* * * * * * *
In the morning the goldfish was dead.
The bowl had turned gray with pollution, so dense and thick that nothing could be seen through the murk.
Brian could smell it even before he opened his eyes, and he quickly got up and threw it away before Brandon had a chance to see it. He silently promised himself to get a new one in a few days, whenever he had the chance. He wouldn’t try to pretend it was the same one, but when something died it was usually better to replace it quickly.
He didn’t give the dead fish much more thought after that, although he was soon to get a nasty surprise that gave him plenty of reason to think about it. But in the meantime, it was a gloriously bright and beautiful day, with the first scent of fall hanging crisply in the air, and Brian was happy with the world. Mama and all her dark and ominous words seemed like no more than a bad dream, to be swept away and forgotten in the morning light.
He changed clothes, whistling softly to himself, and then went to wake up his brother.
“Come on, Beebo, get up! Time to go!” he said cheerfully. Brandon groaned, and Brian tried tickling him. That usually worked, but not today. Brandon just rolled out of reach and pulled the covers back over his head.
“What’s wrong with you, sleepyhead?” Brian laughed.
“Don’t feel good,” Brandon finally said.
“Well what’s wrong? Does your stomach hurt, are you bleeding; what is it?” Brian asked.
“No, just don’t feel good,” Brandon answered. Brian touched his forehead, but it didn’t feel especially warm. Nothing was wrong, as far as he could tell.
This was a complication. He needed to go get that magnifying glass, and beyond that he had a vague idea that they might go the lake for a few hours with Adam and Patti Sue. Brandon enjoyed things like that, as long as he had something to occupy his attention. But not if he wasn’t feeling well.
Brian wrinkled his eyebrows and thought for a while. It was unlikely that he’d be able to find a babysitter for a sick kid on such short notice, but the trip to Wal-Mart was absolutely necessary if he wanted to read those tiny little words on the back of the amulet. He could put off going to the lake, but not that.
The only person he could think of to ask was Carolyn. Fortunately she turned out to be agreeable, and by the time she got there about thirty minutes later, Brian had to admit that Brandon did look sickly. He was pale and had dark circles under his eyes.
Carolyn took him home with her, and Brian promised to come fetch him later that afternoon.
He felt a little bit guilty about going off elsewhere when Brandon wasn’t feeling good, but he told himself Carolyn would take good care of him and it wouldn’t be for very long anyway.
That done, he put the matter out of his mind and called Adam.
They had to run all the way to Hot Springs to get to the nearest Wal-Mart, and when all was said and done it took almost two hours before Brian got back. He didn’t dare try to read the words on the amulet in front of Adam, so he had to wait till he was home again before he gave it a shot.
As soon as he got there, he sat down at the kitchen table and took the amulet off, then laid it down flat on the tabletop so he could study it. The writing was so tiny that it was hard to read even using the magnifying glass, but after a few minutes he figured it out, and this is what he read:
Seven days you have the power.
Touch no living thing.
If the chain is broken, all is lost.
Brian felt a sudden chill in the pit of his stomach, replaced almost immediately by fear. Seven days. Touch no living thing.
That was the part which laid an icy finger on his heart and filled him with dread. Because he’d touched many living things, in all kinds of ways, and he dared not guess what the consequences might be. His mind jumped instantly to Brandon, and the goldfish, and Mama’s warning about terrible things. He swallowed hard.
He abruptly stood up from the table and slipped the amulet back around his neck, telling himself sternly that he had to get a grip. He didn’t know anything for sure yet, and panic wouldn’t help anybody. The thing to do was to find out, if he could.
He couldn’t quite bring himself to check on Brandon first; that cut far too close to the bone for him to face it immediately. But he could check on the trees and things at Black Rock, and maybe that would tell him what he wanted to know.
He hurried across the pasture and through the woods so quickly that he was soon out of breath, so anxious was he to find out whether his worst fears were true.
Almost as soon as he crossed the invisible barrier between his protected land and the everyday world, he noticed that something wasn’t right. Many of the leaves on the trees were yellowed and withered, and some even looked dead. In places he noticed a jelly-like brown fungus growing on the branches, and that certainly hadn’t been there before.
Brian felt another thrill of dread, but he refused to give in to despair just yet. Whatever it was, he might still be able to fix it. He used the amulet to kill the fungus and make the plants grow healthy new leaves, but there was nothing he could do about the dead ones. He turned those to dust instead. There were only a few of them, so the gaps were not very noticeable. He worked as he walked along, patiently fixing whatever was wrong.
