Parker knew that Louis’s father had fallen into the hands of bigoted, violent men, who hanged him from a tree before setting him alight. Many years later Louis returned for those responsible, and burned the tree on which his father had died.
‘He would come to me in my sleep,’ said Louis, ‘wreathed in fire, and his mouth would move as he tried to speak, except nothing ever came out, or nothing I could understand. I used to wonder what he was trying to say. In the end, I figured he was warning me. I think he was telling me not to go looking for vengeance, because he knew what I’d become if I did.
‘So I dreamed him, and I knew I was dreaming him, but when I woke I’d smell him in the room, all shit and gasoline, all smoke and charred meat. I’d tell myself I was imagining it, that these were all smells I knew from before, and the force of the dream was just tricking my mind into putting them together. But it was strong, so strong: it would be in my hair and on my skin for the rest of the day, and sometimes other folks picked up on it too. They’d comment, and I wouldn’t have an answer for them, or none they’d want to hear, and maybe none I’d want to hear either.
‘It would frighten me. Frightened me for most of my life. Angel knew, but no one else. He smelled it on me, smelled it after my nightmares when I woke up sweating beside him in bed, and I didn’t want to lie to him because I’ve never lied to him. So I told him, just like I’m telling you, and he believed me, just like I know you believe me.
‘My father doesn’t come to me so much anymore, but when he does I’m no longer troubled. You know why? Because of you. Because I’ve seen things with you, experienced things that made me understand I wasn’t crazy, and I wasn’t alone. More than that, there’s a consolation to it, to all of this. I think that’s why I came up here tonight, and why I called you. If I lose Angel, I know I’ll find him again. I’ll tear this world apart before I do, and maybe I’ll die burning like my father burned, but that won’t be the end for Angel and me. He’ll wait for me on the other side, and we’ll go together into whatever waits. This I know because of you. I’ve hurt a lot of people, some that didn’t deserve what came to them and some that did, although the distinction meant nothing to me then and doesn’t mean a whole lot now. I could have questioned what I did, but I chose not to. I have blood on my hands, and I’ll shed more before I’m done with this life, but I’ll shed it because I’m following a different path, your path, and I’ll sacrifice myself because I have to, because it’s my reparation. In return, I’ll be allowed to stay with Angel forever. That’s the deal. You tell that to your daughter next time you see her. You tell her to bring it to her god.’
Parker stared hard at him.
‘Just how many cocktails have you had?’
The stillness seemed to encompass the entire bar. All others vanished. It was only these two, and these two alone.
And Louis smiled.
2
Over ice-locked forest, over snow-frozen fields, to the outskirts of a town in the northwest of the state, to a house by the edge of the Great North Woods, to—
To a fairy tale.
The boy’s name was Daniel Weaver. He was five years old, with the kind of seriousness to his face found only in the features of the very young and the very ancient. His eyes, quite dark, were fixed on the woman before him: Holly, his mother, although had one been separated from the other, no stranger would have reunited them by sight alone. She was blond where Daniel was ebony, ruddy where he was wan, light to his shade. She loved him – had loved him from the first – but his temperament, like his coloring, was alien to hers. A changeling, some might have said, left in the cradle while her true son – less troubled than this one, gentler in his soul – was taken to dwell deep below the earth with older beings, and light up their hollows with his spirit.
Except it would not have been true. A stolen child Daniel might be, but not in such a way.
The tantrums came upon him with the suddenness of summer storms: ferocious tumults accompanied by shouts and tears, and a potential for violence to be visited only on inanimate objects. In his rages no toy was safe, no door unworthy of a kick or a slam; but terrible as they were, these moods remained rare and short-lived, and when they had spent themselves the boy would appear dazed in the aftermath, as though shocked by his own capacities.
If the heights of his joys never quite matched these depths, well, no matter, although Holly sometimes wished her son could be a little more at ease with the world, a little less guarded. His skin was too thin, and outside of a few familiar environments – his home, his grandfather’s house, the woods – he remained forever wary.
And even behind the safety of his own walls, there would be moments like this, instances when some strange fear overcame him so that he could not bear to be alone, and could find solace only in his mother’s presence, and in the telling of a tale.
The book in Holly Weaver’s hands was an edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales printed in 1909 by Constable of London, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Some blank pages, of a different texture from the rest, had been added to the volume, although she could not have said why. It was still by far the most valuable book in the house, worth hundreds of dollars, according to the Internet. It would have been worth much more had it been signed by Rackham himself: those copies went for ten or fifteen thousand dollars, more money than Holly had ever possessed at any one time, and certainly more than she could ever imagine paying for a book.
But Holly didn’t know much about book collecting, and would never have contemplated disposing of this one anyway, even had it been hers to sell. It was part of her son’s legacy, a point of connection with another woman, now departed.
And it appeared that Daniel understood its importance, although it was never explained to him. Even in the worst of his tempers, he was always careful to spare his books, and this one maintained pride of place on his topmost shelf. When he was scared or anxious, she would read to him from it, and soon he would fall asleep. By now she felt she could recite most of the stories from memory, but taking the book from its shelf and opening it were elements of the ritual that could not be undone, and had to be followed precisely on each occasion.
Even now, when the tale to be told was not printed in its pages.
‘Tell me the special story,’ Daniel said, and she knew then that this was one of those nights when he was troubled by emotions too complex to be named.
‘Which story?’ she replied, because this, too, was part of the ritual.
‘The story of the Woman in the Woods.’
Holly had given it this title. Call it a moment of weakness. Call it a veiled confession.
‘Don’t you want to hear one of the others?’
A shake of the head, and those oh-so-black eyes unblinking.
‘No, only that one.’
She did not argue, but turned to the back of the book, where a length of red thread held in place a sheaf of additional pages. She was no Rackham, but she’d always been good at art in school, and had poured her heart into creating this story for Daniel. She’d even sized and cut the paper to match the dimensions of the original volume and the tale was handwritten with calligraphic precision.
She cleared her throat. This was her penance. If the truth were ever discovered, she would be able to say that she had tried to tell him of it, in her fashion.
‘Once upon a time,’ she began, ‘there was a young girl who was spirited away by an ogre …’
Later, when Daniel was sleeping, and the book restored to its home, Holly lay in her own bed and stared at the ceiling, her punishment commencing.
Because this, too, was always the same.
Once upon a time there was a young girl who was spirited away by an ogre. The ogre forced the princess to marry him, and she gave birth to a boy.
Holly’s eyes began to close.