Microsoft word winterb.., p.15
Microsoft Word - Winterborn_final-ADRoland, page 15
Like light glowing through a piece of sheer fabric, a reddish haze tinted everything. The dingy
white paint of the Estate took on the color of blood-tinged water.
Like the way the white porcelain of the old tub had looked, the day he found Tam sobbing, half
out of her mind. She sat in the half-full bathtub, the water tinted that color red with her blood. The
blood came from the half-hearted gashes along her forearms―lengthwise, not widthwise. The way
people serious about killing themselves slit their wrists. She didn’t cut deep enough. Just nicked the arteries, like poking holes in a water hose.
More of the blood, however, from her womb. Third miscarriage. This time, she neared four
months. He couldn't remember the exact number of weeks, though she had it etched in the bottom of
one of her sculptures. Kevin destroyed that one, along with all the others.
One of the huge, heavy Estate doors slammed against the brick wall with a bang like a gunshot.
Sean lurched to his feet, grasping for the handle of the shovel in the gravel and leaves. A dark shape
stood in the wide doorway, swaying.
A woman, hunched over, practically swaddled in strips of cloth. It's a mummy, he thought,
irrationally. He shook his head no and backed up until he tripped over his own feet, half-crazy with fear.
Yes. He knew this fear. He felt it before, when he saw this same thing, the day he found Sharla.
He went in the doors when they swung open that day.
He followed the hunched old woman up the stairs.
Down long halls, he followed her, trying not to gag from the stench of age and living rot.
Another smell, one that was unearthly, saturated the Estate that day. He smelled it in the leaves in the fountain, on the very wind that whipped gravel into his face.
The hunched old woman wore demonic presences like shrouds. That day, he had been so scared.
All he could do was watch the impossible. Demons, wraiths, swirled around the woman's body like
garments. Faces, tortured faces, leering faces, faces that grinned and faces that screamed curses.
But he kept going.
Fifteen-year-old Sean found Sharla outside. Broken, violated. Her blood splashed on the walls,
used to paint designs and symbols on the walls and floor that made everything in him shiver.
He saw what had been done to her and demanded to know why God had let that happen to
someone so beautiful. So young. So innocent.
They found her friends’ bodies in one of the rooms. He didn't recognize them. The violence had
been so great.
When God didn't answer, when he couldn't find the peace that had been promised, he turned his
back. Right then. Right there. He scooped up the broken body of his friend when he found her on the
ground in the shattered atrium and carried her home. Her blood soaked through his T-shirt. The
stain went deeper, through his skin, through his being, all the way to his soul.
Sean sucked in a deep breath of the foul air and looked up. Full sunlight, bright and hot, beat
down on his back. The shovel handle lay a few yards away. The trash bag remained, held down by the
bowl of the shovel. The wind flicked the edges and made it flap and rustle. The old hag stood in the
doorway, still waiting.
If he followed her, he would find Sharla. He knew it like he knew the sky was blue, the grass was
green.
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This time, he shook his head no, one more time. He yelled it at her. His voice broke through the thick, stagnant air. Shattered the boundaries of the spirit bonds that held him to that horrible time
and place.
For a long time he remained in his knees, sobbing into the dusty gravel. Finally he dared open his
eyes.
Forcing the remnants of fear away, he looked toward the Estate.
Both of the big double doors hung open.
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Chapter Twelve
Kevin wrote the words just like Jake-o told him to. The night wore on around him. Sean and
Tamsyn were in the living room, watching TV. He hated the peace between them. The way they
laughed and kissed and hugged and acted like they were stupid teenagers. Anger built up like a real
thing, like something he could touch.
What did I do wrong? He thought back, trying to figure out if he forgot one of the spells or said it the wrong way. Unable to remember, he consulted his notebooks, hidden in the lower drawer of his
desk.
Sean was supposed to hate Tam. Why don’t you hate her yet?
He did the first thing he could think of and hurled a shoe at the closed bedroom door. It didn't
make enough noise, so he picked up a rock he brought in from outside and threw it at the wall. He
grinned at the hole the rock made.
No response from downstairs. Kevin knew if he went down, he'd see them kissing on the couch.
They were always kissing now. They didn't even try to pretend like they didn't care about each other
anymore. Kevin liked it better when she took her pills all the time and cried and didn't talk. Life was much better when she ignored him and only took care of him because she had to.
Now, she was always cooking food she thought he liked and asking him if he wanted to draw with
her or paint or play with her dumb old clay.
And he hated to admit that sometimes he wanted to. Drawing was one of the things he really did
well. And the clay looked like fun. She spread out wax paper on the kitchen table and used clay that
came in little bricks and made really cool things that she put in the oven to dry. She made an octopus
and painted it green one time, and it just looked so wicked he stole it when she wasn't looking. It was
in a safe place now, where she would never find it and take it back.
