The Child Eater (21 page)

He thought he would explode just from her touching him, but somehow he stayed hard, and strangely, when he was inside her, what he felt above all was
safe
. They were both crying now, and it was as though the robe surrounded both of them, the tree and the sky and all the secrets she had brought to life. Now he understood Florian's “Great Cry of Beginning.” His eyes were closed but he could see Lahaylla with his hands, all the wonder of her. She was light, the light of origins, just as Royja was darkness, darkness and dirt.
No
.

In awe, Lahaylla whispered, “Oh, Matyas. Master. Master Matyas.” Suddenly, against his will, Matyas thought of Medun. Medun, without whom Matyas might never have existed, Medun whose prison was the world, whose sentence was forever, all to protect women from a Master who had promised to give them . . .
this
.

He cried out as he pushed her away, and as he left her body—in the last second it was possible—it was like that moment when the Great Darkness came down over the Ancestors, so that they no longer beheld the planetary lights except through thick walls. Now he understood—and wished fervently that he didn't—why Florian “wept as if a thunderous river” the first time she beheld the truth.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” He tried hard not to look at her, but her stunned face filled the room. As quickly as he could, he snatched up his clothes and was about to rush through the door when
he felt the weight in the right pocket of his tunic. He managed to find the pouch of gold and would have tossed it behind him without looking, except he remembered the rainy day a duke had done that to his father, and then laughed as Matyas' father had run into the mud to pick up the coins. So he turned to her and she was sitting on the floor with her arms tightly around her knees to create a refuge for her face. She looked like a child, so small he could pick her up and carry her with him.

“I have the money,” he said, and set the bag on the work table. “It's all here. You can count it.”

“Get out!” she screamed. Matyas ran from the house.

He was two streets away when he became conscious of the Sun on the robe, light carried like wind through the branches and signs. He stopped in the middle of a hilly street paved with old gray stones. Thankfully everyone appeared to be off at whatever work they did, unless, of course, they were all inside, frightened to show themselves. He found a space between two wooden shacks where he could change his clothes. When he folded the robe, he found it was so thin he could hide it in the waistband of his pants.

When at last he passed through the Academy gates, he stared up at Veil's tower, for he wanted so much to run up and hide this thing that felt like ice against his flesh. But suppose
she
was there, and guessed what he was concealing? So he went to the library instead, where he could cast his spell, his Cloak of Concealment, and let himself breathe, for the first time, it felt like, since he'd left the seamstress' house.

He stayed there for hours, reading about sects known as Purificationists, those who sought to “give flower to the Tree of Purity” by “uprooting the Tree of Desire.” The images were grand, but the actions were brutal: whippings, starvation, even self-emasculation. Matyas had always found such accounts not just unpleasant but incomprehensible. But now, as his body continued to react all on its own to any thoughts of Lahaylla, despite his shame at what he'd almost done to her, he wondered what it might be like to free oneself of such betrayal. Purification. The thought sickened him, but maybe that was all the more reason to contemplate it.

As so often, Florian saved him. It took some searching, but at last he came across a short passage about “Purity.” She called it “a fool's literalism,” a terrible misreading of ancient practices sometimes known as “the snake shedding its skin.” The body is like a tree, the sage wrote, with a
snake coiled at the base of the trunk. (Matyas thought of the design he'd given Lahaylla and shuddered.) The snake is said to drink the sap of the tree and spit it out like venom, so that some believe they must kill the snake to purify the sap. But the snake is life, and without it, the tree cannot flower. Train the snake, Florian wrote, so that it may give life to the sap and the leaves, and the flowers of the tree may open to the light of Heaven.

The passage comforted Matyas, told him he needn't be a slave to or a destroyer of his own body. And yet, he could sense some secret, something dark hidden under the reassuring words. When at last he left the library and made his way up the tower stairs to discover Veil mercifully asleep in her rocking chair, one sentence vibrated in his mind, like a low string tuned to the Earth itself so that it never comes to rest.

Beware the Tree that seeks to flower forever
.

The detention room was a classroom that wasn't used by any teacher. It had the usual rows of desks facing a whiteboard, but no posters or photos or maps, no models of poor-people villages, no gross pictures of the body, and no computer stations. The teacher's desk had no personal items and no clever displays that were supposed to spark pupils' “healthy curiosity” or “sense of wonder.” The only thing on the desk was a plain wooden box with a lock on the front to hold the bad kids' cell phones so they couldn't spend their punishment time texting or playing games.

