“Of never having two nights in one bed,” said Chavisory.
Luchóg added, “I haven’t had a smoke since that man nearly shot off my head.”
Béka raked his face with his palm, considering our demands in the haze of half-sleep. He began to pace before us, two steps to the left, pivot, two steps to the right. When he stopped and folded his arms behind his back, he showed that he would prefer not to have this conversation, but we did not listen to such silent refusals. A breeze rattled the upper branches of the trees.
Smaolach stepped up to him. “First of all, nobody respects and admires your leadership more than me. You have kept us from harm and led us out of darkness, but we need a new camp, not this wandering aimlessly. Water nearby and a way back to civilization. We decided—”
Béka struck like a snake, choking off the rest of the sentence. Wrapping his fingers around Smaolach’s throat, he squeezed until my friend dropped to his knees. “I decide. You decide to listen and follow. That’s all.”
Chavisory rushed to Smaolach’s defense but was smacked away by a single backhanded slap across her face. When Béka relaxed his grip, Smaolach fell to the ground, gasping for breath. Addressing the three of us still standing, Béka pointed a finger to the sky and said, “I will find us a home. Not you.” Taking Onions by the hand, he strode off into the night. I looked to Speck for reassurance, but her eyes were fixed upon the violent spot, as if she were burning revenge into her memory.
? CHAPTER 21 ?
I am the only person who truly knows what happened in the forest. Jimmy’s story explained for me the mystery of the drowned Oscar Love and his miraculous reappearance several days later. Of course, it was the changelings, and all the evidence confirmed my suspicion of a failed attempt to steal the child. The dead body was that of a changeling, an old friend of mine. I could picture the face of the next in line but had erased their names. My life there had been spent imagining the day when I would begin my life in the upper world. As the decades passed, the cast of characters had shifted as, one by one, each became a changeling, found a child, and took its place. In time, I had come to resent every one of them and to disregard each new member of our tribe. I deliberately tried to forget them all. Did I say a friend of mine had died? I had no friends.
While gladdened by the prospect of one less devil in the woods, I was oddly disturbed by Jimmy’s account of little Oscar Love, and I dreamt that night of a lonely boy like him in an old-fashioned parlor. A pair of finches dart about an ironwork cage. A samovar glistens. On the mantelpiece sits a row of leather-bound books gilded with Gothic letters spelling out foreign titles. The parlor walls papered crimson, heavy dark curtains shutting out the sun, a curious sofa covered with a latticed needlework throw. The boy is alone in the room on a humid afternoon, yet despite the heat, he wears woolen knickers and buttoned boots, a starched blue shirt, and a huge tie that looks like a Christmas bow. His long hair cascades in waves and curls, and he hunches over the piano, entranced by the keyboard, doggedly practicing an étude. From behind him comes another child, the same hair and build, but naked and creeping on the balls of his feet. The piano player plays on, oblivious to the menace. Other goblins steal out from behind the curtains, from under the settee; out of the woodwork and wallpaper, they advance like smoke. The finches scream and crash into the iron bars. The boy stops on a note, turns his head. I have seen him before. They attack as one, working together, this one covering the boy’s nose and throat, another taking out the legs, a third pinning the boy’s arms behind his back. From beyond the closed door, a man’s voice: “Was ist los?” A thumping knock, and the door swings open. The threshold frames a large man with outrageous whiskers. “Gustav?” The father cries out as several hobgoblins rush to restrain him while the others take his son. “Ich erkenne dich! Du willst nur meinen Sohn!”
I could still feel the anger in their eyes, the passion of their attack. Where is my father? A voice pierces the dream, calling “Henry, Henry,” and I awaken to a damp pillowcase and twisted sheets. Stifling a yawn, I yelled downstairs that I was tired and that this had better be good. My mother shouted back through the door that there was a telephone call and that she was not my secretary. I threw on my bathrobe and headed downstairs.
“This is Henry Day,” I grunted into the receiver.
She laughed. “Hi, Henry. This is Tess Wodehouse. I saw you out in the woods.”
She could not imagine the reasons for my awkward silence.
“When we found the boy. The first one. I was with the ambulance.”
“Right, the nurse. Tess, Tess, how are you?”