Valknut: The Binding, page 23
Shocked, he looked down at his stubborn shoes. His hand raised on its own, clenched around something hard. One by one, the fingers uncurled, though he didn’t will them to. The house key lay in the palm of his hand.
Horrified, he tried to fling it away again, but it stayed in his hand. His traitorous feet turned him back toward the house. The hand reached for the doorknob. This time, he couldn’t stop himself. The key slid smoothly into the lock and the door opened.
Moonlight streamed through the picture window, highlighting the blocky shape of Bill’s armchair to the left of the door. A couch ran along the far wall. At its elbow yawned the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
The floor was covered with what looked like a hobo jungle for Barbie and all her friends. Jim’s feet threaded relentlessly through the clutter. He fought his rebelling body until sweat stood out on his face, but the dark arch of the hallway loomed closer. That’s when the true nightmare began. One after another, hideous images paraded through his mind. Images of himself with Ashley, torturing her, doing unspeakable things, finally throwing her limp body into the Mississippi. He tried to close his eyes, to shut out the visions, but how could he escape pictures in his own mind?
A scream swelled in his throat, but his mouth wouldn’t let it out. No! he wanted to say. I never did that! I wouldn’t...
Yet these weren’t false memories. As sure as he knew his own name, he knew he was being shown the things he would do. And, just as certain, he knew this was as much a punishment for Bill as for himself, though he didn’t know what for.
He was in the hallway. The moonlight didn’t reach this far. He could only see the dim outlines of doorways, the dark rectangle of a painting on the wall. He knew the painting showed a lighthouse on a rocky hillside. Bill’s grandmother had painted it from a magazine picture. Jim stared hard at it now, wishing it would light up and burn the darkness from his brain. Then he was past it, and the hallway only got darker.
He was at Ashley’s doorway. Drawings were taped all over its surface, obscured by darkness, like windows he couldn’t see through. His hand reached for the doorknob. He willed it to stop, and for a moment it seemed to work. He became a statue, unable to go back, unwilling to go forward.
But only for a moment.
Yellow eyes burned in his mind, shredding his will like torn tissue, and he knew he couldn’t fight this thing. His eyes grew hot, casting yellow light on one of Ashley’s drawings—a crayon bird flying on impossibly small wings. He grasped the door. His trapped screams echoed through his mind, and behind the screams he heard the howl of animal laughter.
He was in Ashley’s room. A blue canary nightlight cast a dim light on her sleeping face. The candy smell of a child’s perfume hung in the air. Her room was as messy as the living room, her desk and floor littered with toys and dirty clothes. He lifted a pair of leggings from the back of her desk chair and stretched them between his hands. Ashley muttered in her sleep. He froze and watched her roll to her side, her white-blond hair tinted blue by the nightlight. She cuddled around her stuffed bunny, but did not wake up.
The yellow eyes in his mind glowed brighter. Slowly, he wrapped the ends of the leggings around each fist. His feet tread softly toward the bed. Heat spread from his groin and he felt himself grow hard.
His mind began to gibber in horrified panic. Tears ran down his face—the only action that was his own. He struggled for control as he leaned over the girl. This was Ashley, the same age as Jessie. Ashley, who ran to him when he came for a visit, who didn’t care that his brain didn’t work quite right, who loved him in his shabby clothes, who would hug him through the smell of the railroads. A child, a baby, and he loved her more than he loved himself. Anger surged in him, real and all his own.
I am Jungle Jim Tuttle and I will not do this thing.
He built an image of himself in his mind, a clown in a bow tie and yellow shoes, with laugh lines around his eyes and a heart that beat in its own time. A man who would die to protect a child. The Jungle Jim in his mind reached into an imaginary duffle bag and rummaged through silk scarves and decks of cards, discarding Mexican jumping beans, a hand buzzer, and a squeaky nose. Then he found what he needed.
He pulled forth a plastic flower and faced the glowing eyes. Foreign, wolfish laughter filled his mind. He ignored it and stepped closer to the eyes, holding out the flower. A tube dangled from it, with a bulb on the end. Gathering all his will, all his need and love, he squeezed the bulb. A thin stream of water sprayed out.