He wanted to make his own stuff with the clay, but he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of
doing it with her. When they went to sleep, he sneaked into the office and stole some of her stuff
sometimes. Because he wasn't sure how to make it come out right in the oven, he just made things and
left them soft. But he took really good care of his things, and nobody would ever find them.
Outside, tires crunched over gravel as a car drove into the yard. He left his desk and crawled up
on his bed, so he could see out the window. He didn't recognize the car. Not many people came out
here. Plus, it was late. Like nearly nine o'clock.
A man got out of the car, somebody tall and thin with broad shoulders. For a moment, he
wondered if Sean had gone out. The porch light came on and showed the guy had brown hair, not
blond hair, so it definitely wasn't his dad.
Keeping quiet, he hurried and crept down the stairs, to the point where the low arch that divided
the dining room from the living room started. If he stayed above that mark, they couldn't see him
from the living room. The arch kept him from view.
He heard the front door open.
Sean said, “Mike.”
“Where is he?”
Kevin almost recognized the voice. It was one he knew, it seemed like.
“This isn't a good time, Mike.” Sean was firm, but he was trying to be nice.
“I need to see him, Hallert.”
Only people who were mad at each other called each other by their last names. Kevin stretched
out on the top step, straining to see. Both Sean and Tam were standing up, their backs to him. He could sneak down a step or two to see who was there.
A little voice in his head said he should know the man. Maybe he was a friend of his mom's.
Maybe...maybe he knew where his mom was. An idea came to Kevin and he tiptoed back up the stairs.
The window in the back bedroom, the one they didn't use for anything, opened up over the roof
over the back porch. He could sneak out that window and go around the house. He felt a momentary
flutter of fear, because Jake-o lived outside.
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Jake-o waited for him.
But Jake-o promised not to hurt him and not to wear the little-boy head again.
He would be okay. Kevin went back to his room and got his shoes on. He had to go quickly,
because the adults were starting to talk louder. Not yelling, just yet, but he knew that tone in his dad's voice. The back window stuck and made some noise when he opened it. White paint flaked off and
dusted his hair and clothes. Carefully, he eased over the low sill and out on to the porch roof. It was
slanted a lot more steeply than he remembered. Even with rubber soles on his sneakers, he slipped
and slid on the old tin panels.
Kevin dropped to his bottom and scooted to the edge. Looking down the distance to the ground
took his breath away. If he landed the wrong way, he could break an ankle.
Then he would be out here, alone, unable to run away, with Jake-o somewhere. Ever since Sean
had shot at him, the monster was more careful about coming around. He still came at night and they
talked through the hole in the floor under the sink, but they had to be careful. Sean and Tamsyn were
up late a lot more now since they suddenly had stuff to talk about.
Kevin took a deep breath and closed his eyes tightly.
The fall took less than a second. He smacked against the ground, feet first, and fell over
backwards. His head whacked the ground. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs. He thought he
yelled, but he wasn't sure.
He laid still, his head thudding, his heart pounding, his legs aching, until he could breathe again,
and until he was sure Sean or Tamsyn weren't coming out to get him.
And to be sure that Jake-o wasn't coming out for him either.
He wanted to see Jake-o. Wanted to talk to him, because Jake-o knew his mom. But Jake-o scared
him so badly he felt weak in the pit of his stomach. It was like watching Alien, the real movie not the one edited for TV. It scared him, even though he had seen it and knew everything that happened. Just
the idea of seeing Jake-o made his stomach feel all weak and weird.
Jake-o wasn't a real animal, he knew that much. He was some sort of mystical creature, Tamsyn
said. She and Sean always tried to explain him away as a big snake, a boa constrictor or a python or
something that somebody had let loose in the woods and it had grown up huge. But they knew the
truth. They argued about it at night. Tam refused to leave the house at night, and even Sean made
excuses to stay in.
Kevin got up when he felt a little less shaky and hurried around the house, sticking to the
shadows. He sneaked out so much he was starting to feel at home in the dark. He reached the front
corner of the house. The familiar stranger stood on the porch, right at the threshold, talking angrily
with Sean. Kevin didn't dare move any closer, for fear of being seen.
Kevin lurched against the side of the house, making the men pause. He hunkered down, squeezing
his eyes shut, waiting to hear his dad's angry voice. It never came. The men resumed their heated
conversation.
Kevin smelled Jake-o first. He smelled like the inside of the snake tanks at the pet store, except it
was much worse. More like roadkill than the musty smell of snake. Like old meat, when Tamsyn left
bloody meat containers in the garbage can and they didn't empty the can for a day or so.
“Hey, boy.” The voice was a soft whisper.
“Jake-o?”
“You, boy, listen to men, here. Come under, listen to men here.”
Kevin opened his eyes and bit his lips hard, hard enough to break the skin. He tasted blood. Jake-
o was right there, his bright green snake-eyes staring. The translucent lids flicked over the orbs once, twice. “You come here and listen. You hear this, yes.”
