Harvest of Changelings (28 page)

That afternoon, at four o'clock, the phone on Thomas Ruggles's desk at the bank rang only once before he picked it up. He looked quickly around the room. None of the other data processors seemed to be even aware of his existence, let alone what he was doing.

Fools.

“Well, what happened? What'd they say? A social worker will be sent out for a home visit? When? Monday? Why so late? Too many caseloads and the current emergency. Damn, I hate having to wait that long for DSS to get its act together. Yes, I am sure he is the one, Charlotte. Yes. No, I have no doubts he is the one promised to us. If we have him, we can open the gates wide for the Dark Ones. Much more so than the last three children. Their feyness was latent—just barely manifesting. It's all there in this one; Malachi is half-fairy. The other three—I discarded them. You don't want to know how I found out that Malachi is half-fairy or how I discarded the others. Four of them—damn, he is forming a tetrad. It makes all four stronger as a unit. Who are the other three, tell me about them, who's the weakest. Russell? Well, we will just go after him. If they have to defend Russell, the other three will get weaker. Malachi especially will get weaker and then we'll snag him. Yes. Hold on, I've got another call on my line—okay, I'll call you tonight. We may have to wait for DSS, but we can go ahead and call, say, Larry White? Exactly. Okay, bye. Central Carolina Bank, Thomas Ruggles speaking, how can I help you?”

Russell reluctantly stepped off the bus Friday afternoon, and stood by the side of the road, watching until he could no longer see Jeff watching him back in the rear window. When Jeff waved, a blur through the yellow-dust-covered glass, Russell waved back. He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to leave Jeff, even though Jeff was coming over in a few minutes. He didn't want to be left alone at all. Even Jeanie, who was getting crankier and crankier the longer she was pregnant, would be okay company for a little while. Russell had overheard his dad say more than once that November 12 couldn't come soon enough, just to shut her up. Jeanie's back
ached, her feet ached, her hands were swollen. She was so big she couldn't get up out of a chair by herself. She couldn't squeeze behind a steering wheel, so somebody had to drive her everywhere: to work, to the store, to the corner, everydamnwhere.

“And I'm carrying twin boys,” Jeanie had complained to her mother. “Mama, I don't know if I can handle another White boy-child, let alone two, like Russell. I declare, if it isn't one thing, it's another....”

Russell had drifted out of earshot then. He knew just what she was going to complain about—not that he hadn't changed. Russell hadn't gotten into trouble at school since the fire. He had stayed, for the most part, out of his father's way. He was being good. Of course, neither his father nor Jeanie noticed Russell's new behavior any more than they noticed his green eyes were greener and glowed in the dark, his pointed ears, or that his red hair was redder and every now and then, had flames of light flickering in the red. But, then, nobody but Jeff or Malachi or Hazel or Malachi's dad had noticed. Malachi had explained: the fairy glamour that hid things was an involuntary reaction, a protective camouflage that just turned on. Unless somebody was also changing, they wouldn't notice.

Besides, being good didn't stop the bad ones. The shadows, the red-eyed monsters, they weren't just whispering to him in dreams anymore. The dark ones wanted Russell; the whispers promised him things: fuel for that hard, little knot of black anger which wouldn't go away, no matter how much Russell changed, no matter how closer the changes brought him to the light. He had actually made a friend, Jeff, and now, maybe, another, no two: Hazel and Malachi.

But the anger remained. Russell couldn't quite trust Hazel, yet. She was too much like the kids who picked on him for being too old in the fifth grade, for being too big, for wearing clothes bought at Kmart, for wearing dirty T-shirts. The goody-goodies, who always had everything done on time and without mistakes, looked down their noses at those who didn't. Hazel was money and clean clothes and a nice house. So was Malachi; Russell had seen that when he met Malachi's father last Thursday. And he was sure Malachi's dad had looked at him and seen trailer trash, white trash, redneck.

