“Gone,” he said. “They’re both gone.”
There was a creak from the wall of cabinets. Ben unfastened a telescope from its tripod and held it like a baseball bat. The chief took a large geode from the bookshelf. One of the cabinet doors inched open. Ben could see the rims of two pale eyes watching him.
“Dad?”
“What are you doing in there?” Ben dropped the telescope and heard its lens shatter against the ground.
“Hiding,” Charlie said. He climbed out of the space.
“Where’s Bub?” Ben asked.
“He took him.”
“Who—”
“Where did he go?” the chief asked. “Which way?”
Charlie pointed the way they had come, and the chief took off running again. Ben stared at Charlie. This would have been the time to hug his son, but he didn’t.
“Who was it?”
“Him,” Charlie said. He wouldn’t look at Ben.
“Look at me!” Ben shouted at him. “Who?”
“The man,” Charlie said, wiping at his face. “The man in the smoke.” He stared up at Ben, and his face shone in the light. Ben saw that he was crying.
Ben staggered back into the hall. For a moment he forgot which way the chief had gone. He began to follow him, then stopped.
He wouldn’t believe it. He went back to Bub’s room. He looked under the crib and under the blanket. He lifted the cushion and tore through the laundry.
But he was gone. Bub was gone.
December 18, 1777
Dear Kathy,
I know now that these letters will never be sent, but what have I to do but write them?
We have eaten the last of the flour. Now nothing remains for us but to wait. The hunger that has taken us is strange. It is not of the same kind as when a meal is missed, nor is it like the pangs one feels upon waking after a long sleep. It is a cloak that encloses me, like a husk of corn. Sometimes warm and sometimes cold. Sometimes it is heavy enough to press me into bed, and sometimes it is so light that I imagine I could fly if only I moved my arms swiftly enough.
There are dreams, too, bright and wild, though they are not always bad. It is only upon waking that I regret them. They sit upon my chest like a sin.
Goody Smythe has perished, and so, too, has little Susie Harp. The Coxes died last night. Their stove was extinguished in the night; we do not know whether on purpose or by accident. Martha Goode found them frozen together in one bed. She said that they looked at peace.
Now all of the families stay in the Crofts, as it is the farthest dwelling from the trees. The forest seems to get louder each night, as if the trees themselves are demons. It is difficult to sleep. And when we sleep, the dreams give us no rest. All of us are sacks of bone, except for James. The men watch him to see if he has hidden a store of food for himself. One of them caught him going into the forest last night. I do not know why he goes there or how he still looks so well. He was never a conniving child—had he found food, he would tell us, would he not? But the time here has made us all strange. Men so placid in the warm months have grown violent, and the kindest of women have become cunning. I can now imagine that any terrible thing is possible. Mother has left her bed and tells us that God speaks to her, and she asks us to remain faithful to Him.
Father has also returned to us with renewed vigor. He gives a sermon every morning and every night. His subjects are of the Old Testament, of the tests given the faithful. There is a new light in his eyes since Jack was taken. Sometimes I am myself fired by it, but other times it frightens me, when I did not think I could be frightened any further.
And perhaps he does indeed know what must be done. Are we not the only ones who live while so many are dead? Is that alone not a sign of God’s blessings? What else is there to believe when our own forest has turned against us? But I fear the time is coming when unthinkable things will be asked of us.
I have nearly knocked over my candle laughing, dear sister. People such as you say “the unthinkable” as if there is but one unthinkable thing. But I tell you they are legion, and I come to know a new one each day.
Your Bess
39
Caroline heard it again.
Her ear pressed against the wall, she filtered out the sounds of the heat and plumbing. It was there, she was sure, just beyond the hum of electricity.
Behind her, Charlie tugged at her shirt.
“Come here, honey,” she said.
She hoisted the boy onto her knee without removing her ear from the wall. Normally Charlie would have squirmed under her grip, but all their normal days had been spent and he was docile as a lamb. She pressed his little head against the wall.
“Do you hear it?” she asked. His thick hair still smelled of Johnson & Johnson, just like his brother’s would have.
“I don’t know,” Charlie said after a few long moments. “Is it…is it kind of a scratching?”
“It does sound like scratching sometimes,” Caroline said. “But it’s more of a creaking, I think. And sometimes—”
“There are mice,” Charlie said. “I’ve seen them in the cellar.”
“Not big enough to make that creaking noise. And sometimes there’s another sound, too. If we listen carefully enough, I know you’ll hear it.”
They leaned there like that for a few minutes, their ears pressed against the wall that separated Bub’s room from the hallway.
Caroline tried to focus the entirety of her attention on the noise in the wall. Over the last day she’d discovered that it was a tricky sort of sound, the kind that knew just when your attention began to wander.