The eyes blinked.
Jungle Jim wrenched control of his body. He had only an instant, but an instant was enough. He staggered backward, crashing into the desk chair. The chair tipped over and fell onto a toy piano, which began to play a tinny version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Before he could move again, the yellow eyes were back. His body no longer belonged to him.
That’s all right, he thought. I don’t need it anymore.
Ashley sat up in bed and stared wildly around the room. Jim stood next to her desk, a dark figure to the child, face obscured in shadow except for glowing yellow eyes. She gathered the covers to her chin and screamed the thin dog-whistle scream of a child. Jim crossed the room and clasped a hand over her mouth, but the piano played on and on.
The bedroom door burst open.
There was a pause. The piano segued to “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Then there was a man’s shout and a flash and a loud noise. Jim’s body spun around. A second noise. Jungle Jim slammed into the closet door and slid to the floor.
The laughter in his head became a howl of rage rampaging through his mind like a mad dog. Jim smiled, his face his own again. He was free.
***
Bill fumbled at the wall next to the door and switched on the light. He kept his weapon trained on the figure sprawled by the closet. The guy didn’t move. Good thing. Bill’s hands were shaking so badly he’d probably miss if he had to shoot again. He risked a glance at Ashley. She huddled on the bed, sobbing into Bun Bun’s matted fur, but she seemed all right. Relief washed through him, leaving him weak. He lowered the gun and sank to his knees.
But in one small part of his mind, the place where Fenrir dwelled with his threatening yellow eyes, Bill knew he would have been almost as relieved if she had died.
The thought sickened him.
“Everything’s all right now, baby,” he said, though he knew it wasn’t. Not for him. “You just stay right there.”
The man by the closet groaned and raised one knee as though trying to sit up. Bill lifted the gun, his finger tensed on the trigger. From the clothes, it looked like some kind of bum. He wondered how the guy got into his house. Then he saw the shoes. Bright yellow, from the eyelets to the soles.
“Jim!” He dropped the gun and climbed to his feet. “Oh, my God—what have I done?”
Jim lay still again, his face ashen. His polka-dotted bow tie had twisted so that one loop touched his chin. His jacket had fallen open. Blood bubbled from two soupy patches on his chest, already soaking into the carpet. He looked into Bill’s face and smiled.
Bill grabbed one of Ashley’s blouses and pressed it to the wound closest to Jim’s heart. The blood soaked through it in seconds. “Oh, Jim, I’m so sorry...I didn’t know it was you. I thought someone was...I thought Ashley was—”
He couldn’t even say what he had thought. “I’ve got to get help—get you to a hospital. They’ll make you better, I promise. Just hold on.”
Jungle Jim stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“No.” The air gurgled in Jim’s lungs when he breathed. “I’m catchin’ the train to Glory, Bill. Nothin’ gonna stop that now.”
His eyes were clear, as if he had never had that accident. Maybe more clear than they had ever been. Bill stared at him, not understanding. “Come on, Jim. Stay with me. I’ll go call an ambulance.”
Jim gripped Bill’s arm tightly, not letting him go. The blood flowed so quickly from his wounds.
“I’m not the one that needs savin’, Billy boy. You already did that.” Jim struggled for another breath. “Now you gotta save yourself.”
His hand relaxed and slipped from Bill’s arm. A small, wheezing gasp escaped his mouth and his chest did not rise again. Bill knelt next to his friend, too shocked to move or even to cry.
“Daddy?”
He felt a small hand on his shoulder and looked up. Ashley stood next to him, clean and beautiful in a mint green nightgown. She stared at Jim’s body, her eyes large and lower lip trembling. “Is–is Uncle Jim dead?”
Bill nodded, unable to speak. Shock had drained the color from Ashley’s face. Her gaze didn’t move from the body. She had never seen a dead person before. Bill wasn’t sure she knew what it meant to be dead. He wrapped his arms around her, shielding her from the sight. Tension had robbed her of softness and she felt like a bundle of sticks. How could he ever explain to her why he had shot her favorite friend?
