Monstrous Affections (15 page)

Okay — it wasn’t just “not one of my proudest moments.” It was,
up until that point in my life, the hands-down worst moment yet.
I’d just betrayed my new friend Officer Tom’s trust. I’d pocketed
a weapon that was, if not illegal, then certainly restricted. And I’d
thrown in with Fezkul, the demon-child who had told me to set fire
to a restaurant and murder its owner.

And that wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst of it was how good I felt about it all. Really good. The
idea of arson and killing didn’t strike me as anything more than a
lot of fun. I tumbled down the slope to the Fun-Park, an overgrown
maniacal toddler with mayhem on his mind.

The little kids gathered around me almost as soon as I’d stepped
onto the grass. This, I remember thinking, must have been what
Honorius felt like when he made his Leadership roll and convinced
those elves to follow him into the troll cave — like one bad-ass
paladin, that’s what.

Oh, what to do? There were a few things that came to mind. If we
could find more propane, we could just set it off in the grill’s kitchen.
Although I wasn’t sure how to make it blow up without making me
blow up too. We could fill a paper cup with root beer, put a lid on,
then toss it into the deep fryer. The cold liquid in the hot oil would
certainly be catastrophic — but would it go off, or just send hot oil
everywhere? Dave Rigby had once tried to convince our dungeon
master Neil that if you threw a sack of flour into a room, tossed in a
torch after it and shut the door, everything would go up in a colossal
flour explosion that could clear a whole dungeon level. Neil had said
no way that would work, but who knew? It wasn’t like we’d gone
down to his condo’s parking garage and tried it or anything . . .

“You’re thinking too much,” said the little pigtailed girl Blair. She
pushed her way through the crowd and handed me a long barbecue
lighter. “Fezkul said give it to you.” Her brother, whose french fries
she’d ruined just a little while ago, nodded encouragingly from
behind her as I flicked the lighter and looked at the little flame that
popped out of the end. It was a happy flame and it filled me with
gratitude that she would bestow such a gift on me. Having nothing
else to give in return, I handed Blair the stun wand. She flicked it on.
Her brother lurched and fell, and she squealed appreciatively.

And we were off.

At first, we moved like a well-coordinated Marine unit — or a
company of elvish archers led by one totally wicked champion of
good, maybe — wending through the tables and the still-oblivious
parents toward the prize of the Grill. A bunch of older kids broke
off to go play video games, but when I told them to stick to the plan,
they came back like I was a drill sergeant, or Honorius the Paladin.
Soon, we had the Grill House surrounded.

We were met by four security guards, who waved their arms and
threatened to call our parents, but like Officer Tom, they didn’t have
the stomach for a fight and they soon succumbed to Blair’s stun
wand. We tied their shoelaces together, and then headed inside. In
my head, I could hear Fezkul’s voice but I couldn’t understand the
words anymore. Just the encouraging tone.

So in we went.

We tore through the washrooms, stuffing the toilets with all the
tissue we could find and turning over the garbage cans; we pulled
down fire extinguishers and turned the no-slip rugs upside down;
we tried to break the fluorescent lights up above but even I was too
short for that. Finally, we came out in the front, where there was a
counter and a soft-drink dispenser and some grills.

It was magnificent. I could, I think, have taken it all the way.
I could have found a sack of flour, burst it open, tossed a Jumbo-Sized root beer into the deep fryer, set off a tank of propane with
the barbecue lighter.

God knows the kids were waiting for me to do it; in the back of my
head, Fezkul was telling me, in a language that I was beginning now
to understand, to do just that: “Blow it up. Destroy the old wizard.
Kill him. Kill his minions. Blow it up, boy! You are the champion!
Get it! Blow it up!” Something like sugar was itching through my
veins and I was ready for anything.

Anything but what I saw, coming around the cash register with
Blair at my side.

“It’s for the best,” said Nick. He was sitting on one of the little plastic
chairs next to the window. Lenore was sitting opposite him, her
hands in her lap. Her eyes were blank.

“I can’t believe it,” she mumbled.

Nick looked down and then up at her again. “You can’t say you
didn’t see this coming.”

