The Everborn Page 28
The child barely gave notice. It was wide awake and in diapers, tumbling its fingers through the air above itself and towards an overhanging mobile of plastic swirling balls of planets and more stars, which glowed in the semi-dark. The bedroom door was open halfway, the living room light streaming in on a webbing of illuminated dust-swirls. A solitary muffled voice could be heard coming from the kitchen, combined with a distant door slam.
She had very little time to act.
The presence of her hands at last caught the child’s attention, and it ceased all movement as though suddenly stunned, as though it hadn’t noticed them there before nor their touch, its widened gaze now fixed upon the silvery intrusion...and then the intrusion fixed itself upon the child, lifting it, lifting it up within its two sizable yet feminine palms and reaching it nearer to the double window. The hands shifted and transferred the baby to one palm and one hand retracted, disappearing through the wall. The hand then reappeared the next instant, grappling with the screen of the open window until the screen tore loose and the infant was hoisted up and out the window as easy as pie.
Triumphant, the Magdalene stole the Dreg child into the night, making certain what could be seen of her wasn’t seen by anyone...an exercise she hadn’t had to worry about for hundreds of years....
***
Salvatia had established a sort of lair several cities away, a cannery long since abandoned, which proved to be the perfect location from which to meditate upon the location of the Dreg twin. She had made herself home in a multitude of sanctuaries leading up to this one, a haven of serene solitude and vacuous quiet, a place of rest and away from the whole wide world.
It wasn’t that she had to hide from anyone. She just couldn’t bare the distraction of seeing anyone.
She needed to concentrate.
And this was why she carried the infant Dreg twin all the way back. She had been close enough to sense him from there, and now she had him just as she had foreseen from there.
Now, the best thing to do was take him back there, at the risk of being seen…now that she could be seen, albeit partially, and if not her, then a flying and literally bouncing half-naked baby boy.
Back, to the Rothchild Cannery.
Where there were plenty of black widows.
***
The abandoned Rothchild Cannery was a viciously hollow deep labyrinth full of perilous traps should anything physical feel free to sojourn into its dark abyss.
It was ideal enough for Salvatia to carry the Dreg child throughout several city suburbs to return there.
Black widows were to be found anywhere; locating a black widow or two didn’t depend upon a greater success rate at finding them at the cannery, but hanging her hat there was ideal also for what was to take place after she’d locate a few. The prophecy the Magdalene had been told of, entailed a sure-fire sign concerning a final test of the Dreg’s hidden fortunes and capabilities, something further that would prove beyond a doubt that a Dreg could do everything a Dreg was supposed to: aside from the obvious materialization power he invoked in her, a Dreg was promised to exhibit the ability to be impervious to any poison or the bite of the most venomous creeping thing.
In this could he also provide her another service.
***
Salvatia maintained custody of the infant for as long as she could, as long as was necessary. She couldn’t keep him inside for too long, for either he’d eventually be discovered or surely die. And neither would be to her best interests.
A handful of months had passed since the child Dreg’s abduction now, and Salvatia had time and again fancied the repercussions of his disappearance from his home. His cries had been heard throughout the abandoned cannery all the way to the outside world, and those concerned who happened upon them had returned with moderate rescue teams who searched to no avail and departed empty-handed but with the notion that the property was haunted by a Wraith-child that existed only in the whimsical minds of the impressionable who may or may not have actually heard any cries at all. To them, the cries could have been anything. An infant’s footprints could have been anything, too. And no connection was ever made between this and the missing Erlandson child. The miles of separation had suited the scheme and fate was serving Salvatia well.
Until she had to snuff out the lives of those unfortunates who came sniffing about way too close for comfort.
That was remarkable, and it felt good to kill. It had been so long since Salvatia could even kill a cockroach.
How she cared for her Dreg child. She’d built him an inconspicuous makeshift nest. She changed him, kept him warm when he was in need of warmth, kept him cool in the Summer heat. She brought him food, brought him playthings; at times she’d bring to him other children’s half-broken toys, other times he was at play with living things such as, well, cockroaches. Or rats. They couldn’t infect him with their bites, whenever they did bite, and when their bites caused him to cry he would only play with them in angered roughness. And the silvery beast was always there to take away the pain.
Then, one day, without any effort of her own, the children came.
They arrived on their own, their curiosities sealing their fate...and particularly for one, who bore the honor of meeting the Wraith-child face to face, the one who ventured with his childhood chums into the treacherous innards of the dilapidated cannery on a capricious dare, the most innocent of the lot.
A little black boy by the name of Nigel.
The timing was impeccable.
Her Dreg child was at play with one of his most favorite venomous pets.
A black widow.
How quaint.
How climactic.
The time was at hand for Salvatia to release her beloved somehow, anonymously, and when the spider’s bite had been imposed upon the poor mortal boy...
...well, with the Dreg’s power imposed upon herself as it was, the watchful eyes of the dead resurrected through that power would make do and monitor him in her absence from that day forward.
On, until the final hour when she could use that Dreg to re-emerge into the real world fully, finally, and ultimately for all time....
