The Child Eater
Jo Fletcher Books
An imprint of Quercus
New York ⢠London
Copyright © 2014 Rachel Pollack
First published in the United States by Quercus in 2015
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Cover design & illustration by Ghost
e-ISBN: 978-1-62365-461-0
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual personsâliving or deadâevents, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This novel is based on two short stories, “Master Matyas” and “Simon Wisdom,” from the book
The Tarot of Perfection
, © Rachel Pollack 2008, published by Magic Realist Press.
Dedicated to Martin, Jennifer, and especially Simon Greenman, who emerged into the world some years after the original story “Simon Wisdom.”
And to Martha Millard, for her patience and encouragement.
MATYAS
Once, long, long ago, when there were still wise women and powerful men who knew things now forgotten, there lived, in a faraway land, a boy called Matyas. His mother must have chosen the name because his father appeared to dislike it. Sometimes, if Matyas' mind drifted from his chores, his father would slap him and call him “pious Matyas,” and tell him, “You're not living in some church, boy. You work or you don't eat.”
Matyas lived and worked in his parents' inn, the Hungry Squirrel, a small, dismal wood building on a dismal road that ran from the sea to the capital. Most of the inn's business came from travelers on their way from the port to the city, or the other way around. Sometimes, with the wealthier ones in their private carriages, Matyas saw the faces screw up in distaste, and then they would sigh, knowing they had no choice. Matyas always wanted to hit them, though if he was honest he wouldn't want to stay at the inn himself, but would have tried to travel nonstop to the sea.
Matyas had never seen the sea. He and his best friend, a girl named Royja, used to talk about it. They would sit on low stones in the dust behind the inn and imagine water. Vast stretches of water, so huge that great boats larger than the Hungry Squirrel would bounce and pitch across it for days, for weeks, and never see the dull dirt of land. They talked of women with fishtails and the heads of birds, who sang to
sailors and drove them insane. And angels, or maybe demons, that rode on great fish that could swallow men whole, with room inside for the men to build homes, and fires to keep themselves warm.
When they tired of talking about the sea they imagined the cities they might visit if they could ever cross the water. Cities where the animals had taken over and now the people had to beg for bones at the feet of long tables where dogs lay on silk pillows. Cities where the buildings sang strange songs all night long and everyone had to go deep underground to be able to sleep. Cities where golden heads on silver poles lined the streets and would tell you anything you wanted to know. Cities where the children had killed all the adults and used the blood for magic spells that forced angels to give them whatever they wanted.
Royja was not just Matyas' best friend, she was his only friend. The daughter of the blacksmith who worked at the inn and lived in a one-room, dirt-walled building behind it, she and Matyas had known each other all their lives. Royja was skinny and wore clothes that were old and too big for her, and she was always dirty, her face, arms and legs streaked with mud and grease. Much like Matyas himself. Once, a rich family had stayed at the inn, and when Matyas and Royja saw their milk-skinned, plump little girl they had no idea what she was, possibly some animal fallen from Heaven that the lord and lady had dressed up as a miniature person.
Matyas cleaned the guests' rooms and carried firewood and swept the floors and brought the guests his father's watery beer and his mother's stringy food. He hated every moment. He was too good for this, too clever and talented. Sometimes he dreamed of himself as a great man, dressed in silk and gold and standing in a tower while, down below, the ordinary people would look up in fear and helplessness. Then morning would come and his father would kick him awake to begin his duties.
Matyas was gangly, with deep eyes and long lashes, and shiny black hair that always seemed to get in his face. He survived his work by mentally changing whatever he could. If he spilled food, he imagined the stain as a treasure map. If some monk or educated traveler left behind a scrap of paper, he pretended it contained the secrets of kings, or even better, a magic spell to carry him and Royja away from the inn to a place with gardens and fountains and high towers. Since he couldn't read, it was easy to pretend.
At night, after his chores had finally ended and he was so tired he knew he should just fall on his sleeping pallet by the stove, Matyas
instead would wander the dusty hills and scrub flats and pretend he was on a sacred quest. Sometimes he took Royja with him; more often he went on his own. He knew he would never find anything, for who would bring a holy relic to such a place, let alone leave it there? Matyas simply could not stand the thought that he might live his entire life like his father, with no world beyond the streaked walls of the inn.
