Betwixt (28 page)

No. No. No.

He wanted to follow him, but he couldn’t lift his legs. He realized he wasn’t holding Neve anymore. She was lying behind him
on one of the lawn chairs. Curled up like she used to when he and Amanda would be at a party and she was tired and ready to
go home. How had she gotten there? When had she left his arms? He stared at her for a long moment, wondering if she was all
right. Was she cold? Did she need a blanket?

He turned back to Nix, who was standing on the other side of the gate, still shaking his head.

“It’s all right, Mr. Clowes. I’ll take care of it. You’ll be okay. I’ll do it.”

What the fuck was the kid talking about?
He
would be all right?

Jacob tried to shake his head, but it only vibrated. He had a sense of himself, stooped, half curled. The throbbing in his
head had become one steady shaft of pain. He couldn’t see out of his left eye. He tried to lift his left arm to rub the sweat
out of it. He couldn’t.

“Get out of here, little shit. Don’t ever let me see you around my daughter again.”

His voice sounded strange to his ears.
Getowaheerlilsshh. Donevlemmeseeyewrownmydaweragay.

Nix was backing down the sidewalk now.

“I’ll fix it, Mr. Clowes. I’ll make it all right.”

Jacob managed to stumble to the gate, his left foot dragging through the grass.

“I’ll tell K.A.,” he called to Nix.
Aylltellkayay.

“Hold on,” Nix was saying. “Hold on. I’ll do it. I’ll make it all right. I will.”

“
Kayay —,
”
Jacob began, but couldn’t say anything else. His dragging foot caught and he twisted, fell against the gate, his weight knocking
it closed. The slamming blocked out Nix’s face, his voice. Jacob leaned against the gate, but his legs weren’t strong enough
to hold him. He was … sinking. That was it. That was what it felt like. Drowning in air.

He saw Neve on the lawn chair. She had turned on her side, facing him. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling. He was glad
his daughter was the last thing he was going to see.

He waited for the pain, but felt nothing now. Instead he saw a figure in the distance, wading through fire. Just a shadow
at first, walking toward him against a tidal wave of searing orange. It drew closer.

“You’ll be okay,” the figure said. His voice was calm. Sure.

Nix.

What the hell kind of name was that anyway?

N
IX RAN DOWN THE CUL
-
DE
-
SAC
, away from the Cloweses’ house. He didn’t know what was making him run, but he knew he had to first get away from Jacob before
he could help him. He had to have a moment alone to understand where his power lay. What he could do and what he couldn’t.
He had to go into the woods.

An uninterrupted line of stockade fences barred his entrance to the forest, shadowed by pines that raked the sky like towers.
Now the house, eerie, pale, luminescent as a ghost in the early morning light. Now a dog barking somewhere. An opening — a
crooked alley between two yards, narrow, smelling of uncollected garbage. Blackberry bushes grabbed his pants, scratched his
ankles. A thorn stung his face and something ran down his cheek. Blood? But it was only sweat. Nix wiped it away, still running,
wondering when was the last time he’d been cut. When was the last time he’d bled? Had he ever?

He dove into the forest, quick, light, circling back toward the Cloweses’. He didn’t know where his body ended and the woods
began. All he knew was that he had to see Jacob to help him. He didn’t have much time.

He stopped. The light was hot enough to feel it through the fences and trees, a few hundred yards away. It had gotten so bright
around Jacob those last few minutes that Nix couldn’t see the man through the flame. At the end his voice had been an unintelligible
slur. But the brighter the flame got, the more it had called out to Nix.
Take me. Shape me.
The ring of fire was not Jacob’s death. It was simply death, and Nix sensed he could lure it from Jacob, maybe to himself,
if he could just see the man from afar, where the light wasn’t so blinding.

Nix was not afraid of taking it. Even if it meant that he would die.

