He twisted to look at her, horror on his face. “Would you wish that on someone?”
“Just tell me,” she begged.
“Since I was changed, I have remained a youth—never growing, never aging. Wounds I have sustained since then have always healed rapidly. They repair and leave me as I was before.” He tried to keep his voice low, but anger grew as he spoke, strangling his words. “If someone were to change with cancer in his body, the body would not alter too much, I think. The cancer would still be there, but the body would heal itself as fast as the cancer ate it away. In effect, that person would probably be in pain forever. What would that do to a person’s mind, do you think?”
Zoë stifled a cry with her fist. Tears started to her eyes.
His voice softened. “The change can do terrible things to a person, Zoë. It’s unnatural. Look at Christopher. At least I was allowed to grow up first, but he’s trapped forever in the body of a child, and has a child’s anger. His body whispers to him the secrets he will never know, because he can’t quite hear them. I think that’s why he kills so brutally. I could never turn anyone into something like that deliberately.”
He was right. She knew he was right, but it had seemed a last gleam of hope, and now it was gone, almost as soon as she’d thought of it. And there he was, throwing Christopher at her again. “If he’s so terrible, why don’t you stop him?” she snapped.
It took him aback. “But I’ve tried.”
His urgent, hushed tones reminded her to lower her voice. “So try again.”
They argued in fierce whispers.
“He’s stronger than me. He always outsmarts me.”
“What are you frightened of? The fact he’s your older brother? You’re bigger than him; surely you’re stronger than him?”
Simon clenched his fists. “What makes you so concerned with my problems?” he hissed.
“Your problems?” Zoë rose to her feet without realizing it. “You came to me, remember? You made me concerned. But it’s not just your problem—it’s everyone’s problem. You’ll be stopping him from killing others. Christopher brings death. This is death.” She stabbed a finger in her mother’s direction. “You can stop death.”
Her mother groaned and stirred, and Zoë’s breath left her for a moment. Had Mom woken? Had she heard? But her mother’s body took on the rhythm of sleep once more, and Zoë relaxed. She sat down again.
Simon pulled the sheet up and carefully replaced it around the sleeping woman, as gently as if tucking it around his own lost mother. Death had taken her, too, Zoë remembered. No, not death, Christopher. “You’ve got to stop him, Simon. For your mother’s sake.”
He stared at his hands. “I’m afraid, Zoë. He could kill me. He knows how to do it.”
Zoë was astounded. “You’re afraid of death?”
Simon shrugged. “It doesn’t matter how long you live, the idea of nonexistence is still frightening. No matter how tired you are of life, it’s better than facing the unknown.”
“But you don’t have to lose.” She glanced at her mother. She couldn’t fight the death taking her mother, but she could fight the death that had taken his. She could fight Christopher. “What if I helped?”
It was his turn to be astounded. “You’d help?”
“Yes, because I know you can do it.”
He reached to stroke her hand. “How can I let you endanger yourself?”
“Let me help you,” she said, “or I swear I’ll do it myself.” And at that moment she felt she could.
He laughed suddenly, his eyes lighting up. “I have never received such an offer.” His voice was tender. “How could I ever fail with you beside me?”
“We’d better go,” she said, already frightened at her own words. “I’ve got a phone call to make.”
Before they left, she took a folded piece of paper from her coat pocket, smoothed it out, and laid it under her mother’s hand. It was a poem—“Spells against Death.”
12
Simon
It was too cold for lovers, and too late. A chill November night wind rustled the bushes, rattling azaleas, making the privets hiss. But Simon didn’t feel the cold—ice kissing ice doesn’t freeze—neither did he sweat as he thrust the stolen shovel repeatedly into the hard-packed soil. The lip of the trench was already at his knee.
The leather coat lay across a branch. One arm of the jacket swung drunkenly each time a load of dirt hit the trunk of the shrub that held it. Simon’s muscles bunched and strained in relentless rhythm as he tore a gash in the earth.
