Rook & Tooth and Claw (10 page)

He went to the closet on the far side of the room and took down a large white woollen bedcover that he occasionally used in the winter. He unfolded it, and he was about to spread it right over the spare bed when he noticed something.

A greyish dust had leaked out of the side of the bedcover in which Mrs Vaizey’s remains were wrapped.

Hesitantly, Jim prodded the bedcover with his foot. More dust trickled out, almost as fine as talcum powder. He knelt down and laid his hand flat on top of the bedcover, trying to feel what was inside it. Immediately, it collapsed, and he jumped back in fright, ricking his ankle.

He waited for a moment, panting, wondering what to do. He didn’t want to open up the bedcover to see what had happened to Mrs Vaizey’s remains, but he knew
that he would have to. He approached it again, and very carefully took hold of one corner between finger and thumb, and drew it back. A small landslide of dust fell out on to the floor.

Bolder now, he dragged the whole bedcover out from under the bed, untied the string that held it together, and opened it out. Inside there was nothing but a heap of thick dust, with one or two small bones in it, fingers and toes and the curve of a rib.

He tried to pick up the rib but that, too, fell into dust. Mrs Vaizey’s remains had been reduced to ashes just as effectively as if she had been cremated. Jim could see now that he was facing a man of extraordinary supernatural powers, and the problem was that they were like nothing he had ever heard or read about before. The way in which Mrs Vaizey had consumed herself had no parallel in American or European culture – none that Jim had ever heard of, anyhow – and the way that she had crumbled into dust bore no resemblance to any Western phenomenon, such as instant mummification or spontaneous combustion. This was African magic – strange and strong.

He went to the kitchen and came back with a black plastic bag. He lifted up the bedcover and sifted all the dust into the bag, and then knotted it. Mrs Vaizey’s remains weighed no more than a heavy cat. Any dust that he had spilled he sucked up with his vacuum-cleaner. At least the poor woman’s body was going to be easier to dispose of.

Half-way down the steps he met Myrlin again, who was wearing an olive-green nylon shirt and a nasty look. “There’s still no sign of Mrs Vaizey, you know,” he said, accusingly.

Jim said, “Maybe she just got tired of living here, that’s all.”

“What you got in there?” Myrlin asked him, nodding toward the bag.

“Just memories,” said Jim. He went to the parking-lot, opened his car, and put the bag into the trunk. “Just memories,” he repeated to himself, so quietly that Myrlin couldn’t hear him.

Chapter Seven

This morning, in English, they discussed
Dead Boy
by John Crowe Ransom.

Jim sat on the edge of his desk swinging his leg as he listened to the class stumble out the poem line by line. He wore his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. When they had finished, he said, “He didn’t sound like much, this kid, did he? So why were his mother and the elder men so hurt that he was dead?”

Titus Greenspan III put up his hand and said, “I don’t get this stuff about the tree.”

“Ah, yes, but the tree is the whole point. Greg – why do you think the tree is the whole point?”

Greg Lake’s face went through a slow series of incredible distortions as he tried to think. He took so
long that it gave David Littwin the opportunity to put up his hand and say, “It w-w-w—”

“Okay, David, take it easy,” Jim encouraged him.

“It w-wasn’t a real t-t-tree he was t-talking about, it w-was a fuh. A fuh. A family tree.”

“That’s exactly right. The mother and the elder men were grieving because their old Virginia heritage had been put at risk by this one boy’s death. No matter how stupid he was, no matter how badly-behaved, he was one of them, one of their line.”

He walked up and down between the desks. “Your heritage is something more than you are … something to cherish and be proud of. John here honours his ancestors … Rita here celebrates the Day of the Dead … Sharon has traced her ancestry right back to Sierra Leone.”

He reached the end of the room, and turned around, and as he did so he froze. Umber Jones was standing in the corner, next to the flag, his eyes concealed behind tiny black-lensed spectacles. He was watching Jim and his teeth were exposed in a lipless smile.

Jim had a good idea why he had come. He wanted to make sure that Jim made use of the memory powder, so that Tee Jay could be released. Jim stayed where he was, right at the back of the class, while Umber Jones continued to stare at him, and grin.

Russell Gloach said, “What if you don’t have no ancestry? Like, I was adopted. What are you supposed to celebrate then?”

Jim didn’t take his eyes off Uncle Umber. “You can celebrate the fact that your mom and your dad both wanted you enough to call you their own. It’s just like a new branch being grafted on to a tree. It came from another tree, sure; but now it’s an integral part of the tree that accepted it. You’re part of the Gloach heritage
now, no matter where you came from; and I happen to know that your mom and dad are very proud of you.”

As he was speaking, Umber Jones began to glide toward him, without even moving his feet. He came right up close, so that Jim could see every pockmark in his face, and every white whisker that protruded from his night-black skin.

