lightness, and light.
The kaleidoscopic visions, refracted images of himself and the woods and the landscape that he’d glimpsed since his first night here: he was seeing out of the eyes of the others that were like him, of him, the many eyes of his kin. Others just as he was, a tribe of himself.
In a multilayered image he saw the outside of the house, through their eyes. They waited beyond the trees, as they’d waited for years, ever since he first left them and emerged from the forest disguised as a little boy. They were the ones from the woods, from the place below the world. His people.
And how glad he was. How thankful that they’d waited with such patience, and his heart, near bursting, swelled with joy. There were no doubts, not anymore. He no longer belonged to this wasted aboveground landscape of iron and greed. His people, they would teach him how to shed the remains of his disguise once and for all, to let go of who he had once believed himself to be, Michael and Blue both. They would show him how to return to all he had forgotten: his real family. And now he would go to them.
Out and down the porch steps, a cold wind whistled over his newly exposed face. The crisp evening air was tinged with the smell of smoke, the acrid odor an affront to his new consciousness that reached him through someplace other than the blunt, barklike coating where his nostrils used to be, but no longer were. And with the recognition of the smoky scent came low whisperings, accompanied by a new spectrum of light visible in the darkness, past blue to bruised purple and darker. He poredthrough every color now, all the way down beyond black. He saw, really saw, for the first time since he’d left their side.
One was there, by the edge of the property. Its branchlike arms were extended, prehensile bristles tugging back snarled leaves to peer over a hedge. And there was another, high up in the tree canopy, its hind legs curled like snakes around the slender bole of a pine. One more flat to the ground by the peony bushes, with two more beside it, erect and slimmed to the narrowest of widths. They watched him watch them watch him, all with the same honeycomb eyes.
They greeted him in his language, and he in theirs; they shared the same tongue. They shared the same mind as well: a hive mind, alive with unified intelligence. Here with only the sound of rushing wind and buzzing bees, and insects that burrow and bite. He was of another kind, like his not-grandmother had said. This was who he was, finally and at last. They called to him by his secret name. And so he went.
He crept toward the woods, then stopped.
The mind of the tribe drew his attention back toward the house and the whining electric glow from the bathroom window upstairs, its artificial light a glaring impurity against the moonless nighttime sky.
There was another. Like him, or rather soon to be. He wasn’t the only one they had come for.
Part Two
----
JASON
Chapter Four
----
Jason, hunched over the farm sink, scrubbed at an egregiously burned frying pan with a shred of steel wool. He’d tried making scrambled eggs, but the result was a brown-and-yellow hash that tasted like a salt lick, its remnants unyielding in their death grip upon the skillet. He was afraid of scratching the bottom—couldn’t damaging the coating cause minute fragments of metal to leach into the food the next time the pan was used? Better to tread lightly, delicately, make smooth, circular gestures and coax the pan clean. Maybe he’d go down the hill and use Maureen’s internet connection to find out the proper way to clean vintage cookware. Vinegar? Baking soda? Or a simple soap-and-water solution?
Jason’s hands started to shake. He placed the pan down carefully in the sink, a tinny reverberation of iron against clay. Ten days gone since they were supposed to be back in New York. But that was another lifetime ago.
Car wheels on gravel and Jason tried to keep his breath steady as he
The kaleidoscopic visions, refracted images of himself and the woods and the landscape that he’d glimpsed since his first night here: he was seeing out of the eyes of the others that were like him, of him, the many eyes of his kin. Others just as he was, a tribe of himself.
In a multilayered image he saw the outside of the house, through their eyes. They waited beyond the trees, as they’d waited for years, ever since he first left them and emerged from the forest disguised as a little boy. They were the ones from the woods, from the place below the world. His people.
And how glad he was. How thankful that they’d waited with such patience, and his heart, near bursting, swelled with joy. There were no doubts, not anymore. He no longer belonged to this wasted aboveground landscape of iron and greed. His people, they would teach him how to shed the remains of his disguise once and for all, to let go of who he had once believed himself to be, Michael and Blue both. They would show him how to return to all he had forgotten: his real family. And now he would go to them.
Out and down the porch steps, a cold wind whistled over his newly exposed face. The crisp evening air was tinged with the smell of smoke, the acrid odor an affront to his new consciousness that reached him through someplace other than the blunt, barklike coating where his nostrils used to be, but no longer were. And with the recognition of the smoky scent came low whisperings, accompanied by a new spectrum of light visible in the darkness, past blue to bruised purple and darker. He poredthrough every color now, all the way down beyond black. He saw, really saw, for the first time since he’d left their side.
One was there, by the edge of the property. Its branchlike arms were extended, prehensile bristles tugging back snarled leaves to peer over a hedge. And there was another, high up in the tree canopy, its hind legs curled like snakes around the slender bole of a pine. One more flat to the ground by the peony bushes, with two more beside it, erect and slimmed to the narrowest of widths. They watched him watch them watch him, all with the same honeycomb eyes.
They greeted him in his language, and he in theirs; they shared the same tongue. They shared the same mind as well: a hive mind, alive with unified intelligence. Here with only the sound of rushing wind and buzzing bees, and insects that burrow and bite. He was of another kind, like his not-grandmother had said. This was who he was, finally and at last. They called to him by his secret name. And so he went.
He crept toward the woods, then stopped.
The mind of the tribe drew his attention back toward the house and the whining electric glow from the bathroom window upstairs, its artificial light a glaring impurity against the moonless nighttime sky.
There was another. Like him, or rather soon to be. He wasn’t the only one they had come for.
Part Two
----
JASON
Chapter Four
----
Jason, hunched over the farm sink, scrubbed at an egregiously burned frying pan with a shred of steel wool. He’d tried making scrambled eggs, but the result was a brown-and-yellow hash that tasted like a salt lick, its remnants unyielding in their death grip upon the skillet. He was afraid of scratching the bottom—couldn’t damaging the coating cause minute fragments of metal to leach into the food the next time the pan was used? Better to tread lightly, delicately, make smooth, circular gestures and coax the pan clean. Maybe he’d go down the hill and use Maureen’s internet connection to find out the proper way to clean vintage cookware. Vinegar? Baking soda? Or a simple soap-and-water solution?
Jason’s hands started to shake. He placed the pan down carefully in the sink, a tinny reverberation of iron against clay. Ten days gone since they were supposed to be back in New York. But that was another lifetime ago.
Car wheels on gravel and Jason tried to keep his breath steady as he
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