Clouds covered the sky, but he didn’t need light to see by, even if the witch’s moon was high enough to help. He had animal eyes, and the steady pace of his work was the gait of the wolf, who could run all night till it found its prey.
The hole came to his waist. He thought of Zoë as he dug, and the pleasure of it spurred him on—the torture of her skin, her human breath, the shadows in her eyes, her fragile bones, the whole ephemeral beauty of her that would fade and die before he’d ever wear one wrinkle on his face. I could cup one of those sweet breasts, he thought, and she’d be gone, before ever the pleasure had stopped singing in me.
He mustn’t let himself care. He’d spend longer missing her than knowing her. But was it a wonder that he’d lasted this long without caring, or was it a wonder that he could care at all? Who knew? He chuckled softly at the thought that age brought knowledge. It just brought new surprises.
It was sad that Zoë’s mother was dying, and sadder that Zoë already missed her. I could tell her, It’s not too bad, he thought. Your life is short. It’s not a long time to miss someone. But she wouldn’t believe him. It was all she had. A lifetime was a lifetime, regardless of its years.
The hole was deep enough. It was ragged and uneven, but deep enough. He yanked the corner of a moth-eaten blanket above him and rolled the waiting bundle down. The finishing touches didn’t take long. He threw the shovel out and then, with preternatural strength, leapt after it, defying gravity. He grunted fiercely at the pleasure it still brought.
How much sadness have I caused? he wondered as he arranged scavenged branches across the pit. Were they missed as badly, the people I took to extend my worthless life? He had never thought of them as being missed by someone. He’d thought of the cruelty of taking their lives, he’d worried at the pain they might feel, but it never entered his head that there would be pain left behind. How stupid I am, he thought. Am I doomed to be a shallow youth forever, as Christopher is a petulant child? What a waste of years, never learning from them, never growing. It was all so senseless, but all part of the same curse.
He spread the blanket on the branches and began covering it with the dead leaves that clogged the lower joints of the bushes.
The moist, pungent smells brought back to him another autumn, the one when he had found his way back to his father’s house, too late. He had peered through the diamond panes, like a thief, at a wizened, white-haired man, who wore grief and pain on his face like a web. There was no one there to comfort the old man as he tossed and turned on his bed, no son to hold his dying hand. A servant brought in a drink to the nightstand, turned down the light, and left, never speaking once.
Simon had stood there all night, his face pressed to the glass. There was no one to invite him in. He could only wait and stare longingly at his father, aware that even if fate gave him a door, he could never enter, never tell his father what he had become. Better to let him suffer in ignorance than in the unbearable pain of knowing both his sons damned.
Trapped on the other side of the window, trapped in the world of the night, Simon knew they were forever separate now, no matter who it was alive, or dead, or dying.
He left before the sun rose, his heart as swollen with grief as if it were beating. He had barely stopped being an animal and remembered he had been human once, when he was forced to put aside that knowledge, deny that heart to stop the pain.
He stayed close in London, though he never dared lo
ok again, and when he heard of his father’s death it was money robbed from a drunk that bought the family portrait from a skulking, thieving footman, not three hours past the burial. The only ones he could love were now dead. He could never care for someone again, and no one would ever care for him.
But Zoë cares, he thought as he tossed a last handful of leaves on the pile. She said she’d help me. No one has ever helped me; yet, knowing what I am, she’ll help. He moved a broken trellis and began shoveling earth into the damp hole behind. Yes, there were still surprises.
As the sky silvered, before the red sun tore shreds in the east, Simon approached the boarded window of his den. It was there he received a different surprise—nasty.
It slammed into his chest—fear—knocking the stolen breath from him. A sheet of paper fluttered on the wooden slats, impaled with a pin, white as a corpse. He ripped it away with trembling fingers and read the clumsy print.
I know where you are.
Simon’s fingers tightened convulsively, ripping a corner off. He fumbled for the letter, reading on.