34.
Simon BoLeve
-1975-
An overgrowth of hibiscus bushes cradled the overhanging metal casing of an electric signboard, a street-side sign situated before a tiny brick wall. The brick wall sprouted from behind the sign on both its left and right, extending and corralling the well-landscaped front lawn of the Church of the Divine Jesus Christ’s worldwide headquarters in Stanton, California. The plastic black replaceable letters of the sign was sequenced to read ALL WELCOME AND ENJOY THE FRUITS.
There was no other sign than that, for the Church of the Divine Jesus Christ was a Christian cult which didn’t believe in publicity, so its presence was ambiguous to the surrounding community. To most passers-by, the look and shape of the homely two-story brown building was like that of an undersized hotel, and many of them took it to be so; some even supposed that ENJOY THE FRUITS referred to a continental breakfast. In fact, ENJOY THE FRUITS meant to enjoy the fruits of the Spirit.
The Church of the Divine Jesus Christ was elusive that way. Particularly the Stanton one. What, with being the worldwide headquarters and all, they felt they had to be elusive. They were the one and only church on the planet who understood what the Holy Bible was really talking about, and all other Christian denominations were Babylon. As for other religions...hell, they were broken vessels damned beyond repair.
Its members were predominantly of Chinese descent, as the church was founded in underground World War II China, its founding fathers evading communist tyranny by exporting themselves by the definition of exporting to California. They hid inside hay-filled cargo crates nailed shut by close friends left behind, and fed on wafers and drank from water jugs and relieved themselves in leather pouches and through holes in the crates until they were recovered at a San Francisco harbor.
Their entire journey and discovery was en
ough for a newspaper’s front page.
The word of the Lord they brought with them delighted the ears and captured the souls of a growing multitude of followers, mostly those sharing the same heritage as none of the founding fathers spoke English. Even now, the pastor of the Stanton main headquarters had to make use of an interpreter, and to those who spoke English his sermons were distracting and difficult to follow. But they loved him anyway.
To Eliza and Malmey, the whole Church of the Divine Jesus Christ scene was a way of life. If not for them completely, then it was at least a way of life for both their families. And they were stuck in the middle of it all, two girls of recent high school graduation, doing their best to fit in.
Both of them stood casually against a tall concrete wall behind the camper shell of Malmey’s father’s pick-up truck at the far end of the side parking lot, where no roving eyes could catch sight of the smoke of their cigarettes. They were dressed in proper conservative attire, with ankle-length skirts and cotton-white tops buttoned to the neck. Both were Caucasian, pasty-faced and make-up free and if they were dressed any plainer they’d likely be mistaken as Amish. Unlike the majority of fellow church-mongers, their lives as devotees were increasingly overwrought with social concerns outside the church, though on Sundays one would never know by looking at them. Unless one caught them smoking. They each took a drag of their cigarettes and blew the smoke over the wall.
“Did you know that raccoons rape cats when the cats venture into their territory?” Malmey asked.
“Really,” said Eliza, stricken oddly by the question. “No kidding. What a subject to talk about, when you’re about to teach in Children’s Study.”
Children’s Study was the Church of the Divine Jesus Christ’s version of Sunday School.
It was Sunday and the parking lot was filling with the vehicles of those anticipating another morning of education and worship, Divine J.C. style.
Malmey flicked her ashes. “Yeah, well, the night before last the BoLeves came over for dinner.”
“That’s right,” Eliza said in recollection. “How did that go? They were going to adopt that one boy....”
“They did adopt him. You know, he was found in a homeless shelter four or five years ago and eventually a family took him in. He was thought to be autistic. His first foster parents were robbed and murdered; the police found him cowering in the guest room closet playing Don’t Spill the Beans in the dark. That’s what Brother and Sister BoLeve said. Someone else looked after him not long after that happened. I forgot if it was another couple or a school for boys, but the daughter of a Catholic woman was discovered in bed with electric drill holes in her throat. The boy was close to that family somehow, and the boy was fascinated with the woman’s husband, how he’d undergone an operation which left him with a hole in his throat so he could breath better after years of smoking.”
Eliza tossed down her cigarette and crushed it beneath a heel in disgust “What, they think the boy did it?”
Malmey shifted and took another drag. “It was a mystery to everyone and they couldn’t prove anything anyway. The point is, no one wanted anything to do with the boy after that, until the BoLeves came along. They could’ve adopted any other child, but they were looking for a problem child they could rehabilitate and introduce to the Lord. You know how people in this church are. The spooky thing is, before they adopted him his personality changed. He went through all kinds of tests and by the time the BoLeves decided on taking him he was re-diagnosed as an average kid. His autism was choked out of him somehow. Everyone took it as a miracle and the BoLeves took it as a sign from God that their taking him was meant to be.”
“So how was he, I mean, at dinner the other night?”
“You know the swing set in my backyard? We went out to it and sat for a little while, he wanted to swing and I wanted to get away from the folks, and he bit me.”
“He bit you?”
