The Child Eater (3 page)

The policeman looked at Jack's father and shrugged. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I don't know what else we can do. If your son remembers something else—or of course if he sees the man again—make sure you call us.” He sounded annoyed and trying not to show it. Suddenly he smiled slightly, just the side of his mouth. “You know,” he said, “with all that family wisdom, maybe you guys could help
us
solve a crime or two.” Before Jack's dad could say anything, he gestured to his partner. “Let's go, Becky,” he said. “We'll let the Wisdom family sort things out.”

“Dad,” Jack said, “it's true. The guy was there. He held my head.”

His father looked about to yell something. Instead, he turned around and walked to his and Jack's mom's bedroom and shut the door.

“Mom?” Jack said. “You believe me, don't you? He was
there
.”

“Of course, honey,” said his mother. “Of course I believe you.” She pressed Jack's head against her shoulder, and Jack had the awful thought it was so she wouldn't have to look at him.

Later, in his bed, Jack wondered if maybe he
had
made it up. Maybe he'd dreamed it or something. “More normal than normal,” he whispered. He would make his father proud of him.

Matyas returned to the dark grove whenever he could. It was not easy, as his father seemed to find more and more chores for him, as if he feared Matyas was cheating him any time the boy did something for himself. And when Matyas could get away, Royja was often there, wanting him to tell stories with her about all the wonders they would see. But he did go sometimes, not sure what he expected to find. He looked for the lights—the
Splendor
, the wizard had called them—but except for one or two brief flashes there was nothing.

One night he was sitting on a bare hillock a little way from the grove, putting off the moment he had to return, when he saw a large object move against the moonlit sky. At first he assumed it was a bird, but as he stared at it a shock jolted him, for he realized it was a man. He was right! “No one can fly,” that pompous old wizard had said, but look, there was someone flying!

As fast as he could follow on the lumpy earth, Matyas took off after the man. Several times he stumbled over rocks and bushes, only to get up and run faster. He could see the man clearly now, tall and thin with no shirt or shoes but only a rough brown jacket and torn and filthy pants. His hair was thick and dark and matted with dirt.

He descended to earth at the edge of the tangled and blackened trees. The wizard—a
real
Master, Matyas thought to himself, not like that red-haired fake—squared his thin shoulders and tilted back his head. “Come around me,” he said. Matyas wondered if the wizard was talking to him. Did he know Matyas was spying on him? What terrible punishment would he enact? He remembered that moment when the old man—
this
wizard was much younger, only a few years older than Matyas himself—had begun to turn him into a toad. He was trying to decide if he should run away when the lights, the Splendor, appeared all around the man's body.

“Open the way,” the wizard said. The lights moved toward the trees. Where they touched them, the black branches parted so that the wizard could enter. Matyas bent low and tiptoed forward, until he could see through the tunnel opened by the light.

After the sight of a flying man, he might have thought nothing could amaze him, but now he had to stuff his fist in his mouth not to cry out. In the center of the trees there was a circular clearing, the ground shiny and smooth like glass, and in the center of that circle there stood a black pole as smooth as ivory and inlaid with spirals of gold, and on
top
of that pole, perched like a bird, was a human head!

The face was strong, Matyas' idea of a warrior, with a sharp nose and high cheekbones, and yet it also appeared soft and gentle, almost like a girl's. The eyes were closed, with long lashes. Thick black curls set off delicate golden skin.

The man said something in a language Matyas had never heard from any of the inn's guests. The words all flowed together like white water over sharp rocks.
Wizard talk
, Matyas thought, but when the head answered, everything that had sounded hard or sharp vanished, and Matyas knew it was in fact the language of the head itself. A language of angels. He could have listened to it forever, until he died of hunger without even noticing.

The head and the wizard spoke together for just a few minutes and then the wizard turned to leave. Matyas barely had time to scurry around the curve of the trees and crouch down behind a rock. He looked up just in time to see the wizard rise back into the sky. Matyas stared and stared and thought how he wanted nothing else in the world but
that
.

The trees had closed up again, dark and vicious. It made Matyas want to cry to think of that beautiful head trapped in those hateful trees. He
stood at the edge of the wood for a long time, mouth opening and closing, until finally he called out, as firmly as he could, “Come around me!” To his great surprise the Splendor appeared, stronger than ever, their flash so sharp they sent bursts of light up and down his skin. Before they could vanish he ordered, “Open the way.”

