On his way to work a couple of days later, it was clear to Mullins that there had been another killing: there were so many more people standing around talking in groups than there would otherwise be. Though he avoided stopping, by the time he got to work he knew that it was a man who had been the victim this time and that the wounds he’d received were the worst to date—that his face was missing.
It was just as he began to open the smithy that he registered and processed some of the looks he’d gotten on his way, and he felt more eyes on him now. He turned and looked around, and it was obvious that people just looked away as he did. He wanted to ask why, but he knew what the answer would be, and he couldn't face hearing it at that moment. He opened the door and went inside and waited for his first customer of the day. He busied himself with the work of seeing up, lighting the fires, and collecting the tools, and he took meticulous care to inspect each tool as he removed it from the holder in the corner of the room. The heat grew steadily on this cold morning, and it was going to be a busy day.
The morning ran longer than usual without a customer, and he grew agitated at his idleness. He called his apprentice boy in and asked him to go looking for business in Hell and to come back when he had something for the blacksmith to do. As he watched the boy make his way down the road, he noticed again that people were purposefully avoiding his line of sight and didn’t look at the premises as they passed. He was boiling with anger now. He wanted to shout out to them what the hell they all thought they were looking at, but it was the fact that they were not looking that caused the most hurt. He could feel his shoulders press against his back muscles, and he straightened his back and tried to take in some deep breaths.
He longed for the Liberty Boys to bound past on their way to a ruckus so he could follow and take his anger out on a willing human body or any other living thing that might come in his way. He looked out the window once more in the hope of seeing this very thing when he saw Mary Sommers, and he stopped dead and stared at her.
He looked at the arch of her back as she carried her potatoes, and he followed the lines of the scars on her face and hands. He had never looked at her in this way before and couldn't look away now. He saw the white mounds of what looked like folded skin that were her scars and looked at the fear that was evident in every single step that she took. He felt the warm salt at his eyes; his vision blurred, and Mary took on a whole other shape in his vision, the shape of a woman unhindered by scars and pain who was going about her business today exactly like everyone else. Everyone else who was still alive.
But he was not alive anymore.
The anger burst through him now, and he turned and picked up the table with his tools on it and threw it against the wall. The whole place shook, and he stamped on the iron that lay scattered on the floor and he kicked over his stool and then, taking up a rod, he began smashing the table to nothing until finally, with nothing but small pieces of wooden debris left, he collapsed to his knees, and his hands dropped to the floor in exhaustion. He cried in this position now, and he could see his tears mix with the sawdust and the earth on the floor. Cleaves was gone and not just gone but savagely gone, his cheerful face wiped from his skull and his body torn to shreds. “The meat plucked from his bones” came to mind, and he cried more as he thought about the children’s love for the man who told them stories but would never speak of the true horror of the Dolocher to them. “There’s no such thing as the Dolocher,” he’d told them. There was no such thing as Cleaves now.
He stood up after a while and, with a headache, he looked at the damage he had done to the place: the image was sobering. He looked outside and saw that people had gathered out there, but they began to disperse when he looked out.
He went out onto the street, and now there were eyes looking at him with sympathy but he ignored this. It was not what he was after. He looked up and down the street for Mary Sommers and saw her turn the corner towards Hell up ahead. He ran after her and, catching up with her, called her name. She turned to face him.
“Mary,” he said, catching his breath again.
“Yes?”
“Can you give Kate a message for me?”
“Ok.”
“Just tell her I’ll do it.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Yes, she’ll know what that means.”
“The blacksmith says he will do it. That’s the message?”
“That’s it, thanks.”
“I’ll tell her when I see her.” And she walked away slowly to continue her work. Mullins watched her for a little, and then he began to walk back to the smithy.