“You’re not going to let me down, are you, Jim?” he asked, in his harsh, heavy whisper.

“Seems to me like the elder men were more worried about their heritage than they were about the dead boy,” put in Amanda Zaparelli. She spoke with hugely-renewed confidence now that her braces had been taken out.

“No,” said Jim.

Amanda frowned. “I just thought – you see here where it says about the elder men looking at the casket—”

“You saw what happened to your friend, didn’t you?” breathed Umber Jones. “You sent her looking where she wasn’t welcome. The same thing could happen to you.”

“What the hell are you harassing me for?” Jim demanded.

Amanda turned around at looked at Sue-Robin Caulfield in astonishment. The rest of the class twisted in their seats and stared at Jim with expressions that showed they were deeply impressed. Jim had always been outspoken, but never
this
outspoken.

Jim jabbed his finger at Umber Jones and said, “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but by God I’m going to find a way to stop you.”

“Way to go, Mr Rook!” called out Ricky Herman. “Let’s shut Amanda up for good and all!”

“I hope you’re not going to be rash, Mr Rook,” said Umber Jones. “Before you could say the Lord’s Prayer,
I could leave this whole class dead and dying.” He looked around at the walls. “This room could use some redecoration, don’t you think? How about a nice shiny red?”

“I’ll do it,” Jim promised him. “Just wait until recess, and I’ll do it.”

“Hear that, Amanda?” laughed Mark. “If I was you, the minute I heard that recess bell, I’d run like fun.”

Uncle Umber laid his hand on Jim’s shoulder. “I’m pleased to hear it. Believe me, Mr Rook, you’re going to be the best friend I ever had. You and me, we’re going to go far together.”

Jim was aware that the class were all staring at him. He lowered his arms and stood with them rigidly by his side. “Get the hell out of my class,” he told Umber Jones, between tightly-clenched teeth.

“What’s that, now?” asked Umber Jones. “Wasn’t sure that I heard you too good.”

“Get the hell out of my class,” said Jim, much louder. His students started swivelling around and staring at each other and saying, “Me? What, me? He wants
me
to get the hell out? Hey, Mr Rook, is it
me
you want to get the hell out?”

“Couldn’t hear you,” Umber Jones taunted him.

Jim lost his temper. “This is my class and these are my students and I’m responsible for every one of them. You’ve already caused enough grief, so help me. I’ll do what you want me to do. But get out of my class before I do something that both of us are going to regret.”

“Oh, no,” grinned Umber Jones. “Only
you
are going to regret it.”

With that, he folded his arms and glided backward across the classroom, until he reached the chalkboard.

“I’m keeping my eye on you, Mr Rook,” he said. “And
don’t you forget it.” With that, his outline appeared to waver, as he were no more substantial than smoke, and of course he wasn’t. His darkness blew sideways, and curled around, and funnelled itself into the surface of the chalkboard. Jim heard a deep, soft rumbling sound, and then he was gone.

Jim walked stiffly toward the chalkboard and touched it with his fingertips. Its surface was hard and cool and perfectly normal. But as he stood there, a curved white line appeared on the board, drawn in chalk; and then another. With a drawn-out squeaking noise that set his teeth on edge, a picture of an eye appeared, almost three feet across; and underneath it, the words VODUN VIVE.

The class was totally silent. Jim turned around and looked at them and didn’t know what to say. It was only when Mark said, “Sheesh, that was so
cool
!” that they suddenly started talking and bantering again.

“How did you do that, Mr Rook?” asked Ricky. “Like, you didn’t even use your hands.”

“Not like you, Ricky,” said Jane Firman. “You’re
all
hands, you are.”

Jim lifted his hand for silence, and then he said, “It was a trick, okay? Nothing but a trick. At the end of the semester, if you all pass with better-than-average grades, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

He couldn’t tell them about Umber Jones. If he did, there was no knowing what Umber Jones would do. But it was becoming increasingly difficult for Jim to keep his presence a secret, and Jim was beginning to feel that he was doing it on purpose: taunting him, provoking him, so that Jim would really snap and Umber Jones would have an excuse to slaughter the whole class.

It was interesting, though: Umber Jones could have
slaughtered them anyway, without an excuse. He was invisible, to everybody except Jim. Nobody believed in his existence, which made him uncatchable. Jim wondered if there were some restraints on his behaviour – if, like vampires, he needed to sleep in a coffin filled with his native soil, or if he couldn’t endure crucifixes, or garlic-flowers, or if he had to stay out of the sunlight.

The recess bell rang. The class gathered up their books, laughing and chattering. Jim stood by the window with his back to them, just to make sure that Uncle Umber wasn’t out there somewhere, just waiting to do them harm.

