The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel by Wallace Daniel

Author:Wallace, Daniel [Wallace, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2013-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

THE SEARCH

The birds would have devoured her by now, removed the meat from her bones, and left the rest for the Terrible Forest Beetle, a black, hard-shelled, eight-legged animal bigger than her head, traveling silent and unseen through the piney underbrush, waiting for leftovers just like her. Each bird would have taken its favorite part: some like the arms, others the neck. It would happen in an instant, Helen had told her once, but an instant that seemed to last a lifetime. Each incarnation of the story revealed new ways to scare the living hell out of Rachel. Their claws, sharp as broken glass. Your hair, they use to make their nests. Your eyes—they may not want your eyes at all, seeing as how they’re dead already.

And Rachel said nothing, because the story filled her heart with such fear that there were no words for it anymore. All you could hear would be their silent wings, slashing through the air, and then a darkness even darker than the dark you live in. That’s what death is.

Now out there in the world, Rachel would be waiting for this to happen, and when it didn’t, when death didn’t come, what would she think? Sadder still, of course, sadder than any story Helen could tell, would be that her sister was at the bottom of that ravine, dead. But even if she were alive, Helen’s life wasn’t going to be the same: dead or alive, Rachel would be lost to her. A world without Rachel—and without the world she had taught Rachel to believe was real—was a world she didn’t know how to live in.

“Two people?” she said to Jonas when they arrived on her porch. “That’s it?” She’d seen the lanterns, strange lights tethered to nothing, bobbing up the hill in the darkness, and went out to meet them.

“I tried for more,” Jonas said, “but no one came. Goddamn Archie Yates slammed the door in my—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, believing it: one person could find a dead body. She could have gotten more people herself but thought she should stay at the house, in case Rachel wandered back. She looked at Digby, then at the lumberjack, who stood just behind Jonas. Digby looked like a child in the dark, especially standing next to the lumberjack—Smith, his name was. Smith.

“At your service, Miss McCallister,” Digby said, almost bowing. “It’s a desperate night to meet again, after so long.”

So long. She hadn’t remembered the last time she saw the tiny barkeep. She had never learned to drink. Perhaps she would now.

Smith didn’t say anything. He looked rooted there, unmovable. Then he scraped his boots on the porch step.

“How long ago did she leave?” Digby asked her.

“Hours,” she said. “Maybe three.”

“She could be far,” he said.

“Or maybe not,” Jonas said. “She could be walking in circles. She’s blind; she’s never been in the forest. She could be close.”

“The dogs will find her,” Smith said.

“Dogs?” she said.

“Lumberjack Smith sent his dogs on ahead,” Digby said.

“How could they possibly help?”

“Dogs know,” Smith said.

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