An image of the woman in the long black coat rose before him. Was that just yesterday?
You’ve known it since you were young. You inhabit a world that is not ours, yet — but not theirs either. You have felt it
since you were children.

It was all Nix had heard her say before he left to help Neve. But the ring of fire … what was it? His gift, the halos — that
was real. He knew it was real. He’d lived with it his whole life. And that moment in the forest with Bleek. The man had known
something Nix did not, but what? Had the woman told them what it was? Had he, in looking after Neve, lost his chance to save
Jacob? No. No, he could do it. He would find a way. He had
to trust his vision, which had led him to Portland in the first place. Which had united him with Ondine. Brought him to her
house that night, introduced him to Moth, even Morgan. It was all part of something bigger. Wasn’t it?

Was he cold? He didn’t know. It was misty that morning, dark beneath the clotted limbs of the pines. He looked for the edge
of the forest. Nettles thrust toward him, finding his face, the naked places on his arms. A bird called and it was as if it
came from inside of him. How long had he been running? A few minutes only. The world entered his eyes frame by frame; his
vision clicked like a camera. The micrometers of empty space between the slivers of pine needles against a rising sun were
as focused as the entire canopy of leaves and branches above him. He looked down at his own feet running; they jerked staccato.
Time itself had slowed. Yet it was not the familiar shoe that he saw; it was the fecund undergrowth below. The tiny pale shoots
of grass, the wedges of shale and bark, the millions of pebbles.

Nix reached the edge of the forest and stopped next to a tree, concealing himself. There was Neve, lying on her back, her
left arm still flung across her face. Then Jacob. His old boss was almost invisible inside the cocoon of light that engulfed
him. He sat against the closed gate, unmoving. The light had taken on the physical presence of flames. They burned and shimmered,
and Nix knew the shimmering was Jacob’s life melting away.

He could hear his own breathing. It was labored. Not from
fatigue but from sobs. He was crying — for himself and for all those people he hadn’t saved. Frank Shadwell, his mother, the
people on his way down from Alaska. The girl from the squat, the boy at the gathering. Nix understood why he’d been using
dust all that time. This was what he had been trying to control. This yawning sadness, the most profound helplessness of seeing
someone about to die.

He wanted to pray, but to whom? Who were his gods now?

He forced himself to peer through the flames. He could see Jacob’s eyes. They were open but unfocused. Nix stepped closer.
He was standing up, wiping the back of his hand with his chin, blinking in the light. Were they meant to meet? To touch each
other? Was that how the light moved? Nix didn’t have time to think further, for the man was striding toward him now, his steps
evening out as he approached. The light bent and wobbled around him like liquid wax, reaching out toward Nix. He stepped closer
to grasp it.

Jacob’s mouth moved.

Nix’s arms spread, welcoming the flame.

Jacob spoke. “I thought I told you to stay away from here —”

The last thing Nix saw was Jacob’s fist flashing through the light. And then, finally, darkness.

T
HE SUN HAD GONE DOWN.
It was the first thing Nix thought when he opened his eyes: the sun had gone down and turned the summer grass around him
a dark bluey green. He must have fallen asleep. His whole body ached and his eyelids sagged as if someone were pressing down
on them. Where was he? He tried to move his head but the slightest tensing of his muscles caused pain, like razors notching
slits in his spine. Had he passed out? Jacob — it was coming back to him now. He had gone to Jacob’s. But he was so tired.
Nix shut his eyes and when he opened them again the sun had come back. How long had he been on the ground? With all his strength
he pulled his fingers to his eyes and rubbed them. He propped himself on his elbows and again focused on the shadows on the
grass, trying to deduce what time it was. His head throbbed, his back ached, his legs felt unattached to his body.

“You okay?”

Somewhere behind him Jacob’s voice broke the seal of his
temporary amnesia. He had brought Neve home. He had tried to pull the fire from her father. Then the man had knocked him out.
The last thing he remembered was Jacob coming toward him with his fists clenched.