Mostly the room was used at the end of the school day, when kids who'd done something wrong had to endure an hour of silence while everyone else went home or to after-school activities. Simon had been ordered there before, but never during the school day. Mr. Chandruhar told his assistant, a pretty brunette named Miss Harrowey (the kids all knew how she'd refused to be called “Ms.”) to take Simon to the room “and make sure he stays there.”

“Hey, it's okay,” the assistant whispered to Simon in the corridor. “I don't know what you did to Mzzzz Bowden, but I bet she deserved it.” She blushed, as if she realized she wasn't supposed to say things like that, especially to a pupil being punished. Simon didn't care. His father was coming and he would find out what Simon had done, and hate him.

Miss Harrowey held open the door and told Simon, “Take a seat. Well, obviously.” She didn't ask for Simon's cell phone. Maybe it didn't matter if you were just waiting for a parent to come. Simon stepped into the room.

And stopped. The room was full of kids! Every desk had someone sitting at it, all of them with downcast eyes, unmoving. And the room was much larger than Simon remembered—it appeared to go on and on, not very wide but longer than the gym. Simon turned around to look at the assistant. “Who are all these kids?” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Very funny. Come on, get inside. I'm sure your dad will be here soon.”

As soon as Simon had stepped into the room, Miss Harrowey closed the door behind him. He could hear her high heels receding on the hallway floor. All at once, as a group, the kids turned around and looked at him. There was something wrong with them. Something wrong with their heads. Cuts all over the skin. “Oh shit,” Simon said out loud, “Oh fuck,” and didn't even notice he was saying bad, big-kid words.
They're all dead
. Every single one of them, their heads cut in twenty places, with what looked like pieces of paper, or bits of cards, stuck in the cuts. “Help!” Simon yelled and tried to leave, but the door was stuck. “Please!” he called out to whoever might be listening. “I'll be good, I promise, I promise.” But nobody came. If Mr. Chandruhar or Miss Harrowey could hear him they paid no attention.

The dead children began to speak, their voices empty and far away as they chanted:

“Stop it!” he yelled, and put his hands over his ears.

“I can't hear you,” Simon called out. He tried saying, “La la la,” the way kids did in the playground to drown someone out, but the voices cut through him.

Simon knew he was about to scream. He didn't want to, somehow it seemed worse than any of the bad things he'd done, but he couldn't stop himself, he would start screaming and never ever stop.

And then he heard music. Singing. It rose above the chanting children—no, it flowed all around and through them, like water. Or light. Liquid light. Singing light. High and clear, a single voice filled with sadness and glory all mixed together. Simon couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman or maybe a child, but it didn't matter, nothing mattered except those perfect sounds. No, not just sounds, words. The voice was singing a song, and even though it wasn't English, or any language Simon could even imagine, he almost understood it. Not like you understand words, really, and not with his mind. Some other way.

The song ended—he had no idea how long it lasted—and when Simon opened his eyes he saw he was standing in a small empty classroom.

He must have sat down and time must have passed for there he was, in the back of the room, his mind somehow calm. He was vaguely aware of hills and trees, as if he'd been watching some nature documentary, when Miss Harrowey opened the door. “Your dad's here,” she said. “Come on.”

Instantly he was jolted back to all the awful things he'd done. Now they would tell Daddy and Daddy would . . . what? Ground him forever? Lock him in his room and never let him out? He didn't think his father would hit him or anything. Daddy had never hit him, not even when it looked like he really wanted to. But it didn't matter what Daddy
did
. All that mattered was that Simon had cheated, big time, and now his father would know. And hate him.

He stayed in his seat until the assistant rolled her eyes and said, “Let's go. It's not so bad. At least you get out of this place.” She laughed in what Simon guessed was supposed to be a friendly way. “I wish someone would expel me for a few weeks.”

Simon's dad was standing in the principal's office with his arms folded, his whole body like stone as he looked down at Mr. Chandruhar, who stared back at him, both of them silent. The assistant said,
“Here he is, sir,” and gently urged Simon into the room, then quickly closed the door.

Simon flinched as his father spun around, but his face softened and he said, “Simon! Are you all right?” Simon couldn't speak until Daddy asked, “They didn't hurt you, did they?” And then Simon shook his head and whispered, “No, I'm fine. I just had to wait in the detention room.”

“Mr. Wisdom,” the principal said, “we do not ‘hurt' children. Corporal punishment is not allowed in Chandler Elementary, and never has been.”

Simon's dad glanced once more at Simon as if to double-check he was uninjured, then said to Mr. Chandruhar, “What the hell are you doing to my son? How dare you throw him out of school?”

Mr. Chandruhar stood up, his fists clenched, and for just a second Simon wondered if the no-hitting rule might not extend to parents. The thought of his dad and the principal in a fight suddenly made him happy, just for a moment, for the first time in weeks.