“He scared me, Daddy.” She began to shake. “Why was Uncle Jim in my room?”
He looked down at the body, suddenly blank. Long ago, Bill had given Jim a standing invitation to sleep on the couch, had even told him where the key was hidden. Jim had stayed with them often, but would hardly leave the living room, as though afraid to overstep his welcome. Even after all these years, he wouldn’t use the bathroom without asking permission. Jim had never gone into Ashley’s bedroom before.
Bill scanned the room with a policeman’s eye. The desk chair had fallen on its side. The clothes and books that had been piled on it were scattered wide, as though the chair had been hit with some force. The back of the chair still rested on the toy piano. He had always hated that piano, with its insistent, off-key songs. Now he hated it even more. Without its infernal noise, Jim might still be alive.
Then he saw the leggings clenched in Jim’s outstretched hand. Their black fabric seemed to swell in his vision, screaming their horrible purpose. And he knew what had happened—what had really happened.
It seemed Fenrir had found a way to make Bill kill Jungle Jim, after all. The punishment might have gone further than that, if Jim hadn’t crashed the chair into that god-awful piano.
Bill nestled his cheek in the softness of Ashley’s hair and stared at Jim’s body. “I think I should be thanking you, old friend,” he murmured.
It was time to call the police and put an end to it. Time for it all to stop.
Chapter 17
“Can I pinch her awake?”
“Tsk, you’re such a naughty thing.”
“Am not. I just don’t want to wait forever.”
“Quiet, you two. Look—she’s waking up.”
***
Lennie didn’t want to wake up. She ignored the whispers and burrowed deeper into her dream, where she soaked in a bubble bath, sipping licorice spice tea while unseen hands rubbed her shoulders. But it was no use. She couldn’t convince herself she was warm when sleeping in damp clothing inside of a damp box. She let her eyes flutter open, expecting to see dimly lit cardboard walls. Instead, a triangle of odd faces peered down at her. A bare light bulb dangled from an orange extension cord suspended high above their heads, casting their faces in shadow.
“Who—what is...” Lennie tried to sit up, but only her eyes would move. “Where—”
“When and why,” said a creaky voice coming from the figure stationed at the top of Lennie’s head. “Those are very good questions.”
With a start, Lennie realized it was the bag lady she had met before the poetry reading. She still wore the flower-print hodgepodge and her fingers worked ceaselessly at her knitting.
“That’s why we’re here,” said another voice. It belonged to a younger woman at Lennie’s left. She was dark-skinned, dreadlocked and wore wire-rimmed reading glasses at the end of her nose. Enough beads and crystals hung around her neck to decorate a Christmas tree.
“I don’t understand.” Lennie’s head was still cloudy with sleep. “What’s why you’re here?”
“To answer your questions, of course,” said a third, impatient voice, belonging to a little girl at Lennie’s right. She looked like a normal eight-year-old in the midst of a sulk.
“Some of them, at least,” the girl added, then stuck her tongue out at the bag lady. The beaded lady shushed her.
“But before we answer—”
Their expressions became almost predatory. Unable to move, Lennie felt like road kill about to be pecked. The three faces loomed in her vision, one after the other, their features distorting surreally.
“—we need to know if –”
“—you remember –”
“—the words Urdie gave you –”
“—last time we met,” Urdie finished.
Lennie’s senses reeled as though she lay on a turning merry-go-round. She closed her eyes against a wave of vertigo. “I don’t know what you want to hear.”
“Yes, you do, dear,” Urdie said. “You just need to think.”
And Lennie did know, even if she didn’t understand. She answered in the same singsong cadence the bag lady had used under the streetlight, just before she had disappeared.
“That which can be cut can never be broken.”
The spinning stopped abruptly.
