Blood Fugue (10 page)

‘Oh, Jimmy. We shouldn’t have waited so long to do this.’ She sniffed and blew her nose. ‘We just never wanted to face up to it, I guess.’

Was she talking about his adoption? They’d been through all this when he was a little boy. He understood perfectly well that they weren’t his real parents. It had never spoiled anything for him. He’d always been certain that if his own parents had kept him, he’d have had a worse life; a life with less love, one in which all opportunity was closed to him. Burt and Kath had been the best thing that ever happened to Kerrigan. They pointed the way, let him make his mistakes and respected his aspirations. Even when he left for New York they didn’t complain or make him feel he was making the wrong decision.

Kerrigan stared at the envelope.

‘What more is there to know, Kath?’

She pressed a tissue to her mouth to stifle a sob and pushed the envelope towards him.

He reached out, froze for a moment, and then picked up the envelope with care, not wanting to damage its pristine smoothness and perfect lines. ‘For James Kerrigan’ was all that was written on it. Its touch filled his mind with images — a hundred stills passing in an instant — he tried to hold on to them and couldn’t, except for one. It was a vision of a tall figure dressed in fraying clothes. The figure was gaunt like a starving hermit and he — Kerrigan felt it was a man, an old man — stood beside a huge tree. The trunk was so thick, its branches so vast; Kerrigan could only imagine its size. The image stayed with him.

‘You have to open it,’ said Kath.

He took his knife, cleaned it on his napkin and placed the blade in the space between the flap and the body of the envelope. He hesitated for a moment longer then slit it open in one sharp movement.

He took out the carefully folded, handwritten sheaves and began to read.

The first page was written in Burt’s chunky hand — the neatest thing he’d ever written, Kerrigan realised — and probably the only letter he’d ever written with an ink pen. The date was August 1975, just after Kerrigan’s birthday.

Dear James,

You have come to us like a blessing or an answered prayer. You will know by the time you read this that we are not your real parents, I plan to tell you that as soon as you«re old enough to understand, but I hope that by the time you do read this you’ll see us as your true family.

The circumstances of your birth are unusual, a real mystery to all of us. I think this letter will explain some of it — you’ll understand it in a way that we can’t.

The truth of the matter is that we did not seek you out from the orphanage as we said we did. We found you in the forest. You were wrapped in an animal skin, laying in a basket of reeds. Whoever left you, placed you in the middle of the Eastern Path that runs across the lower part of Bear Mountain. They left this letter too.

We took you into Hobson’s Valley to the doctor who talked to the sheriff. They both knew us and our situation. We’ve always made our own law in this part of the country and once they were sure the parents weren’t coming back, they let us keep you. Of course, we never showed them the letter.

You have a purpose in this world, James. Something many of us never find. You may not be aware of your purpose until you read this. You may find it is not what you had planned for yourself. Either way, we know you can live up to it. Remember that no matter where you go, we’ll always be with you. We’re here to give you strength, whatever you decide to do.

With all our love always,

Albert and Kathleen Kerrigan

He looked up at Kath and saw that she was crying. He put the letter back on the table and cried with her.

He was never going to see his father again.

When he could continue he picked up the letter and removed Burt’s top sheet. What followed didn’t make any sense to him at all. He flipped over one sheet after another and saw nothing but neatly spaced characters and symbols. On the last page was a map similar to the one the Jimenez family had shown him.

‘I don’t get it, Kath. I can’t read this.’

‘Yes. You can.’

‘It’s in another language. I don’t even recognise the letters or punctuation.’

‘You can read that letter, James. I know you can because I’ve heard you speak the language it’s written in.’

Kerrigan stared.

‘I never learned another language, Kath. How could I speak anything other than English?’

‘I’m telling you, James, I’ve heard you speak it. In the right moment you’ll be able to read it. I guess it doesn’t have to be now.’

‘When did I speak it?’

‘All your life.’

‘But when exactly? Was I watching TV? Throwing a baseball? What?’

‘You did it in your sleep.’

He had to laugh then.

‘I mumbled gobbledygook in my sleep a few times and you think I can read this? Come on, Kath.’

Her eyes were wide and defiant.

‘You spoke that language every night of your life. Me and Burt would listen sometimes. It was beautiful, but it was scary too. If we hadn’t had the letter as a sign of how special you were, we probably would have taken you to see some kind of doctor.’

He knew what kind of doctor she meant.

‘And I can prove that it was this language you were speaking too.’

‘You can?’

‘Sure.’

She pushed her chair back and walked to their bedroom. When she came back she had a folder in her hands. She passed it to him.

Opening it, he saw drawings and language in the hand of a growing child. The first few sheets were just scribble and meaningless shapes but later in the file the scribble became the language he had just seen in the letter and the shapes became maps and drawings of people and symbols. The one symbol that repeated itself from the very beginning was that of the binder — an equal-armed cross within a circle.

There were other familiar things, a drawing of a staff like the one he used for long hikes. There was also a drawing of a primitive axe and, though he thought he recognised it, he didn’t know from where. He’d drawn pictures of himself in what appeared to be mortal combat with other people. Sometimes they surrounded him. In other drawings, he seemed to be battling mythical creatures. It was all a little too much like the fantasy of a gifted child.

‘It’s no good sitting there and shaking your head, James. Burt’s gone now and you have to face all this stuff. You’ve been ignoring it all your life. It’s like your fear of the dark. You have to grow up and get over it. You’re meant to be doing something special, something important. You better get on and do it.’