But no, the principal said only, “Your
son
is a disruptive influence. I can assure you—”

“Disruptive?” Dad said. “What the hell are you talking about? He's nine years old!”

“He causes trouble, he makes the other children uncomfortable—”

“What?
Uncomfortable?
You let my boy be insulted, set apart from other kids, you do nothing at all when older boys bully him—”

Mr. Chandruhar's voice rose. “We do not allow bullying. We maintain a zero-tolerance policy with regard to bullying.”

“Like hell you do. And now it's not enough that you let the kids bully him, now you've got the goddamn teachers doing it.”

“Mr. Wisdom, watch your language.”

“And to cover it all up, you want to expel my little boy.”

Reflexively, Simon thought how he wasn't little, but really, what did it matter? This was so cool.

“I assure you,” Mr. Chandruhar said, “we are not ‘covering' anything up, as you put it. We take expulsion very seriously here at Chandler Elementary.”

“Oh yeah, I'm sure you do,” Dad said. He held up a business card. “Here's something else you can take seriously. Jessica Green. Senior partner at Green and Blackmore. You heard of her? Her firm represents
my company, and now she's really interested in what you're doing to my boy.”

Simon had no idea who this was, but apparently the principal did, for he actually backed up a step and raised his hands. “Okay,” he said, “let's calm down here. I'm sure we can work something out.”

“You bet we can. Here's what the ‘working out' is going to look like. I'm taking my boy home now so he can recover. Tomorrow he will return to class, where Ms. Bowden will treat him with respect and fairness. And if all goes well—if you actually enforce your zero-tolerance bullying policy—I will tell Jessica to put our lawsuit on hold.”

“Mr. Wisdom, be reasonable. I can't just ignore . . . I have to be fair to Ms. Bowden.”

“You know something?” Dad said. “That's just what Jessie said you would say. ‘Reasonable.' That was the very word. She told me to tell you that she looks forward to
reasoning
with you.”

Simon saw Mr. Chandruhar's hands clench and his jaw harden. But then a moment later he sighed and said, “No, no, I'm sure there's no need . . . I will tell Ms. Bowden to expect Simon to return tomorrow.”

“And to treat him decently.”

“Yes, of course. We treat all our students—”

“Come on, Simon,” Dad said. “Let's get out of here.” Simon grabbed his backpack and followed him out. In the hallway, Miss Harrowey was staring at her desk but couldn't keep a grin from filling her face.

Dad said nothing all the way to the car, and for a minute Simon expected he would punish him now they were away from the principal. But when they got to the car, Dad bent down and hugged him. “I'm so sorry,” he said.

“Dad! That was awesome!”

Startled, Jack Wisdom separated and looked at his son. “Yeah, I guess it was.” He held up his hand and Simon high-fived him. They laughed and got in the car.

“You want ice cream?” Dad said as they drove away.

“Sure. Dad, who's Jessie Green?”

“She's a lawyer who won a big bullying case over in Newtown.”

“And she works for you?”

“Nope. Never met her in my life. I stopped by her office on my way here and picked up some business cards.”

“Wow,” Simon said. “That is so cool!”

Daddy laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is, isn't it?”

Simon's good mood lasted all the way to the Sacred Cow Ice Cream Parlor, a hole-in-the-wall place in a small strip mall. Selling nothing but ice cream and frozen yogurt, “the Cow,” as everyone called it, was a local institution in the fourteenth most livable city. In summer there'd often be a line all the way past the Subway sandwich shop, the pet store and the yoga center. Even today, in mid-April, Jack sighed as he saw a snake of kids stretching out from the door, some twenty or thirty of them, all around Simon's age. In June it might have been a Little League team come to celebrate a victory, but Jack was pretty sure Little League hadn't started yet, and besides, it was two thirty—shouldn't they all be in school? Giddy, Jack thought how none of
them
had an awesome dad to rescue them from the principal's office. He was about to ask Simon if he minded waiting when he saw his son staring at the line, all the old terror suddenly back in his eyes.

Jack said, in that forced manner he almost thought of as his normal speech, “Well, that's a shame. The line, I mean. Shall we try Dairy Queen?”

“I want to go home,” Simon whispered.

“They're just kids” Jack said. “They only want ice cream. Like us.”

Simon stared, his mouth open, until suddenly, all the children turned at the same time to stare at Jack's car.

“Take me home!” Simon yelled. “Now! Now! I want to go home.”

Jack left the parking lot so quickly he nearly crashed into a truck. Neither of them said anything else all the way to their house.