Russell shook his head. He didn't want to believe all that, but it was hard not to. And thinking like that only made the whispers come back. The sky rumbled again, this time louder and louder, and a few raindrops splattered on Russell's head and his face. He started walking faster. At least, since they had gotten out of school early, he had the whole afternoon to himself. And maybe next week as well. From
what the principal had said when she announced early dismissal, there might not be any school on Monday, either. Not with swamp monsters crawling across North Carolina. That had been what all the other kids talked about—that, and seeing people-less shadows.

The sky rumbled. Russell started walking faster down the driveway. He looked up into the dark grey clouds that had been there all day long. It looked as if the storm that had been promised since morning was finally here. Where was Jeff? Why wasn't he here yet? All he had to do was fly over; it took less than five minutes.

Lightning forked over his house, and the rain began, big fat drops. Russell started running, holding his books over his head.
No,
this will just make Mrs. Collins mad.
He stuffed the books under his shirt.

“Hey, Russ! What are you doing?”

Russell stopped and looked around, the rain beating on his head, soaking his shirt, his pants. The books were going to get wet, no matter what he did.

“Up here.”

Russell looked up to see Jeff hovering above him, completely dry, surrounded by a thin, barely visible envelope of white light.

“Forgotten how to do it? You can even dry everything off, too.”

I am so stupid. I can't remember anything.
“No, I haven't forgotten how to do it. I just forgot I could. There.” He was no longer getting wet; his clothes and his books were dry. The rain, coming down harder, washed around and over him and off. Grinning, he slowly rose until he was at Jeff's height.

“Better? I had to talk to Ellen—Mrs. Clark—for a while. She had to tell me something about my dad. Come on; let's go to your house. Boy, it's like night out here.”

They flew companionably down the driveway, almost drifting, in no hurry. From the Whites' house to the road was a five-minute walk, a one-minute flight at top speed. Today, with the hard rain and not being in a hurry, Russell and Jeff took almost ten minutes, talking about Malachi and his father and Hazel. Rain came down in sheets around them.

“You don't like Mal's dad? I do; I wish I had a father like that—Russell, look out!”

Out of the dark and the rain, a darker shadow formed, with long tendrils, twisting and uncurling, reaching out for each boy. The cool, wet air grew even colder, so cold Russell thought the rain would turn into snow. The shadow was familiar; he knew it. He knew what it was saying and what it wanted.

“Fly, Jeff, fly as fast as you can. It's me they want, not you—just me. I'm the evil one, the mean one—like my dad. I hurt; I hate. Get away, Jeff, are you crazy?” Russell screamed and shoved Jeff away, his aura growing brighter and hotter with each shove. The shadow shrank back, hissing.

Jeff shoved back. “Look, don't you see? It pulled away. You're not like that anymore, you know that. You were never really like that, Russ, not the real you, the you that has finally gotten its chance. Russell, look out!”

The shadow pounced, all its many legs wrapping around Russell, as if it were a net and had caught a huge fish. Russell screamed. The shadow tossed Russell up, and caught him in its cold claws, then up again, the second time catching the boy in its mouth. Russell's hot white aura went out and he felt colder and duller than he had ever felt in his life, too cold to shiver, too cold for his teeth to chatter. The cold was turning him into a stone, a stone to be juggled in the air.

 

He couldn't just let the thing eat Russell, make Russell into darkness, but what could he do?
I'm so little, so weak, so smaallll.
No, not this time. Not like before when Someone had come for him in the darkness and he had let the Someone do whatever he wanted. Not this time. Jeff flew straight at the monster, the rain hissing as it struck his aura, which was now a white flame. He struck the monster dead center in an explosion of incandescent white light.

 

Jeff opened his eyes and sat up.

The storm was gone.

The sky was clear, a pale grey-blue. The monster had disappeared. He was soaked and lying on soaked ground, in a mud puddle. Like a small ghost, some of his aura was still visible, tiny flickering white flames.

“Russell?”

Russell lay a few feet away, curled up in a tiny, tight ball. Jeff crawled over and laid a hand on Russell's head. Cold, cold, cold. But, beneath the cold, a bare trace of warmth. Russell was breathing—barely.

“He's alive,” Jeff whispered. “He's far away, but he's there. He feels like he's pure fear.” One of Jeff's still-flickering white flames flowed from his hand into Russell's wet, red hair, like water being absorbed by a paper towel. “He felt that—I felt him feel it—but he's too scared to come back. I can't get him back by myself.”

Jeff closed his eyes, squinched up his face, and then stepped
back as Russell's body floated up from the ground. Keeping his hand on Russell's head, Jeff took off, his feet barely touching the ground. After making sure neither of Russell's folks were home, he slowly rose up to the roof, Russell floating beneath his hand. With Russell still floating, Jeff raised Russell's bedroom window and then guided his friend's body inside and onto his bed.

Then Jeff called for Malachi and Hazel.

It had been a day. First that insane meeting at the school, then a weird conversation with his lawyer. Could Charlotte Collins make DSS do anything? Would there be social workers waiting at his door when he got home? The lawyer had no answers. What about the threat of a charge of child molestation? Yes, the other children had been at his house, but if he had tried to explain to Hallie why they were there, how they got there, she would have thought he was crazy. And he wasn't a good liar. Yes, he had told the doctor lie enough times that it felt true, but he hadn't had any practice defending himself against molestation charges. If he had explained to Hallie why he could never take Malachi to a doctor—yeah, right. And after that the county library director had called to talk about closing the entire system until the “emergency was over”—did Ben think that would be a good idea?

Ben shook his head. Why not close the library? So what if there were people coming there to hide—why they thought they would be safer surrounded by books, he didn't know. He doubted the schools would re-open on Monday, which was fine with him. Malachi didn't need to be riding on an unprotected bus. Not that it mattered if he ever went back, Ben thought. His son would be gone after Halloween. Gone forever? Gone was all Ben could think of, conceive of, right now. What would happen after they crossed over into Faerie, cured Malachi of his fairy-sickness—it was just too much to think that far ahead—and he still didn't know where the gate was.

What? Why is the air in here getting so hot?
His office smelled of white heat. The air shimmered and tiny lightning bolts zigzagged across the room, making zapping electrical popping sounds, a whoosh of smoke, and there, perched on his desk, was Ben's son. For one brief wild moment, Malachi looked just like his mother: the glowing eyes, the golden-white hair, and the pointed ears. Ben felt his heart stop, squeeze, and then go on.

Coughing, Ben waved away the residual smoke, wishing Malachi would hurry up and grow out of the special effects stage. And didn't the boy ever think of the effect of others seeing him materialize in a puff of smoke in his father's office?

“I told you
not
to do this in public. And why aren't you in bed—you've been sick, remember?” Ben snapped, glowering. He glanced out his door—the few people he could see on the library's main floor didn't seem to have noticed the pyrotechnics in his office. Not that it really mattered. How could it? Stranger things were happening almost every day lately, things that had nothing to do with Malachi.

“Sorry, Dad, but I had to get here as fast as I could—neat trick with the smoke, huh?—and I really do feel much better and I've got to go help Russell, Jeff called me, Russell got attacked by a shadow, Hazel is already on her way—”

“Slow down. One word at a time. What's going on with Russell?” Ben asked, remembering what he had seen last week, when he had gone to pick up Malachi at Nottingham Heights after it had closed early. The other three had been waiting with Malachi outside the school, on the front walk. For a brief moment, before Ben was close enough to speak, he saw the auras of all four children, the different lights merging together, drawn into one greater aura by pink and red pulsing ropes of light.

They are closer to my son and will know him better than I will ever be able to. They are more like him than I can ever be.

“The Fomorii are after him. They attacked him during the storm—Dad—they need me. It will be all right; I promise.”

And Malachi disappeared, winked out, leaving only the smell of heat in Ben's office and a thin, grey haze of vanishing smoke.

I don't know them, these other three. Who is this Russell, who looks so tough and mean? This Jeff, who looks like he wants to hide behind the next tree and Hazel, the most normal-looking of the bunch, yet her eyes glow, too.

Who are these three kids who are so attached to my son?

Oh, God, the Fomorii.