I moved closer. Lenore and Nick were as oblivious as any of the
other adults — and as much a target. Blair raised the stun wand,
aiming for Lenore’s belt-line. I put a hand on her arm, and she
frowned at me but held off. I looked at my sister. Her eyes were
blank, but I could see her mouth twitching, as she tried to think of
some answer.

“What are they doing?” said Blair beside me.

“They’re breaking up,” I said. “Oh man.”

“I didn’t see it coming,” said Lenore. Her voice was low, a
monotone. I’d never seen her like this. “Particularly not now — when
we can’t even find my brother.”

Nick shrugged. “I know. It’s not the best timing. But Lenore —
we’re just different people, you know? We want different things.
And hey — your brother’ll turn up. He’s just goofing, I bet.”

Lenore nodded, not looking at him. She crossed her arms,
covering the Up With People logo on her shirt and hunching her
back like an old woman’s.

Nick leaned back and put his fingers in his front pockets and
looked out the window. His head bobbed up and down, like he was
listening to some tune inside his head. It was like Lenore wasn’t even
in the room. It struck me then: Nick may have been Lenore’s coolest
boyfriend yet, but that wasn’t the same thing as saying he was cool.
He was lame. Totally, completely lame.

And Lenore was alone. She may have been a real dork in a lot
of ways, but she was my sister, and she was alone, and she didn’t
deserve that.

“I’m bored,” said Blair and she sulked. “You said we could start
a fire.”

“No.”

“I’m gonna,” said Blair, and at that, I turned to her. She was such
a little brat. She raised the wand at me, and I looked her in the eye.

“Stop!” I shouted it, and she stepped back, like I’d slapped her. At
the same time, the rest of the kids looked at me.

“Stop,” I said again. “Just stop.”

I stepped over to Lenore and put my hand on her shoulder, and
she jumped, then looked at me. She smiled, in a happy-sad way that
broke my heart. “Sammy,” she said. Her voice was broken. Nick
blinked and looked over. “Whoa!” he said. “There you are. We been
looking for you all over, bro.”

“Don’t call me that,” I said flatly, and Nick held up his hands.

“Whatever,” he said.

“You guys should get out of here,” I said to Lenore.

She blinked. “Why?”

I was about to say: look around! But as I looked around, I saw that
wouldn’t do anything to motivate her. The place, as far as I could
tell, was completely empty. There was just us, and a girl behind
the counter in one of the orange uniforms who looked like she was
swatting at bugs or something.

I didn’t see the little kids; they weren’t a part of this awful, adult
world I’d stepped into. And I didn’t want to see the kids; I didn’t
want to go back to that other world.

There were more important things here.

I gave Lenore a squeeze. “Let’s just go,” I said.

We met Oliver Natch in the middle of the bridge. He was leaning
against the handrail, looking over the slowing traffic heading south
to Carlingsburg. He didn’t look as sad or as terrible as he might have
before. He looked up as we came and gave me a little smile.

“Come again soon,” he whispered as I passed near, and I said:
“Not likely,” and he just shrugged.

“I can’t blame you, Stanley,” he said.

“Sam,” I said and he nodded.

Lenore stopped beside me. Nick had kept walking, and stood at the far end of the bridge, waiting for us. Clearly, he wanted to get
the rest of the drive over as soon as possible. You couldn’t blame
him — but of course we did.

Natch looked at Lenore. “Your sister?”

Lenore introduced herself.

“Lenore.” Mr. Natch gave a little bow — a courtly bow, as if from another age. “Oliver Natch. I am charmed.” And with that, he gave
me a little wink. “Unlike your brother, I think.”

Lenore gave a puzzled frown.

“What are you doing up here?” I asked.

“What? I am doing what I do every year this day and time when I
fail to convince Fezkul’s little
champion
to spill the beans. Waiting —
waiting for the storm to pass.” He reached into his pocket, and pulled
out an old-fashioned pocket watch. “Which, I think, should be nearly
finished.” He craned his neck over my shoulder, and nodded. “Yes.”

At the base of the stairs, the door to the Grill and Fun-Park
opened, and conversation wafted up: “Come on, honey, up the
stairs — ” “ — museum was cool!” “ — how much longer to home?”

“So everything’s okay?”

