The Curiosity Killers (18 page)

“Yes, yes, well, this is my first lesson,” Wheaton said, getting the gist of her criticism of his speaking skills. “Come on, take me to this pordo.” He strode toward the place the boy indicated and beckoned to them to follow, then pointed ahead. “Go on, show me where you arrived.” He placed his index and middle finger on his palm and mimed the fingers walking, then pointed ahead once again, then to the children.

The boy and girl looked at one another. The boy nodded, and scampered ahead of his sister, who then took Wheaton’s hand and led him into the woods.

Several feet under the darkened canopy of leaves and branches, Wheaton noticed a shimmering quality to the air and a vaguely electric feeling, as if a thunderstorm were imminent. He took a deep breath and smelled the subtle, vacuum-like whiff of ozone. It reminded him of plastic, metal, dehumidifiers, and chemicals, products of centuries far in the future.

The boy grew excited as he approached one tree in particular. He turned and danced back to Wheaton and the girl. “Patrino!” he called. He stopped and stood still. The girl opened her mouth to speak, but her brother shushed her. “Aŭskulti,” he whispered, shaking his head. He clamped a hand on his mouth and then tugged on his ear. “Aŭskulti,” he whispered again.

The girl now stood at attention, her tiny body straining forward toward the tree. After a moment, her eyes widened. “Patrino,” she whispered. She pulled Wheaton forward. “Nia
patrino estas
tie.” She pointed to her ear. “Aŭskulti. Vi
povas
aŭdi
la flugilojn.”

Wheaton only recognized the vaguest of stems and verbs and gestures between the children, but he gathered enough to understand that they heard something beyond the tree. With the shimmer and the ozone, he also gathered that the portal was very near. He looked at the tree and then shut his eyes, trying to hear what the children did.

Thwip, thwip, thwip.

It was faint, but Wheaton heard something. He thought of tongues darting from the mouths of reptiles, ceiling fans with palm-frond blades whirring in lazy summer air, the soles of sandals slapping between bare feet and sidewalk pavement.

Thwip…snap…thwip…

Flags furling and unfurling on a blustery early-spring day.

The scent of ozone grew stronger. Wheaton flashed back to childhood, imagined himself drawing with markers and pausing to sniff the sharp scent of the ink, giving himself a dizzy, swimmy feeling.

Thwip…snap…snap…thwip…flap…

Now he saw a bird, sailing and coasting along a crystal-blue sky, feathered wings spanning twice the length of its massive body.

Flap, flap, flap.

The sky in Wheaton’s mind darkened, the bird now stark against the light of a full, silvery moon. It passed behind a branch and emerged on the other side, glowing and featherless now, a gray thing with leathery skin and red eyes—

The image startled Wheaton, and he jumped backward, opening his own eyes as he did so.

The pinpoints of red bored into him, not his imagination but so vibrant, so strong were these beams of light that he’d seen them behind his eyelids.

The children grabbed the creature’s hands and scampered around it, caressing its massive bat wings and snuggling against the smooth, short fur that grew along its torso and flanks.

“Patrino!”

The creature cooed like a dove and drew the children closer to it.

“Bebojn,” it said. Its voice was ethereal, unreal, part echoing growl, part purr. Wheaton marveled at all the different species it reminded him of—cat, owl, bird, bat…but most terribly, most upsettingly of all…

Human.

The thing raised its head and stared again at Wheaton. Its expression changed, though Wheaton couldn’t tell how he knew, as its mouth didn’t move, its eyes didn’t cease or change their glow. Still, he sensed it felt warmth toward him. It clutched the children closer and nodded.

Wheaton smiled, in spite of himself.
It knows I protected them. It’s thanking me.

The children looked up at Wheaton. The boy wriggled away from the creature and took his hand again. “Pordo,” he said. He guided him past the creature, past the tree, and the shimmer in the air became a glow, a blur, and then—

Wheaton stood in an open field. The trees were gone. He spun around, and behind him was more field, no forest. The shimmer was still there, however, and from within it emerged the creature and the children.

“Welcome,” the little girl said. “Thank you for helping us remember how to get home.”

Wheaton gaped at her. “I can understand you.”

“We don’t belong there,” the boy said. “We shouldn’t have been able to cross, because we’re too little.”

“We don’t have our wings yet,” the girl added.

The creature nudged the children from its side and spread its wings out wide. “Once they can fly, they can travel through the doors more easily,” it said.

