Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (38 page)

“Sunlight slow it down.
I
t
doan
stop it.
An’ I
doan
wants nobody else stumblin’ ‘cross his body.
I wants
dis
to be sho’.
D
oan
you?”

“Then what do we do?”

“We wait.
An’ at dusk, Josh, jest before he wakes all
de
way up, when you sees his eyelids start to flutter, you takes
dat
stake, and you pounds it through his heart.
You leave it
dere.
Long as it stays in place, he never rise no ‘mo.
An’
den you cut off
de
head an’ you throws it in Stone Creek.
An’ you cover
de
cave so nobody and nuttin’ ever let light on
dis
man’s bones ag
a
in.
C
an you do
dis, son?
I gives you
dis, it yo’ right, but iff’n you
doan
think you can—”

“I can,” said Joshua
.
“I can.”

Sadie
shuddered.
The hard steel in his voice rocked her to the core. Her boys, her gentle boys
. H
ealers, both o
f them. It was in their blood. Now Paul hunted the woods, a night predator
like no
other. And Joshua. Ready to
pound a stake through Cain’s heart.
Anxious for it.

“My boys,” she moaned.
“My beautiful, beautiful boys!”

Tamara touched her sister’s arm
.
“We gots to get back to
de
cottage.
Check on Paul.
Rest ourselves.
I give you somethin’ hep
you sleep.”

“Ain’t no help
.
De spirits turned on us.
God done turned on us.
Ain’t no help.”

“’Dere’s reasons we
doan
always un
d
erstan’.”

“They be awful reasons and God ain’t got no right to do
dis
to my boys!”

“Joshua!” Tamara commanded.
“Hep
me
wid
yo’
m
ama!”

Tamara took one arm
,
Joshua took other
. S
adie
mumbled ceaselessly all the way to the cottage. “
No right, no right.
No right a’tall.”

* * *

Paul
l
a
y
on his bed of blankets in the dark of the root cellar
, h
is white shirt
covered i
n dried and drying blood.
Tamara reclosed the doors
, fastened them securely and led
her
sister and nephew inside
.
S
he
coaxed
a
tincture down Sadie’s throat and led her to her bed.
Sadie’s protesting mumbles
slowed and she slipped down into
healing sleep.

Tamara turned to face her nephew.
“Well, boy?
You needs anything to eat?”

“God, no.
I never want to eat again.”

“
Den rest.
You want some of
de
stuff I give—”

“No.
I never want to take anything like that, not ever again.”

“Well,” she said.
“Den you lay down ‘side yo’
m
ama and sleep.”

“Your bed.
You need to rest, too.”

“I will.”
She took his arm and led him to the other side of the bed.
“I will, but you lay down.
You gots to head back to
de
cave. Want you to start no later ‘den
four o’clock
.
”

“Ain’t you coming, too?”

“No.
I ain’t.
I gots to be here for Paul.
Cain
be yours now.
Jest lik’ I promised.
I ask
you ‘gin, boy.
Can you do this thing?”

“I can do it.”

“I knows you can.
Now rest.”

She moved to her stove and put a kettle on to boil
.
B
efore her soothing cup of chamomile tea was properly brewed, she saw the boy join his mother in slumber.
Good.

She sat down in her rocking chair and rocked, sipping her tea, feeling its warmth pour new strength into her weary bones
. Th
rough the day,
moving in and out of
light dosing sleep, she guarded the slumbers of the three people she loved most in the world.

Chapter
Thirty-Seven

Joshua woke naturally, sometime around
two o’clock
in the afternoon.
Tamara
made him eat and packed a croaker sack with
tools he’d need
to complete his evening’s work.
She
watched him start out into the woods
, knowing
whatever was still left of boy would not
return from this supreme rite of passage into manhood.

Sadie still slept
and Tamara was glad.
She’d feared for her sister’s sanity more than once in the past hours.
She moved out into her yard,
harvesting the remainder of her chickens. She didn’t want
Paul
to cast out immediately and hunt.
She wanted him to stay, talk, listen.
Come
to terms
with
destiny.

* * *

Joshua
followed the path into the woods, turning at the marker of the
ancient sweet gum tree
coated with
resiny gum
.
He moved swiftly and reached the cave well before twilight. He
sat down to wait.

