rolled onto his back and gazed, panting, up at the sky. His mother’s cold, congealing body lay beside him, but he took no notice. The moon hadn’t moved at all. The stars seemed far too close, and they snarled at him from the firmament much as those other, colder stars had done from within the chasms in the eel’s flesh.
Joseph turned his face away from the intolerable stars. The thing was moving up Firedown Road, heading for Piquette; he could feel it calling out to the Ohio River, felt the river humming in response. Even as it waned, he feared he would feel some vestige of this unholy connection with the creature forever. Joseph knew he should be afraid for the remaining townsfolk, but he mostly felt relief that it had passed him by.
“The River Eel will remain in your rivers for safekeeping,” Charley Cat said.
“What…” Joseph’s voice cracked. He breathed deeply, coughed at the draught of Nut-Meg’s spice, and tried again. “What could harm that?” he asked.
“It is for your benefit.” Charley Cat smiled. “You are hemmed in by waterways on two sides, and the mountains and your treacherous mine on the other two. I seeded Whispering Creek at its source in Hudsonville. I’ll visit the spirits and wildfolk within your mine and throughout this region tonight. The River Eel is transformative, calming; when it takes up residence in the Ohio River, it will quiet Piquette’s savage gods and the circle of my protection will be complete.”
Joseph sat up. He couldn’t yet trust his legs. Dirt and his mother’s blood covered his suit, clotted together in his hair. He considered throwing his ruined suit jacket to the firedog and settled for brushing ineffectually at his ruined vest. “I am not at all certain we want that, sir,” he said. Charley Cat turned away.
“The River Eel will distill the poison you’ve spilled here into something less toxic, hon,” Lorelei said. “Without it, your little town’d be very damned.” Joseph put his head in his hands.
Charley Cat crouched beside him, spoke low into his ear.
“There are many like me – and worse – throughout these lands,” he murmured. “Break our pact, and I will withdraw my protection and leave you for my cousins. Or I can twist the charms I’ve laid into a circle of binding: I and my kin will never cross the boundaries, and you and yours will spend your lives, your deaths, and all that comes after within its limits, suffering the effects of your actions here tonight until the last of you has passed from history and into hell.”
“I understand.” Joseph spoke into his palms. His fingers dug into his scalp.
“Excellent,” Charley Cat replied. He stood, pulling Joseph up with him. Charley Cat stretched himself tall and spread his arms, expansive and cheery once more. “And now,” he said, “our deal is done.”
Charley Cat nodded at Jenny. She scampered up to the snuffling carriage and stepped through an opening the conveyance made in its side. Moments later, she emerged with a small, long-handled pouch clamped in her jaws, trotted over to Joseph, and stood on her hind legs. When he took it from her, the little wildcat goddess settled back on her haunches. The heavy, sloshing pouch had been sealed with pitch. A vibrant, living rhythm pulsed within.
“A gift.” Charley Cat’s sharp black smile was a slice of nightmare made flesh.
Joseph cracked the top of the pouch open. By the light of the conveyance’s fiery eyes, he saw colorful, glimmering shapes teeming within.
“Release these fish in your waterways,” Charley Cat said. “Set some beside the River Eel in the Ohio River and sink the rest into your creeks and ponds, your marshes and wells—”
“Wells?” Joseph squawked. “Sir, I must refuse. I will not risk drinking any of these – little demons.” Jenny flattened her ears and hunched forward. Joseph drew back.
“Is everything outside of your narrow ribbon of experience a demon?” Charley Cat growled. “If you were able to catch hold of one of my dear stepfish, you’d be well advised to swallow it whole. Luck and prosperity, health and wealth, for a thousand thousand men swims within that pouch. Keep faith with me, and I shall keep them alive and nourishing you.”
Joseph draped the pouch’s long strap over his shoulder. It seemed less heavy than it should. He tried to consider what that might mean, but exhaustion muddled his mind. His mother had said Ellie was frightened…it was past time he left this place.
“Very well, sir,” he said. “Am I free to return home?”
“Of course,” Charley Cat said. He nodded at Joseph’s mother’s body. “We will dispose of that.”
“She should have a good Christian burial.”
“And how will you explain the split in her skull? And the disappearance of her cane? Easier to say she lost her wits to a fever and ran into the night.”
“Jesus help me,” Joseph whispered.
“He isn’t the one you came out to meet,” Charley Cat replied. “Get home, Joseph Albers. Scatter my fingerlings throughout your settlement, and remember to clear two acres for us in the spring of nineteen-aught-three.”
Unless he intended to walk backwards, going back to Albers Bluff would mean turning his back and Charley Cat and his companions. Joseph’s skin prickled at the thought.
Charley Cat squatted beside Joseph’s mother. Hungry glimmered at his feet. He stroked it, then laid one long, blackclaw hand upon the dead woman’s belly.
“I do believe this brand is beginning to affect me,” he said. He smiled up at Lorelei.
“You know better than that, Charley Cat,” Lorelei said. Joseph sagged with relief. She tilted her head toward Joseph, conspiratorial, and added, “I never eat female flesh.”
“If you are staying, it would be rude not to join us for dinner,” Charley Cat said to Joseph. He gathered a double handful of the dead woman’s dress and leered. Joseph groaned and covered his face with his hands when Charley Cat ripped away his mother’s clothing.
Nut-Meg coughed. The smell of roasted spice flared, and the slow heat within the crossroads intensified. Twisting beneath it was the bright, savory pungent scent of cooked meat. Joseph’s guts curled, vicious and desirous, inside him. He gagged on a sudden rush of saliva and pressed one shaking fist to his mouth. Charley Cat purred. Joseph heard a meaty, tearing noise.
Joseph looked up as Charley Cat rose from his mother’s body. Charley Cat turned to Joseph and offered him the narrow, steaming slice his claws had cut from her flesh. Joseph craned his neck and stared desperately up at the shadowed bulk of the Albers Estate. Runner’s Way stretched out before him. Twenty feet up Runner’s Way, the pathway to Joseph’s home was a lighter patch beneath the encroaching forest.
Three steps. Just three steps would take him out of this charred circle, away from this smoldering roadway where he’d somehow managed to save and to curse all of his remaining townsfolk and kin in less than an hour. Even in this state, he could be on the path back home in just a few seconds. He could begin the years-long process of convincing himself that this had all been a horrid dream; that his terrible benefactor and his companions were nothing more than a band of harmless, if unsavory, travelling entertainers.
Charley Cat’s hand remained outstretched. The wretched, tantalizing morsel he offered was but a single step away – one step that would set Joseph’s feet firmly on the bloody, glazed word he’d unthinkingly scratched into the hardpack, and even more firmly on the path to hell.
Joseph closed his eyes. His head swum at the rich odor of spiced pork. The pouch of fish sloshed at his hip as he took a solitary, shivering step. His foot skidded slightly on the slick surface of the word that, he knew, would never again let him go.
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