I am tired of this game. You bore me. I can follow you, and you’ll never know. I can kill you, and you won’t have a chance. No more cat and mouse. No more nice to brother. You are a pest, a gnat. No one will miss you. No one will notice. No one will care. Run, Simon, run. You are dead.
It was signed Christopher.
“Too late,” Simon muttered, “too late,” and crushed the note in his hands. It stopped them from shaking. Maybe last week I’d have run, he thought, but not now. I have a weapon you don’t know about, Christopher. Then his eyes widened with an awful thought. Zoë! Did he know about Zoë? Simon suddenly wanted to run to her, warn her. Or should he run away, hide, never go near her again? He turned, indecisive, almost in panic, and saw the horizon tinged pink. I can’t go anywhere, he realized with a sinking dread. There’s nothing I can do. I’m trapped again by my own stinking disease.
He yanked a board away to get inside and slid through, ripping his jeans on a nail.
But he can’t go out, either, Simon comforted himself, not unsupervised, not during daylight. Christopher was as trapped as he was, and even if he should reach her, he hadn’t much strength under the sun. Then another thought struck him. “I’m a fool,” he said, and slapped the board carelessly into place behind him. No one will miss you, Christopher had written. No one will notice. He didn’t know about her.
But when had Christopher followed him? Had it been the night after Simon’s botched attack, or one of the subsequent nights? Simon ran his fingers through his fine hair repeatedly, unconsciously, sweeping it back from his face. If only he knew. But surely, if Christopher had seen him with her, he’d throw it in his face, threaten her to taunt him? That would be like Christopher. Yes, he thought, sinking down in relief, that would be much more like him. So he followed me a night I didn’t see her, or found me after, Simon decided. He really doesn’t know she exists.
Simon dragged the suitcase out from under the desk and stroked the surface carefully, drawing strength from his native earth. I will sleep, he thought. I will sleep and get strength. And then we will see.
But the fear still plagued him as he tried to take his rest. What if I’m wrong? What if he knows, and he’s leading me on? What if he hurts her?
Tortured by his thoughts, he didn’t see the first burning ray of sun slide through the crack where the board didn’t fit.
13
Zoë
She was outside Lorraine’s house. They were bringing a stretcher out. Zoë’s mother was on it, eyes closed, face pale, but she spoke. “I forgot my painting. Can you get it? I have to take it with me.” They carried her where an ambulance waited. Zoë wanted to get the painting for her mother before they left. She walked through the hospital doors.
The elevator was small. A metal grid clamped shut with an echoing crash as she stepped inside. She was trapped. The elevator shook violently as it climbed—slowly, agonizingly slowly. Hurry up. Hurry up. She didn’t recognize any of the floors it opened on. The lift ground to a halt, but the doors were jammed. Slats began to fall from the floor one by one. Fear clenched in her throat. She pounded the metal, begging it to relent. She was going to fall, to crash down floor after floor and end up a limp puppet on basement concrete.
The doors opened, but the elevator hadn’t quite reached the floor. She struggled for footholds up the brick wall and crawled through the crack, her breath ragged. Blinding white light greeted her.
She was on a ledge high above the street. The ambulance, far below, was leaving. “Don’t go!” Stomach-wrenching fear would allow her only to crawl on her belly along the ledge, clutching its sides against the great empty rushing space below. The wind screamed above her.
She swung her legs over the edge. She had to catch up. At first there was nothing except the certainty of plunging death. Great chunks of building began to fly off at her hands’ touch. Her toes found wall. Her feet scrambled and slipped. She slid and cried out, expecting to meet the sidewalk abruptly, but found a handhold again. Scraped and gashed, she reached the ground.
The ambulance was still leaving. She ran after it. Her legs wouldn’t move fast enough, as if the air were thick. Tears ran down her face.
Lorraine was beside her, and she offered Zoë a painting. Zoë burst with anger and hit her. “It’s all right,” Lorraine said. “She’s only going to Oregon. You can visit.”
A wave of relief washed over Zoë. She took the painting. In it was a boy with silver hair, dressed in bright colors, laughing.