Lennie didn’t recover so quickly. The incongruous scents of rust, moldy leaves, and pot smoke filled her nostrils, and her head felt light and strange. She opened her eyes cautiously. The three figures shimmered and transformed. Where the bag lady had been, a tall, slender woman now stood, her face etched with age, sorrow, and joy. A broad-shouldered, plain-faced woman replaced the beaded lady, her hands rough and red with work. Both wore shapeless cowled robes.
This has to be a dream.
The thought brought Lennie such relief that she decided it was true. But it was no ordinary dream. It had the same feel as the squirrel dream from the night before.
“Look, I don’t want any more tattoos, so just—”
She stopped, catching sight of the third figure, a creature straight out of a Scrooge movie. Completely shrouded, it stood motionless, as if in an endless wait. As if waiting for me to die.
Lennie knew with creepy certainty that nothing of flesh and blood resided under the robe. What would she find if she tore the cloth away? Bones? Nothing at all?
The figure slowly raised one arm within a draped sleeve and pointed at Lennie as though about to pronounce her doom. She cringed and held her breath, not wanting to hear.
“See, Urdie?” the figure squealed, nudging the robed woman beside it. “She remembers what you told her—and she even made it sound like you.”
The three robed figures blurred. Lennie blinked, and there was only a little girl sticking an elbow into the ribs of a frumpy bag lady.
“Hush, child,” said Urdie. “Now you’ve made me drop a stitch, and there’s so little time as it is.”
The beaded lady nodded, her dread-locks rattling her necklaces. “In fact, time is nearly up.”
“What time?” Lennie wished she could wake herself from this bizarre dream. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“Of course you don’t, dear.” Urdie’s kindly smile revealed worn, yellow teeth that barely clung to her gums. She ran her hand along the yarn. A shiver scraped down Lennie’s back.
The little girl interrupted enthusiastically. “Yeah, well, see, it all has to do with the end of the world.” She held up a small, plastic weaving loom that looked just like the one Lennie had used to make dozens of nylon-loop potholders when she was a child.
The beaded lady rested a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Now, Skuldi, you’re telling it all out of order. Past, present, and then future, remember?”
The girl scowled and flung her loom away. There was a crash and the sound of plastic skidding over cement. “I never get to go first.”
The beaded lady stiffened, frowning, and Urdie gasped. “Skuld! You could have broken that, and then what would have happened?”
“I don’t care.”
“You’d better care, urchin. Pick that up right now, or I’ll—”
“You’d have to catch me first, you old cow.” The girl disappeared from Lennie’s view.
“Stop it, both of you.” The beaded lady rolled her eyes at Lennie. “They are so predictable sometimes. Urdie’s always telling Skuld what to do, and Skuld...well, she can be so contrary. I’m always stuck in the middle.”
She looked across Lennie in the direction Skuld had gone. “All right, Skuldi, have it your way. You go first.”
“No.”
“We’re listening, Skuldi—tell us what the future holds.”
“Everybody dies.”
Urdie pressed her lips together. For a moment, Lennie thought the old woman might go after Skuld and haul her back by her ponytails. Instead, she smiled around clenched teeth. “That’s a little too general, dear. Can you be more specific? Maybe a little more pertinent, too, hmmm?”
The only reply was the rhythmic scrape of plastic on cement. Lennie pictured Skuld squatting sullenly, slinging her loom in an arc across the cement floor. The effect was like nails on chalkboard. Who are these people?
“Very well.” Urdie looked down at Lennie. “We really shouldn’t be telling you the future, anyway. Leads to all sorts of problems. And we don’t have time to show you the past.”
She tsked and shook her head regretfully. “A shame, you know. It’s a very interesting story. But you have to go soon, so you’ll have to make do with the present. Verdandi, would you please?”
Urdie stepped out of sight. For a moment Lennie could see more of her surroundings. She seemed to be in a warehouse, with bare studs and rafters supporting corrugated steel walls. Packed shelves lined the wall on one side. A long, thin, wooden pole decorated with black feathers rested across brackets set into the opposite wall. Then the beaded lady took her place near Lennie’s head. Abruptly, the warehouse vanished.