It was strangely silent in the woods that day, a fact which he didn’t notice for quite some time. But presently, as he worked his way up the path, he found a dead cardinal on the ground, and Brian’s heart came up right into his throat when he saw it. It was brilliant red, even more so than normal. Brian had given it a little extra color at some point, just to make it look nicer. It was hard to say what had killed it. It didn’t seem hurt, other than the fact that it was dead. Brian turned it to dust as he’d done with the withered trees, and it was then that he first noticed there were no birdsongs.
Indeed, Brian saw almost nothing living except the trees. He came across several dead or dying birds, and once a dead fox. He’d changed all the animals in his little patch of woods in some way or other; brightened their colors, made them bigger, given them blue eyes or softer fur or something like that. All of them had been fine yesterday, but now everything seemed to be dying. Even during the little time he’d spent in the area, the leaves had yellowed and dropped off several more trees. Even the grass was dying.
He fought hard against the spreading destruction that had dropped like a stone into his peaceful kingdom, until he was exhausted from the battle. He couldn’t keep up. Barely did he grow a new tree before it began to die too, and within an hour it was a dead trunk like so many others. He tried healing a few of the birds that were still alive and found that it lasted only a few minutes before the bird was dead. Brian was at his wit’s end, unable to figure out what was happening or how he could stop it. His beloved sanctuary was beginning to look like a wasteland. By sundown there was hardly anything left but dead sticks and bare dust, like a bomb had exploded and destroyed every living thing.
Just as the sun slipped below the horizon, Brian abruptly gave up all hope of doing any more good up there. He ran down the trail towards home, paying no more attention to the dead and dying region he’d spent so much effort to cultivate.
When he got home, he went directly to the phone. All he cared about by then was getting hold of Aunt Carolyn and finding out whether his worst fear of all might really be true. He got her voice mail three times, and that only made things worse.
He left the house, running down the road to his aunt’s place as fast as he could go. There was no car in the driveway, but he hoped against hope that maybe somebody was home, that maybe Carolyn had just gone to the store for something. He came to the front door, still breathing hard from his run, and found a note pinned to the mailbox. He snatched it up, and slowly read what was written there.
Brian, if you read this, we’re gone to the hospital. Brandon is very sick. I already called your mother and she’s co
ming up here. Stay home and we’ll try to call you later.
That was all it said, but that was enough. Because he knew what was wrong, without a shadow of a doubt. Every living thing he’d touched with the amulet had sickened and died, and he’d used it on Brandon to heal his black eye.
Which he wouldn’t have had in the first place, if Brian hadn’t been so careless. So whose fault would it really be, if he. . .
Brian couldn’t bring himself to even finish thinking that thought, and he sat down on Carolyn’s porch and wept for the third time in a week.
Presently he went home and sat in the gleaming kitchen beside the phone, anxious not to miss any calls. He soon found that doing nothing was unbearable, so he fixed a frozen pizza and ate as much of it as he had the heart for. Then he wandered slowly through the quiet rooms in silence, touching things here and there. It was beautiful, yes, but he would gladly have traded all of it just to have Brandon home safe. What were money and things, compared to that?
Eventually Carolyn did call, and the news wasn’t good. Brandon was still alive, just barely, but he wasn’t doing well. Carolyn tried to say that nobody knew how it might turn out yet, but Brian could read between the lines well enough; what she really meant was that nobody expected him to make it for much longer.
He stayed calmer at that news than he thought he would. It might have been because he already expected it, or it might have been because he was too numb for words. Maybe both.
He got off the phone with his aunt not long after that. He felt dead inside, and couldn’t think of anything else to say. He knew he must have seemed cold, but right then he didn’t have the heart to care.
Brian pulled the amulet out from under his shirt and looked at it with hatred, wishing he’d never found it in the first place. If Brandon died then he’d never forgive himself. He studied the medallion forlornly, praying that he might find something to show him a way to save his brother, anything at all that he might have overlooked. But the only things he saw were the glittering fountain and the seven bright gems, and the flowing script around the edge.
Seven days. Touch no living thing. If the chain is broken, all is lost.
He wished bitterly that he’d known those three things a week ago.
Except, of course, he knew he could have known them a week ago, if he’d only made the effort to try. It hadn’t been so very hard to figure it out. All it had taken was a crummy dime-store magnifying glass. But he’d been careless about that too, and now Brandon would be the one who paid for it.
He wondered very much about that third line, and what it might mean that all would be lost. Everything he’d done with the amulet? He’d gladly give all that up, if it would help.
Brian seized at the tiny scrap of hope like a drowning man snatches at a life preserver, and prayed to God he wasn’t wrong. He took the necklace of the amulet in both hands, closed his eyes, and then, with a hard yank, he snapped the chain.