Nix touched his face. Blood, still warm, congealed under his nose. He touched again. His right eye was tender, swollen.

So he could feel pain.
Your body is a vessel. It is used to hold what you truly are, which is not of this world….

He turned, even though it hurt. Jesus it hurt.

“You gonna answer me or what?”

Jacob Clowes stood in the same position, Nix realized, as he had after he punched Nix in the face only a moment before. The
iPod cord was still wrapped around his neck; his left hand idly rubbed the knuckles of his right. His eyes were just as slightly
sad, slightly droopy as they’d always been. And everywhere around him:

Nothing. No light.

The ring of fire was gone. Nix had made it disappear.

He felt his face warm and, despite himself, a smile crept onto his lips.

“You think it’s funny, kid? Maybe I should hit you again?” Jacob’s voice was unconvincing. He sounded more guilty than angry.
He was rubbing his head now, and Nix knew he must be wondering what had happened to him, where the pain had gone.

“No, Mr. Clowes. I’m just — I’m dizzy. Slaphappy.” He
paused, glancing at the older man, who shook his head and pretended irritation. “I’m fine. I deserved it.”

This time it was Jacob who smiled. “I’m sorry, kid. I over-reacted. Neve told me what happened.”

“Neve?” Nix looked over at the lawn chair, which was empty.

“She went to get some ice. You’ve got a helluva shiner on the way.” Jacob reached out to touch Nix and, for the first time,
the boy did not pull away. “Though it seems like it’s going down already.” Jacob half grimaced as he stroked the tender spot.
“Huh. Weird. I can’t believe I hit you. It’s just that I was … feeling strange. I dunno. Anyway, I’m fine now. And we’re fine,
too, you and me. Neve told me it was that Bleek kid. She told me you just brought her home. I’m sorry, Nix. I was feeling
so … screwed up. But I’m fine now.” He repeated, “Fine.”

“You’re fine?” Nix echoed. It seemed true, yet he couldn’t believe it. Had it been that easy? Was that all he’d ever needed
to do? To just … meet the light? Touch it, take it inside himself? His mother, could he have saved her? What he had just been
through was exhausting, sure, painful — every muscle in Nix’s body ached — but this … this was
cake.
Too easy.

Nix looked up. He tried to make his voice light but wasn’t sure if he succeeded. “Neve was pretty out of it. What — what did
she remember?”

“You can ask her. She just went inside. Listen — I don’t
really know what happened there. I was just so … out of it. I’ll tell you.” Jacob chuckled softly. “I thought I was having
a heart attack or something. I thought I was about to … you know. Croak. But I feel fine now. No. Better. I feel better.”

“I’m sure Nix is glad to hear that your punching him made you feel like a young man again.”

Both turned at the sound of Neve’s voice.

“We didn’t have any packs so I put some cubes in a plastic bag.”

No,
Nix thought.

“I even made one for you.” She smiled and tossed one to her father. “As soon as the adrenaline fades, your knuckles are gonna
start throbbing.”

No.
Oh, god — no.

“I feel fine,” Jacob said, staring at Nix. “You sure you’re okay?”

Neve had reached them now, stepping close to Nix to press the bag of ice against the side of his face.

“What do you think, Daddy? You weigh about three hundred pounds and you socked him right in the face. Of course he’s not
okay.
”

Her voice was clear, her eyes focused. You would never know she’d been high a moment ago. Everything about her seemed fine.

No no no —

“I want to apologize for both of us,” Neve was saying. “It’s my fault, really.” She was taking Nix’s lifeless hand in one
of her own — warm, soft, alive — and pressing it to the pack on the side of his head. She was stepping back. “I got really
messed up. It was — well, you know who it was.” She was squinting now. “Do you want to sit down? You look a little spacey.”

Nix felt his jaw open. Heard a word leave his mouth.

“No.”

The bag of ice fell to the ground.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell K.A. —” she was saying.