pressed against his heart.
That should be me
, he thought. If Veil would just teach him—But then he would look at their boots or velvet slippers bound to the Earth, or the way the bottoms of the robes swept the stones, and he would think,
If they were real Masters, they would fly
.

Veil's tower was not only the tallest building in the square—by more than half, it appeared, though he was never quite sure, for some days it looked much higher than others—it was also the plainest. The tower was built, as far as Matyas could tell, of dull brick, the kind made with dirt and straw, while the other buildings were formed of some smooth stone that looked almost polished, as if someone had rubbed each one by hand. Matyas wondered if a tribe of demons had worked on them. The buildings had red metal roofs whose corners curled up into strange shapes, each one different, and marble steps, and large ornate doors.

Various stone or metal creatures stood guard, either in front of the doors or mounted right on the thick dark wood. There were lions, and what looked like dragons except they had women's heads, and sometimes just faces set into the door itself, faces all contorted like someone in pain, with gaping mouths and sharp teeth. Were they alive? If Matyas rushed up the stairs and tried to push open the doors, would the stone heads suddenly devour him? After a while, as he saw masters, and especially students, boys not much older than Matyas himself, go in and out without any obvious spells to protect themselves, he decided the statues
and faces were just decoration. Later—months, years—he would come to understand that sometimes “decorations” contained a magic all their own, even if the people who passed by them every day, including those who should know better, had no idea. But in those first weeks, when he believed magic was all spells and miracles and changing people into toads, Matyas only cared if the statues
did
something.

And yet, even after Matyas realized no teeth would bite him in two, no lightning would strike him dead if he ran up the steps and kicked open the doors of what he learned was the library, or the great dining hall, or the Masters' Residency, he still stayed outside. For what if he marched inside to where the Masters sipped phoenix soup from crystal bowls and they all turned—and laughed at him? Better to wait and study and prepare himself. If only Veil would teach him.

Not all his chores were a burden. Or maybe it was better to say that some were burdens mixed with pleasure. Veil wanted everything kept clean of dirt, even dust, and that was a lot of work, but the
things
he cleaned, the statues, the jars, the endless books, these were a constant fascination. And a frustration, too, for he wanted to know everything, he wanted to read all the books, but every time he asked Veil to teach him she refused, or didn't even answer.

On Tuesdays and Fridays, Matyas went out through the Academy gates and walked down the hill to a street market a mile long, where vendors stood behind wooden tables piled high with cheeses and fish and cured meats, and green vegetables and berries in summer and root vegetables and apples in winter. There were bolts of cloth, including bright shimmering silks, and thick wools with strands of color woven in, and soft linens. There were spices and teas from across the waters and casks of wine and beer.

The first time Matyas came here, he stared and stared until he realized people were laughing at him and calling out things like, “Over here, country boy. I've got something really special for you.” After that, he did his best to appear casual, but he still looked from side to side, not wanting to miss anything. He imagined how much Royja would have loved this, how if she was with him, he would blindfold her and lead her right into the center of the market, let her breathe the smells of the fish and spices, listen to the din of haggling. Then he would fling away the blindfold and watch her eyes blink in amazement.
Someday
, he promised
himself. When he became a real Master and could send a coach drawn by horses made of moonlight.

At first the market people appeared to take him for a kitchen boy. They would say things like how much his “mistress” would love some special cheese or cake. Even worse, they looked at the simple things he bought, and his tattered clothes, and assumed the kitchen he worked in must be a very poor one. Sometimes they pretended to offer him exotic wines, or silver table ornaments, then laugh as he pretended not to hear them.

It didn't take long for Matyas' love of market days to turn to dread. He would try to look busy, cutting vegetables very small, or rearranging books so that she would not disturb him by sending him to the stalls. Finally she stared at him one Friday morning, her head tilted back slightly as if to see him from a different angle, while he pretended not to notice as he rubbed a soft cloth over a small stone statue of a woman holding a pair of snakes. “Matyas?” Veil said. “Is something wrong?”

Answers crowded his head.
I'm not your slave!
And
I didn't come here to buy cheese, I came to fly!
And
Everyone laughs at me. Teach me a spell to make them stop
. But all he said was, “I want different clothes.” He felt himself turn red and couldn't look at her. Why did he say that? He didn't care about how he looked; he wanted magic and books. He wanted to learn to read all these great works he dusted every day. He wanted to study their secrets, not clean them.

To his surprise, Veil did not ridicule him, or threaten to turn him into a horned toad, but instead nodded, as if he'd said something very wise. “Forgive me,” she told him. “Old women forget about such things. You are young, and need clothes that are fresh and clean, and proper to your station.”

“Station?” he said. Did she mean servant? Slave?

“Yes, of course. You are, after all, an apprentice in the Academy of Wizards.” His breath stopped for a moment, but Veil appeared not to notice. “Lukhanan would never forgive me if I allowed you to misrepresent our students to the world.” She got up from her chair in that slightly stiff way she had, then walked over to a plain wooden box that stood on the floor with smaller, more ornate boxes piled on top of it. Carefully she removed everything, then lifted the dark brown lid to reveal what looked like blankets, and sheets painted with circles and diagrams of some kind. Matyas had not been in Veil's tower very long, but he had begun to suspect that nothing was ever quite what it seemed.

