“Oh, you’re such an awful liar. Would you like a cup of coffee? How about I fry you a couple of eggs?” She busied herself at the stove, and I sat at the kitchen table, its surface pocked with marks left from dropped pots and pans, nicked by knives, and lined with faint impressions of letters written there. The morning light stirred memories of our first breakfast together.
“Sorry I was so long in answering the door,” she said above the sizzle. “I was on the phone with Charlie. He’s off in Philadelphia, tying up loose ends. Is everything all right with you?”
I was tempted to tell her everything, beginning with the night we took away her son, going back further to a little German boy snatched away by changelings, and ending with the tale of the stolen score. But she looked too careworn for such confessions. Tess might be able to handle it, but the story would break my mother’s heart. Nonetheless, I needed to tell someone, at least provisionally, of my past errors and the sins I was about to commit.
“I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately. Seeing things, not truly myself. Like I’m being followed by a bad dream.”
“Followed by troubles is the sign of a guilty conscience.”
“Haunted. And I’ve got to sort it out.”
“When you were a baby, you were the answer to my prayers. And when you were a little boy, remember, I used to sing you to sleep every night. You were the sweetest thing, trying to sing along with me, but you could never carry a tune. That certainly changed. And so did you. As if something happened to you that night you ran away.”
“It is like the devils are watching me.”
“Don’t believe in fairy tales. The trouble is inside, Henry, with you. Living in your own head.” She patted my hand. “A mother knows her own son.”
“Have I been a good son, Mom?”
“Henry.” She rested her palm against my cheek, a gesture from my childhood days, and the grief over losing my score abated. “You are who you are, for good or ill, and no use torturing yourself with your own creations. Little devils.” She smiled as if a fresh thought had entered her mind. “Have you ever thought whether you’re real to them? Put those nightmares out of your head.”
I stood to go, then bent and kissed her good-bye. She had treated me kindly over the years, as if I had been her own son.
“I’ve known all along, Henry,” she said.
I left the house without asking.
I resolved to confront them and find out why they were tormenting me. To flush out those monsters, I would go back into the woods. The Forest Service provided topographical maps of the region, the areas in green indicating woodland, the roads drawn in meticulous detail, and I laid a grid over the likely areas, dividing the wilderness into manageable plats. For two days, despite my loathing for the forest and my aversion to nature, I explored a few of those squares, looking for their lair. The woods were emptier than when I lived there—the occasional hammering of a woodpecker, skinks sunning themselves on rocks, the raised white flag of one deer running away, and the lonesome hum of greenbottle flies. Not much life, but plenty of junk—a swollen copy of Playboy; a four-of-hearts playing card; a tattered white sweater; a small mound of empty cigarette packages; a canteen; a tortoiseshell necklace on a pile of stones; a stopped watch; and a book stamped Property of County Library.
Aside from the dirt on its cover and the slight musty odor to its pages, the book was intact. Through the mildewed pages, the story revolved around a religious fanatic named Tarwater or Tearwater. I gave up reading novels in childhood, for their artificial worlds mask rather than reveal the truth. Novelists construct elaborate lies to throw off readers from discovering the meaning behind the words and symbols, as if it could be known. But the book I found might be just the thing for a fourteen-year-old hellion or some religious misfit, so I took it back to the library. Virtually nobody was there on that midsummer day, except for a cute girl behind the counter.
“I found this in the woods. It belongs to you.”
She looked at the novel as if it were a lost treasure, brushed off the grime, and opened the back cover. “Just a minute.” She leafed through a stack of stamped cards. “Thank you, but this has not been checked out at all. Did you forget?”
“No,” I explained. “I found it, and wanted to return it to the rightful owners. I was looking for something else.”
“Maybe I can help you?” Her smile reminded me of so many other librarians, and a small twinge of guilt poked me in the ribs.
I leaned close and smiled at her. “Do you have any books on hobgoblins?”
She skipped a beat. “Hobgoblins?”
“Or fairies. Imps, trolls, sprites, changelings, that sort of thing?”