The trees parted like high grass blown in the wind, and there, at the end of the narrow tunnel, stood the head on its black and gold pole. The eyes were shut again. They looked forever closed, as if the wizard had never been there. Matyas moved forward with tiny steps. He longed to say, “I want to fly,” but he didn't know the words. Even if he knew how, he wouldn't have wanted to hurt that gentle language with his clumsy teeth.

Then suddenly he heard that voice again, the lights speaking to him. In a soft chant the voice said:

“Yes!” Matyas cried, thrilled beyond his fear. He could see himself soar through the sky, just like that wizard (except he imagined himself dressed better, more magnificent). He would circle the inn, laughing as everyone pointed up at him in wonder. And then he would take off, escape this wretched world of the Hungry Squirrel and never return.

He waited for the head to say something but nothing happened. It looked asleep. It looked like it would sleep forever. Matyas said, “Please. Will you help me? Help me fly?”

Nothing in the perfect face moved, but it spoke, wondrous rolling sounds, like liquid silver. “I'm sorry,” Matyas said. “I don't understand. Please.”

Now the mouth curved in the thinnest smile, though the eyes stayed closed and not another muscle twitched. It spoke again, but this time the words were chopped, harsh. Matyas concentrated a moment, then said, “That's the same thing. Isn't it? A different way of saying it, but the same idea?” He had no idea how he knew that, nor what the two versions, either one of them, might have meant.

It didn't matter, for the effect was dramatic. The eyes opened wide—little puffs of dust came off them—and the voice, that glorious sound, cried out, in Matyas' own tongue, “How did you know that?”

With a great effort Matyas stood his ground. “I'm Master Matyas,” he said.

The eyes looked him up and down. “Hardly,” the voice said. “But the Splendor have come around you, no doubt for reasons only they would understand.”

Matyas said, “Are you an angel?”

“
Angel?
” the head answered. “Do I
look
like a wing-slashing beast?
I
am a High Prince of the Kallistochoi!”

Matyas waited for more, then finally said, “I'm sorry. I don't know what that is.”

The head—the Prince—made a sound of disgust. “How wonderful,” he said. “Something new has come into the world. An ignorant Master.”

“Can't you just tell me?”

The face looked startled a moment, then the Prince laughed. “Well. Ignorant perhaps, but impervious to insult. A valuable quality. Very well, then. The Kallistochoi are the original rulers of this world. Indeed, some have claimed that we created the Earth as a haven, but I cannot speak to that. Origins were never my concern.”

“Haven from what?”

“The Great Above.” When Matyas looked confused, the Prince rolled his eyes. “Heaven.” He went on, “We were the First, the original beings to emerge from the Greater Light, behind the Curtain of the Creator. We descended only when the Creator brought forth the Lesser Lights, the Angels of Purity and the Demons of Desire. We wanted no part of their wretched war, and so we came
here
. We fashioned bodies for ourselves, taller than the giant pines, our eyes like oceans, our voices like hurricanes of wonder.

“Oh, how we delighted in this world. It was ours, and we poured all our beauty into it.” He stopped for a moment, as if waiting for Matyas to say something. But the boy could not think of anything, and so the head continued, “For many turns of the Great Year, as the stars moved slowly around the Earth, we sailed the oceans and roamed the forests. We walked in the Garden of Origins and danced with the Guardians of the Seven Trees. And then the great disaster happened.”

Again he paused, and now Matyas said, “What was that?”

“The war ended. The Host Triumphant cast the Rebels down into the Great Below. And then they came looking for us.”

“Why?”

“To punish us, of course. For our refusal to take sides. They descended to this world in a thousand chariots, each one brighter than the Sun. Their vicious wings slashed open the sky itself, so that the jewels of Heaven rained down like hail. At long last, the Kallistochoi had no choice but to fight.”

“Did you win?”

The Prince looked startled, then secretly pleased. The voice was scornful, however, as it said, “Obviously not. Would I be here, would I talk to
you
, if we had won?”

“I'm sorry,” Matyas said, and was instantly angry at himself. Should a Master apologize?

The Prince said, “We fought with courage and ingenuity, but at last we fell. The Host did not cast us Below, however. Instead, they shredded our glorious bodies and left our heads on poles, immobile, forced to watch as our lovely world passed to the brutish hands of, well, creatures like you.”

Matyas asked, “How many of you are there?”

