Harvest of Changelings (39 page)

The glamour grew thin when the last of the sunlight faded and the rain and the lightning began. When the first lightning bolt struck in an eastbound lane, he knew the herbal magic was wearing thin, too. Not that there was a malevolent Zeus or Thor taking aim at the St. Mary's van, but that the circle of protection surrounding it was shrinking. Fire spurted and sizzled out of the cracked pavement and almost without a time lag, thunder smashed into the van, rocking it back and forth, pushing it onto the side of the road. For a long, long moment, the priest knew he was driving on two wheels. Then, with a hard thud and a bounce, the van tipped back onto all four.

He stopped; he had to, the rain was like gunfire on the roof and the sides. His heart was racing; his entire body shook with fear.

“Everybody all right? I'm calling roll, Ben?” Jamey said when he could finally speak.

He looked over at the passenger seat, where Ben sat, his head thrown back, breathing hard. “I'm okay, just really scared,” Ben whispered. “Check on the kids, on Jack.”

“We bounced around a lot, but we're okay,” Jeff called, his voice shaky. “Me and Haze and Russ.”

“What about Malachi and Jack?”

“They sort of fell on top of each other when the van tilted—still breathing, I just checked,” Hazel said. “Still asleep—but they groaned a lot.”

I'm fine I will look after them.

“Thanks, Alex. Okay, find something to hold onto, and don't let go. It's going to be rough and slow from here on in. We're just past the turnoff for the Durham Freeway, and the rain is so hard I can't go really fast—”

Lightning struck again, this time somewhere in the trees to their right. Fire again blazed up out of the greyness and the hammering rain.

“Let's go. I think we will have two more legs of this trip—to what we can find close to Chapel Hill now, and then again, tomorrow morning, to what we can find close to the Devil's Tramping Ground. I've got a map of North Carolina churches; I've got some in mind. Hang on.”

By the time they got to Exit 276, Fayetteville Road and NCCU, the greyness had become darkness. And things in the air, riding the storm, had found them.

The things howled, they roared, they screamed, they wailed, louder and more piercingly than any banshee. They raked their claws on the now shredded and fading glamour, tearing off more chunks, the raking worse than any fingernails on any blackboard or piece of Styrofoam. The van swayed this way, that, as the things swooped, banged their tails, their heads, on the roof, the back door, the side. Somebody—was it Jeff, Russell?—screamed in the back—no,
oh, my God—it was Jack.
Somebody else was crying. Lightning kept flashing, striking the earth, exploding. Jamey shuddered, remembering the service station at the 276 exit, an Exxon station, roaring in flames. It had, at least, pushed back the dark.

“Ben,” Jamey shouted, as the van swayed again. “You are going to have to drive—I need to try and strengthen the glamour, drive them off.”
God, please help me do this.
I
am so scared.

“Drive? Switch places?” Ben shouted back. “Are you crazy?”

“You have to. Come on, get over here, I will hold on until you take the wheel.”

The van swayed again and swerved into the other lane and back, off the pavement, back on. A hard gust of wind slapped it back again, as some thing, screaming, ripped off a piece of the glamour. The van shuddered—something had struck the side—had the metal buckled?
God, please, give us time.

“Okay, I got the wheel, now go do your magic,” Ben yelled. Jamey lurched to the passenger seat, fell in, closed his eyes, reached out with one hand to take the handle above the window, and began to center in, find the place where the magic was, where the glamour had been grown.

Exit 273, Jordan Lake. 270, 15-501. Greensboro 50 miles.

A thing landed on the top of the van, then another, and another. They screamed, they snarled, and one ripped off the luggage rack, sending it banging into the rain and the wind and the dark. Then they flew off, and another hovered—
how can it do that in this wind?
—above the van, and swiped at it with its tail, knocking the van again and again. Ben wrestled with the steering wheel, cursing and praying at the same time. And he wrestled with his fear—no, he was way past fear, this was terror. Everything he had been afraid of since he was a kid had come back, including the dark, muttering monsters under the bed, big growling dogs, being lost in the dark.
Being scared
and
still going on, that's being brave. I can be brave. I am brave.

“We are about to run out of Chapel Hill exits. Hurry up, Jamey,” Ben yelled, trying to look over at the priest—
oh my God, had he fallen asleep—no, no, unconscious? God, please, please, help us.
“Jamey, wake the fuck up. Jamey!”

 

Jamey found the place, deep inside, where no wind howled, no rain fell, no monsters screamed. There was only the transparent white of the glamour.

Another thing, larger, heavier than all the rest, swooped out of the rain, its wings a blackness in and of themselves.

It was a dragon.

Flames splashed against the van, the window beside Ben cracked, behind him he heard other glass cracking. He wanted to run and run, as far away as he could.

“I've got to take this exit—266—Jamey—do it
now
.” Ben swerved off the interstate, the van almost skipping up the ramp, the dragon swooping, slapping at it with its tail, blistering the metal with its fire.
One slash of its claws tore off the spare on the back door. More lightning strikes, here, there, in the next lane, thunder almost incessant, an avalanche of sound.