One night he and Royja stayed out late, sitting together against a dead tree that caught the moonlight in its spider-web branches. This time, instead of journeys on boats as big as palaces, Royja imagined they might find a cave in the earth, with tunnels that would open out to strange woods and palaces, and purple rivers, and trees like white ghosts, and a bright red rock as big as a village, and giant rabbits that carried human passengers in soft pouches in their bellies.
After a time Matyas fell silent and left Royja to do all the talking. She hardly noticed, waving her soot-stained arms as she described cities where every person had one leg and one arm and no face, or rivers where the dead swam back to the shores of the living. Matyas thought of that strange tower he saw in his dreams, how sometimes he was inside it but more often it stood so far away he could only see the shape and not any part of it. Now and then he would glimpse a small wrinkled face, high up in a window, see it for just a moment, the way a moth flits before your eyes so quickly you can hardly make it out.
When Royja paused, Matyas yawned and said how late it wasâlook, the Moon had set, and dawn was only a few hours awayâand they'd better get some sleep before their chores began. At the smithy door they stood and faced each other with a few muttered phrases until at last Matyas took hold of her fingertips and kissed her, very slightly. She blushed and dashed inside.
Matyas yawned again and strolled to the kitchen door, only to slip around the side of the inn when he was sure Royja wasn't watching. It wasn't that he didn't want her to know, he just . . . he just wanted to see, and not talk. He had the strange sensation that there was something important he needed to discover, or do, and if he didn't find it now he would miss his chance, and all the rest of his life would be wrong in some deep way he would never understand.
He walked across scrubland, through mud hollows, over miserable parched hills. He didn't know how late it wasâhe thought the sky had begun to lighten, but dawn was still a good way offâbut finally it seemed
his journey came to an end before a tangled stand of blackened trees. He and Royja had seen this place before but never entered it. It wasn't that big, he could probably walk around it in less than an hour, but something about it kept people away, even repelled them. Matyas had once seen a woodcutter walk past it on his search for trees to chop and cure for the market. Rather than take his ax from his back and get to work, the man had made a fist, pointed his little finger at the dense trees, muttered something and hurried away. Matyas knew that gestureâhe'd seen his mother do it after certain guests had left the inn. It was what you did to blunt a curse.
Matyas stood outside the woods and tried to stare within. A curse meant magic. If only he could see the center. For a moment he thought he saw light, or fire, flash inside, but it was so quick he wondered if he'd fallen asleep for an instant and dreamed it. It was very late, and he was very tired.
Tiny lights darted around him. This was certainly no dream but neither was it a torch. It was more like fireflies, except they didn't flicker. Matyas watched them, and as he watched they began to buzz, and in that buzz he thought he could hear a faint hum of voices, or maybe one voice formed from all of them together. “Matyas, Matyas,” it said.
What?
He swatted at them, angry that he'd let himself think a swarm of bugs could say his name. They moved around him easily. “Matyas, Matyas, Master Matyas!”
“Master?” he said out loud. “What do you mean? Master of what?” Nothing more came. The air went dark again, as if they'd never been there at all.
Stupid
, Matyas scolded himself. Think some bugs could talk to him, say his name, call him
master
. He should have stayed home on his pallet, slept so he could do his chores and escape his father's stick across his back.
He didn't think he would make it back before the inn woke up and got to work but somehow he did. He even managed to lie down on his wooden pallet in the corner of the kitchen and pull his old torn sheet around him so he could pretend he was asleep when his father came to prod him awake.
To his great surprise he fell asleepâcouldn't have stopped it if he'd wanted toâand soon a dream engulfed him. He faced the woods again, all the trees pressed tightly together like some sleeping beast with a thousand claws that might reach out and slash him. For a moment he
was conscious that he was dreaming, and wondered if in fact he was awake and still at the woods, and the return home had been the dream. But then the woods parted, and a dark path opened before him, and he forgot anything else existed.
