Errantry: Strange Stories (20 page)

He’s beautiful
, thought Philip, and his face grew hot. Clothed, the boy seemed less exotic; also younger. Philip felt a stab of desire and guilt. He stepped away from the door, counted to sixty, then loudly cleared his throat before walking into the living room.

“They fit?”

The boy stood beside the woodstove, turning his hands back and forth. After a moment he looked at Philip. The swollen black pupils made his angular face seem ominous, skull-like.

“I’m thirsty,” he said.

“I’m sorry—of course. I’ll be right back—”

Philip went into the kitchen, waited as the pipes rumbled and shook, and finally produced a thin stream of water. He filled a glass and returned.

“Here. . . .”

Cold air rushed through the open front door, sending a flurry of dead leaves across the slate.

“God damn it.” Philip set the glass down. “Hey—hey, come back!”

But the boy was gone.

Philip walked along the driveway, then retraced his steps to the water’s edge. He considered taking the car to search on the main road, but decided that would be a waste of time. He trudged back to the lodge, his annoyance shading into relief and a vague, shameful disappointment.

The boy had been a diversion: from solitude, boredom, the unending threnody of Philip’s own thoughts. He was already imagining himself a hero, calling 911, saving the kid from—well, whatever.

Now he felt stupid, and uneasy.

What had he been thinking, bringing a stranger inside? It was clear Philip lived alone. The boy might return to rob the place, enlist his friends to break into the cabins, lay waste to the entire camp. . . .

He slammed the front door behind him. Angrily he grabbed the old Hudson Bay blankets and folded them, then picked up the discarded vest from beside the woodstove.

The boy had made off with his clothes, too. The pants were old, but Philip had just bought the shirt for this trip. He glared at the vest and crossed the room to hang it with the other coats. As he reached for the hook, something pricked his hand. He glanced down to see a droplet of blood welling from the fleshy part of his palm. He wiped it on his sleeve, then inspected the vest.

A twig or thorn must have gotten caught in it, or maybe a stray fish hook. He found nothing, until he turned the collar and saw a pale spur protruding from the fabric. He pinched it between his fingers and tugged it free.

It was a white feather, maybe an inch long. The tiny quill had poked through the cloth, sharp as a pin. He examined it curiously, placed it in the center of his palm, and blew.

For an instant it hung suspended in a shaft of light, like a feather trapped in amber; then drifted to the floor. It should have been easy to see, white against dark stone in the early morning sun. Philip searched for several minutes, but never found it.

The rest of that day he felt restless and guilt-wracked. He should have done something about the boy, but what? His remorse was complicated by a growing anxiety. The boy was sick, or injured, or crazy. He’d freeze out there alone in the woods.

And, too, there was the unwanted twinge of longing Philip experienced whenever he thought of him. He’d spent years keeping his own desires in check—he had no choice, with those endless ranks of beautiful creatures that surrounded him in the studio, constant reminders of his own fallibility, the inevitable decay of his limited gifts. The boy seemed a weird rebuke to all that, appearing out of nowhere to remind Philip of what it was like, not to be young, but to be in thrall to youth.

He distracted himself by splitting wood for kindling. As the afternoon wore on, skeins of geese passed overhead, not Canada geese but a species he didn’t recognize, black with white wings and slate-colored necks and heads. They circled above the lodge, making a wild, high-pitched keening; then arrowed downward, so close that he could see the indigo gleam of their bills and their startlingly bright, almost baleful, golden eyes. Philip watched as they flew past, not once but three times, as though searching for a place to land.

They never did. His presence spooked them, even when he stood motionless for their final transit. They swept into the sky and across the lake, their fretful cries echoing long after they were out of sight.

Late that afternoon the wind picked up. Dead leaves rattled in oaks and beech as a cold gale blasted from the north, accompanied by an ominous ridge of cloud the color of basalt. Ice skimmed the gray water closest to shore. Another phalanx of the strange birds wheeled above the lodge, veering toward the woodpile, then soaring back into the darkening sky. Philip was relieved when a flock of quite ordinary Canada geese honked noisily overhead, followed by a ragged group of pintails. Four ravens landed in the oak beside the woodpile and hopped from branch to branch. They cocked their heads toward him, but remained silent.

That unnerved Philip more than anything else. He leaned on the ax handle and stared back, then yelled at them. The ravens stared down with yellow eyes. One clacked its bill, but they made no sign of leaving. He picked up a piece of wood and lobbed it at the tree. The birds flapped their wings and retreated to a higher branch, where they sat in a row and continued to stare at him. Philip picked up the walking stick, brandished it in a feeble show of force, then gave up. He dragged a tarp from the storage shed, covered the woodpile, and painstakingly carried in several armfuls of logs. The ravens remained on the oak tree, heads lowered so they resembled a line of somber, black-clad jurors observing him. When he had brought the last load of wood inside he closed the door, then crossed to the window to gaze out. The birds hopped sideways to huddle together, and in unison turned their heads to stare at the house.

Philip stepped back from the window, his neck and arms prickling. The ravens did not move. When it grew full dark he took a flashlight and shone it through the window.

They were there still, watching him.

He forced himself to move about the room, hoping that routine would eventually drive them from his thoughts. He turned on the radio and listened to the local news. A meteorologist predicted steady high winds all night and a chance of snow. Philip stoked the woodstove and made sure that matches and candles were near to hand. He ate early, lentil soup he’d made several days ago, then settled on the couch beside the stove and tried to read. Once he went to check if the ravens were still outside, and saw to his relief that they were finally gone.

