Rook & Tooth and Claw Read online

  Jim shook his head. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday – sorry.”

  “Myrlin said she might of come up here.”

  “Well, Myrlin’s wrong, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t know … she’s not in her apartment and look at the time. Add to that her door wasn’t locked. She never goes out late.”

  “Maybe she went to the 7–11.”

  “Yeah, right, and maybe she went on a six-week hiking tour to Guatemala. She left her door unlocked, for Christ’s sake, and a salad on the table.”

  “If you’re worried, why don’t you call the police? She could have had a memory lapse or something … she could be wandering around anywhere.”

  There were beads of clear perspiration on Geraint’s upper lip. “I don’t know … maybe I should just go look for her. What can the cops do that I can’t?”

  “Well … I hope you find her. She’s probably okay.”

  “What are you, Mr Blue Sky or something? She’s probably lying battered to death in a stormdrain.”

  Jim closed the door, and made sure that he put on the security-chain. He gingerly touched the tip of his nose and it was still a little tender, but his eyes weren’t so swollen and he was able to walk back across the living-room without overbalancing. He went into the spare bedroom, and stood for a long time without switching on the light, because he didn’t want to see what was lying under the bed. But then he had the idea that Mrs Vaizey’s remains might start shuffling out from under the bed on their own, waggling from side to side in his blood-red bedcover like a giant maggot, and he switched on the light instantly.

  The bedcover was still there, motionless. He hunkered down next to the bed and prodded it, just make sure, and all he could feel was softness and heaviness.

  He left the room and switched off the light. He crossed the corridor to his own bedroom, but then he stopped. He hesitated for a few seconds. Then he went back and turned the key in the spare bedroom door. He didn’t believe in life after death, especially a death as grisly and complete as Mrs Vaizey’s, but then what was the point in taking chances?

  He hadn’t meant to sleep. He had meant to wait until there was nobody around, and then take Mrs Vaizey’s remains down to the parking lot. But Geraint was coming and going for hour after hour, and Tina Henstell had some noisy friends in for drinks, and Myrlin didn’t switch off his bedroom light until well past one o’clock, and even then he was probably watching his neighbours from his darkened window.

  Jim slept badly and went through hours of frightening dreams. He kept hearing those muffled drums, beating through the house in a rhythm that became increasingly reckless. He felt that he was in the grip of a power that was beyond understanding: a huge malevolence. He saw fretwork balconies and thunderous skies. He heard feet flying through the rainswept grass.

  He heard somebody running and jumping close behind him. “Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!”

  He woke up just after seven. A big grey quail was sitting on the rail outside his window, tapping with its beak on the glass. His sheet was all sweaty and wrinkled, and he had been sleeping at the wrong end of the bed.

  “Go on, scram,” he said to the quail, and knocked on the window with his knuckle. But the quail stayed where it was, cocking its head to one side.

  He climbed out of bed and shuffled out of the room, stretching and yawning. His nostrils still felt a little sore and his mouth was as dry as a sheet of Grade 2 glasspaper. He went through to the kitchen and opened the fridge, taking out a quart of orange juice and drinking it straight from the bottle until it ran down his chin and soaked the neck of his T-shirt.

  Wiping his mouth, he saw the little bag of memory powder on the table. He knew that he had tried it last night, but he couldn’t think what false memory he had tried to lodge in his brain. Maybe it didn’t work. If he couldn’t even remember what memory he had wanted to remember, what kind of memory powder was that?

  All the same, he tied up the bag and put it on the kitchen counter next to his wallet and his keys and his mobile phone. He had seen what Umber Jones could do when he tried to double-cross him. He didn’t want anybody else to end up devouring themselves; not for his sake, anyway.

  Besides, he knew for sure now that Tee Jay was innocent, and if it took one of Uncle Umber’s spells to get him free, then so be it.