He’d rarely seen Kath so stern or determined. He felt like he was sixteen again, getting a lecture over his behaviour at school.

‘You take all this stuff with you and study it. Don’t you give up until you know what it means.’

‘All right, Kath,’ he said. ‘I hear you.’

He folded the letter away and replaced the drawings in their file.

After speaking to the undertaker and making Kath promise to call him if she needed anything at all, Kerrigan hurried back to the cabin. Buster greeted him with a barrage of affronted meows and tangled himself around Kerrigan’s ankles until he got fed.

Kerrigan glanced at the Reminders stuck on the fridge and slammed his fist against the door.

‘Jesus fuck.’

Bottles and cartons tumbled and fell inside. He made no attempt to right them. He tore up the pointless list. Too late to help Burt and no worm pills for Buster. He couldn’t even remember to bring a flashlight to counteract his worst fear. And Amy was gone. Was it too late for the Jimenez family too? Trying to calm himself, he stepped outside and sat in his rocker but ended up pacing the porch and staring into the trees.

He couldn’t have left Kath alone at a worse time but what choice was there? The Jimenez family were somewhere out on the trails. He was certain they were in danger, even though he couldn’t say why. It was Carla he feared for the most. The letter, his childhood drawings, whatever Burt had seen at the window; it was all connected somehow. There was only one course of action to take but travelling into the woods meant he’d be out after nightfall.

Can I really do this?

He stopped pacing, faced the trees and closed his eyes. He let his breathing settle. Something drew on him, on his blood. The lure of nature, promising something: resolution, perhaps. He could feel the pull now. The call of the wilderness, a siren song of duty and desire. And his urgency to find the Jimenez’s was akin to panic.

Resolved, he went indoors to pack.

On the bed, Kerrigan laid out a first aid kit, dried food rations, a bivvy bag and sleeping bag. Beside these he placed a tarpaulin for additional shelter, a lightweight camping stove, energy bars and a single change of clothes for himself. He counted out four foil exposure bags. Alongside all this he laid several binders and his walking staff. From a drawer in the kitchen he took a large, sheathed hunting knife, rope and paracord. Standing back to assess his equipment, he felt something was missing. He searched in all the usual places but couldn’t find anything else that seemed useful.

Something drew him back to the pantry. He checked it several times but didn’t discover anything. On his fourth trip, he noticed a dusty wooden crate on the floor that he couldn’t remember putting there or ever opening. He slid it out, starting back a little when his hands first touched it; he could feel a slight hum or vibration coming from it, as though a current were passing through it.

He brushed the dust away with his fingers and coughed. It was not a crate, but a chest made of dark, ancient pine. Someone had put a good deal of effort and care into its creation. It was about three feet long, six inches high and less than a foot wide. There were markings carved into the wood like the ones he carved into the binders.

The lid of the chest was not hinged; it fitted down inside the walls with no discernible join. He saw a tab of leather poking out on the right hands side and pulled it. The lid lifted enough for him to remove it. He placed it to one side and leaned forward.

Inside was a stone-headed tomahawk, laid to rest like a corpse in a black fur lining. The fur was the smoothest, softest thing Kerrigan had ever touched. He had no idea what kind of animal might have been sacrificed to create such a comfortable resting place. Neither what kind, nor how many.

The tomahawk was simple. A heavy pine shaft, carved with similar designs to those on his staff. A thick leather thong looped through its haft. Finer strips of hide had been woven around the haft to create a non-slip grip.

The shaft passed through the centre of the head, broadening there to prevent it from detaching when swung. Criss-crossed leather strips further secured the head to the shaft.

The head itself was fashioned from a Singing River stone, similar to those Kerrigan used to hold his maps open. The stone had been knapped into a blade on one side, much like an ancient flint tool. The edge didn’t look that sharp but with so much weight behind it, it would inflict devastating damage. The opposite end of the head tapered to a vicious hook, its flattened point similar to the claw of a mountain lion but far larger. The claw’s inner edge had also been honed into a blade. The surface of the tomahawk head was profoundly darker than Kerrigan’s map stones. Polished until it was reflective, it was almost black. Mica glinted in its surface like stars in a clear night sky.

Beneath the tomahawk, moulded into the fur, were two conical leather sleeves. It took him almost a minute to understand that they were forearm guards, each with several apertures perfectly designed to hold binders. The guards had leather lattices to adjust their tightness. Kerrigan stared at the contents of the chest and lost himself. A sense of urgency brought him back to moment.

He reached out and grasped the tomahawk’s handle.

Carla Jimenez woke suddenly.

A dream? A kick from Luis?

She raised her head and blinked a few times. Eyes open or closed; it made no difference to the depth of the dark. She let her head rest back on the folded sweater she was using for a pillow and sighed.

The tent smelled of sweaty feet and her brother’s farts and the ground beneath her camping mat was lumpy. Why, in a country famous for convenience and comfort, were they punishing themselves like this? She felt a brief, hot hatred for her father, swiftly followed by guilt; if she genuinely hadn’t wanted to come, he probably would have let her stay with her grandmother in San Sebastian, but she’d been curious about America. She’d believed a camping trip would be fun.

A noise outside interrupted her thoughts.

Carla strained her hearing into the night. There was nothing, not even the hiss of a breeze through the pines. Then, over the sighs and snores around her in the cramped tent, she heard it again: whispered laughter. Suddenly very alert, she came up with an explanation. It was possible there were other campers and hikers out on the trails; perhaps not far away, perhaps partying. Except this hadn’t sounded like merriment — to know they weren’t travelling these trails alone would have been a comfort.