Malachi and Jack were scrunched together in one corner of the van, their bodies thrown side by side, the quilts and blankets all wrapped in and around them, the mattresses tight against each other. Alex lay against Malachi, who was on the outside, his claws dug in the mattress, pushing against the boy's body. Jack was pressed into the van wall, a pillow between him and the metal.

They weren't asleep, Russell could tell that. They weren't awake, either—more of a fever dream, a delirium he envied. He, Jeff, and Hazel were also scrunched together, wedged against the opposite van wall and the back of the seat, holding onto each other. Russell had one hand pressed against the van, the other locked with Jeff's. Jeff. Russell had never been this afraid. He had never given in to crying before, either. If the van crashed, or slid off the road—that was one thing. A wreck, big deal—how many times had his dad wrecked? But, if the things landing on the top broke through, they would be upon them, eating them, tearing out their hearts, their souls—his, Jeff's, everybody's. They would have had him back in Garner; they almost had. Russell leaned into Jeff again, pressing as close as he dared, into safety—knowing that even if the things broke through, this was a safe place. But he couldn't stop crying.

 

Jeff squeezed Russell's hand back, keeping his eyes tightly closed. He squeezed Hazel's on the other side. Like Russell, she was pressing into him, as close as she could, as if whatever he had was enough—enough for what? Jeff didn't know. At least his father wasn't with the things attacking the van. But the things knew his father—and they would take him to his father, if they could stop the van.

A bounce, a slide, and a jerk, as Ben righted the van, got it going straight down the interstate again.

If all of this would just be over. Please, let all of this just be over.

 

Hazel wanted her grandmother; she wanted her grandfather. She wanted to go home. But, if she did—what would happen if she asked Father Jamey to just stop the van, let her out? Let the storm pick her up, take the winds up, up, up, into the roiling clouds, and—

And the link between her, Malachi, Jeff, and Russell would be broken, perhaps forever. She would miss that. No. It would be more than mere missing. She would be incomplete. And how would her grandparents really miss her? Hazel shook her head; she didn't have an answer to that question, which, in a way, was an answer.

Something walloped the van, hard. The nearest window cracked, a spider web appearing out of nowhere in the glass.

The link was bigger than her grandparents—Hazel knew that. They would want her to be a part of it, tell her she was meant to be. Hazel knew that, too.

He was in a—car? A truck? No, a van—was that it? Yes. He was holding onto—a man, and adult, who was this? Not his dad—Uncle Jack. And Malachi felt Uncle Jack's sickness, a dark fever akin to his own. Where were—right there: Hazel, Jeff, Russ. Still connected, terrified, tired, sleepy, asleep.
I have to hold on; that's all. I just have to hold on.

 

Thomas? Where are you? Where's my little boy? Where's my sweet little boy? Is that you? You want me to come there, to come to you? Of course, I love you, son. I love you more than anything, you know that.

NC 86: Chapel Hill, to the left, Hillsborough to the right. The dragon wasn't going to let him turn left. And there were other
things
waiting at the light, at the bridge over 40. Writhing, screaming hydras. Ben swerved again to the right and down a hill, trying desperately to remember this stretch of road, what lay ahead.
Something
hit the roof—not the dragon, this time, too light, and Ben slammed on the brakes, and a fat scaly winged, black thing, about the size of a beach ball, bounced off the windshield, the hood, and lay still on the pavement.
One for our side,
and Ben gunned the van over the thing, and its body exploded, splattering the glass with pus-yellow blood. The wipers smeared the pus into the beating rain. Almost as soon as the pus was gone, another beach ball-sized thing attacked. This one Ben swerved to take out, the pus splashing the hood, with one wing speared by the radio antenna. The third beach ball-thing snapped off after impaling itself—thanks to more of Ben's swerves.

“
Yeeeesss
. That makes three,” Ben crowed. “Jamey, wake up.”
Ben was still terrified—more terrified than he had ever been in his entire life—but now, he was in the crazy zone. He wanted to laugh—and he did, loud, long, whooping laughter, just this side of hysterical.

“I'm back. Way to go, Ben,” Jamey yelled. “And that gave me just enough time—”

Then the dragon, screaming, came back and slammed into the van, throwing Ben off the edge of the road. Just then, as Ben got back onto the asphalt, the van bouncing, as the dragon slapped the roof with its tail, Jamey began to glow, his body almost transparent, now filled with an intense, shimmering white. It poured out of his hand into the handle, and like a slow stain, into the van itself.

A trailer park, on fire from lightning strikes, down a hill, up, around a curve, a pond on the right, its rising water a froth.

The door beside Jamey glowed. The dragon blasted the van again with fire and somewhere Ben heard glass breaking and shattering. No more laughing, just insanely giddy—
wheee
—knowing he could falter, fall, into the whiplashing nightmares where the things waited with sharp teeth, where he would only be able to scream and scream and scream. Hold
on, I've got to hold on.
His fingers ached from the holding.

More trailers burning, a store, a white frame house—all on fire. Bouncing over a train track, over a creek, slooshing through the flood waters there, another curve.