  He showered and dressed and made himself a cup of what railroad workers used to call ‘horseshoe’ coffee – coffee so strong that a horseshoe would float in it. He wondered if he ought to check on Mrs Vaizey’s remains, but what was the point? She wouldn’t have moved, would she? All the same, he thought he ought to drape the spare bed with a double bedcover, so that nobody could see that there was anything underneath it. Juanita wouldn’t be back to clean up until Monday, but you never knew. The building super might come in for some reason or another. Jim was quite sure that he wouldn’t, but he might; and Jim didn’t want to be sitting in college all day fretting about that million-to-one chance of discovery.

  He unlocked the bedroom door and cautiously opened it. The red bedcover was hunched under the bed, just where he had left it. He approached it as if he expected it suddenly to move, even though he knew what was in it, and that it would never move again. He sniffed the air two or three times to make sure that it wasn’t smelling. He had smelled a dead body only once before – when an elderly man had died all alone in the next apartment, but he had never forgotten it. It had been a stomach-churning reminder of what he, too, would one day become.

  He went to the closet on the far side of the room and took down a large white woollen bedcover that he occasionally used in the winter. He unfolded it, and he was about to spread it right over the spare bed when he noticed something.

  A greyish dust had leaked out of the side of the bedcover in which Mrs Vaizey’s remains were wrapped.

  Hesitantly, Jim prodded the bedcover with his foot. More dust trickled out, almost as fine as talcum powder. He knelt down and laid his hand flat on top of the bedcover, trying to feel what was inside it. Immediately, it collapsed, and he jumped back in fright, ricking his ankle.

  He waited for a moment, panting, wondering what to do. He didn’t want to open up the bedcover to see what had happened to Mrs Vaizey’s remains, but he knew that he would have to. He approached it again, and very carefully took hold of one corner between finger and thumb, and drew it back. A small landslide of dust fell out on to the floor.

  Bolder now, he dragged the whole bedcover out from under the bed, untied the string that held it together, and opened it out. Inside there was nothing but a heap of thick dust, with one or two small bones in it, fingers and toes and the curve of a rib.

  He tried to pick up the rib but that, too, fell into dust. Mrs Vaizey’s remains had been reduced to ashes just as effectively as if she had been cremated. Jim could see now that he was facing a man of extraordinary supernatural powers, and the problem was that they were like nothing he had ever heard or read about before. The way in which Mrs Vaizey had consumed herself had no parallel in American or European culture – none that Jim had ever heard of, anyhow – and the way that she had crumbled into dust bore no resemblance to any Western phenomenon, such as instant mummification or spontaneous combustion. This was African magic – strange and strong.

  He went to the kitchen and came back with a black plastic bag. He lifted up the bedcover and sifted all the dust into the bag, and then knotted it. Mrs Vaizey’s remains weighed no more than a heavy cat. Any dust that he had spilled he sucked up with his vacuum-cleaner. At least the poor woman’s body was going to be easier to dispose of.

  Half-way down the steps he met Myrlin again, who was wearing an olive-green nylon shirt and a nasty look. “There’s still no sign of Mrs Vaizey, you know,” he said, accusingly.

  Jim said, “Maybe she just got tired of living here, that’s all.”

  “What you got in there?” Myrlin asked him, nodding toward the bag.

  “Just memories,” said Jim. He went to the parking-lot,
opened his car, and put the bag into the trunk. “Just memories,” he repeated to himself, so quietly that Myrlin couldn’t hear him.

  Chapter Seven

  This morning, in English, they discussed Dead Boy by John Crowe Ransom.

  “ ‘A boy not beautiful, nor good, nor clever,

  black cloud full of storms too hot for keeping,

  A sword beneath his mother’s heart – yet never

  Woman bewept her babe as this is weeping.

  “ ‘He was pale and little, the foolish neighbors say

  The first-fruits, saith the Preacher, the Lord hath taken

  But this was the old tree’s late branch wrenched away.

  Grieving the sapless limbs, the shorn and shaken.’ ”

  Jim sat on the edge of his desk swinging his leg as he listened to the class stumble out the poem line by line. He wore his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. When they had finished, he said, “He didn’t sound like much, this kid, did he? So why were his mother and the elder men so hurt that he was dead?”