“This is our mother,” the girl said. “I am Agnes.”

“I am Richard.”

“And I am Gael, but all of these words are simply how you can best understand them,” the mother said. “They are different in our languages.”

Wheaton could now see the more human features in the grown creature, could see the gentle curve of breasts beneath its fur. “What are you?” he murmured.

Gael looked down at her children. “They do not yet resemble it, for they are still young, but on your side of the door you have called our kind the Mothmen.”

Wheaton remembered this bit of modern myth, a cryptid discounted as a mutant or a crane spotted in a region now belonging to the RAA-controlled states. “There are more of you?”

The tip of one of Gael’s wings fluttered, and Wheaton looked over his shoulder. Other creatures who resembled Gael sailed in the sky, while some at a clearly intermediate stage of development between the green children and their gray, winged mother strolled along grassy hills. The ones in a sort of adolescent state were a paler green than the children, with fur cascading down smooth cheeks and firm torsos. Some still wore silvery trousers, while others did not. A few had tiny wings—fluffy and white—sprouting from exposed shoulder blades. Still others exhibited what looked like painful knobs, as of broken bones ill-repaired or even goiters or tumors, poking pink and raw from their backs. These knobs didn’t seem to be painful, however, as all the youths talked and walked without apparent discomfort.

Gael cooed and took flight, and as she passed overhead the others watched her. Children clapped and laughed, and older creatures returned her cooing cry. Wheaton left Agnes and Richard to their own devices and walked, keeping his eyes pinned on Gael and following her flight path.

Once over the hill, Wheaton saw a low circular building. The top was brown, earthen, and thatched with sun-bleached straw. At its middle was a thin strip of black material, below which square metal panels were installed at regular intervals every few feet. Gael flew a few feet beyond Wheaton then slowed, hovered vertically for a moment, and landed on her feet.

“I should take you back to your world,” she said.

Wheaton gave a slow nod. “I suppose. But I mean you no harm and am merely interested in this place.”

Gael cooed. “You would like what your people call a tour.”

It struck Wheaton that she was laughing, though he heard no such noise and her mouth stayed small, unsmiling. He couldn’t help his own grin.

“I suppose,” he said. “I may never manage another trip like this one. This is quite possibly the strangest place I’ve ever been.”

That I remember
.
I’m on a mission, not a holiday. She has to let me into that building. If I can take anything back with me, it’ll be in there.

~

Hours later, back in the forest, Wheaton withdrew the gun from the pocket of his waistcoat. Silver, smooth, the grip oddly comfortable in his hand. When he’d swept it off the table in the hut Gael called her laboratory, he didn’t think it would discharge, but it did. A pop, spark, and then Gael’s red eyes had locked on his.

For the first time all day, her face registered expression. Just for an instant, but it was seared into Wheaton’s brain.

Horror. Shock. Sorrow.

She’d looked at him, mouth open as if to scream, and then she was gone.

He scurried over to where she’d stood and stared at the empty space. No ash on the floor, no scorch marks. No trace that Gael had ever existed.

He scrambled away, past the other creatures still talking and playing, and swept past Agnes and Richard.

“Is Mother with you?”

He paused just a second, but didn’t turn around, couldn’t look at them. “She’s working,” he said. “She said I have to leave soon, so I don’t get trapped on this side of the door.”

“Good travels.” Agnes bounded over to him, clasping him around the middle and giving him a squeeze. “Thank you for helping us.”

“We could never have stayed over there,” Richard said. “If you had not helped us—”

“They wanted to kill us, I think,” Agnes said.

Or at least render you into dull humans
.

In the legends, the children stayed in and around Woolpit, the boy growing ill and dying, the girl working as a servant. As she grew up, she’d lost her green tint and gained a reputation for being listless, frustrated, and eccentric.

Of course you were. You didn’t grow up in the right place. You didn’t grow your wings.

An adolescent creature whose wings were almost full-size swooped down in front of Wheaton. “Children, your mother is missing.”

Wheaton hadn’t thought before withdrawing the gun. As soon as the creature disappeared, he ran.

They were fast, but he wasn’t far from the door, and now he was through it, but still unsafe.

They can still find me.

It wasn’t time for retrieval, not yet, but he had to get away from the forest. Running through the clawing branches, he emerged at a different angle than the one he’d arrived in.

Along this side of the town, the pits were not as well marked.

