Will nodded and took the moth from Steep’s fingers. “One day won’t we just run out of things to burn?” he wondered.
“Oh my Lord,” Mrs. McGee said, appearing from the shadows. “Listen to him.”
Will didn’t look at her. He was too busy studying the cremation of the second moth.
“Yes, we will,” Jacob said softly. “And when everything’s gone a darkness will come upon the world such as we can none of us imagine. It won’t be the darkness of death, because death is not utter.”
“A game with bones,” the woman said.
“Exactly,” said Jacob. “Death is a game with bones.”
“We know about death, Mr. Steep and me.”
“Oh indeed.”
“The children I have carried and lost.” She moved behind Will as she spoke, reaching out to finger his hair lightly. “I look at you, Will, and I swear I would give every tooth in my head to call you mine. So wise—”
“It’s getting dark,” Steep said.
“Give me another moth then,” Will demanded.
“So eager,” Mrs. McGee remarked.
“Quickly,” Will said, “before the flame goes out!” Jacob reached into his pocket, and pulled out another moth.
Will snatched it from his fingers, but in his haste he missed catching hold of its wings, and it rose above the table.
“Damn!” said Will and, pushing back his chair, along with Mrs. McGee, he stood up and reached for the tinder. Twice he snatched at the air, twice he came away empty-handed. Enraged now, he wheeled around, still grabbing for the moth.
Behind him he heard Jacob say, “Let it go. I’ll give you another.”
“No!” Will said, jumping to snatch the creature out of the air. “I want this one.”
His efforts were rewarded. On his third jump his hand closed around the moth.
“Got it!” he hollered, and was about to deliver it to the flame when he heard Frannie say, “What are you doing, Will?” He looked up at her. She was standing at the courtroom door, her shape murky and remote.
“Go away,” he said.
“Who’s this?” Jacob said.
“Just go,” Will said, suddenly feeling a little jittery. He didn’t want these two parts of his life talking to him at the same time; it made him dizzy. “Please,” he said hoping she’d respond to civility. “I don’t want you here.”
The light was guttering out behind him. If he wasn’t quick about it, the fire would die completely. He had to feed it again before it went out but he didn’t want Frannie watching. Jacob would never share what he knew—that knowledge that only the wisest of the wise understood—while she was in the room.
“Go on!” he shouted. His yelling didn’t move her, but it intimidated the hell out of Sherwood. He fled from Frannie’s side, off down one of the passages that led from the courtroom.
Frannie was furious. “Sherwood was right!” she said to him. “You’re not our friend. We followed you in case something had happened to you—”
“Rosa . . .” Will heard Jacob whisper behind him, “the other boy . . .” and glanced out the corner of his eye to see Mrs. McGee retreat into the shadows, in pursuit of Sherwood.
Will’s head was spinning now. Frannie shouting, Sherwood sobbing, Jacob whispering, and worst of all, the flame dying and the light going with it—
That had to be his priority, he decided, and turning his back on Frannie, reached out to put the moth to the flame. But Jacob was there before him. He had put his entire hand—which he had made into a cage of fingers—into the dying fire. Inside the cage was not one but several moths, which caught alight instantly, their panicked wings fanning one another’s flames. An uncanny brightness spilled through Jacob’s fingers, and it occurred to Will that he was not seeing anything natural here: that this was some kind of magic. The light washed up over Jacob’s face and flattered it into something beyond beauty. He didn’t look like a movie star or a man on a magazine cover: He wasn’t all gloss and teeth and dimples. He was burning brighter than the moths, as though he could be a fire unto himself if he wanted to be. For an instant (this was all it took) Will saw himself at Jacob’s side, walking in a city street, and Jacob was shining out of every pore, and people were weeping with gratitude that he came to light their darkness. Then it was all too much for him. His legs gave out beneath him, and down he went, as though he’d been struck a blow.
XII
Sherwood had intended to retreat to the vestibule, away from the courtroom and the smell of burning there, which turned his stomach. But in the guttering darkness he took the wrong route, and instead of being delivered to the front of the building, he found himself lost in a labyrinth. He tried to double back, but he was too frightened to think clearly. All he could do was stumble on, tears stinging his eyes, as it got darker and darker.
Then, a glimmer of light. It wasn’t starlight—it was too warm—but he made for it anyway, and found himself delivered into a small chamber in which somebody had been working.
There was a chair and a small desk, and on the desk a hurricane lamp, which shed its light on a selection of items. Wiping away his tears, Sherwood went to look. There were bottles of ink, maybe a dozen of them, and some pens and brushes, and open in the midst of this equipment a book, about the size of one of his schoolbooks but much thicker. The binding was stained and the spine cracked, as though it had been carried around for years.
Sherwood reached to flip it open, but before he could do so, a soft voice said, “What’s your name?”
He looked up and there, emerging from the doorway on the other side of the chamber, was the woman from the courtroom.
Sherwood felt a little shudder of pleasure pass through him at the sight of her. Her blouse was unbuttoned and her skin fairly shone.
“My name’s Rosa,” she said.
“I’m Sherwood.”
“You’re a big boy. How old are you?”
“Almost eleven.”