Mr. Natch shrugged. “Reasonably,” he said. “There will be some
cleaning to do. Perhaps a repair or two.” Then he looked at me levelly.
“It might have been worse, if little Stanley had chosen differently.”

“Sam,” I said, and he said: “Sam.”

And at that moment, I felt a huge sadness, as I thought about
everything I’d done — everything I’d taken part in. What I’d done to
poor Tom Wilkinson.

“I didn’t,” I said. “He wanted me to ki — ”

Mr. Natch put up his hand and stopped me.

“You chose,” he said. “In the end, it is the choice that all the
children make, when they sit at the cusp. They cannot go back —
only forward.” And then, Mr. Natch smiled in a way that made me
look away. “Oh! How it confounds him.”

Lenore looked at him and looked at me, then grabbed my shoulder
and leaned close. “Come on,” she whispered. “This guy is creepy. And
I just want to get home.”

“Yes,” said Natch, “you shouldn’t tarry. Tomorrow, after all, is a
school day.”

We did tarry, just a bit. Lenore was in a whole lot less of a hurry for
all of us to get in the car with Nick when we caught up so she put her
hand on my shoulder and leaned close. “Wait outside a minute while
I settle some things?” she asked and I said, “Sure.”

I sat down on the rear bumper and watched the door to the
bridge. It was flapping open and closed as kids and their parents
came through it, heading back to their own cars and minivans
and SUVs, escaping the broken spell of Fezkul, and as they went I
wondered:
How long will that bridge stay up? How soon will it be before
some kid takes Fezkul’s advice all the way?

And also:

How will I survive Grade Nine with all the cliques
?

And then this lone guy came down the stairs from the bridge. I
squinted to make sure it was who I thought it was. “Ha,” I said, and I
pushed myself up and headed over.

Tom Wilkinson blinked at me as he pushed the door open and
limped out onto the gravel parking lot.

“You find your sister?” he asked. I nodded and he said, “Good.”
Then I extended my hand. He looked at it, shrugged, and took it in
his own.

In the awful world of adults, some things are definitely harder.
But some things are easier too, and this thing was one of those. So we
just shook each other’s hands like a couple of grown-up gentlemen
and I said, “All right then?” and he said “All right then,” and then I
headed back to Nick’s car to finish the trip home.

“Good afternoon.

“The death of a child affects all of us deeply. We are a community
of parents, of brothers and of sisters, of friends and neighbours. Any
child lost is a loss for us all.

“We feel the loss of little Nicholas Fletcher especially keenly.
Who among us does not recoil in horror, at the echoes of the
squealing tires of the car that cut short Nicholas’s brief, brilliant
life? Who among us does not, in the early hours of these dark
mornings, awaken clenched, bathed in sweat, eyes fixed unwillingly
on Nicholas’s unforgiving, uncomprehending stare?

“I have spoken with the Chief of Police, and he has assured me
that his detectives have made the hunt for Nicholas’s killer their
highest priority. Make no mistake, it is a challenge, for homicide
detectives are no different from any of us. They weep for Nicholas
too; they feel his cool fingers on the napes of their necks, hear his
soft, wordless whispering in their ears. The dreams he conjures
wake them also. But with diligence and fortitude, I am confident
they will apprehend the coward responsible for this travesty — and
so, we pray, end this terrible chapter in our city’s history.

“At this time I would like to thank the eyewitnesses who have
come forward already, and urge others with any information that
might help the investigation to do the same. And I would again
like to speak to that motorist among us, who has so far remained
silent.

“Come forward; admit to your crime. You will, in a very
meaningful way, be saving your city, your community, your family.

“Yourself.

“As for the rest of us: what can we do to quiet our grief? We can
recall that we are citizens of a fine, brave city — a great city, with
brightly lit boulevards and fine restaurants and theatres, museums
and stadiums; a kind city, with many strong and mutually supportive
faith communities. Our city.

“Nicholas speaks to us from the dark corners, the cold spaces —
but they are shadows amid light, a chill draft by a glowing hearth.

“It is from this place — the warm nest of our homes and
communities, the cherished receptacle of our dreams . . . our sanity
. . . that we must send a clear message: