Strange Seed Read online

  “Wait there,” she said.

  His body twitched slightly.

  “Oh wait there. Please!” And she backed away from him a few feet and switched on the overhead lamp.

  She gasped.

  He had turned his head to look at her.

  *****

  One word—“beautiful”—came to her in that moment. And in the next moment she rejected it. The word was not merely inadequate. It was dishonest. To herself. To her whole being. Because so much that is commonplace is called beautiful. Men and women are beautiful. And children. Animals. Poetry. Joy. Love. Even sadness. The face she studied—the eyes that studied her—was not.

  It was hideous. As perfection has to be. And hypnotic, as the full moon is hypnotic.

  It was a face in total harmony with itself.

  For one insane moment, she thought that her own children would look very much like this child.

  The color of his skin was much the same as hers, wasn’t it? No, perhaps more like Paul’s. And the tapering oval eyes. Paul’s eyes. And the strong chin. The idea dissipated. Her own children, she knew, would be to this child what an Audobon print is to what it depicts. An imitation.

  She took a step closer to the child. He raised his head a little to keep his eyes on hers.

  She had seen that fragile blue—the color of his eyes—before. It was the color of a cloudless early morning sky, just before sunrise, after all but the brightest stars have winked out. That fragile, pale and transient blue. A blue so sharply, exquisitely, in contrast to the dark, smooth, almost earth-colored skin.

  But it was his hair that was earth-colored, she amended. As if the thick, great mass of it falling to his shoulder blades and to the base of his neck—though, curiously, not over his forehead—was a strange kind of rich topsoil.

  His high cheekbones and straight nose were reminiscent of the American Indian, but not so stark as that, her thoughts continued, more as if the smooth, flawless dark skin did not cover bone and cartilage, but something far less substantial—soft clay, perhaps.

  Above the pale blue eyes, the brows were the same rich topsoil color as his hair, and just as thick and full, but they did not meet in the middle, as such brows so often did. Instead, as full as they were, they tapered nearly to a point just over the upper inside edge of the eye sockets. On any other child, the effect would have been ludicrous, as if the child had been fooling around with makeup and tweezers.

  His mouth, parted a little, was what some would call a classic mouth—bottom lip full, top lip slightly less full. The two parts formed a dark red, moist unity, and more than that—an invitation. A seduction in and of themselves.

  Rachel took a step backward. And two things happened simultaneously: the overhead lamp flickered once, shot out the deep, harsh blue light that signals the death of the bulb (darkness reentered the room), and the back door opened. Paul appeared.

  “I don’t know where Hank is,” he said, stooping over to remove his mud-caked boots. “He’s not in his cabin. I nearly broke his door down pounding on it.” Brief pause. “Turn the light on, would you, Rachel.”

  She pointed tremblingly at the child.

  “Is something wrong?” Paul asked.

  She nodded sharply in the direction of the child, and, as she did so, the child put his head between his knees.

  “I see you!” Rachel blurted. “I see you! You won’t get away!”

  “What the…” Paul whispered. Still wearing his right boot, he took a few awkward steps toward the child. “Come out of there!” he demanded.

  Rachel looked frantically at her husband. “Don’t just stand there, Paul. Get hold of him before…” And she knew how utterly foolish her words would sound.

  Paul hesitated, his gaze first on the child, then on Rachel.

  “Do something, Paul!”

  “Rachel, I…” He realized, suddenly, the illogic of what he saw on his wife’s face. He had seen that look before, when they’d discovered what had been done to the house, and again, when he’d told her how Margaret and Joseph Newman had been buried: “That’s awful, Paul,” she’d said, and her face had registered a kind of inner pain, just as it did now. But now it was far more powerful. Now she was also at the point of revulsion, as if she pointed so stiffly not at a small, naked, dark-skinned and terribly frightened boy, but at something so grotesque that words to describe it piled up at the back of her tongue and went unspoken because they were inadequate. For one awful moment, he thought he would have to defend the child from her.

  His booted foot thudded softly on the oak floor as he took the remaining few steps, leaned over, and put his hands under the child’s arms to raise him. The child shuddered violently, as if overcome by a sudden, deep chill. Paul straightened abruptly. “Stop that!” he demanded, and leaned over again, convinced that the child wasn’t going to uncoil from his fetal position, slipped his left hand around the child’s buttocks, the other hand around his knees, and lifted. The child shuddered again, as violently as before, but did not change his position.

  “He’s light as a feather,” Paul said, carried him into the living room and put him on the couch.

  *****

  Henry Lumas knew what was happening to him, and it wasn’t that he wanted it to happen. He would have gladly chosen another twenty years or so of life, if it had been offered. But it hadn’t, and his seventy-two years had been more good than bad, so he had no real complaints. A few days of pain and, blessedly, the whole thing would be over.

  He gazed as lovingly as his pain allowed at the faded snapshot on the crude oak table near his bed. Dying would be far easier if she were alive and could help him through it, just as he had helped her so many years earlier.

  Sam Griffin could have helped him, as well. God, but if that man’s death had been just a bit slower—there could have been some comfort for him, some reassurance.

  But there was no one, yet. In a month, perhaps a little less. The Griffins, Paul especially, would be no help. All they’d be able to offer would be a lot of appropriate sympathy and endless pleas that he go to the clinic in town, which would make the grim necessity of dying absolutely unbearable.

  He sat heavily on the bed, hand clutched to his stomach. He groaned a curse. How long before his fears—which never dissipated completely—started chipping away at what he knew? An hour? A day? Or would they wait until his final minutes or seconds?

  He stood and half-stumbled, half-walked to the door. It was partway open: Paul had knocked hard on it. He unhooked the strand of leather that served as a lock and pulled the door open.

  Beyond the rise, near the grove of honey locusts—where, he remembered, he’d found Paul—there was reassurance and comfort, as much as any human could offer, at least. And he desperately needed it.

  Chapter Ten

  “Relax,” Paul coaxed. He thought of placing his hand comfortingly on the child’s shoulder, but wondered how comforting his touch could actually be if it caused such a violent reaction in the child?

  He turned his head and looked at Rachel. She was standing, her face coldly expressionless, at the other end of the couch. “Get a blanket, would you, darling,” he said.

  Rachel hesitated a second then nodded slightly to indicate the child. “See if you can get him to lie down, Paul. That position he’s in…it’s grotesque.”

  “Grotesque?”

  “Yes. It’s unnatural.”

  “Painful is probably a better word.” He put his hands on the child’s arms. “Come on now, young man”—gently, as if talking to a child several years younger—“why don’t you lie down…” He realized that his touch had sparked no reaction: it was a good sign, he thought. “Lie down here.” He found the child responding with acceptance to the very soft pressure of his hands. “That’s right.” He looked at Rachel again. “Are you going to get that blanket?” She started for the bedroom. “Turn that lamp on, too,” Paul added, and nodded at a wrought iron, floor-standing lamp, minus shade, to the right of the couch, near the
bedroom doorway. “I can hardly see a thing.” He paused. “And don’t be so glum.”

  He succeeded in coaxing the child onto his side, though not out of his fetal position. “That’s good. Now straighten your legs, okay?” He rolled the child onto his back and put pressure on his knees. “Loosen up…there, that’s right.” The child allowed Paul to straighten his legs so he was sitting up, but with his head just above his knees, and his tightly clenched fists at his ears. “Loosen up!” Paul said again. “No one wants to hurt you, for Christ’s sake!” He put his hands on the child’s shoulders and eased him back.

  Rachel appeared from the bedroom. “Here’s the blanket,” she said, her words measured and stiffly casual. She laid the blanket at the child’s feet, then switched on the floor-standing lamp. Nothing. “Bulb must be dead. Shit!” she muttered.

  “Or the damned generator,” Paul said. He nodded toward the kitchen. “Get one of those kerosene lamps from the closet in there, okay.”

  Rachel went into the kitchen.

  The child was in a prone position, fists still clenched to his ears. Paul grasped his wrists and gently pulled forward until the child’s arms were straight. “There”—benevolent smile—“that’s better, isn’t it?”

  Suddenly, the child’s body, and Paul’s hands—still on the child’s wrists—assumed an anemic yellow cast. Paul turned his head sharply: Rachel was just behind him, lantern in hand. “Paul sighed. “You scared the crap out of me, Rachel,” he said, and grinned self-consciously.

  “Here’s the lamp,” she said, and attempted to hand it to him.

  “No, no,” he said. “Bring that table over and put the lamp on it.” He nodded at a small, dark wood table between the back windows.

  Rachel took several slow steps to her left, the small rough circle of lamplight moving up the child’s body as she moved.

  She stopped abruptly. “Paul!”

  He looked where she was looking, then at her again. “What’s the problem?”

  “Can’t you see, Paul? Isn’t it fucking obvious!”

  “Isn’t what obvious?”

  “His face, for God’s sake! Look at his face!”

  “Jesus, Rachel, I did look at his face.” He looked at it again, then at Rachel. “I don’t understand…”

  “You don’t understand? Are you blind? Can’t you see?”

  “What in hell are you talking about.” He stood and tried to take the lantern from her, but she backed away from him, hesitated, then ran into the kitchen.

  Paul followed a moment later.

  *****

  She had seated herself at the kitchen table, face buried in her hands. The lantern was on the table in front of her; in its light, Paul saw that she was trembling.

  “Rachel, please…” He pulled a chair away from the table and sat beside her. “Please, darling… Are you crying?”

  Silence.

  “There’s no reason to cry, Rachel.”

  “Go and find Mr. Lumas,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “He’ll know what to do.” She laid her hands flat on the table, the lamp between them. Paul could see tears on her cheeks. “He’ll know what to do.”

  “No,” Paul said softly, and stroked her cheek. “I think what we need is a doctor, both for the child…” He hesitated. “And for you. You’ve gotten yourself all worked up, and apparently for no better reason than we’ve found this poor, lost boy—“

  She gave a short, hollow chuckle. “You don’t understand, do you?” She pushed herself away from the table. “Well, if you’re not going to do anything, then I guess I’ll have to!” She prepared to stand. Paul put a hand on her arm.

  “No!” he said. “I don’t understand any of this, Rachel. And I fail to see what Lumas has to do with it. It’s none of his business, as far as I can see, and even if it were, I wouldn’t go prowling around in those woods now. It’ll be dark in half an hour.”

  Rachel stood abruptly and went to the back door. “Then you’ll have to be quick about it, won’t you!” She pulled on the doorknob; the door opened an inch. She closed it, unlatched it, pulled it open again. “Goddammit, Paul, I’m serious about this!”

  “Paul’s jaw dropped. “Jesus,” he muttered. “What a fool I’ve been.” Finally, it had come to him: Lumas’ door had been locked from the inside; it had opened only slightly in reaction to his heavy knocking. “Throw me my boots, okay,” he said. “Quickly!”

  Rachel, surprised by his sudden change of mood, did as he’d asked.

  “There’s no time to explain, darling,” Paul said, slipped his boots on, stood and retrieved his coat from the coat tree near the table. “Just keep your eye on that child. I don’t know when I’ll be back.” He pushed the screen door open and took the back steps three at a time.

  *****

  Henry Lumas grinned. It was happening, and even more quickly than when the Newmans lived at the house. Only days now, not weeks. By Saturday or Sunday, at the latest, the earth would set free what she had been clutching to her bosom these past five years. And, in the few days remaining to him, perhaps he would be able to prepare the Griffins for the inevitable, get their thinking turned around, show them that creation meant more than cars and movies and TVs. He’d be dead before they understood fully, he knew that; he’d been months trying to make the Newmans understand and, at last, it hadn’t worked. Their fears had been too strong, their ideas of what should be, and of what can be, greater than their ability to accept what was.

  Paul and Rachel might react the same way, but it was more likely they wouldn’t. Rachel possessed a special kind of awareness,; with effort, she could pass it on to her husband. And if he—Lumas—were there to help…

  He doubled over, pain ripping sideways across his stomach and chest, and went down on his knees. In the next moment, he sensed he was falling forward. He reached out to steady himself against the trunk of the dead honey locust.

  *****

  The sound of human agony is a mixture of fear and confusion and, underlying it, a spontaneous, unspoken plea that the cause of the suffering be ended. It is an unmistakable sound. And Paul Griffin, breathless from his run down the rutted path, tensed himself, hearing it, and listened a few seconds, head cocked, for a repeat of the sound. He heard nothing.

  “Hank?” he called. “Hank?” he called again, hands cupped to his mouth.

  He heard nothing.

  He stepped carelessly across the brook that separated him from the forest’s eastern perimeter. “Hank!” He lifted his foot out of the soft mud at the brook’s edge, listened, heard only the sound of water trickling into the elongated hole his foot had created.

  “Hank! It’s me—Paul Griffin!”

  To the south, a grouse hurried into the shelter of some thickets. Ahead—west—from the lower branches of a huge sycamore, a gray squirrel, obviously annoyed, chattered briefly and disappeared around the other side of the tree.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Paul muttered. “Hank!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  Silence.

  He moved quickly up the shallow slope, stopped and glanced to the east, at the house. He found himself momentarily startled by the fact that only with effort could he distinguish it from the land around it. The top of the stone tile roof—dull red because of the setting sun—was clearly visible, but it was not sufficient to immediately suggest that a house lay beneath. The normally bright green shingles—so cheerful in daylight—now were muted, now blended almost perfectly with the flat near-darkness of the fields, the thickets, and the scattering of trees. It was a vaguely disorienting sight; Paul turned quickly from it and moved with caution into the forest.

  “Hank?” he called. “Where are you?”

  Several minutes later, after stumbling occasionally over darkness-obscured roots and vines, he heard a gurgling, low-pitched moan and plunged forward toward what he knew was its source—the small grove of honey locusts he’d paused at a month earlier, the grove of honey locusts that Lumas—in, Paul realized in retrospect, was a fi
t of temper—had ordered him away from, as if he had been some nameless trespasser bent on the destruction of private and valuable property.

  *****

  Rachel’s brow furrowed in confusion. She had known something about this child sleeping so peacefully on the old couch. No, she decided—she hadn’t merely know something about him, she had known everything. But just briefly, not long enough, now, that the knowledge was anything more than a dim, elusive feeling she could appreciate just fleetingly.

  Why, for instance, had she told Paul that Henry Lumas would “understand”? Understand what? Was the child his? That was stupid. If Lumas “understood,” it was an understanding identical to what she had experienced only a half hour ago, an understanding—a feeling—which would soon dissipate completely, like the heavy, then static, then completely absent aura of a particularly distasteful dream.

  She’d acted as if in a panic, she remembered. She had pointed stiffly at the child and pleaded, “Get hold of him, before…” Before what, for God’s sake? Had she supposed he could walk through walls?

  And a minute or two later, as Paul prepared to look the child over, when the lamplight had fallen on the child’s face—what had she seen there that had caused her to run, frightened, into the kitchen, and bring her to the point of tears? There was nothing in the child’s face to elicit such a reaction. It was a perfect face. As perfect, she thought, as the face of a wildflower.

  “Damn!” she whispered tightly, more in frustration than anger.

  She rose from her wicker chair and went into the kitchen, to the back door. She opened it and peered into the soft, nearly liquid darkness beyond. It was a harder, heavier darkness at the horizon. Paul was there, in the midst of that darkness. He had vaulted into it from the shelter of the house. But why? Was something wrong with Lumas? Obviously, Paul knew something he wasn’t telling her—hadn’t had the time to tell her. Because this was the first time since he and Lumas had discovered the ravaged deer that he had left the house after sunset. It had to be true—Henry Lumas was ill and needed Paul’s help. And Paul, apparently unmindful of the very real danger to himself, was going to give it. Paul must care a great deal about the old man, she thought. Perhaps, with his stories of living alone in those woods and his intense hatred of “civilization,” Lumas reminded Paul of Paul’s father, though, of course, not in a physical way (but such things actually counted for very little. You had to look beyond the eyes and the structure of the face to really know a person. Just as, her thoughts continued, she had done upon encountering the child. She caught herself on the thought. She had, then, almost sensed his presence more than she’d actually seen him. And that was when she’d known, however briefly, all there was to know about him. Later, the yellow lamplight on him, it had been the grotesque perfection, the inhuman symmetry of his face that had caused her to run from him; it had harshly confirmed what had, just moments before, been only subliminal.