There was a pause as the Prince closed his eyes again and appeared to listen attentively for some sound that wasn't there. When he spoke it was with such sadness that Matyas yearned to comfort him, though he had no idea how. He just listened. “I do not know,” the Prince said. “I have been asleep for a very long time, hidden by the trees. As I listen now, I hear no songs, no whispers, no cries or laments. It is possible I am the last of the Kallistochoi.”

“Will you teach me to fly?”

Once again there was that startled look. But the Prince said only, “Do I look as if I am seeking students?”

“Please. I need this.”

“Well, if you
need
it, why don't you go and join the Academy?”

“Academy?”

“My, you really are ignorant, aren't you? The Grand College of Prophets, Sorcerers, Mountebanks and Fools.” When Matyas said nothing, he sighed. “The school for wizards, in the collection of shacks and hovels you people call your capital.”

“Why do I have to go to school? Can't you teach me right now? You're a High Prince!” Matyas was shouting, but it was no use, for the Kallistocha had closed those magnificent eyes and would speak no more.

He thought of knocking it off its perch, forcing it to answer him, but a sudden wind pushed him back, and the branches began to scratch at him, and he realized the trees were closing in, and if he didn't leave he might be trapped inside forever. As he was running along the narrow corridor, he heard the Prince call to him. “Matyas! We will meet three times, and the last shall also be the first.” Matyas almost went back to ask what that meant but he had no choice except to keep going. He emerged onto the dull ground just as the trees locked back into place.

“Come around me!” he yelled, but the lights were gone and there was nothing but dark evening and the darker trees. “Open!” he commanded. “I'm Master Matyas.” Nothing. Finally, crying, and angry he couldn't stop crying, he turned to go.

He was a good hundred yards from the trees when he heard the voice again. He didn't think it was the Prince—the sound was too harsh and thin. And he didn't see the lights, the Splendor, anywhere around him. It didn't matter, for only the words counted.

“I don't care about any of that,” Matyas said to the air. “All that crying and talking. And I won't just try. I'm going to do it.”

Jack Wisdom did his best to live up to his father's hopes for him. No more crazy stuff, he told himself. Normal. He stopped playing the squirrel game, stopped even thinking about the woods and the animals, and as much as he could, he stopped dreaming. If he did dream, whether it was children in pain, or rough hands moving over his head, he told himself it was only that, a dream, meaningless. Normal people just forgot it had ever happened. So that's what he did. It was, he thought, like casting a spell on yourself. A spell of forgetting. Forgetting the dreams and everything else.

He never hit another home run.

In high school, and then later in college, Jack dated girls now and then but not too often. Once, a girl named Rennie said to him, “What's it like under the mask, Jack? Where's the real Jack Wisdom?”

Jack shrugged. They were sitting in a coffee shop, and Jack took a swallow of his mochaccino before he said, “There is no mask. This is just who I am.”

Rennie smiled and shook her head. “We've been going out for two months now, and I don't believe anyone could be so damned normal.” She said it as a joke but Jack knew what was coming. A week later she broke up with him.

Jack studied software and for a while he thought of becoming a game designer. But it felt a little dangerous, or at least unwise, and so he took a job as a tech specialist for a small automotive accessory design company headquartered in the fourteenth most livable city. There he bought a white house with a porch, on a quiet dead-end street (a “cul-de-sac” the realtor called it) in the better part of town.

The spell stayed strong. He forgot all about the strange things that happened to him as a child, forgot the dreams, though at times it felt to him as if everything that had happened since he was a boy was really just a dream, as if any moment he would wake up. Screaming. But then the spell would come back, and he would banish such thoughts as, well, not normal enough for someone in the Wisdom family.

One winter day, he found himself driving in a part of town he'd never seen, with old houses of wood and even stone, most of them badly in need of paint and a new roof. Jack had no idea, really, how he got there, he was just on his way home from the store after work. Must have been daydreaming and took a wrong turn. He was about to swing the car around when he saw what looked like flames between two dilapidated brick apartment buildings. He pulled over and got out to investigate.

Then stopped when he saw it was just a group of homeless kids huddled around a small fire they'd made from bits of wood and other garbage. They all sat hunched over, hugging themselves in their dirty thin jackets and jeans. There was something wrong with their faces, Jack saw, marks of some kind.

Cuts, he realized. They all had a series of small cuts all over their faces. Some had red lines around their necks, as if someone had cut their heads off and placed them back on the shoulders for safe keeping.