The white oozed into the roof, the sliding door behind Jamey, into the instrument panel, and the more it oozed, the faster.
God, please let us make it.
The dragon swooped again—and this time, it screamed in pain, as if it had struck something hard and sharp.

Was that a sign for a church? New Hope Presbyterian, yes, on the left, a sharp turn, up a hill, a hill of running water, slowing the van, into the church parking lot, the cemetery on the right, a white house in flames on the left.

A side road, down to a side entrance, lightning striking the cemetery, an explosion of granite and marble and plastic flowers. Dark water swirling around the van's hubcaps. Coffins erupted out of the earth. The dragon attacked again and screamed again, in greater pain. The white glow filled the van, everything, everywhere, even Ben—glowing, glowing, shimmering.

Ben braked, the van slid, and he heard metal scraping brick and then the van stopped, right in front of a door.

My hands hurt. And sitting here, writing with a pen, on paper, makes them hurt even more. I have bruises on the palms of my hands. I found some paper in a Sunday School classroom and here I sit, on the pale-green carpeted steps of the altar, in the sanctuary, candles beside me. Jamey says we will be the safest here, even if we had to carry Jack and Malachi up a flight of stairs. Besides, the downstairs is mid-calf-deep in water. And their mattresses, and quilts, everything. I had to carry Malachi myself; Jack was finally awake enough to sort of walk. He told me he had dreamed of Thomas when he was a little boy.

There are others here in the church; I thought there would be. Some families, couples, a few singles. We haven't talked to them much. I don't think they want to talk, really. I did ask about their minister, but she was in the parsonage—the manse, they said—when it was hit by lightning. They think she's dead. Probably. A man and his son helped us get the mattresses up the stairs, then they left us alone.

Jamey said he would keep my journal after we cross. Says it might help those changelings that don't. He thinks there might be many who don't.

The ceiling of this sanctuary—the nave, is that the right word?—is high and the wood is stained cedar, a reddish stain. The wood of the altar, the pulpit, the pews: light, blond, satiny—oak? And each window, frosted glass, turning the outside into an impressionist painting, not that there is much I can see tonight. The lights are out—but someone has put candles in each window and on the altar and lit each one. Single, white flickering lights. Behind the altar a huge window in the shape of a Celtic cross. I've walked around the church, too, quietly, on the carpet-lined stairs, in and out of Sunday School classrooms, with drawings and pictures and collages on the bulletin boards. The Boy Scout bulletin board downstairs in the water-filled fellowship hall, with the merit badge chart. The nursery with the big cardboard bricks, well-worn and loved stuffed animals everywhere, Lego's, Lincoln Logs, a spinning mobile above the crib. The preacher's office—a very organized woman. Papers neatly stacked, folders labeled This Sunday's
Sermon, Last Sunday, Next Sunday. At a precise 45-degree angle on her blotter a picture of her two sons, one holding an overweight grey-and-white cat. The huge, leather-bound King James Bible on the preaching lectern, the oversized large print Revised Standard Version on a shelf beneath it.

I didn't speak to the others, those camping out in the classrooms. It's late, many are sleeping, and they are just so scared. My own fears are quiescent, just below this exhausted calm, this somewhere between shock and just too tired.

I wonder where the pastor is, those two boys, their fat cat, and if they burned up when their house was hit by lightning. She didn't have many notes in This Sunday's Sermon folder, just a few lines on God as mystery.

Malachi gets sicker and sicker, weaker and weaker. His body radiates the fever so much that he is bathed in a red light. He is becoming transparent—just at the edges, his finger tips, his ears. Jack has a fever, too, and that cut on his chest still trickles blood. Not to mention the bruises from being tossed around in the back of the van, and the burn on his back. Father Jamey's fairy herbs don't help much anymore. I remember reading somewhere in all the books I have read on fairy lore that a fairy-wound can't be cured by mortal means. That even if the wound is invisible, it still causes pain and a slow death.

There is nothing I can do to help my son and my best friend. Loving them isn't enough.

There doesn't seem to be much I can do about anything. I can sit with Jack and Malachi, hold them, wipe their foreheads with cool washcloths, and none of it helps. Jack is at least awake, and I can talk to him, but Malachi is lost in some fever-dream. Even the other kids can't get through anymore. They sense his dreams—and even, I think, take part in his dreams—but they can't wake him.

I know where we have to go tomorrow, what we have to do. Another mad ride in the van, down 86, straight through Chapel Hill, onto 15-501, over the Haw. (I wish I could show Malachi the big dam there—is it still there? Not split open by lightning?) Around the circle, around the courthouse in Pittsboro, until we hit 902. Across the Rocky River. Father J swears we will find a church somewhere around Bear Creek. And then we wait there until almost midnight—one last dash to the Devil's Tramping Ground. Then counter-clockwise, nine times, at midnight and the gate will be open and we will cross over and my son and my best friend will be saved. These children will be able to be what they could never be here.

What will I do there?

The witches and the dark things and the Fomorii will be there, too. We will have to get past them to walk on the circle. There will be others like us, changelings trying to cross over. Well, like them—I'm not changing.

Dear Lord, help us.