The sun sank low
,
nearing the tops of the trees.
When it neared the
edge of the west, he moved inside the cave and dropped to his knees beside Cain’s body.
He pulled his tools from the croaker sack
. Long,
thick wooden stake, sharpened to the po
int of an ancient, deadly spear.
S
turdy mallet
to hammer the stake home. T
he burn marks on Cain’s arm
were now
raised whelps of white scar tissue, startling against the black of his ebony skin.

So Cain had healed.
The transformation was almost complete.
Time to get ready. There was no way to
tell the exact position of the sun in the dimness of the cave and Joshua had no intention of being
surprised.
He positioned the stake directly over Cain’s heart
. Paul’s anatomy lessons made that easy.
His lip actually lifted in a half-smile at the thought. Poetic judgment.

He was ready.
The
first flutter of his eyelids,
Tamara’d said.
There.
Was that it?
It was.
Joshua swung the mallet, restraining the
force of the blow
. He wanted the stake to
penetrate,
not fully impale. A geyser of red gushed
upward, covering the stake and the mallet and Joshua’s hand.
As the eyes opened fully and settled on his face, Joshua saw
what he’
d been waiting for.
T
he light of recognition.
Cain’s hand moved upward,
fluttering
around the stake, attempting to pull it out.
Joshua
raised the mallet high again.

“
Told you I’
d kill you
, Cain!
No matter where you ran!
”

The mallet slammed down, thro
ugh the body and into the floor
of the cave itself.
A great scream, inhuman,
roared across the woods
and moved on further, filling the deepest reaches of the swamp.
Night fishermen, tending their trot lines along the creek, stopped dead in their tracks and shivered.
The night noises o
f the frogs and crickets ceased. N
o hoot-owl or whippoorwill sent forth its distinctive call.
Even the swamp snakes, just beginning to creep forth on their nightly forages, ceased to slither.
The heartbeat of the woods and swamp stopped.
It took a remarkably long time for it to resume.

Joshua leaned over Cain
and stared into the dead eyes.
He dropped the mallet and held up his dripping hands.
It was done.
It was over.

He
turned his head and vomited
,
retch
ing
again and again until the dry heaves sent up a flood of foul-tasting bile.
He shuddered and wiped
his face,
not
paus
ing
to collect the croaker sack.
He
sat a moment in the
clear
night
air
and wiped
sweat from his forehead.
When his stomach settled
from
a continuous roll to an occasional spasm, he
started shifting t
he rocks, piling them
over the
cave’s entrance until
it was
covered.

Then he sat down and cried, his tears a scalding apology to his brother.

He was done.
Tamara’s last instruction
wasn’t
even a faint memory in the nauseating mix of rage and b
lood and vomit of the last hour.
Cain’s head
remained
attached to his shoulders.

* * *

Paul woke the second night of his new life cycle
and ripped
off
his shirt
, stiff and scratchy with dried blood.
He
rushed to the
basin and water pitcher Tamara
’d left for him and washed.
And washed.
He dressed in the fresh clothes lying by the basin.
Neither the soap and water nor the clothes erased the feel and smell of blood.
He never wanted to see blood again.

Except he did.
The new driving
i
nstinct rose in gushing waves and threatened to drown him.
Enough.
T
his had to end.
He
started for the door and remembered he had no need of them.
He raised his arms and re-materialized in the main living area of the cottage.
The
smell of pumping blood assaulted his nostrils. He stayed back, away from the women.

“Son.”
Tamara
glanced over his
immaculate
clothes
and nodded in approval.
“Thought you’d want some privacy when you woke
dis
night.”

She
offered the
glass jar w
aiting ready.
His tongue could taste the contents, even as his mind screamed his revolt at the need for it.

“No,” he said.
“We have to talk.
You can’t do this to me.
End it.
Please.
There has to be a way.”

She shook her head sorrowfully.

“Can’t do
dat, son.”

“You can’t?
Or you won’t?”

“Both.”

I
n
Paul’s
newly transformed state,
the temper inherited from his father
erupted like a volcano.
He
grabbed her arms
and shook her
like a terrier worrying a rat.

“
Y
ou will
!”