“I had to–”
His son’s fist in his stomach was terrifically strong. He doubled over. The kid kicked him in the face. He was barefoot, and that was the only reason Javier kept his teeth. Then his foot crashed into Javier’s ribs. He was little, but it didn’t matter. He was focused. He jumped up and landed on Javier’s shoulders. Javier collapsed onto the floor.
“I hate you!” his son was saying. “I hate you! You bastard, you killed my mother!”
In the crack in the house, a shadow appeared. It growled. Javier struggled to his feet, and easily grabbed his son’s next punch. He pushed it aside gently, and just as carefully pushed his son behind him as he backed away.
The lions had come for the kill.
“What’s happening?” his son whispered.
“Something really bad,” Javier said. “When I tell you, you jump out of here. Then you run. And you don’t stop. You find your brothers and you get the hell off this island.”
One by one, the lions hopped into the house. They congregated at the bed. They pawed delicately at its surface. Their tails flicked, as though they were considering something.
“Now,” Javier said.
His son jumped away. The lions noticed the movement, but didn’t chase after him. Instead, they focused on Javier. He braced himself. He curled his fists. But no attack came. Instead, one of their number padded up to him and slid herself under his hand and along his thigh.
Good work, she seemed to be saying.
“You win,” Javier said. “Congratulations, you crazy old bitch.”
The lioness licked the mud from his hand.
The island was burning.
Javier jumped free of the house to follow his son, but a mist was already rising between their little home island and the big one. It made the jump difficult to estimate. That was fine. He’d walk. He set foot in the water. Too late, he realized there was no membrane to hold him up. The water closed over his head.
He saw the lions enter the water above him. He heard them before he saw them. Their bodies curved elegantly into the water and kicked briefly before orienting themselves. They paddled away toward the big island. He continued sinking. It was cold, down there. He had strong legs and he could have kicked up, but he didn’t. He had no need for air. He had no need for anything.
Beneath him, the island extended way, way down. It was black on black on black, with little glimmers here and there. It looked like a giant fungus, or maybe a massive brain, all that gelatinous mass occasionally sparking with life. The sparks grew more frequent the longer he sank. Trunk lines burned white like lines of traffic at night. Thick cords of light tangled, moved, changed shape. They unhitched themselves from the main body, flailing in the water, thrashing frantically while he remained still. He felt the island’s desperation as it changed. He felt none within himself. He should have been simulating what it was to crunch down into nothingness under the kind of pressure he was about to be under. He should have been trying to leave. He should have. He wasn’t.
It was comforting, almost, to revert back to the guy he’d always been. It was just too difficult for him to be anything else. A real father. A real husband. A real man. It was beyond his operational parameters, beyond his structural capacity. He wasn’t built for it. He saw that, now.
Before him, the island was an inverted city. Her roots hung deep in the water, thick as skyscrapers. They glittered and gleamed like structures of glass and steel. At any time, he realized, Amy could have shot them up from below and made a paradise to rival any human construction. They dangled there, all the unfinished places, the filigreed towers and great crude blocks, the hanging bridges of sighs never breathed. She had held them in reserve. She had let the islanders build what they wanted, instead.
Something cut into him from behind. A clean razor cut just beneath his skin, not painful, noticeable only by the way it tugged his shirt and caught his belt.
The diamond tree had fallen, too. That was fitting. It was heavier, and sinking faster. He freed it from his flesh, and he watched it sink, sparkling, into the depths.
A group of hands clasped it and pulled it lower.
He blinked and tried to see more clearly. But the hands had vanished. They were simply waiting, somewhere below, in the dark. He looked up. The unfinished city seemed closer, now. This close, he could see the decorations Amy had left each building. Some of them, at their crowns and gables, featured what might be gargoyles.
The gargoyles looked an awful lot like the puppet vN.