'Diane,' he managed to say.
She came to him quickly, Eva still clutched in her arms, and as she approached he noticed the room was bright, the light from outside stronger.
'What… who was she?' Diane said, kneeling beside him.
He drew in a breath before he spoke. 'Remember what the Dream Man told me? He said… he said there were others, others like the children… with their power, but opposing forces. He said their beliefs were different…' He couldn't go on, the pain was too great. Time enough to talk of it later.
'Jim, your arm…'
'Yeah, the bitch broke it.' He winced and leaned his forehead on the bed. He drew in a long breath again. 'Is Eva okay?' he asked when the fresh flush of agony had subsided a little.
Diane looked at her daughter who tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it. She rested against her mother's arm and watched Rivers as he turned his body to sit.
'I took Mack's shotgun from his room before I came into the house,' Diane said hurriedly. 'Oh God, I used to hate him using it…'
'You had to do it,' Rivers told her. 'She'd have killed Eva if you hadn't. Probably me, too.'
'Poggsy's in a bad way. I think he's suffered a heart attack. And Bibby's… Bibby's Rivers nodded. 'I think she stabbed one of them before they broke… before they got to her.' He wondered if it had been Mama Pitie who had snapped Bibby's neck like that. God knows she had the strength to do it. 'I got the other one with the same knife.'
'I saw them downstairs. Jim, there was another one. I saw him leaving the house as I came back with the shotgun.'
'Let's hope he's long gone. We've got to do something about Hugo, get him to a hospital 'And you. You'll have to get that arm fixed.'
Eva raised her head from her mother's shoulder and solemnly regarded Rivers, looking from his face to his injured arm. Without a word she stretched out her hand and touched him. She left her mother and knelt down in front of him, her little hand running down the length of his broken arm, starting at the shoulder and moving down to the wrist. He felt the heat from her fingers and the warmth quickly spread through the whole of his arm and shoulder. And as the warmth radiated, so the pain fled before it. The relief was gradual at first, an easing of the pain's sharpness, but soon Eva's magic began to work rapidly, and before long all he could feel was a dull ache. Something clicked and he realised the bones had locked together again.
'Jesus,' he said, staring first at Eva and then at Diane. He tried to move his arm, but it was stiff; stiff but free of pain.
He began to haul himself to his feet and Diane rose with him, taking him beneath the shoulder as she did so. The room became even brighter as lightning lit the troubled sky; this time the thunder followed a moment or two later.
'It's moving away,' Rivers muttered absently as he looked down at Eva. 'Thank you,' he said to her. Tiredness almost overwhelmed him and he leaned heavily against Diane. She held him close and he felt her body jerk with a sudden sob. 'It's over, Diane, the worst is over. Now we've got to help Hugo.'
He noticed the shadows in the room were moving, running back towards the broken window where Eva now stood looking out, the wind whipping at her tousled hair. He realized the light outside was moving upwards. Diane sensed his distraction and followed his gaze. The small light with its ring of colours was about to disappear from view.
'My God,' she said quietly, 'it's beautiful.'
Then it was gone, though its glow still lit Eva's head and shoulders.
'Eva, careful of the broken gla…'
Diane's words were cut off when her daughter screamed, 'Josh!' Rivers and Diane moved quickly to the window and peered down into the courtyard below. A small sound escaped Rivers, for he knew it was not yet all over for them, that the horror had not passed. Clouds rolled towards Hazelrod in a boiling mass, sheet lightning flaring in their vapours as if now unable to escape. Thunder rumbled low and menacing. Towards the far hills a bluish tower swayed erratically.
Rivers had barely noticed these things as he'd taken the few steps towards the window, and now his attention was on Josh who was standing in the centre of the courtyard watching the dark shape that was stirring on the cobblestones. A short distance away the bespectacled man, whose red braces were vivid under the light from above, also watched the rising heap. This one stood by the Grenada, his shirt drenched by the drizzling rain so that his black skin showed through.