He wondered what she would produce for him. A great thick robe like the ones the Masters wore? A coat of many colors, maybe, and a hat with a red plume. In the end, it was simply a shirt of white linen with red ties across the front, undyed wool pants and a long sleeveless leather coat. “Here,” Veil said as she held them out across her arms. “Your sandals should do for now. We'll see to proper boots when winter comes.”

It took a moment for Matyas to reach out and take them, as if she might yank them away and tell him it was a joke. “Can I put them on?” he said once he had them safe in his hands.

Veil laughed. “Of course. I
was
saving them just for you, after all. I'm sorry I forgot. That seems to happen more and more, I'm afraid.” Later, Matyas would think of the strangeness of what she'd said, for what did she mean by
saving
them? She'd only met him a few weeks before. But right then he just ran into his alcove, closed the curtain—he'd already grown used to the strange idea of privacy, something he'd never known sleeping alongside the stove in the Hungry Squirrel—and put on the new clothes. They fitted perfectly. After all, he thought later, hadn't she been saving them for him? The idea made him a little dizzy but he didn't care.

When he held up his old clothes he realized how filthy they were, how they stank, and the thought that he'd walked around in them for weeks filled him for a moment with shame, and then anger. And that too was odd, for during his whole life in his parents' inn he'd stunk of grease and soot and slop and never thought about it. But right then all he said was, “What should I do with these?”

“Do you want them?”

“No!”

Veil laughed, a sound so much fresher and younger than her old bent body. “Good. Then let the birds have them.”

“Birds?”

She walked to the small window and beckoned him to follow. “Yes,” she said. “What are rags to us are treasures to our friends.” Slightly nervous at what he might see, Matyas bent forward to look out of the window. At first he noticed—relieved—the courtyard and the stone buildings of the Academy. Then he saw, high above them, birds floating on the warm air, outlined against light clouds. “Are you ready?” Veil said. Matyas nodded but held on tightly to his old clothes. Quietly Veil said, “Now, Matyas.”

Matyas thrust the clothes out through the window with such force he nearly lost his balance and fell head first, but then he steadied himself on the window frame—or maybe Veil caught him, he was never sure—and he stood back to watch. For a moment the rags fluttered in place, held up by the same breezes that sustained the birds. And then it looked as if beams of light broke through the clouds and stabbed the fabric so that all of a sudden the clothes broke apart into tatters that blew away from each other. The birds swooped down, not one kind but many, hawks, an owl with a gray body and a white face, crows, herons, an eagle the biggest and a hummingbird the smallest. For a moment it looked as if they would fight each other but then each one appeared to get what it wanted, for they all spun away and took off into the sky, higher and further until at last the light and the clouds swallowed them.

Matyas watched them for a long time, watched the space where they'd been. His throat hurt in a way that made it impossible to think, and so he didn't try, he just watched. After a long time, he looked down at the courtyard, where the wizards and their students walked around, oblivious to the sky. He stepped back into the dimmer light of the room and looked at his arms in their clean white sleeves, as if he'd brought the clouds down to wrap them around his body.

Veil said quietly, “The market, Matyas. It's time for you to go and buy what we need.”

At the foot of the stairs, Matyas stood a moment in the dark tower, one hand on the thick iron latch. What would he do if the apprentices, or the wizards themselves, gawked at his new clothes, made jokes, pointed and laughed? He wished he had the power to strike them all down, turn them into toads and rats. But then he remembered the owl, just the owl, as it took a shred of what had been his arm or his leg, he couldn't say which, and lifted up into the clouds. And he discovered he didn't care what anyone thought, or what jokes they might make.

Outside in the courtyard there were indeed some shouts and some laughter, though they died away quickly. Maybe it was because Matyas paid no attention, only looked up at the sky.

In the market, no one appeared to regard him differently at all. Oh, they joked, the usual offers to show him something special, and a couple indeed said how he must have got a promotion, or else done something truly special for his mistress—or master—but mostly it seemed they just
didn't care who bought their cheese and fish and cabbage, so long as the coins were good.

No, it wasn't the clothes that changed the way the market people regarded him. It was something that happened a week later. Usually, Veil told him what she wanted and where to go for it and how much to pay, and gave him the correct amount of coins. The first couple of times she made him repeat it back, until he told her, “I'm not stupid,” to which she apologized, and then only told him once. One day, however, she gave him a piece of paper with nine words written in a vertical column, the letters small and needle-sharp. Though he had no idea what the words said, Matyas had stared long enough at the books in the tower to observe that Veil formed her letters with a kind of flowing precision, free of the flourishes and ornamental style of most of the manuscripts. Matyas said, “If you'd teach me to write I could do this for you.” He had no idea what
this
might be, and didn't care.