Strange Seed (30 page)

“Sure of
what,
Paul?”

“Did you put it in the closet?”

She heard the closet door open.
 
She went into the kitchen.
 
“Sure of what?” she said.

“What are you talking about?
 
Where’s the lamp?”

“I don’t know.
 
Don’t we have a flashlight or something?”

“No, just that stupid amp.”
 
He slammed the closet door.
 
“Dammit, I can’t go out there without it.”

“Why do you want to go out there at all?”

He went to the back door and pulled it open.
 
“Lock this after me,” he said, and he was gone.

*****

He couldn’t understand the frenzy within him.
 
He had known, he knew—the almost mystical knowledge that had overcome him a week before had told him: Winter had done what winters always did here.
 
It had killed.
 
It had released Rachel and him from a torment, a nightmare from which they had been unable to release themselves.

He found that he was walking with the aid of memory—the memory of a thousand walks down this path, that, in the near-total darkness, he was automatically avoiding obstacles he’d avoided a thousand times in daylight.

He tried to study the thing that had driven him from the house, tried to take it apart.
 
There was anger in it, he knew—a passionate, wordless anger, the anger that springs from frustration.
 
And there was pity, too.
 
Pity for himself, and for Rachel.
 
And for the children.
 
For he had no doubt now that it was they who had built the fire, they who sustained it, they who wants its light to tell him of their presence.

He glanced at the house, saw Rachel looking out the window at him.
 
He thought briefly of waving, but realized she couldn’t see him.

Their marriage, he felt certain, was at an end.
 
There were too many unanswered questions, too much pain to reflect on.
 
Now, while they remained at the house, they could cling to one another, depend on one another; they had to.
 
But when the city surrounded them again, it would be time to answer the questions, time to reflect upon the pain.
 
And their love, as strong it was, wouldn’t be able to hold them together.
 
She would always be a stranger to him.
 
He would always be a stranger to her.
 
And to himself.

His foot connected with something metallic.
 
He stopped, bent over.
 
It was the lamp.
 
He picked it up, remembered.
 
This was the spot where he had found Rachel the week before, the place she had fallen, had succumbed, had given herself to…

“Damn you!” It was a high, piercing scream.
 
Its pitch, from his throat, shocked him.
 
He threw the lantern to the ground.
 
The globe shattered tinnily.
 
The effort displeased him.
 
His scream had displeased him.

“Goddamn you!
 
I’ll kill you all!
 
I’ll kill you all!”

And he ran.
 
Hard.

He stopped.
 
He could hear the stream just ahead—because it was fast-flowing, it wouldn’t freeze until midwinter.

He smelled wood burning, looked to his left.
 
The upper branches of the archway were bathed in a flickering orange light.

Goddamn you!
 
But the curse went unuttered.

Curses, he realized at once, and anger, were alien to them, something beyond their comprehension.

He moved south, off the path, and into his fields.

He stopped again and watched quietly.
 
Reverently.
 
He owed them that much.
 
His curses, his anger, had no place here, in their midst.
 
This was their cathedral.

And, as he watched, and saw their faces turn occasionally, saw the eyes, expressionless, look in his direction, watched the firelight play on the smooth dark skin, watched hands touch hands and arms and bellies—as if giving warmth and receiving it; as if re-experiencing and reveling in what they were—he knew that they were doing him a kindness.
 
That he was privileged, somehow.
 
That few men, if any, had been allowed to see what he was seeing.

Their slow and graceful deaths.

*****

“Did you talk to them, Paul?”

He sat in one of the kitchen chairs.
 
“Talk to them?”

“Yes, those hunters.
 
Did you ask them what they thought they were doing—building fires on our land, in our woods?”

Paul sighed.
 
“No.
 
No, I didn’t talk to them.
 
They’re not going to hurt anybody, Rachel.
 
They’ll be gone soon.”

“You were out there quite a long time, Paul.
 
What did you do if you didn’t talk to them?”

“Nothing.
 
I was just…being careful.
 
It was pitch-black out there, without the lantern, I mean.”

She came over to him, put her hands on his shoulders.
 
“They’ll be gone soon?
 
How do you know that, darling?”

Darling.
 
He smiled wistfully, though of thanking her.
 
“I just know it,” he said.
 
“How long can they stay out there in the cold?”

“Well, I just hope you’re right, that’s all.”

“We’ll be leaving soon, anyway, Rachel.
 
So what does it matter?”
 
He turned his head, looked questioningly at her.

She shrugged.
 
“I guess it doesn’t matter.”
 
She paused.
 
“Here, let me get this coat off you.”

“No.
 
Not right now, please.
 
I’m still cold.
 
God, I’m chilled to the bone.”

“You’re going to start sweating if you keep that coat on, silly.”
 
She leaned over him, started unbuttoning the coat.
 
He grabbed her hand, held it tightly.
 
“No, please, Rachel.”

She stared incredulously.
 