Jack moved slowly away, his heart thumping with terror that they would see him. And in fact, before he could get to his car, all the children turned, or just swiveled their heads, and together they said, “
Jack, Jack, don't go back—
”

“No!” he shouted. “Leave me alone!” He ran to his car as fast as he could, locked all the doors and raced home. That night he dug out his old game player from a box of childhood things his mother had given him. Handling it with a paper towel, as if it might be infected, he took it out into the backyard and buried it. Only when he was inside again, with the door locked, did he feel his breathing begin to slow down. It was all right, he told himself. They were just some runaway kids. Probably they
didn't even say that . . . that
thing
. Probably they were only begging and the wind distorted their voices. He poured himself some whiskey. Jack almost never drank, he kept the bottle around because he knew his boss liked it, and Jack thought he should be ready in case his boss came for dinner or a meeting. Now he drank it down, slowly, and on the last swallow he said, “More normal than normal.”

That night he slept without dreams, and the next morning he felt as if nothing had happened. He drove a little more carefully on his way to work, but soon the whole thing was forgotten. His life was back the way it should be.

Only, he was lonely. Jack tried going out with women at work, or sisters of the guys at work, even once or twice the daughters of his mother's friends. Nothing ever happened. He'd considered dating services a couple of times. The people in the TV ads always looked so happy. Yet somehow the idea of it always felt unsafe, if not downright unwise. Who ran these things anyway? What did they really want? And so he'd never submitted his name.

Then, when Jack Wisdom was twenty-four years old, he met a woman who talked to squirrels in the park.

Jack had gone to a city halfway across the country on assignment from his company. He was there for weeks, and because his clients often needed time to try out his suggestions, sometimes he found himself free for an afternoon or even a day. At first he tried going to movies, or a sports bar to watch games on television, but both made him feel even more lonely. He didn't want to think what people might think of him, so he stayed away from such places. He tried watching television by himself in his hotel room but became too restless. So he began to take walks in a large park a few blocks from his hotel.

One afternoon he saw, some distance away, a woman on a park bench leaning forward with her hands on her knees as she apparently talked to a pair of squirrels, one gray, one red, who stood upright on their hind legs to twitch their noses at her. Occasionally she would laugh, as if the squirrels had made a joke, while at other times she nodded solemnly.

Sudden rage flashed through his body—how could someone act that way, didn't she care what people would think of her? And then the thought,
Get out of here. You don't need this.
But those very messages in his head, and that anger behind them, felt unnormal somehow—wasn't
it normal to see someone else act weird? Why get so angry? So he stood and watched. Sparkling lights like fireflies darted all around her, illuminating her face in momentary flickers. After a few minutes, the woman gave each squirrel a small piece of bread, and then with a wave of her hand sent them away. As the squirrels dashed off to eat their prize, the lights also left, spiraling above the woman to disappear into the sunlight.

The woman was tall, with long red hair, curly and well cut but in no special style. She wore what looked like a heavy silk dress, deep purple streaked with yellow, and a blue shawl loosely draped over her shoulders. Around her neck a gold chain held a pendant that reminded Jack of the medical symbol of two snakes wound around a stick, except these snakes looked more real, and the stick had a kind of flaming crown on top.

Once the squirrels had left, Jack wanted to go and speak to her but he was afraid she would notice him staring, so he turned around and pretended to examine some flowers. When he finally looked again she was gone. That evening, Jack lay on his bed with the TV on, gazing at the ceiling, and he thought about the woman.
You've got to be pretty squirrelly to talk to squirrels
, he thought. It was one thing to play a game—and what would it have made him if he'd talked to her? Really, it was all for the best that he hadn't tried to talk to her.

The next day he went back to the park and she was there, dressed in blue this time, with a light gray jacket over her long dress. She was talking to the squirrels like the day before, and nodded, or gestured with her hand as if it was a real conversation. And once again, Jack turned and pretended not to see her as she got up and walked away. On the third day she wasn't there, and as Jack left the park he kicked a garbage can in his anger at himself for not speaking to her. That night he dreamed of her, his first dream in months, strange scenes that lasted only seconds. She was fighting with him, or she was standing in a cold room, surrounded by people so pale and miserable they might have been dead. Or she was holding something over a fire, and he was screaming at her. He woke up angry, and then sad. For a moment he thought he saw those odd fireflies in the room with him, but it must have been an after-effect of the dream.