  Titus Greenspan III put up his hand and said, “I don’t get this stuff about the tree.”

  “Ah, yes, but the tree is the whole point. Greg – why do you think the tree is the whole point?”

  Greg Lake’s face went through a slow series of incredible distortions as he tried to think. He took so long that it gave David Littwin the opportunity to put up his hand and say, “It w-w-w—”

  “Okay, David, take it easy,” Jim encouraged him.

  “It w-wasn’t a real t-t-tree he was t-talking about, it w-was a fuh. A fuh. A family tree.”

  “That’s exactly right. The mother and the elder men were grieving because their old Virginia heritage had been put at risk by this one boy’s death. No matter how stupid he was, no matter how badly-behaved, he was one of them, one of their line.”

  He walked up and down between the desks. “Your heritage is something more than you are … something to cherish and be proud of. John here honours his ancestors … Rita here celebrates the Day of the Dead … Sharon has traced her ancestry right back to Sierra Leone.”

  He reached the end of the room, and turned around, and as he did so he froze. Umber Jones was standing in the corner, next to the flag, his eyes concealed behind tiny black-lensed spectacles. He was watching Jim and his teeth were exposed in a lipless smile.

  Jim had a good idea why he had come. He wanted to make sure that Jim made use of the memory powder, so that Tee Jay could be released. Jim stayed where he was, right at the back of the class, while Umber Jones continued to stare at him, and grin.

  Russell Gloach said, “What if you don’t have no ancestry? Like, I was adopted. What are you supposed to celebrate then?”

  Jim didn’t take his eyes off Uncle Umber. “You can celebrate the fact that your mom and your dad both wanted you enough to call you their own. It’s just like a new branch being grafted on to a tree. It came from another tree, sure; but now it’s an integral part of the tree that accepted it. You’re part of the Gloach heritage now, no matter where you came from; and I happen to know that your mom and dad are very proud of you.”

  As he was speaking, Umber Jones began to glide toward him, without even moving his feet. He came right up close, so that Jim could see every pockmark in his face, and every white whisker that protruded from his night-black skin.

  “You’re not going to let me down, are you, Jim?” he asked, in his harsh, heavy whisper.

  “Seems to me like the elder men were more worried about their heritage than they were about the dead boy,” put in Amanda Zaparelli. She spoke with hugely-renewed confidence now that her braces had been taken out.

  “No,” said Jim.

  Amanda frowned. “I just thought – you see here where it says about the elder men looking at the casket—”

  “You saw what happened to your friend, didn’t you?” breathed Umber Jones. “You sent her looking where she wasn’t welcome. The same thing could happen to you.”

  “What the hell are you harassing me for?” Jim demanded.

  Amanda turned around at looked at Sue-Robin Caulfield in astonishment. The rest of the class twisted in their seats and stared at Jim with expressions that showed they were deeply impressed. Jim had always been outspoken, but never this outspoken.

  Jim jabbed his finger at Umber Jones and said, “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but by God I’m going to find a way to stop you.”

  “Way to go, Mr Rook!” called out Ricky Herman. “Let’s shut Amanda up for good and all!”

  “I hope you’re not going to be rash, Mr Rook,” said Umber Jones. “Before you could say the Lord’s Prayer, I could leave this whole class dead and dying.” He looked around at the walls. “This room could use some redecoration, don’t you think? How about a nice shiny red?”

  “I’ll do it,” Jim promised him. “Just wait until recess, and I’ll do it.”

  “Hear that, Amanda?” laughed Mark. “If I was you, the minute I heard that recess bell, I’d run like fun.”

  Uncle Umber laid his hand on Jim’s shoulder. “I’m pleased to hear it. Believe me, Mr Rook, you’re going to be the best friend I ever had. You and me, we’re going to go far together.”

  Jim was aware that the class were all staring at him. He lowered his arms and stood with them rigidly by his side. “Get the hell out of my class,” he told Umber Jones, between tightly-clenched teeth.

  “What’s that, now?” asked Umber Jones. “Wasn’t sure that I heard you too good.”