The lodge had always seemed inviolable, with its log walls and beams, stone floor and fireplace. But tonight the windows shuddered as though someone pounded at them. The candles Philip lit for atmosphere guttered, and even in the center of the room, beside the woodstove, he could feel a draft where wind nosed through chinks in the walls and windowpanes. Occasionally the old stove huffed loudly, gray smoke billowing from its seams. Philip would cough and curse and readjust the damper, poking the coals in a vain attempt to create an illusion of heat. Between the cold and smoke and ceaseless clamor of the wind, he found it difficult and finally impossible to concentrate on his book.

“I give up,” he announced to the empty room. He blew out the candles, stuffed another log into the woodstove, and stalked off to bed.

It was barely eight o’clock. Back in the city he might be starting to think about dinner. Here, he felt exhausted. No lights shone beyond the windows of his room. The reflection from the bedside lamp seemed insubstantial as a candle flame; the darkness outside a solid mass, huge and inescapable, that pressed against the panes. His room sat beneath the eaves, where the wind didn’t roar but crooned, a sound like mourning doves. The electric space heater Emma had left for him buzzed alarmingly, so he switched it off and heaped the cast-iron bedstead with Hudson Bay blankets. These smelled comfortingly of cedar, and were so warm he almost forgot the room was chill enough that he could see his breath.

Within minutes he was asleep, and dreaming.

Or perhaps not. Because as he slept, he heard the sound of wings overhead, yet knew these were not wings but wind buffeting glass. The frigid air that bit his face wasn’t a dream, either. He shivered and burrowed deeper beneath the blankets, so that only his nose and cheek were exposed.

When a hand like ice was laid against his cheek, he knew that, too, was no dream.

With a shout he rolled away from the edge of the bed, thrashing against the heavy blankets as he sat up. The darkness was impenetrable: even the faint outlines of window and furniture had vanished. Everything had vanished, save a shape beside the bed. It loomed above him, darker than the surrounding room, so dark that Philip’s eyes were drawn to it as if it had been a flame.

The hand touched him a second time, lingering upon his cheek. “I’m cold,” someone whispered.

Philip lunged for the lamp on his nightstand. Light flooded the room, and for a moment he thought he must be dreaming—nothing extraordinary could withstand a one-hundred-watt bulb.

Then he saw the boy. He still wore Philip’s clothes, the flannel shirt unbuttoned, corduroy pants clumped with burdock and specks of leaf mold. He hugged his arms to his chest and stared with huge black eyes at Philip.

“What the hell are you doing?” shouted Philip.

“I’m cold,” the boy repeated.

Philip stumbled to his feet. He wore only an old T-shirt and flannel boxers, and yes, the room was cold—the door onto the porch was open. He yanked a blanket around him, tossed another at the boy.

“Put that on,” he snapped.

The boy stared at the blanket, then pulled it over his shoulders. Philip edged warily around the bed to close the door, and turned.

The boy didn’t look dangerous, but he was obviously in distress. Mentally ill, probably. And bigger than Philip, too. He cursed himself again for not calling the police earlier.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

The boy grimaced, baring those small white teeth.

“Suru,” he said.

“Suru?”

The boy hesitated, then nodded.

“Well, Suru, we need to call your parents.” Philip fought to keep his voice calm. “I’m Philip. What’s your phone number?”

Suru said nothing. He stared at his own hand, lifted then lowered one arm, the blanket suspended beneath like a crimson bat’s wing.

“Come on,” pleaded Philip. “Either you give me your parents’ number or I’ll have to call the police.”

Without warning the boy drew up beside him. His fingers closed around Philip’s hand, a sheath of ice. Again he whispered, “I’m cold.”

The blanket dropped to the floor as he pressed himself against Philip’s chest. Philip tried to pull away, but the boy moved with him, his expression calm even as he thrust Philip back into the room. Philip shoved him, angry, then frightened, as he struck desperately at the boy’s arms and chest.

It was like grasping handfuls of something soft and gelid, fine dry snow or down that shifted beneath his fingers. Emaciated as he was, the boy was frighteningly strong. Philip cried out as the boy forced him onto the bed. He gazed up into Suru’s eyes, no longer black but glaucous, a bright spark within each like a tiny shimmering seed.

Then the boy’s skeletal arms were around him, holding him gently, hesitantly. He cocked his head, as though he listened for a sound other than Philip’s ragged breathing, then slowly lowered his cheek until it rested against Philip’s.

“You’re warm,” said Suru, marveling.

Philip tensed for an assault or whispered threat; a kiss; flight.

But the boy only nestled against him. A minute passed, and Philip extended his hand cautiously, touching Suru’s shoulder where the flannel shirt gaped open.

“Oh my God,” he exclaimed.

It wasn’t dirt flecked across the boy’s shoulder, as he’d first thought, but a number of small black holes. Philip brushed one with a finger, dislodging something that fell to the floor with a loud
ping
.

Buckshot.

“Someone shot you?” he said, incredulous. “Good lord, you need to see a doctor—”

“No!”

“Don’t be crazy—it’ll get infected. Doesn’t it hurt?”

Suru shook his head. Philip started to scramble from the bed, stopped when the boy cried out.

“No. Please. It does not hurt. Only see—”

Suru gazed out at the snow eddying around the windows and French door, then turned to Philip.

“I lost the way,” he said. “When I fell. I returned but it was gone.”

Philip frowned. “The way?”

“From Tuonela. I fell, and you found me. I tried to go back. The way is gone.”

He clutched his head and began to sob, anguished.

“No—stop, please, really, it’s okay!” said Philip. “I’ll get you back. Just wait a minute and—”

Suru looked at him. His eyes were huge, still that pale gray-green; but they held no tears. “Will you come with me?”

“Go with you?”

“Yes.”

Philip glanced outside. He must be out of his mind, to even think of getting into the car with a stranger in the middle of the night. Though god only knew what kind of people were lurking out there in the woods, if Philip let the boy go off alone.