Mama Pitie's broad shoulders heaved with the effort, her head slowly raising itself so that she could look at the boy just a few yards away. She stretched out a quivering arm towards him, its fingers bent and broken.
Even from above they could hear her crazed murmurings as she raised herself to her knees, her misshapen hand still pointed towards Josh. They looked on in dread-filled paralysis as she staggered to her feet and stood there, swaying in the wind and the rain. She took one step forward towards the boy, and then another.
'Run, Josh, run! Get away from her!'
Rivers held on to Diane, afraid she would fall as she leaned forward and screamed at her son.
The boy did not move. He seemed mesmerized.
'Josh.'
Eva only spoke the name, but he looked up at the window instantly. His eyes found his sister's.
Diane turned away, ready to make for the stairs, but Rivers held on to her arm.
'I've got to get to him!' she yelled at him, her eyes damp with tears of fear.
'Look,' Rivers said, pointing towards the sky. 'Look…'
The lights were coming from everywhere, moving just below the black roiling clouds, hundreds of them it seemed, the rain causing soft aureoles around each one.
'What are they?' Diane asked in a hushed voice, her body still half turned towards the door. Neither of them could see the smile on Eva's face.
'I'm not sure,' Rivers told her, 'but I think they're help.'
Rain washed the blood from Mama Pitie's face and body, but it could not stem the flow. She knew she was dying, and the incomprehension in her eyes was for the lights that approached in the stormy night sky. She could not understand their presence and she could not understand the light that shone from the boy himself, not a visible radiation but an inner glow that came from his very soul. She blinked as raindrops struck her eyeballs and her vision was unclear, her sight blurred, but there seemed to be others with him now, hundreds, thousands, of children and somehow they were part of the light that shone from within him and part of the lights that were arriving above to cluster over this place where Mother Earth Herself had sent her to carry out her duty to Her, to do Her will, to erase the evil that opposed…
Mama Pitie stumbled, almost collapsing to the ground. She had to reach him, had to hold the boy in her arms, had to crush the life from him so that Mother Earth could reign in Her true glory…
She was in shock and she was dying, but the pain meant little and her life even less. She would shake the boy until his bones broke and his neck snapped. A few more feet, a few more moments, and then she would claim him.
Fresh hatred welled inside Mama Pitie and its strength carried her forward…
The lights were drawing closer, converging, becoming more brilliant, their reflections playing as patterns in the drizzling rain, their movement smooth and swift. The light outside the broken window continued to rise and Rivers, Diane and Eva watched its unwavering ascent; the strengthening winds failed to deflect it from its course as it rose into the sky, soon to become a tiny pinpoint of light that might have been a distant fiery planet in the solar system if the rolling clouds could not be seen above. The other stars resolutely moved towards it and within seconds the first few had joined the single light, merging with it, followed by others, growing into a fulgurating body that swelled ever more as other lights fused with its mass, illuminating the sky, the clouds, bathing the landscape below with its white radiance.
Eva clapped her hands together with excitement, her face caught in the incandescent glow. Diane moaned quietly as if in rapture and Rivers felt its brilliance wash through him, the tiredness and the aching leaving him as if routed by some sublime energy.
It became stronger, pulsating there in the sky like a freshly bom sun, a vibrant union of infinite power.
And then it began to contract, to condense itself, the light becoming too fierce to look upon. Its movement was so quick and so sudden it was almost an implosion, and within moments it was gone.
Diane groaned with disappointment and Rivers shook his head in dismay. But the children laughed, for they felt something inside them-something that might have been their spirit, their life's essence itself-expand and become firm, become strong. It filled them with elation.
But Josh was unaware of Mama Pitie, the Witch Lady of his dream, only a few steps away.
'Oh my God.'