Jake-o's cold, deformed little arms latched on to Kevin's shoulders and tugged him forward. The
hands felt too much like a baby's hands, moist and soft. Kevin kept biting down on his lips to keep
from making some sort of noise. Jake-o scared him more than anything, ever. Even some of the stuff
mom made him watch didn’t scare him like the lizard-thing did.
He squirmed through the sand, wincing as it got inside his pajamas and down his pants and into
his underwear. Jake-o slithered away into the dark, silent. Kevin got his knees under him and
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crouched in a fetal position, listening. The porch wasn't high enough for him to sit up underneath.
The stranger stood right above him. Every time the man moved, sand and dust filtered down on
Kevin's head.
“I have a right to see him, Hallert.”
“No, you don't. For the moment, I'm the only one with any rights here.”
Jake-o slithered next to him and stretched out. “Listen.” His voice was as soft as a breath. “You
listen, boy.”
“I was there when she needed me. I took care of him. I was the one there for him for years. You
might have a paper with your name on it, but my name's on his birth certificate! You know as well as I
do she probably had those papers faked. Do you know what real paternity test papers look like?”
“You're not seeing him, Mike. He's in bed.”
“I'm seeing a lawyer tomorrow. There will be another paternity test. Mark my words.”
“Go home, Mike. You've been drinking.”
The man over Kevin's head shuffled his foot. “I'm going to go now, but I'll be back. And the next
time, I'm not leaving until I see my son.”
Kevin sucked in a breath of sandy air. They were talking about him. Somebody else might be his
dad?
No. No. Sean was his dad. He was the only man his mom would ever have a baby with. She told
Kevin that all the time. Mom loved Sean more than anything in the world, even him sometimes! Mom cast dozens of spells and made all sort of promises to the spirits, if Sean would just come back to
them. Kevin shook his head angrily.
He’s a liar!
Soft, silky dark things crowded around Kevin’s head so quickly he almost yelled. Red eyes stared
through the dust at him. The dark things nestled against him like cats, all warm and soft.
The front door shut and the stranger stomped off the porch. Kevin squirmed out from under the
porch quickly, not thinking about what he was doing.
“Hey!” The shadow things wrapped around him and hung off his shoulders like a blanket. I like
this, he thought.
The man stiffened and turned around. “Kevin?”
“Yeah. Who are you?” The shadows purred in his ear. He could almost hear words in the sound.
“My name is Mike. Do you remember me?”
Kevin shook his head. “No.”
“You probably wouldn't. You were three the last time I saw you.”
Kevin looked the man up and down. It was pretty dark. The lights from the house didn't show
much. “Why do you think you're my dad?”
“Because your mom was with me when she got pregnant.” The man crouched, hands hanging
between his knees. Kevin saw his face, finally. He looked like Sean, a little bit. Maybe they were
related.
“She said Sean's my dad. She loves Sean.”
“I don't know what to tell you, kid. Here.” The man handed him a folded-up piece of paper. “Look
at that when you're alone. Look at who it says your dad is.”
Kevin tucked the paper into his back pocket. “I'll look at it, but you can't be my dad. My mom
didn't want you to be. She gave me to Sean. Sean's my father.”
“Whatever, kid. We'll get this figured out, and pretty soon you can come back home with me and
your grandpa Timothy.”
Kevin shook his head. “I don't want to go with you.”
The man shrugged and smirked. “Why are you outside, kid?”
“'Cuz I want to be.” Kevin took another step back. And another. The shadows shifted and writhed
around his neck.
“Do they know you're out here?”
“No.”
“Hey, look...you can come with me now, if you want. I got all sorts of stuff you would like at home.
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Xbox 360, giant flat screen TV, every DVD you could ever want to watch.”
“Are you going to molest me or something? Are you a pervert?”
“What? No! I just want you home. Where you belong. I'm your dad, kid, and you belong with me.
Not with that pansy in there.”
“You shouldn't call my dad names,” Kevin said. Anger coiled around his entire being. He couldn't
move. The shadows thickened. “I'm going to make you die if you call him anymore names.”
The man laughed softly. “Kid, relax. What are you going to do? What’s that all over you?”
Kevin glanced over his shoulder. Jake-o's eyes glittered in the diffused porch light that filtered
through the cracks in the porch floor. “It's not what I'll do. My mom's friends take care of me. And if I say I don't like you, then they'll take care of it. You know my mom had scary friends, right?”
Kevin took a step forward. Every cell in his body ached, he was so mad. He felt twelve feet tall,
even taller when the man took a step back, a confused look on his face. “You know we know scary
magic. I have stuff that would make your blood come out of your cells if you drank it.”
“Look, kid,” the man said. He was digging in his pocket for something. Keys. When he pulled
them out, they jingled. Jake-o hissed loudly. Kevin glanced down when the long, scary monster