“Paul…your hand!
 
What’s wrong with your hand?”

He looked.
 
An almost inaudible gasp came from him.
 
He withdrew the hand, clasped it in his other hand, put both hands between his knees.
 

“Nothing,” he whispered.
 
“Nothing.
 
They’re cold.
 
They’re cold.
 
I didn’t have any gloves.
 
It’s frostbite.
 
It’s nothing.”
 
He stood quickly.
 
“I’ve got to get them warm, that’s all.
 
I’ve got to get them warm.”

He ran into the living room.

When Rachel followed, she found him in front of the fireplace, hands extended over the fire.
 
The ugly brown splotches she’d seen on them only a minute earlier had all but vanished.

DECEMBER 5—EVENING

“They’re halfway to the house, now, Paul.”
 
She turned, faced her husband; he was sitting quietly in his chair. “Paul?”

“I heard you.”

She turned back to the window.
 
She saw two fires—one bright and large and undulating, the other its dim, off-angle miniature, the secondary image on the window glass.

And she saw three dark figures seated around the fire.
 
She sketched in her mind the geometry, the symmetry those still figures represented.

Her eyes lowered.
 
Her gaze fell on the four remaining snow-covered piles of wood, the beehives, the lopsided pyramids Paul had asked her to build weeks ago.

She glanced at him.
 
His eyes were closed now.
 
He seemed in pain, somehow, seemed to be undergoing some deep inner turmoil.

She looked again at the bright, warmly undulating fire.

And awareness as bright and as sure as the flames, came to her.

“They’re not hunters at all, are they?” she said.

After a long moment, Paul answered, “No, they aren’t.”
 
He opened his eyes, kept his gaze on the opposite wall.
 
“I was going to tell you.”

“Were you?”

“Yes, I was going to tell you.
 
Later.
 
After we left this place.”

“Then we
are
leaving?”

“Yes.
 
Tomorrow.
 
Early.”

She looked out the window again.
 
“I’ll understand, Paul…
 
If you don’t want to leave, I’ll understand.”

“Why would I want to stay?”
 
He waited for her answer.
 
She said nothing.
 
“I asked why I would want to stay, Rachel.”

She took a deep breath, held it a moment.
 
“How soon will they die, Paul?
 
Do you think that fire of theirs keeps them warm?”

He looked at her.
 
Out of the corner of her eyes she saw that he was looking.
 
She turned her head.
 
Their eyes met.
 
She extended her hand and he took it.
 
“Come here,” she coaxed.
 
He joined her at the window.
 
“It’s their last night, isn’t it, Paul?”

He squeezed her hand and his eyes watered.
 
“And our first night,” he said.
 
She leaned against him.
 
“Rachel, they want us to stay.”

“I know.”

“And I wish we could.
 
But…I’ve…I’ve grown beyond them, I think.
 
I’ve grown beyond them.”

Rachel said nothing.

“I thought,” Paul continued, “that I owed them something.
 
And perhaps I do.
 
But if I owe them anything, I owe them myself, not you.”

Again Rachel kept silence.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

And she did understand, had understood, she knew, for weeks, and only now—the evidence so clear—able to admit it, or begin to understand it.

Paul had been one of them.
 
It was as simple as that.
 
He had been one of the children born of the earth itself.
 
And then he had become “Paul Griffin.”
 
He had learned, had grown, had survived, had been transformed.
 
And now, two decades later, what he had been was coming back, was destroying him, had been destroying him since their first day at the house, because it (she didn’t know what to call it; she knew so little about it, only what the boy had shown her) no longer recognized him, and could no longer trust him.
 
Just as Lumas hadn’t recognized him.
 
Or trusted him.
 
Because the world outside the land and the farmhouse had done its awful work.

“I love you,” she said, because she was part of him, part of the man called Paul Griffin and the things outside this place that he represented.
 
“I love you,” she repeated, because she wanted so much to also be a part of what he
had
been, what he still was, the creature that frightened her and awed her and hurt her.
 
And was…immortal, could make her immortal.
 
Just as the earth itself is immortal.

“I love you,” he said.
 
“I do love you.”

And, seeing the pain and the pleading in h is eyes, she knew that he did.
 
In his way.

LATE EVENING

Even as she struggled from sleep, Rachel knew the source of the acrid smell that filled her nostrils.
 
She nudged Paul, asleep beside her.
 
“Paul,” she said aloud.
 
“Wake up!”

“It’s too cold,” he groaned.

She shook him.
 
“Paul, Paul, wake up!”

He opened his eyes, raised his head a little.
 
“What’s wrong?
 
What’s that smell?”
 
He sat up, suddenly.
 
“My God!”

He swung his feet to the floor, stood, grabbed the doorknob tightly, yanked his hand back.
 
He cursed.

Rachel scrambled from the bed.

“The doorknob’s hot.”
 
Paul’s voice was trembling.
 
“It’s the house, Rachel!
 
It’s on fire!”