“He take off alone?” Mack asked. No one answered. He focused on Sugar. “Charlie. He take off alone?”
Sugar shook his head. “No, sir. Like I said, he was with that skinny little homeschool kid. Rat or Fluff, or whatever he’s called.”
“Cotton?” Mack asked.
Sugar nodded. “Quick kid.”
“And Charlie said he’d see me later?”
Another nod from Sugar. “At the motel.”
Sweating, coughing, ash-dusted boys were straggling out of the field toward the cars. A few held small brown rabbits by the scruff while they kicked in the air.
Surge, grinning, cradled three thumping rabbits against his stomach with one arm. A hissing possum dangled by the tail from his other hand.
“Sheriff,” Mack said. “I’m sure I’ll see you later. Right now, I have some debts to settle. At least your missing-boy case is closed.” He pulled out his wallet and walked toward his players.
“Not sure it is,” Spitz said. He jerked his sun visor down into place. “He’s still missing, ain’t he? Maybe he’s my body snatcher. Weird enough kid.”
“Oh,” Hydrant said. He shook his head slowly and held up his right hand. “He weird all right. ’Bout bit off my pinkie finger few months back. Weird.”
Mack didn’t answer. As he handed out bills, rabbits were released at his feet—hopping over his shoes and even hiding under his car. But he didn’t notice. His mind was elsewhere, searching for Charlie, trying to see whatever it was Charlie was seeing, whatever it was Charlie had already seen.
The harvesters shifted into gear and rumbled forward.
Charlie jogged along behind Cotton. The pace wasn’t hard, but his lungs still felt the heat of the burn, and smoke residue tickling at his throat made him want to double over and hack.
Cotton turned down another long dirt road beside yet another long, deep canal. Charlie turned after him and saw two gators slide quickly under the water.
“You hear about the church?” Cotton asked. He slowed and came even with Charlie.
Charlie sniffed and licked his lips with a dry tongue. He could manage a couple words between pounding strides.
“We were there.”
“No,” Cotton said. His breath was easy and even. But he hadn’t been in the smoke. Or maybe he had. “After. Big blood-map painted on the church. Cops think it’s craziness, but I know it’s a map. And a tree. Ironwood tree planted in Coach’s grave. That part is craziness.”
“How do you—” Charlie said.
“Know it’s a map?” Cotton finished. “ ’Cause I read.”
“Map of what?” Charlie got the question out before hacking.
“The mounds,” said Cotton. “I recognized the shapes from a book.” Cotton turned around and began running backward beside Charlie. “Last night, I went back for my bike. It was bent-up, so I just left it. That grave-robbing resurrection man was gone, couldn’t smell no stink monster anywhere, but blood was up on that white church in all those circles and crescents and lines and craziness and I was pretty sure I’d seen it before, and I even knew where I had. So I went and busted into the library.”
“What?” Charlie asked. He had been slowly accelerating, trying to get Cotton to turn back around.
Cotton grinned, turned, and fell into step beside Charlie.
“Break in all the time. Little purple building with a flat roof and a busted latch skylight just my size. Looks like a gas station outside but nice enough inside. Sleep there sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Coz,” Cotton laughed. “If you were running away from a stack of books, where you figure no one would ever look?”
Charlie smiled despite his burning lungs.
“Secret is,” Cotton said, “I ain’t never running from piles of books. I run from the books she be putting in the piles.” His eyebrows went up. “You ever hear of the Brontës?”
Charlie shook his head.
“Well, don’t,” Cotton said. “Ever.” Cotton slowed to a walk and then paused, getting his bearings. Charlie leaned over his knees.
Beyond his own breathing, he could hear … nothing. The fields were quiet. Looking back, he could see the smoke and distant circling birds. Forward, the scruff of swamp trees was just visible over the cane.
Cotton picked his path, and Charlie followed, this time walking. After a few hundred yards, they reached a narrow canal between the cane and the trees. The trees were anything but quiet—birds squalled, mammals chattered, bugs clacked and pulsed. But when Cotton spoke, he whispered.
“Watch my back, coz. Don’t want nothing coming up behind.” Bending over at the waist, Cotton moved forward along the canal, his eyes locked on the shadows between the dense trees on the other side.
Charlie hurried after him, constantly glancing back, watching the tight wall of cane slide past.
Away from the burn and no longer running, he could feel the air cooling. A breeze was blowing, swaying the cane and rustling the green hair of the swamp trees.
They passed a dirt road between fields, and as they did, Charlie glimpsed the white church away on its mound. A cop car sat beside it. For a moment, the silhouettes of three men stood out against the sky before disappearing behind the cane as Charlie kept moving.
Cotton was leading them back to where that crazy old man with the sword and helmet, Lio, had first stepped out of the swamp, where a dead snake had been curled on a pale stone.
As they climbed onto the low mound and turned to bridge the canal, Cotton froze. Behind him, Charlie stopped breathing.
The white chalky stone was hidden beneath the curling bloody body of a large panther.
“Is it dead?” Charlie whispered.
Cotton inched forward. “On the stone, they’re always dead.”
Both boys waited. They stared at the motionless shoulders, at the back of the limp neck. The cat was big—bigger than either boy—and the fur was tan where it wasn’t matted nearly black with blood. One ear was missing, but the other was backed with night-dark fur. The tail, thick and kinked like an old abused hose, had a tip as black as wet muck.
Charlie’s mind spun. Was this one of the panthers from last night, the panthers that had chased the shadow away from the graveyard? Had the shadow killed it?
Cotton was a statue. After a long moment, Charlie slid past him. He crouched down and crept within reach of the body. He extended his hand like a doctor, to feel for a pulse.
The body was still warm. Fur as soft as a kitten’s slid between his knuckles. Fur scabbed rough like bark scratched his palm. Fur sticky with fresh blood clung to his fingertips. The soft thump of a dying heart shivered just beneath the loose skin of its neck.
The kinked tail rose slowly and then slapped the ground. The one ear twitched. The ribs heaved in a long, wet rattling breath.
Charlie swallowed a yell and tried not to move. The heartbeat fluttered again beneath his fingers. Behind him, he heard branches swing as Cotton slid away.
The panther heard it, too. The huge cat’s neck twisted slowly beneath Charlie’s hand. Eyes like two golden moons poured light into Charlie’s. The body tensed. Black glass pupils sharpened and the panther’s lip quivered and curled, baring white teeth, inches long.
Charlie jerked back his hand, slipped, and sat down. But the big cat’s eyes had already lost their focus. The animal’s head hit the ground while its ribs heaved in quick, shallow bursts.
“Charlie!” Cotton hissed. “Get out of there! C’mon!”
Charlie shifted onto his knees. He could feel the heat coming off the cat’s body, and smell the sour odor of blood mixed with the scent of decaying meat on the animal’s breath.
Charlie gently placed his hand on the cat’s belly and felt the sputtering breaths. He ran his hand up the cat’s thick ribs and found the broken beat of the animal’s heart. And that’s where his hand was when the drumming of life finally stopped.
“It’s dead,” Charlie said. He glanced back at his cousin. Cotton was cr
ouching on the far side of the canal with one hand over his mouth.
“What do we do now?” Cotton asked.
Together the boys managed to lift the panther off of the white chalk stone and shuffle across the mound and into the swamp. Cotton led the way, guiding the cat and Charlie over logs and around trees, toward the row of small collapsing shacks that he’d pointed out to Charlie at their first meeting.
Charlie had his arms hooked beneath the cat’s front legs, its large head lolling against his stomach, tracing swirls of red onto his shirt. When they reached the most intact of the shacks, Cotton turned his back to the cockeyed door, and the two pallbearers pushed inside.
In the light that filtered between the boards of the tiny half-collapsing space, Charlie could see rows and rows of buckets and jars and jagged halved soda cans lining the walls, all of them full of bones—full of the dead collected from the white stone and entombed by his cousin.
Together the boys lowered the panther to the ground.
“Biggest thing to ever die on the stone,” Cotton said. “Do you think it could be this cat’s blood on the church? I heard the cops say it wasn’t human blood. Or maybe the Stanks killed the other one, too.”
“Stanks?” Charlie asked. “I just saw one.”
“Me too,” Cotton said. “But there were footprints all around my bike when I went back. Three bare feet and one shoe. I’ve heard stories about Stanks in the deep swamps, Charlie, and there’s never just one. Crazy Carl who sleeps in the street says there’s a whole haunted tribe back in there. I always thought that was just campfire spook, but not anymore. Of course, the stories aren’t all true. Even Crazy Carl says the Stanks stay out of the cane. And that’s obviously wrong.”
“A haunted tribe?” Charlie shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”
“Whatever they are,” Cotton said, “I don’t think they much care what you believe.”
Cotton raised his hands over the panther’s body like a minister, but he didn’t seem quite sure what to say. Charlie knew it involved dust and ashes, but he couldn’t remember the order.
“Into the valley of the shadow of death,” Cotton finally said, “rode the six hundred.”
“What?” Charlie asked.
“It’s from a poem,” said Cotton. “And six hundred people live in Taper.” He shivered and stepped over the panther toward the door. “I need the light to show you this.”
Charlie followed Cotton out of the shack and over to a fallen tree covered with moss, where he tugged a packet of papers out of his waistband and began unfolding it.
“Map,” Cotton said. He dug a broken pencil out of his pocket and circled a spot for Charlie. “You are here,” he said.
Charlie stared at the paper. Black ink lines on white. The edges and creases of the paper were yellowed with age. The swamp was represented by zigzags. The cane wasn’t marked at all, but there were more than a few canals, all labeled. But the real point of the map was the mounds. They had been traced in slow curves through the swamp, ending in solid circles or squares, running straight through what could only be cane and even dead-ending against a curved line labeled Lake O. The church was on the map, right on a mound circle. The town of Taper was nowhere to be seen.
A row of holes dotted one unfolded seam.
“You tore this out of a book,” Charlie said.
Cotton shrugged. “No one had checked it out in thirty years.”
“Except you?”
“Including me. I just borrowed it some. Doesn’t matter. Point is all these mound lines were painted onto the side of the church. Some others, too, that aren’t on here. But right where we’re standing—where that white death stone is—well, on the church wall it’s marked with a circle. It’s not on this map.”
“Okay …,” Charlie said.
Cotton looked at him. “And there were other circles just like them. More death stones, probably. I didn’t count them. But at least two way, way back in the swamp. And even one”—he tapped the emptiness on the map, labeled as the lake—“out here.”
“In the water?”
“Maybe water,” Cotton said. “Maybe not. This map is older than the dike. It’s not just water on the other side. Some of the wildest swamp is over there—places so thick only a snake could get through.”
Cotton tapped the map. “I’m telling you, coz, the death stones matter. Don’t know why, but they do. Stanks know they do or they wouldn’t have slapped them on the church in blood.”
“But why paint the map on a church?” Charlie asked.
“Thugs and punks always tag things,” Cotton said. “Maybe the Stanks were marking turf … or marking what they want to be their turf. Could be the mounds and everything used to be theirs and they want it back.”
“Stanks …,” Charlie said, testing the name.
“They are called Gren.”
Charlie and Cotton both jumped. Lio stood only fifteen feet away from them. His helmet was on and his sword was in his belt. He scratched slowly at the tight, curly scruff on his neck. In the daylight, Charlie could see patches of white in his beard, clustered along his jaw.
“And what they want,” Lio said. “Tout bagay. Which is to say: everything. You. Me. The wind. But first, all that the mounds touch. The Gren are slaves to a Belly the mounds feed, and that Belly can never be filled. It sleeps. It wakes. It is devouring.”
“What do you mean?” Charlie asked. “What Belly?”
“Hold on,” Cotton said. “First tell us why you stole Coach. You’ve been pretty freaky yourself.”
“William Wisdom was my father, and he would have been defiled. I have honored him even as you have honored my fallen lion—removing him from a place that was wrong and giving him to peace. I thank you. His mate thanks you.”