Rivers turned sharply to Diane, who had uttered the words. She was looking straight ahead, beyond the old stables opposite, and now he saw it too, the cyclone, that had been nothing more than a moving bluish tower in the distance before. It was approaching fast, cutting its deadly swathe through the countryside, coming directly towards Hazelrod.
He drew Diane and Eva away from the window and pushed them down on to the floor, yelling at them to stay there as he made for the door. Diane protested but he was already gone, slamming open the window on the landing as he went by so that pressure inside the house would be relatively equal to that outside. It would have been better if he could have opened all the windows and doors, but there was no time, he had to get to Josh and bring him inside before the cyclone reached them. Even then he didn't know how safe they would be, how well Hazelrod's old walls would stand up to the storm. The noise of the rushing wind was tremendous, building to a terrifying crescendo. And then the noise stopped.
He burst through the open front door and pulled himself up as he reached the porch door, grabbing on to its frame to steady himself.
He could hardly believe his eyes.
A soft blue light, almost fluorescent in quality, bathed an area of the courtyard and within its undulating circle, everything was still, everything was quiet. He could see the bespectacled man, his shirt and trousers sodden, standing by the car; he could see the huge, bent shape of the woman called Mama Pitie; and he could see Josh standing before her, his small body looking even tinier against her massive bulk. But he could see nothing beyond the pale blue curved wall of the cyclone's eye.
It was as if someone had clapped their hands over his ears for there was hardly a sound, not even the faint scream of the storm itself. The porch around him was trembling and he noticed little showers of dust were falling from between the brickwork of the walls behind him. The old toy pram creaked and one of the small bicycles clattered to the floor. The inside door shook on its hinges.
'Oh shit,' Rivers said under his breath as he stepped out into this unearthly realm.
He walked to the boy, his footsteps steady but sounding distant, muffled, as if he were underwater; the cobblestones glistened blue. He avoided the sagging figure of the woman and she watched him with sad baleful eyes. She slumped to her knees, a hand still outstretched to touch the boy. It wavered inches away from Josh's face. Finally the effort was too great and her hand dropped to her side, blood drooling from her broken fingers and making a puddle.
The man, the one whose braces were now purple under the eerie light, opened his mouth, but Rivers could not hear what he called, the sound smothered by pressure inside the circle. He seemed transfixed, one hand still on the car door, and his jaw continued to move as he shouted towards Rivers.
Rivers ignored him. As if in slow motion, he swung the boy up into his arms, then took a moment to look up into the vortex. The smooth wall comprised opaque rings which undulated gently, creating a ripple effect that ran upwards and out of view, the whole of it swaying to and fro. He could see that the upper reaches were partially filled by a blue-grey mist, and inside that mist, a soft light glimmered. He knew that light.
He looked away and walked back towards the house, not speaking to Josh, afraid the strange spell would be broken if he uttered a sound. The boy was quiet too.
As they passed her, Mama Pitie fell forward, her hands holding her there on her knees, while her life's blood drained in a constant stream.
The air was difficult to breathe and his lungs heaved with the exertion; he felt Josh's chest labouring against his own. Almost there now, almost at the porch steps. A few feet to go. Relief began to creep into him.
But with only three more strides to take, the cyclone began to move. It closed in on itself with a grinding shriek of rushing wind, snapping up both man and car at its outer edge and shrinking inwards with great speed. The huge bulk that was Mama Pitie was lifted into the air and her dying screech mingled with the screaming of the wind. She was gone in a split second, thrust into the howling storm, her great black body lost in the furious night.
Rivers lingered not a moment longer. He threw himself and Josh through into the open doorway and into the hall beyond.
33
The rain ceased shortly after the sun appeared over the horizon. The wind had eased and finally stopped some hours before.
Josh and Eva stood in Hazelrod's doorway. Hand in hand, they stepped out.
Only a few broken timbers remained of the porch and they carefully trod over the pieces of scattered wood and walked down the two steps into the courtyard. Diane and Rivers followed, but lingered on the bottom step and looked around them.