Six years ago, Jim had married quickly and misguidedly, and he had never had children. But then he didn’t need children of his own; he had them already. Beattie and Muffy and Titus and Ray. During college hours, they were his family. Out of hours, as he sat marking their essays, they were still with him, because each essay was like a letter, trying to explain what they thought he had taught them …

‘Mark Twain says about Huck Finn that “there were things he stretched but mainly he told the truth” but when you think about it whole of
Huckleberry Finn
is “stretched” because it’s a story. Stretching is a way of saying something in a way which people are going to remember.’

He was still standing by the window when Sharon X came up to him, carrying three books. Today she had decorated her hair with dozens of tiny beads and she looked especially pretty. “I brought you those books I was talking about,” she told him. “This is the best one.
Voodoo Ritual.
It tells you just about everything you need to know about voodoo.”

“Thanks,” he said. “That’s kind of you.”

He thought she would go then, but she didn’t. She stood beside him as if she wanted to say something more.

“I’ll take care of them, I promise,” he said.

“You saw him just now, didn’t you?” Sharon asked him.

He put the books down on his desk and didn’t answer.

“He was here, wasn’t he?
That
was who you were talking to, not Amanda at all. I watched you, and you weren’t even looking at Amanda, you were looking right in front of you, like there was somebody standing there. And there
was,
wasn’t there?”

Jim looked at her seriously. “Let me just put it this way, Sharon. You’re in danger, all of you, if I say one single word.”

“But he drew that eye on the chalkboard, didn’t he? You weren’t standing anywhere near it.”

“Sharon, let’s forget about it, okay? You know what they mean when they say that even walls have ears.”

“That’s an evil eye,” said Sharon. “And Vodun, he’s the head spirit of voodoo. That means ‘Vodun Lives’. You only see that eye when Vodun’s watching you, to make sure you don’t take his name in vain, or do nothing to displease him.”

“Sharon, thanks for the books … but I’m not going to say any more.”

But Sharon was persistent. She picked up
Voodoo Ritual,
licked her finger, and quickly leafed through it. “You’re talking about seeing a person when nobody else can, aren’t you? Like you can really
see
this dude, can’t you, when the rest of us can’t? But there’s a way that you can show him up, so that everybody else can see him, too.”

“Oh, yes?” Jim was growing impatient. He would
rather have studied Sharon’s books at leisure; and besides, he needed to get out into the yard and see if he could persuade Ricky Herman to breathe in some of the memory powder. It wouldn’t work, he was sure of it.
He
wasn’t aware of remembering anything that had never actually happened to him. But it was what Umber Jones wanted him to do, and he would do it.

“Here, look,” said Sharon. “Death dust.”

“Death dust?” asked Jim, abstractedly. He was still looking out of the window, spooked by every shadow. Was that the oak trees dipping in the breeze, or was it a man in an Elmer Gantry hat, walking across the grass?

“Sure, look. ‘Spirits can only be seen by
houngans
and people with special gifts. Otherwise they are invisible. But spirit-hunters used to take bags of death dust with them when they went to exorcise huts and houses. They would toss the dust around the room, and if there was a spirit present, the dust would cling to them, making them momentarily visible.’”

Jim said, “Let me take a look at that.” He flicked back and read the two preceding pages while Sharon watched him, fiddling with her beads.

“‘A
houngan
has many ways of disabling or killing his opponents. If they use The Smoke to leave their physical bodies and to visit his dwelling-house, he can cast a spell on their body while they are away, when the body will be unconscious and defenceless. There are many spells he can cast. He can put the body into a deep sleep which may last for days or even years. He may cause it to choke; or to suffer a stroke. He may paralyse it, or set fire to it. One of the most gruesome spells is
Se Manger,
when the victim literally devours himself.

“ ‘If the physical body is killed, the spirit will be forced to wander for ever in the Half-World. The physical body
itself will decompose very quickly into death dust. Death dust is still remembered in the Christian funeral ritual ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’”

“Does that help?” asked Sharon.

Jim closed the book and nodded. “It makes sense out of something that didn’t make sense. I’m very glad you brought it in.”

“It’s my ancestry,” said Sharon, with pride.

Jim went out into the yard and wandered around, talking to some of the students. He was conscious that – whatever they were talking about – they always changed the subject as soon as he approached, but then he always used to do the same thing when
he
was a student. The age gap between seventeen-year-olds and thirty-four-year-olds is about 4 million light-years. Jim was patient with them, though. He knew a secret which they didn’t know: in another seventeen years,
they
would be thirty-four, too.

He was just about to stroll across to the bench where Ricky was telling a group of girls about the night he had raced his Camaro at 95 mph along Mulholland Drive when John Ng approached him.

“Mr Rook … something weird happened in class this morning.”

He was obviously embarrassed, but Jim shrugged and said, “Sure. What was it?”