“You want to come here, so I can see you better?” Sherwood wasn’t sure. There was definitely something exciting about the way she was looking at him, smiling at him, and maybe if he got a little closer he’d see that unbuttoned place better, which was certainly a temptation. He knew all the dirty words from school, of course, and he’d glimpsed a few well-thumbed pictures that had been passed around. But his schoolmates kept him out of the really smutty conversations, because he was a little daft. What would they say, he thought, if he could tell them he’d set eyes on a pair of naked bosoms, in the flesh?
“My, but you stare,” Rosa said. Sherwood flushed. “Oh it’s quite all right,” she said. “Boys should see as much as they want to see. As long as they know how to appreciate it.” So saying, she reached up and unbuttoned herself a little further. Sherwood tried to swallow, but he couldn’t. He could see the swell of her breasts very easily now. If he stepped a little closer he’d see her nipples and, by the look of welcome on her face, she would not censure him for doing so.
He stepped toward her. “I wonder what you could get up to,” she said, “if I let you loose?” He didn’t entirely understand what she was talking about, but he had a pretty good idea.
“Would you lick my titties for me?” she said.
His head was throbbing now, and there was a pressure in his pants so intense he was afraid he was going to wet himself.
And as if her words weren’t exciting enough, she was opening her blouse a little further, and there were her nipples, large and pink, and she was rubbing them a little, smiling at him all the time.
“Let’s see that tongue of yours,” she said.
He stuck out his tongue.
“You’re going to have to work hard,” she said. “It’s a little tongue and I’ve got big titties. Haven’t I?” He nodded. He was three steps from her, and he could smell her body. It was a strong smell, like nothing he’d quite breathed before, but she could have smelled like manure and it couldn’t have kept him from her now. He reached out and laid his finge
rs upon her breasts. She sighed. Then he put his face to her flesh and began to lick.
“Will . . .”
“He’s fine,” said the man in the dusty black coat. “He’s just overcome with excitement. Why don’t you just leave him be and run off home?”
“I won’t go without Will,” Frannie said, sounding a good deal more confident than she felt.
“He doesn’t need your help,” the man replied, his tone scoured of threat “He’s perfectly happy here.” He looked down at Will. “He’s simply a little overwhelmed.” Keeping her eye on the man, Frannie went down on her haunches beside Will and, reaching for him, shook him violently. He made a moan, and she chanced a quick look down at him.
“Get up,” she said. He looked very befuddled. “Up,” she said.
The man in black had meanwhile settled back in his seat and was shaking the contents of his hand out onto the table.
Bright, burning fragments fluttered down. Will was already turning back in the man’s direction, though he was not yet standing upright
“Come back here,” the man said to Will.
“Don’t . . .” Frannie said. The flames on the table were dying down, the room giving away to darkness. She was afraid as she was only afraid in dreams. “Sherwood!” she yelled.
“Sherwood!”
“Don’t listen,” the woman said, pressing Sherwood to her breast.
“Sherwood!”
He couldn’t ignore his sister’s summons, not when it had such a measure of panic in it. He pulled away from Rosa’s hot skin, the sweat running down his face.
“That’s Frannie,” he said, pulling himself free of the woman. She was wearing, he saw, a strange expression—her panting mouth open, her eyes quivering. It unnerved him.
“I have to go—” he started to say, but she was plucking at her dress, as if to show him more.
“I know what you want to see,” she said.
He retreated from her, his hand thrown out behind him for support.
“You want what’s under here,” she said, pulling up her hem.
“No,” he said.
She smiled at him and kept raising her skirt. Panicked, and confused by the stew of feelings that were bubbling up in him, he stumbled backward, and his weight struck the table. It tipped.
The books, the inks, the pens, and, worst of all, the lamp went to the floor. There was a moment when it seemed the flame went out, but then it bloomed with fresh gusto, and the trash around the desk caught on fire.
Mrs. McGee dropped her skirts. “Jacob!” she shrieked. “Oh Jesus Lord, Jacob!”
Sherwood had more reason to panic than she did, surrounded as he was by combustible materials. Even in his dazed state, he knew he had to get out quickly or be numbered among them. The easiest route was the door by which he’d entered.
“Jacob! Get in here, will you?” Rosa was yelling, and without so much as glancing in Sherwood’s direction again, she left the chamber to find her companion.
The blaze was getting bigger by the moment, smoke and heat filling the chamber, driving Sherwood back. But as he turned to leave, his body trembling from the excesses of the last few minutes, he caught sight of the book, lying there on the ground.
He had no idea what it contained, but it felt like proof. He would have it when his schoolmates scoffed, to show them and say, “I was there. I did all I told you and more.” Daring the flames, he ducked and snatched the book off the ground. It was a little singed, no more. Then he was away, back through the labyrinth of passages, toward his sister’s voice.
“Sherwood!”
She and Will were at the Courtroom door.
“I don’t want to go,” Will growled, and tried to pull himself free of Frannie. But she was having none of it. She kept a bruising grip on his arm, all the while yelling her brother’s name.
Jacob, meanwhile, had risen from his place at the table, alarmed by the sound of conflagration, and now by the sight of Mrs. McGee in a state of disarray, demanding that he come right now, right now.