“Panther, actually,” Cotton said. “And you’re welcome. But why should we trust a crazy grave robber in a helmet?”
“Why should I trust you?” Lio asked. “Boy liar and book thief.”
Cotton shrugged. “Do or don’t, I don’t care.”
“Nor I,” Lio said. He smiled.
“Fine,” Cotton said. “We’ll be leaving.”
“I trust you,” Charlie said. “Mack saw you once. You saved his brother from a snakebite.”
Lio took one step forward and stared at Charlie with wide, unblinking eyes. Charlie wanted to look away, but he knew he shouldn’t. Finally, the man spoke.
“And I give trust to you. You are my brother, born of trouble.”
Cotton shook his head. “Charlie—”
“What happened to the panther?” Charlie asked.
Lio sighed, then clenched his right fist and touched it to his chest. His face was solemn. “Gren happened. As Wisdom grew ill, Gren grew strong. When Wisdom died, Gren sought his body for the Mother’s evil. Under old moons, Gren fled from my cats like prey. Under this moon, he stood strong. My great one, my lion, is mouri—is dead.”
Charlie shifted his weight on the soft ground. The panther, the mounds, the foul shadow, the dead coach, the strange man in front of him, all of them were sliding around in his head like pieces in a puzzle that wouldn’t quite click together. There was a picture here, and he could almost see it. He wouldn’t stop looking until he did. Cotton was restless beside him, scanning the trees.
“Where’s the other panther?” Cotton asked.
Lio pointed up. Ten feet above them, the big, sleek cat was crouching on a branch—ears forward, eyes locked down on the boys, black-tipped tail swaying slowly beneath the branch.
Charlie didn’t move. He stared into the wide living eyes, beautiful and certain like his mother’s. They had clearly already made sense of him, and he was no enemy.
“That shadow, the smell, the Gren, what is it really?” Charlie asked.
“He is the mouth, the jaw, the fangs—Gren is he who chews and swallows. He is made of man,” Lio said. “But when the mounds wake and the stars pull, he is much more than man. And much less.”
Thick air mo
ved. The paper map lifted and slid along the log. Cotton jumped forward and grabbed it.
Lio’s nostrils widened and he pulled in the moving air. Then he hissed between his teeth.
“Desann.”
The panther dropped out of the tree, landed lightly on the log in front of Charlie, and then leapt toward Lio. Her tail brushed Charlie’s arm as she went.
“I am not strong here,” Lio said. “I will tell you more where the land is free.”
“Let me guess,” Cotton said. “Over the dike?”
Lio nodded and moved quickly toward the shack that had become a bone house. At the doorway he dropped to his knees, and his panther sat beside him. While the boys watched, Lio began humming slowly, and then he raised his head and sang. The words were unknown to Charlie’s mind, but not to his bones. A shiver swept across his skin and sadness tightened his throat. Lio’s voice matched the trees and the breeze, it matched the cat beside him and the old sword in his belt, his song was the sunlight sliding between high branches and the shadow he cast when it found him.
When he stopped, the panther beside him raised her head and yowled, long and slow. Then Lio touched his head, both shoulders, and his chest. He stood.
“We go,” he said. “And quickly. The Gren is not far.”
Lio didn’t run, but his strides were long and quick. Behind him, Charlie and Cotton walked, then jogged, then walked again, struggling to match his pace toward the lake and its tall dike.
In front of them, the panther loped along easily, her shoulders swaying, her tail swinging. At least until Lio hissed a command and she darted ahead, or doubled back and ran behind, or slipped into the cane on one side or the other.
“Could have cut closer to the church,” Cotton said. “Faster.”
Lio ignored him. The panther shot ahead and then paused, waiting.
“Where did you get the sword and helmet?” Charlie asked.
“I am Lio. I did not get them. They were given.”
“Okay,” Charlie said. “So who gave them to you?”
No answer.
“What did you mean the Gren is made of man?” Charlie asked.
“Flesh of man,” Lio said. “Soul of all that muck rots and mounds gather.”