The Bog (44 page)

“Replacing me!” she keened mindlessly as her nostrils flared. And then, letting out an insensate roar of anger, she was upon him like a panther, biting deep into his neck and shoulder.

Grenville screamed as blood spurted down over his brocade robe, and for a moment David was frozen by the sight. But then, seeing the ruby lying in the grass only a few feet away, he retrieved it and ran over to Ur-Zababa’s side.

As David lifted the little head into his arms, Grenville screamed again and there was a terrible crunch as Julia crushed one of his arms.

Furiously David patted Ur-Zababa in the face and felt a wave of joy when his eyelids fluttered and he began to come to. By this time Grenville’s screaming had begun to wane and he emitted one last nerve-shattering cry as Julia crushed his rib cage with her massive hands and then tossed his lifeless body to the ground.

She turned toward David, clearly intent on continuing her revenge, when she saw the ruby in Ur-Zababa’s hand.

“The time has come,” Ur-Zababa said. “
Ib ba ikbal ma.
”

Julia looked suddenly horrified.

“
Ib shal malaku,
” he continued. “
Nig mala eem shi-bura. Nig mala eem shi.
” He held the ruby aloft in his fist. “Now you return to your own world.”

He made a gesture with his free hand in the air in front of him and suddenly a dark cloud formed behind Julia. It expanded quickly, dense and churning like a thundercloud, as a brilliant lavender light began to flash within its depths. For a moment Julia looked as if she were about to run, but suddenly a fissure formed from top to bottom in the cloud and a tremendous roar of wind enveloped her. As the fissure continued to open, David could see that beyond was a landscape more fantastic, more unspeakably foreign than any he had ever previously beheld. For as far as the eye could see, against a deep indigo sky, was a vast expanse of dark and jagged mountains, twisted escarpments and grotesque rock formations, all barren and wracked by a cacophony of strange sounds, great groanings and howlings, and a shimmering sound, as of the buzzing of a thousand flies, only more metallic, like the clashing of cymbals, or the shaking of many thin sheets of aluminum.

With a final gesture of his hand, Ur-Zababa caused the wind to reach hurricane proportions, and it whipped up around Julia in a swirl of dirt and debris, sucking her back through the fissure. And then, with a clap of thunder, the hole between the worlds vanished, and the lawn became silent save for the crackle of the fire now engulfing the house behind them, and the cries of the servants as they fled into the night.

That night, when they arrived back at the cottage, David was filled with foreboding to find that Brad’s rusted Volkswagen, apparently not a product of Grenville’s magic, was still in the driveway, and the next day he found Brad’s body where Julia had left it, only a hundred feet from the house. It seemed that in the end he really had come to offer his assistance, only Julia had intercepted him and had adopted his plan with the same facility with which she had temporarily adopted his appearance.

About a week later Dr. Grosley performed an abortion on Melanie, and although they told him they had wanted the pregnancy terminated out of purely personal reasons, after the operation David discerned in Dr. Grosley’s deeply unsettled expression that the fetus must have already possessed at least some of the disconcerting features of its father. In spite of this they deemed it prudent to tell Dr. Grosley nothing.

As for telling their story to anyone, even if David had possessed the inclination to brave the scorn and ridicule that would follow such a disclosure, any enthusiasm that he might have possessed for such a venture was further diminished by two important discoveries.

The first was that although the malevolent aura that hung over Fenchurch St. Jude had clearly dissipated, its inhabitants, out of deeply ingrained fear and lifelong habit, still obstinately refused to betray Grenville’s secret in any way.

The second was even more dismaying to David. In the unlikely event that he did decide to tell his tale to anyone, he knew that his ace in the hole, the one piece of physical evidence that he possessed, would be the demon fetus preserved in the Roman woman’s body. However, when he visited the excavation site on the day following Melanie’s abortion, to his great distress he discovered that because he had cut into the body of the Roman woman before he had sufficiently preserved her, the fetus had begun to decompose, and was now little more than an amorphous mass.

It was ten days after their final encounter with Grenville, as he stood surveying the valley for the last time with Katy and Melanie sitting in the car a short distance away, that he received what he at first thought was the final blow. He had submitted his discovery of the bog bodies for publication, but had turned over what work was left to one of his colleagues, and Ur-Zababa stood at his side as he looked somberly at the excavations for the last time.

“David,” Ur-Zababa said, interrupting his reverie.

He looked at the little figure beside him.

“You shouldn’t feel badly,” Ur-Zababa continued. “What you did was necessary and good, and you have every right to be very pleased with yourself.”

“But what about you?” David asked.

“What about me?”

David swallowed. “Well, I’m afraid I’ve become quite fond of you. Are you going to keep my son’s body, or are you going to leave it, and if so, what happens then?”

Ur-Zababa smiled softly. “I’m afraid I’m going to leave it. I must return to the place where I belong.”

David’s gaze dropped.

“But you mustn’t be sad,” Ur-Zababa cautioned. “Everything has a beginning and an end. That’s why flowers die and leaves fall off the trees.”

David looked up at him again as he recalled that they were the words that he had said to Tuck, but still he did not understand the real meaning of what he had just been told.

Ur-Zababa became silent for a moment as if he were listening to a voice somewhere deep inside his head. “Yes,” he said quietly and almost to himself. “I think your father knows that you have moxie.”

David’s eyes widened. “Tuck?” he asked.

Ur-Zababa smiled. “He is here.”

“Is he alive?”

“I told you that he was. I told you when you asked that he was right where he was supposed to be.”

“But is he here, in your body...
his
body?” Ur-Zababa nodded.

David would have been angry were he not so happy at what he had just been told. “But why didn’t you tell me? Why did you allow me to believe that he was dead?”

“Because I knew that you never would have allowed me to use his body.”

“Of course I wouldn’t. You had no right.”

“But I did have a right. You see, when I came upon him in the cold waters of the bog, I asked him. He gave me his permission to be the dominant soul in his body for a while. He wanted to help.” Ur-Zababa paused. “You have a very special son, David.” He smiled. “And Tuck has a very special father.”

He took both of David’s hands into his own. “I leave you now. I wish you and your family great peace and happiness. And I hope that perhaps in some distant space and time we may meet again.”

With that, his eyes closed and remained shut for only a fraction of a second before they opened again, this time sparkling with a familiar light.

“Hi, Dad,” the familiar voice chimed.

Tears filled David’s eyes as he swooped his son up into his arms. “Oh, Tuck, I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, Dad,” Tuck returned, and they both hugged each other so tightly that Tuck grunted.

It was on their way back to the car that he saw something different, something eerily wise in his son’s eyes.

“What is it, Tuck?” he asked.

Tuck smiled, but his gaze remained dreamy. “It was just so amazing,” he said in a voice that now seemed curiously older than its years.

“What was?”

“Everything,” he said shaking his head, his eyes still glazed with wonder. “I know so much, Dad. I just know so much.”

David smiled, but he was almost a little frightened. What did Tuck know? Where had he been in the past several weeks, and what had he seen? As they got into the car and Tuck scrambled over to greet his mother, David realized that in sharing a body with Ur-Zababa, Tuck had no doubt also absorbed some of his information. This basically pleased David, for he had always expected a lot from his son. But as he turned the key in the ignition he realized that in some ways it meant that Tuck was now perhaps far wiser than he, and in the years ahead he wondered what Tuck would become. And what unfathomable wisdoms Tuck would eventually expect from him.