In The Falling Light (17 page)

The town limits of Petershead were clearly
marked in all directions by a sheer cliff with crumbling edges, and
beyond was only misty darkness. Petershead was literally an island.
At this edge, a finger of land had splintered off at an angle,
forming a smaller island, and it was upon this that the Petershead
School rested. A creaky wooden plank bridge with broken railings
was the only way across the hundred foot gap, known as the Ravine,
and it was deep within this slash of darkness that the Crusk made
its home. The travelers across the bridge supplied its meals.

No adults came here, except for the School
Marm, simply referred to as Miss Marm. A stick-figure of a woman,
she never left the school, slept on a cot near the chalk board, and
ate who knew what. Crows was the best guess any of her pupils had.
Therefore the only visitors were the school children, doomed to
trudge out here from town each day and take their chances crossing
the bridge, hoping that a hungry black mass didn’t lunge out of the
darkness below and carry them down to a brief and horrible end.

Courageous Little Philomena and her pals
made their way up the path towards the bridge. Here and there, old
chestnut trees grew along the ravine’s edge, some leaning
precariously out over the nothingness, roots straining to keep
their grip on the stony bank. Others were set back and
solid-looking, and it was towards one of these that Philomena
headed, leaving the path and motioning for her friends to follow.
Stopping at one tree in particular, she planted her hands on her
pointy little hips and looked it up and down.

One-Eyed Kate, carrying Stumpy in her arms
like a baby, stood beside her, and Johnny, sulking, shuffled a
distance behind, not at all happy to be here. Big Moose pulled the
heavy wagon up to the girls.

“This one should do,” Philomena pronounced,
pointing at the tree and looking over at Moose, who began unloading
the Red Flyer.

“Do you really think this will work?” Kate
asked, hugging Stumpy close.

“It has to, Katie.”

One-Eyed Kate nodded and wiped at a tear
that rolled down from the big blue eye in the center of her face.
Petershead was dangerous enough for children without the Crusk
thinning out their numbers even more on a weekly basis. She was
proud of Philomena, and happy to be her friend.

“Why do you think it will work?” demanded
Johnny, one hand digging deep into a pants pocket. He thought he
felt a piece of hard candy down there somewhere. Or it could just
be lint.

Philomena explained her plan. Kate and Big
Moose and Stumpy thought it was a good idea. Johnny thought about
his Rottweiler sandwich.

“But why
this
bait?” Johnny pressed.
“What makes it so special?”

“Because the book at the library says it’s
one of a kind, and irresistible.”

“It seems to like kids just fine,” he
said.

“Well, I don’t think using a kid as bait is
okay. Do you know of any extra kids we could use, Johnny?”

One-Eyed Kate elbowed her fat friend. “I can
think of one.”

Philomena carefully paced off the distance
from the tree she had chosen to the bridge, then returned and had
Big Moose lay out the chain in a straight line. She paced this off
as well, then instructed Moose to anchor the chain to the tree at a
particular point. Moose did as he was told, then heaved all his
weight against it, grunting and making a big vein stand out on the
side of his head. The chestnut tree creaked and the bark splintered
a little, but the chain only dug in deeper to the wood, holding
fast.

Next, Philomena pointed to the remaining
item in the wagon, an enormous steel fishhook, five feet long,
weighing close to a hundred pounds. Moose had found it in the barn
behind his house, hanging on a wall between a snow shovel and a
dried-out garden hose. It had a wicked-looking barbed head, and
appeared sharp enough to cut a person in half. Under the little
girl’s direction, Big Moose clipped it onto the loose end of chain,
tugging to make sure it too was secure.

“And now for the bait.” Philomena upended
the bag, dumping the glowing blob onto the ground.

Johnny tapped her on the shoulder. “Uh,
Clap? I still don’t understand how this is supposed to work. Even
if it does take the bait, how are we gonna pull it up? It’ll be too
heavy, even with Moose pulling.”

“Didn’t I go over this already?”

Johnny pressed on. “And if we do get it up
out of the ravine, what’s to stop it from just eating us right here
by the edge?”

“Johnny…” Philomena said, clenching her
fists.

“And Phil, what if…?”

Philomena grabbed the fat boy by his shirt
and hauled him in close, pushing her nose to his. “Ever see a
running dog reach the end of a short leash?”

Johnny blinked at her. “No.”

Philomena gasped and dropped her chin to her
chest, letting him go. “Nevermind.”

“But Phil…”

She pointed a finger at him. “Another word,
fat boy, and we’re using different bait.”

Johnny closed his lips tightly and went
digging for lint or candy.

Philomena picked up the luminescent blob,
and without ceremony impaled it on the fishhook’s barb. The
midnight sky shattered with a dozen forks of lightning in that
instant, and the thunder immediately after sounded like a scream,
shaking the ground and then fading off to a whimper.

The children huddled together, wide eyes
staring up at the sky, which had transformed to a tumult of
charcoal and ebony clouds, roiling against each other. A bitter
wind kicked up and made the trees sway, plastering their clothing
against them.

“Did the book talk about that?” whispered
Kate.

“No,” Philomena whispered back, her little
body shaking, not feeling particularly courageous anymore.

“Wanna go home,” said Big Moose, starting to
cry and holding one of Johnny’s hands so tightly that a bone
cracked and Johnny squealed.

Philomena bit her bottom lip, straightened
her back, and forced herself away from her friends, still
trembling. “We’ve come this far. If we don’t do this now, we’ll
never be brave enough to come back.”

“I’m not brave enough
now
,” said
One-Eyed Kate.

“You broke my hand,” Johnny wheezed at Big
Moose.

Philomena looked at each of them, and then
told them what she wanted. Kate set Stumpy gently against a smaller
tree before they all stepped to the big fishhook and picked it up,
even Johnny, who was holding back tears of his own. Together they
walked to the edge, the impaled bait pulsing before them, with Big
Moose paying out the chain.

An even colder wind curled up out of the
ravine, bringing the pungent smell of dead things, making them
shiver and wrinkle their noses. Dried leaves spiraled up into the
turbulent sky as they eased the hook and bait out over the edge,
then as a group, began to lower it by the chain. As the glowing
hook descended it began illuminating the walls of the ravine,
revealing rock formations shaped like tortured faces, each twisted
into a rictus of pain or horror. Some appeared to scream
soundlessly, others to stare blankly, mouths agape, and still more
appeared to be laughing, deep in the clutches of some unknown
madness. But nothing moved as the hook was lowered deeper.

Once the hook reached the end of the chain,
the children let go and lined up at the edge, peering down. The
glow from the bait was much smaller, moving back and forth slowly
as the hook swayed in the wind. They waited a long time.

Nothing.

“This is dumb,” said Johnny, deciding there
was no candy to be found in his pockets, exploring one nostril with
a pudgy finger instead.

“Maybe it’s not hungry,” offered One-Eyed
Kate. Stumpy was back in her arms, and he grunted his agreement.
Moose just stared into the ravine.

Philomena frowned, tapping the tip of one
pointed shoe against the chain in annoyance. “I think we need to
get its attention.”

Johnny shook his head. “You said the bait
was
irresistible
. You said!”

“I know what I said, and it is.”

“Uh, I think it’s resisting, Phil.”

“Someone’s gonna find out how deep that
ravine is,” Philomena sang softly, and One-Eyed Kate punched Johnny
in the side of the head.

They stood there in silence for a while,
except for Johnny, who couldn’t decide if he wanted to whimper
about his hand or his head or both. Then Big Moose looked up from
the ravine.

“Saturday,” he said.

The children just stared at him.

“Saturday,” he repeated. “No school.”

Philomena snapped her pointy little fingers.
“He’s right! It’s Saturday! The Crusk has to know his food doesn’t
come out here today!” And then she was off, sprinting towards the
bridge, pointy knees and elbows pumping once more, red ringlets of
hair flying in the wind. She started making loud, hooting noises.
Her boots hit the wooden planks and she pounded across,
CLICK-CLACK-CLICK-CLACK!

“Cruuuuusk! Come and eat me, Crusk!
Lunchtime, big fella!”

The kids watched in horrified amazement.

Courageous Little Philomena reached the
other side without being eaten, so she turned around and ran across
again, boot heels slamming the planks, hollering and waving her
arms. “Cruuuuuusk, Cruuusk, here Crusky! Yummy crunchy
din-din!”

A rumble from deep in the ravine. A black
mass speeding up through the air, spines and tails and teeth, oh,
so many teeth.

Philomena reached the center of the bridge
and stopped, gripping the weak railing and jumping higher and
higher, screaming into the ravine. “Come and get it, you big
BOOGER!”

A mighty mouth yawned open as it aimed at
the morsel on the bridge.

Then suddenly the mass jerked left, its
attention pulled by the wriggling, glowing,
irresistible
blob dangling by the ravine wall. It hit the hook, jaws crunching
down, and a moment later the chain snapped taut. The chestnut tree
creaked against the weight, but Philomena had chosen well, and it
held, roots deep and solid in the ground. The moment the Crusk hit
the bait there was another deafening, inhuman shriek and the sky
was once more split by lightning. The creature banked away from the
wall of the ravine and roared towards the little girl on the
bridge, but a full thirty feet before it got there it was jerked up
violently short and let out a terrible yelp.

Like a running dog on a short leash.

And Johnny understood.

The Crusk thrashed at the end of the chain,
the hook sunk deep in its jawbone, never to come out, the bait deep
in its gullet. It wailed and jerked and hit the end of the chain
again and again until finally, exhausted, it sank back into the
darkness, trapped and impotent.

At the ravine’s edge, the children clapped
and cheered. Out on the bridge, Courageous Little Philomena swept
her pointed little hat off her pointed little head and took a
bow.

Laughing, One-Eyed Kate cupped her hands to
her mouth and shouted across to her friend. “Philomena, what
was
that bait?”

In an Indiana mental facility, a man lunged
against the full restraints which held him to no more than a
sitting position. Former celebrity children’s book author Peter
Thomaston opened his eyes and gasped.

“My soul.”

It rested on a corner, a large cape with two
upstairs dormer windows and a one car garage. A giant beech tree
dominated the front yard, one of its roots buckling the cement walk
that led from the step to the mailbox. A hedge, brown and dying,
shielded the front and side yard from the road, marching in an
uneven line with the asphalt as Iroquois met Mohawk. The flower
beds were untended, and the curtains were drawn. The house appeared
vacant.

Jennifer knew better.

She sat in a rental car half a block up
Iroquois, the heater running against the early November chill. The
sky was indigo as the sun settled, and a street light a block away
clicked on, casting the front of the house in a deeper gloom.

She watched, hands clenched in her lap.
Beside her in the cup holder was a single key on a ring with a
silver heart. Her eyes never left the house as a rising breeze made
the tree branches sway like arms, dead leaves chasing across the
browning lawn. She watched the curtains for movement.

How many years had those limbs cast shadows
on her bedroom wall? She’d been two when they moved in, so it had
to be fifteen years? Until she went away to college. But the
bedroom had still been hers for years after that, and the tree
wasn’t the only shadow that crawled in there.

As she’d left their little Connecticut town
for A.S.U. – a place as far from here as she could get - she had
sworn to never put a foot inside again. That hadn’t lasted, of
course. It was her home, where her parents lived until Mom passed
away two years ago, and where Dad had lived alone until he joined
her two days ago. Since going away for school she had been back
inside exactly three times. Jack had only been there once, and
little Collin had never been, nor would he ever be, inside that
house.

“I hate you,” she whispered.

Jennifer wasn’t supposed to be here until
tomorrow. She and Keri were going to meet some aunts and cousins
for coffee, go to the mortuary to make arrangements, then come back
here to plan for the house and Dad’s things. In the daytime. Not
that the time of day had ever really mattered on Mohawk.

She turned the heater knob up one
setting.

Jack and Collin were back in Phoenix,
despite her husband’s protests that he should be here to support
Jennifer and pay his respects. She had been firm, however, and Jack
relented. Over the years she had told him everything, and though he
didn’t believe it all, or even most of it, he knew that she
did.