Zoë lay blinking in the pale dawn light coming through the bedroom curtains. She moved her head slightly to make sure Lorraine was still on the floor in her sleeping bag. The dream clung to her like a mist. She’s only going to Oregon. You can visit. She could still feel the relief. I was angry at Lorraine, she thought. I was getting them mixed up—both going away. It’s not her fault, not the fault of either of them. I might have been taking it out on her.
She studied Lorraine’s sleeping face. I have to memorize it, she thought.
Around the green sleeping bag, where Lorraine snuggled on the floor, were scattered photographs, yearbooks, diaries, homemade picture books, and Zoë’s notebooks full of poetry; the accumulated memories of years of friendship. The turntable still circled lazily. They had forgotten it completely as they lay in bed talking long after the last record had been played.
Lorraine was leaving today. That’s what made it different from the many other mornings they had shared. Thank God I called her, Zoë thought. We wouldn’t have had even this. I didn’t realize it was creeping up so fast.
Lorraine had seemed tentative last night, at first—almost shy, not like her. She seemed eager to please. Maybe I should have got mad at her more often, Zoë thought perversely, and not let her walk all over me.
“You look pale,” Lorraine had said soon after arriving.
“You’re not ill, are you?”
Zoë had smiled at her friend’s concern. The attention felt good. “No. It’s just … things, I guess.”
“Geez, just things.” Lorraine shook her head. “And I thought you were supposed to be the articulate one.” But the sarcasm in her voice didn’t match the way she behaved—unsure if she should take her things up, asking to use the bathroom—almost like she’d never spent the night before.
I never thought of her as insecure, Zoë thought, but I snap at her, and she acts like I might dump her for good.
Zoë found herself trying to reassure Lorraine in small ways, dumb ways, really, like chuckling if she said something even slightly funny, or letting her decide what they should make for dinner, and soon Lorraine got her sea legs again. She happily bullied Zoë into helping her concoct a huge pot of spaghetti and made her eat a large helping of it, all the while complaining of how fat she was getting.
“Bull,” Zoë said. “You’ve got a great figure, not like me.
Lorraine sniffed. “You might be skinny, but your bra’s bigger
than mine. You better eat more, otherwise every time you get up, you’ll fall over from the weight of your tits.”
They screamed with laughter at this image until they had to wipe tears from their eyes.
They were getting ready to clear the dishes away when Harry Sutcliff came home. Lorraine flirted with him outrageously, as usual, and cajoled him into eating too. Zoë felt warmed by the way he actually smiled a little, and tucked in with more appetite than she had seen in him for a while. It’s Lorraine, she thought. There’s so much life in her, it’s catching. Zoë didn’t feel as worried as she might have when he excused himself quietly and disappeared to his bedroom with a briefcase of work to catch up on, but he never came out to ask them to quiet down as he might have once. Zoë didn’t know whether to be relieved or irritated. She kept on half expecting to hear his voice.
They had stayed awake long past the time when things made sense, as if fighting off the inevitable by making the night last forever. They pigged out on chips and dip, listened to records, and giggled at stupid jokes as if they were at a fifth-grade slumber party all over again.
Yet there were awkward silences sometimes, when they strayed too close to dangerous ground.
Finally, Lorraine tried to talk about her mother. She stumbled over her words. “It’s not fair. I was just getting used to having to go somewhere else to visit her, and now I’ll hardly ever be able to do that even.” She cut herself short and messed around with a pile of albums as if looking for something.
Zoë knew it was the specter of her own mother’s death between them, stopping Lorraine from venting all her fears, and she sighed. I sometimes think she’s selfish, but she’s not, not really, Zoë realized. It is unfair for her. She deserves to feel bad. She’s losing her mother too. The last took Zoë by surprise. She’d been so wrapped up in herself that she’d never thought about it that way.
“Lorraine,” she said softly, in one of the silences when she could bear it no longer, “I’m sorry I’m such a jerk.”