  “Get the hell out of my class,” said Jim, much louder. His students started swivelling around and staring at each other and saying, “Me? What, me? He wants me to get the hell out? Hey, Mr Rook, is it me you want to get the hell out?”

  “Couldn’t hear you,” Umber Jones taunted him.

  Jim lost his temper. “This is my class and these are my students and I’m responsible for every one of them. You’ve already caused enough grief, so help me. I’ll do what you want me to do. But get out of my class before I do something that both of us are going to regret.”

  “Oh, no,” grinned Umber Jones. “Only you are going to regret it.”

  With that, he folded his arms and glided backward across the classroom, until he reached the chalkboard.

  “I’m keeping my eye on you, Mr Rook,” he said. “And don’t you forget it.” With that, his outline appeared to waver, as he were no more substantial than smoke, and of course he wasn’t. His darkness blew sideways, and curled around, and funnelled itself into the surface of the chalkboard. Jim heard a deep, soft rumbling sound, and then he was gone.

  Jim walked stiffly toward the chalkboard and touched it with his fingertips. Its surface was hard and cool and perfectly normal. But as he stood there, a curved white line appeared on the board, drawn in chalk; and then another. With a drawn-out squeaking noise that set his teeth on edge, a picture of an eye appeared, almost three feet across; and underneath it, the words VODUN VIVE.

  The class was totally silent. Jim turned around and looked at them and didn’t know what to say. It was only when Mark said, “Sheesh, that was so cool!” that they suddenly started talking and bantering again.

  “How did you do that, Mr Rook?” asked Ricky. “Like, you didn’t even use your hands.”

  “Not like you, Ricky,” said Jane Firman. “You’re all hands, you are.”

  Jim lifted his hand for silence, and then he said, “It was a trick, okay? Nothing but a trick. At the end of the semester, if you all pass with better-than-average grades, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  He couldn’t tell them about Umber Jones. If he did, there was no knowing what Umber Jones would do. But it was becoming increasingly difficult for Jim to keep his presence a secret, and Jim was beginning to feel that he was doing it on purpose: taunting him, provoking him, so that Jim would really snap and Umber Jones would have an excuse to slaughter the whole class.

  It was interesting, though: Umber Jones could have slaught
ered them anyway, without an excuse. He was invisible, to everybody except Jim. Nobody believed in his existence, which made him uncatchable. Jim wondered if there were some restraints on his behaviour – if, like vampires, he needed to sleep in a coffin filled with his native soil, or if he couldn’t endure crucifixes, or garlic-flowers, or if he had to stay out of the sunlight.

  The recess bell rang. The class gathered up their books, laughing and chattering. Jim stood by the window with his back to them, just to make sure that Uncle Umber wasn’t out there somewhere, just waiting to do them harm.

  Six years ago, Jim had married quickly and misguidedly, and he had never had children. But then he didn’t need children of his own; he had them already. Beattie and Muffy and Titus and Ray. During college hours, they were his family. Out of hours, as he sat marking their essays, they were still with him, because each essay was like a letter, trying to explain what they thought he had taught them …

  ‘Mark Twain says about Huck Finn that “there were things he stretched but mainly he told the truth” but when you think about it whole of Huckleberry Finn is “stretched” because it’s a story. Stretching is a way of saying something in a way which people are going to remember.’

  He was still standing by the window when Sharon X came up to him, carrying three books. Today she had decorated her hair with dozens of tiny beads and she looked especially pretty. “I brought you those books I was talking about,” she told him. “This is the best one. Voodoo Ritual. It tells you just about everything you need to know about voodoo.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “That’s kind of you.”

  He thought she would go then, but she didn’t. She stood beside him as if she wanted to say something more.

  “I’ll take care of them, I promise,” he said.

  “You saw him just now, didn’t you?” Sharon asked him.

  He put the books down on his desk and didn’t answer.

  “He was here, wasn’t he? That was who you were talking to, not Amanda at all. I watched you, and you weren’t even looking at Amanda, you were looking right in front of you, like there was somebody standing there. And there was, wasn’t there?”