“He bit me on the arm, left teeth marks. He told me he wanted to be a vampire and he grabbed my arm and bit me so hard it almost bled. Then he cursed and said, “The little black boy won’t let me be a vampire, I’m supposed to be something else,” then he paused and told me that raccoons rape cats when the cats venture into their territory. I didn’t eat much and went to bed before the BoLeves went home. This kid freaks me out. And this is his first day in Children’s Study and he’s in my class.”
“I hope it works out,” Eliza told her, deathly concerned. “What’s his name again?”
“His name’s Simon.”
***
The young boy went through the motions of bidding the mid-forties couple a prompt farewell as he retreated from the outside walkway and through the beige metal double doors of an entranceway leading into the ground floor of the Church of the Divine Jesus Christ. The couple then went their own way together, scanning the building down the walkway in thoughtful concern for their newly adopted son.
Brother and Sister BoLeve had faith in their Simon, a skeptical faith watered down by a methodical conviction that things would work out just fine. More importantly, they had faith in God, and as far as Simon went, any one person with faith as petty as a hole in one's pants pocket was capable of not only mending the threads but placing in that pocket a rare wallet carrying a gold card with enough credit to move mountains. The BoLeves believed in that, they believed in God, and they learned to believe in Simon.
The BoLeves were simple and responsible. They mortgaged a clean and proper home for themselves, virtually debt free, meditated on God’s Holy Word and otherwise exclusively on the publishings of the Church. Clinging steadfast to the Church’s ways, which demanded a strict separation from the ways of the wicked world, they did not watch television, did not celebrate holidays save birthdays, entertained themselves with board games and with music purchased only at the Church consisting of cassette tape recordings of hymns sung by the congregation itself at five dollars a pop.
If there was ever a couple to rear a child in a way right and just, it was a couple that served the Lord as devoutly as a Divine Jesus Christ couple, for sure. The BoLeves were a mixture of Polish and Irish, converted to the Church four years ago after their third miscarriage and after Brother BoLeve’s son from a previous marriage disowned his father to join the road crew for Alice Cooper.
But things were all right now and in retrospect, everything was meant to be.
The Church was how they handled things meant to be.
***
Simon handled things meant to be quite differently from the ways of his new parents, from those who claimed him before, from those even before them who gave him his first name after a nameless and homeless woman who claimed to be his mother expired in her sleep and rendered him at the mercy of State authorities.
He’d been through a tumultuous succession of ordeals for a boy of nine years, and he likewise had positioned others against successions of ordeals to spite his diverse abhorrent traumas. For someone so young, he was aware of the give-and-take of consequence, of doing unto others as others have done to you, regardless of who gets it in the end, as long as it wasn’t always him.
As of then, Simon did not know who or what he was, nor had any notion of the events of the first few years of his life. His only sense of self-worth lay in the confused selfishness of his endeavors to realize it, to find it and to find himself, and to try his goddamn hardest to mock the world as surely as it seemed very clearly to mock him.
Life for him never appeared to be the way life was for anyone else.
If he only knew how he came to be this way, of the answers to the riddle of his own existence, he might rediscover peace in the knowledge that it wasn’t all his fault. We all make our own decisions, yes, we make our own choices, but in the end we all have inherited countless pieces of somebody else’s pie, which amounts to who we came to be and to why we did the things we’ve done. Simon was merely a complex work-in-progress, a thousand components of an erector set still under construction by a power that was
beyond him with a blue print in mind.
And this power wasn’t the power of God....
***
Simon BoLeve was escorted down the carpeted corridor by an indomitable Chinese woman five times his age, past on occasional child or children younger than he scampering about playfully until the Chinese woman barked a command for them to disperse to their classes. She led Simon past several doors both open and shut, the shut ones either silent or permeating with muffled voices, the open ones disclosing a room of children or teens or darkened rooms empty but for shadows of rows of metal folding chairs. Simon was at once curiously aware of how, while in passing, the younger groups of kids required more time for the teachers to tame than the older, for the older teens’ rooms were ordered and quiet as the younger kids were still running around being rounded up. Simon figured that this was because the older kids knew what they were there for, and were bored with it, while the younger children didn’t yet know what their parents had gotten them into.
The Chinese woman and Simon rounded a corner to yet another endless corridor, and upon doing so Simon spied a sign baring a white and blue plastic generic imprint of a stick-figure man upon one of the doors. He was led several doors past it, until something caused him to glance back in its direction and halt momentarily. It was as commonly simple as an abrupt, premonitional impulse. But whenever he’d known himself to experience this particular impulse, it would always mean that what he would see when he turned around was...
...was...
...was the little black boy.
For each time this sort of premonition took place in an average nine-year-old’s life, for each time any single child had looked over its shoulder because it was afraid of the dark or fearfully apprehensive that the bully or abusive stepfather or that horrible unknown thing was swiftly gaining ground as he or she fled from it in the waking world or while asleep, Simon always found the little black boy there. Somewhere, there, beyond the efforts of his reach to find him, to touch him, to discover whether or not that little boy was real.