He went with her, glancing back at Will once, and nodding such a tiny nod as if to say: Go with her. This is not the moment then he was gone, away with Rosa, to put out the flames.
As soon as he was out of sight, Will felt a curious calm pass over him. There was no need to struggle with Frannie anymore.
He could simply go with her, out into the open air, knowing that there would be another time, a better time, when he and Jacob would be together. “I’m all right—” he said to Frannie. “I don’t need anyone to hold me up.”
“I’ve got to find Sherwood,” she said.
“Here!” came a holler from the smoky darkness, and out he came, his face smeared with dirt and sweat.
There were no further words. They pelted down the passage to the front door and out, past the pillars, and down the steps, into the cold grass. Only when they were past the hedge, out onto the track, did they halt for breath.
“Don’t tell anybody what we saw in there, okay?” Will gasped.
“Why not?” Frannie wanted to know.
“Because you’ll spoil everything,” Will replied.
“They’re bad, Will—”
“You don’t know anything about them.”
“Neither do you.”
“Yes, I do. I’ve met them before. They want me to go away with them.”
“Is that true?” Sherwood piped up.
“Shut up, Sherwood,” Frannie said. “We’re not going to talk about this any longer. It’s stupid. They’re bad and I know they’re bad.” She turned to her brother. “Will can do whatever he likes,” she said. “I can’t stop him. But you’re not coming here again, Sherwood, and neither am I.” With that she picked up her bicycle and mounted, telling Sherwood to hurry up and do the same.
Meekly, he obeyed.
“So you won’t say anything?” Will pleaded.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Frannie replied in an infuriatingly snotty tone. “I’ll have to see.” With that she and Sherwood pedaled off down the track.
“If you do I’ll never speak to you again,” Will shouted after her, only realizing when they were out of sight that this was a hollow threat from a boy who’d just declared that he was leaving forever someday soon.
I
i
“Is he dreaming?” Adrianna asked Dr. Koppelman one day in early spring, when her visit to sit at Will’s bedside coincided with the physician’s rounds.
It was almost four months since the events in Balthazar and, in its own almost miraculous way, Will’s mauled and fractured body was mending itself. But the coma was as profound as ever. No sign of motion disturbed the glacial surface of his state.
The nurses moved him regularly so as to prevent his developing bedsores; his bodily needs were taken care of with drips and catheters. But he did not, would not, wake. And often, when Adrianna had come to visit him through that dreary Winnipeg winter, and looked down at his placid face, she found herself wondering: What are you doing?
Hence her question. She normally had an allergic response to doctors, but Koppelman, who insisted on being called Bernie, was an exception. He was in his early fifties, overweight, and to judge by the stains on his fingers (and his minted breath) a heavy smoker. He was also honest when it came to his ignorance, which she liked, even though it meant he didn’t really have any answers for her.
“We’re as much in the dark as Will is right now,” he went on. “He may be in a completely closed down state as far as his consciousness is concerned. On the other hand he may be accessing memories at such a deep level that we can’t monitor the brain activity. I just don’t know.”
“But he could still come out of it,” Adrianna said, looking down at Will.
“Oh certainly,” Koppelman said. “At any time. But I can’t offer you any guarantees. There are processes at work in his skull right now that, frankly, we don’t understand.”
“Do you think it makes any difference if I’m here with him
?”
“Were you and he very close?”
“You mean lovers? No. We worked together.” Koppelman nibbled at his thumbnail. “I’ve seen cases where the presence of somebody the patient knew at the bedside did seem to help things. But—”
“You don’t think this is one of those.” Koppelman looked concerned. “You want my honest opinion?” he said, lowering his voice.
“Yes.”
“People have to get on with their lives. You’ve done more than a lot of people would, coming here, day in, day out. You don’t live in the city, do you?”
“No. I live in San Francisco.”
“That’s right. There was talk about moving Will back, wasn’t there?”
“There are a lot of people dying in San Francisco.” Koppelman looked grim. “What can I tell you?” he said.
“You could be sitting here for another six months, another year, and he’d still be in a coma. That’s a waste of your life. I know you want to do your best for him but . . . you see what I’m saying?”
“Of course.”
“It’s painful to hear, I know.”
“It makes sense,” she replied. “It’s just . . . I can’t quite face the idea of leaving him here.”
“He doesn’t know, Adrianna.”
“Then why are you whispering?”
Caught in the act, Koppelman grinned sheepishly. “I’m only saying the chances are, that wherever he is he doesn’t care about the world out here.” He glanced back toward the bed. “And you know what? Maybe he’s happy.”
ii
Maybe he’s happy. The words haunted Adrianna, reminding her of how often she and Will had talked—deeply, passionately—about the subject of happiness, and how much she now missed his conversation.
He was not, he had often said, designed for happiness. It was too much like contentment, and contentment was too much like sleep. He liked discomfort—sought it out, in fact (how often had she been stuck in some grim little hide, too hot or too cold, and looked over at him to see him grinning from ear to ear?
Physical adversity had reminded him he was alive, and life, he’d told her oh so many times, was his obsession).