He never got to see what lay in the woods, for the dream shifted and he was standing in the snow, barefoot, his clothes torn, his hair long and filthy. All around him lay small pieces of paper, about the size of Royja's hands, with bright pictures on them, each one different. He found himself staring at one in particular, an image of what looked like a rich young man in green and gold clothes, dancing on a hilltop. Only there was something wrong with it. He bent down to look closer and discovered the face was missingâit looked like someone had slashed it out with a knife. Matyas gave a cry and jumped back.
He was walking down a magnificent hallway, the sort of room he and Royja had talked about so many times. The floor was a swirl of red and black stone, the walls a paler red lit by globes that gave off a cold, steady light. The walls rose so high, three times the height of Royja's father, that Matyas had trouble making out the ceiling, but it appeared to be a painting of some kind. There were angels, and bodies lying on the ground, and children with their arms crossed in front of their faces, as if to protect themselves. When he realized some of the angels were bent over to drink blood from the dead bodies, and the others were slashing at the children with sharp wings, he snapped his gaze away and focused on the room in front of him.
A stone door stood open at the end of the hall. Matyas hesitated, almost turned and ran away, but could not make himself leave. He heard a faint voice, a child, he thought, no words, just a cry or a moan. He stopped outside the door. There was someone inside, a tall man wearing a jacket and pants fashioned in a simple but elegant style that Matyas had never seen before. He stood next to a stone table and was doing something to a round object that lay on a silver tray.
A head. The round thing was a human head, a boy, his was the voice Matyas had heard. The man was cutting it, he had a stone knife, black and shiny stone, very, very old, and he was making tiny cuts all along the face. The boy's eyes flickered, saw Matyas. “Help me,” he whispered. “Master, help me.”
Matyas shook his head from side to side.
I can't, I can't
, he wanted to say but he was too frightened to speak. And then the man turned
and saw him, and straightened up, and with the knife held loosely in his hand he smiled, his face gaunt, his teeth bright, and he said, as if to an old friend, “Ah. It's you.”
Matyas screamed. He screamed so loud he woke himself up, and then a moment later his father's hand smashed into his face. “Stupid boy,” his father whispered. “You wake up the guests, I'll make you sorry.”
A few days after Matyas' dream, a strange man came to the Hungry Squirrel. Dinner had already been served when a soft knock sounded on the ash door that had been oldâand dirtyâwhen Matyas' grandfather was a child. Matyas looked at his father, who rolled his eyes and said, “Well, open it. And try not to scare them away.” Matyas opened the door and there stood a short and stocky man, well fed, wearing a long brown robe like a hermit's, but softer, richer, with gold threads worked into the weave. His red-gray hair flowed out from under a white cap without a brim, while a red beard spread around his face and neck like an upside-down halo. He carried a staff that looked too thin for walking. Maybe it was meant to impress people, for he'd set a red stone into the top of it. The stone glowed with a faint light that dulled to darkness even as Matyas looked at it. On a strap across his chest the man carried a leather pouch with an eagle's head stitched into the flap. It must have contained all his travel needs for Matyas could see no luggage or bags in the dirt around the man's feet.
Nor did he see a wagon, or a horse. It was Tuesday, not one of the days when the coach came through, and if the man had not brought his own transport he must have walked. But from where? The nearest way-stop was a good three days on foot, and if he came from either the seaport or the capital, it would have taken even a young walker, with good supplies, over a week.
“I would like a room,” the man said. “A private room, or as private as possible.”
Matyas just stood there and stared for so long that his father shoved him aside. “Please, sir,” his father said to the man. “Come in. Ignore the boy, he's . . .” He wobbled his head side to side to indicate a simpleton. “We have a fine room for you. The best you'll find between the sea and the capital.” He bowed his head a moment, then said, “Please, Master. Welcome.”
Matyas stared. Maybe his father was right about him, for all he could do was stand there, with his mouth open like a fish. He did notice, however, that the few guests who sat in the tavern room did exactly the
opposite, averting their eyes. And when the man passed Matyas' mother on his way to the stairs, she crossed her arms over her chest and held on to her shoulders, as if to protect herself.
As soon as Matyas' father had taken the man upstairs, Matyas rushed over to his mother. “Who is that?” he said. “Why did Father call him Master?”