Wheaton spent an anxious night pressed against a dirt wall, cowering in the presence of a sleeping wolf. When it was late enough that the sounds of activity in the town ceased, he withdrew the gun and turned the wolf into a patch of scorched grass.

Saturday, August 14, 2100, Avon, Vermont, NBE

Claudio hated Vermont, hated coming here because of incompetence. Days earlier, Claudio had poured tea from a pot into two small mugs and asked after Wheaton. He felt more like his old self than usual today, more in control, less interested in blood and death and murder. All thanks to wondering with glee what this mysterious weapon could do, which of course led back around to murder, but it was more abstract, this wondering. Could he go back to a pivotal battle of the war, perhaps allowing his side to take back a segment of the more northern states? Or, more personal yet, could he wipe Edward Vere straight out of history, perhaps have Ambrose connect with young Jonson and steal the agency concept from the get go?

Ambrose had remained quiet. Claudio put the teapot down and held out a mug to him. “We’ve run out of sugar, I’m afraid.”

“Wheaton’s gone missing,” Ambrose had said. “Never met back up at the café. His message described this gun in perfect detail.” He shook his head. “Bastard must’ve been compromised.”

“By
them
?” A chill ran through Claudio. He thrust the mug into Ambrose’s hands and stalked into the outer room. “I’ll find him myself. Never send an amateur to do a professional’s job.” He pulled his overcoat off its peg in the hall with such force a great chunk of plaster and wallpaper came off with it.

Now in Vermont, the streets were lined with eager college-aged youths, and Claudio seethed at their laughter and easygoing pace.

He ran, shoving a long arm between people moving slowly, squeezing himself between them to pass. Wheaton didn’t live far, but Claudio hailed a pedicab and ordered the rider to the address.

“And I’m in a hurry,” he barked.

“Mister, you might wanna take the subway if you need to get somewhere faster,” the cyclist told him as he pushed off from the curb. “I’m good, but I ain’t got an engine, you know.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. You’re worthless.” Claudio threw bills at the man and leapt from the seat. He sped up to a sprint the closer he got to Wheaton’s street.

“Mommy?”

And there, huddled in an alley, was Brimley Wheaton. Only Ambrose had met with him in person, but Claudio saw digital video of him. The Brimley Wheaton he’d seen was a large man, robust and boisterous. Both the life of the party and from a prominent family, Prince Hal and Falstaff in one. Wheaton seemed the sort to wear the finest waistcoats, though they might be stained with the evening’s food and drink.

This was not that Brimley Wheaton.

And yet the man’s round face and floppy dark hair were unmistakable. He was crouched in a ragged black overcoat, bits of fluff in his stubble, garbage stink all around him. Claudio caught a whiff and recoiled.

“Mister Wheaton, is that you?”

“The man said we could go to the circus.” There was a wistful mirth in Wheaton’s voice, but his expression remained blank, stupefied.

“Mister Wheaton, you are a human being, not a sewer rat.” Claudio held his breath and tugged on Wheaton’s arm. “Get out of the gutter. I’m going to take you home.”

“I was home,” Wheaton said, allowing himself to be stood up. He leaned against a garbage bin. “The man and the lady took me, but I wanted chicken.” He giggled. “They throw away old chicken here, from the store. Mommy used to say not to eat it, but I’m fine.”

“Would you recognize the people who took you home if you saw them?” Claudio asked.

“Pro’ly.”

Claudio pulled out a miniature data pad from his coat pocket. He whisked his finger along the pad’s surface until he found a folder full of intel on Jonson and his associates. “This one? This one? This one?”

Wheaton kept shaking his head until Claudio got to a sepia-toned portrait of Wilbur Wright.

What’s that doing there?
Vere sent him back to his own time.

“Him!” Wheaton clapped his hands. “That was the man. He was nicer to me than the lady.”

“Did you see her in these pictures?” Claudio asked.

“Huh uh.” Wheaton pouted, an almost grotesque expression on a grown man. “I want Mommy.”

“Of course, of course.” Claudio wondered how useful Wheaton was in his current state. The clients from Jonson and Vere’s agency were mindwiped about their trips, but this regression was different, more complete. Someone got to him. Could it have been Wilbur Wright? Or was Wheaton’s brain so scrambled he imagined things?

“Are we going home now?”

“It depends how you define
home
.” Slowly, Claudio drew a switchblade from his pocket. “Let’s take the shortcut. Just walk a bit deeper into this alley here, right this way…I always did do my best work in alleys.”