Over the next two days, Jack's clients insisted on showing him the sights.
Just as well
, he thought. If seeing Squirrel Lady was going to make him dream again, better to keep busy. But when he finally got a free afternoon, he nearly ran to the park. At first he didn't recognize her, for instead of a long dress she wore jeans and a light ruby-red sweater, with
her hair pulled back. In fact, it was only the squirrels that made him realize it was her. She leaned closer, as if they whispered secrets, and at one point he thought she was crying. When the squirrels finally scampered off, he made himself walk toward her with what he hoped was a casual stroll. “Hi,” he said. “Those have got to be the friendliest squirrels in the park.”

She smiled up at him. “All squirrels are friendly,” she said. “But they're still wild. It's not good to think of them as actual friends.”

He smiled back, hoping he would not appear either scary or pathetic. “You certainly seem to get along with them pretty well. It looked like you were having a great conversation.” He laughed a little, to show he was joking, though not too much.

“Oh, they're good for news and gossip, but you know, they have their own point of view. They
are
squirrels after all, so you really have to sift through what they say for something useful.”

She sounded so serious, despite a smile at the corners of her mouth, that he didn't know how to answer. He was never very good at small talk, anyway. So instead he just said, “Hey, look, do you think maybe you'd like to have a cup of coffee? I don't actually live around here, but I noticed a nice place a couple of blocks over.”

The strangest look passed over her face, a sadness mixed with some kind of struggle. Jack was wishing he could just run away, maybe go and bang his head against the wall for pushing too soon, when she sighed, then smiled sweetly at him and said, “That would be nice. Thank you.”

“I'm Jack Wisdom,” he said as she stood up.

“What a wonderful name. Mr. Wisdom. Is there a Mrs. Wisdom?”

“No, no, not at all. I mean, my mother, but . . .” He let his voice trail off before he sounded even dumber.

She laughed. “That's all right. I knew you weren't married.”

“You knew?”

“The squirrels told me, of course. They're really very observant.”

“What?” He looked around, as if he'd catch them spying on him.

She laughed again. “I'm sorry, I really shouldn't tease you. My name is Rebecca. Rebecca Vale.”

“There's no Mr. Vale, is there?”

“Only my father.”

“Good,” he said, then quickly added, “I mean, because I don't have any squirrels to give me that information.”

As they walked out of the park, Jack said, “So you're a nurse?”

“No, I'm afraid that's a job that has never appealed to me very much.”

“I'm sorry. A doctor, then?”
Sexist jerk
, he scolded himself.

She looked at him with a smile that might have made him feel foolish but instead lifted his body as he walked. She said, “Not a healer of any kind. Not even a pharmacist.”

“Oh, sorry. It's just that necklace. Isn't it a symbol of the medical profession?”

“Yes, though in fact that's actually a mistake.” She touched the pendant. “This is called a caduceus. In ancient times it was a symbol of prophecy. Of seers.”

“Seers? You mean, like fortune tellers?”

“Afraid so.”

He laughed, thinking she was teasing him again. “Great profession.”

“Not really,” she said.

From then on Jack spent every free moment with Rebecca. They went to movies, they walked around town, they even went to a museum where she surprised Jack with how much she knew about Renaissance painting. Sometimes that sadness would come over Rebecca, but then she would smile at him, or kiss him, and it would all be okay.

One evening they walked from Jack's hotel to a small park alongside the river, and as they sat on a bench watching a sailing boat, Rebecca said, “Jack, suppose you could do something really wonderful, something that would make you very happy. But suppose you also knew that it wouldn't last, that it would end horribly, that it would even destroy you. Would you do it?”

Jack said, “I don't know. I guess it would depend on how good it would be.”

“The best,” she said. “The absolute best.”

“If it was as good as you, I'd do it in a second.”

She began to cry and laugh at the same time. “Oh, Jack,” she said, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Rebecca. I never thought I'd love anyone the way I love you.” He kissed her, and hugged her, and kissed her again. Because he felt so good, and because he wanted to dispel any sadness in her, he said, “And I don't even care what the squirrels say.”

She laughed and clapped her hands. “Right. What do a couple of squirrels know anyway?”

The first time he went to her apartment he didn't know what to expect. He'd never been to a fortune teller's house before. To his relief there was no crystal ball, no weird symbols painted on the walls, no magic wands or lurid idols. There was, however, a small, round table, oak, with two polished candlesticks, one gold, one silver, and in between them a deck of Tarot cards on a blue silk scarf painted with images of stars. Jack had seen Tarot cards before. Back home, at the annual Christmas party, one of the company's patent lawyers liked to bring a deck and tell fortunes for whoever wanted it. Jack could never decide what surprised him more, that a lawyer would do that, or how many people, sensible people, his boss included, lined up for readings.