Nathaniel

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

There was no funeral for Amos Hall, none for Ben Findley. Anna had forbidden it.

"I won't do it," she'd said. "I won't pretend to shed tears for Amos, and as for Ben Findley-well, he lived alone for twenty years, and he can be buried alone, too."

She'd told no one of her conversation with Ben Findley the night Amos had died, and now she knew she never would. There was no point, she'd decided. There was no one left who knew the whole truth of what had happened all those years ago. And she'd decided it no longer really mattered. Finally, it was over. They were all dead, and even though they could no longer give her the answers to her questions, neither could they hurt her any more than they already had.

They'd talked to her about Ben Findley, of course, when they came down from Mulford to investigate his death.

She hadn't told them about Nathaniel. That, too, was something she'd decided never to speak of again. So when they'd asked her if she had any idea who might have killed Ben Findley, she'd only shrugged. "A drifter, I suppose. Ben didn't have any friends, but he didn't have any enemies, either. So it must have been a drifter."

No one else in Prairie Bend had been able to offer a better idea, nor had anyone given credence to Michael's insistence that Nathaniel had killed the recluse.

The investigators went over Ben Findley's farm, but paid scant attention to the little room below the barn, dismissing the cell as nothing more than the storm cellar it appeared to be. In the end, they went back to Mulford, sure they would never find Ben Findley's killer, and equally sure that no one in Prairie Bend would care.

For Janet, the days following the deaths were increasingly difficult. She found herself watching Michael closely, guarding herself against the moment when he would suddenly be attacked by one of his headaches, then insist that Nathaniel had shown him something both hideous and impossible. Even as the days went by, and nothing happened, she did not calm down. Instead, she only grew more nervous, sure that whatever was happening to Michael had not yet ended.

Part of her certainty that things were not over involved Shadow.

Since the night Ben Findley had been found dead in his barn, the huge black dog had not been seen. Nor had Michael seemed upset by his disappearance.

"He's helping Nathaniel," Michael had said. "He'll come back. Nathaniel will bring him back."

And so Janet was waiting.

It was on the fifth day, near dusk, that Shadow returned.

Janet and Michael were in the kitchen. Michael was at the sink, doing the last of the supper dishes, while Janet sat at the kitchen table laboriously attempting to master the basic manipulations of the knitting needles that Anna had given her that afternoon. "Learn now," Anna had told her. "In the winter, it will help pass the time." And so she was trying, but it was not going well. In fact, Michael could already do it better than she could.

"I just don't get it," she said at last, dropping the work on the table. "I can't keep the same number of stitches in a row, and they just keep getting tighter and tighter." Then, when Michael made no reply, she looked up to see him staring out the window. His right hand was raised as he rubbed at his temples. "Michael?" When he still said nothing, Janet rose to her feet. "What is it, honey? Is something wrong?"

Then her eyes followed his, and in the distance, in Potter's Field, she saw the familiar black mass that was Shadow.

"He's looking for the babies," Michael said in a faraway voice. "He's looking for the babies that Grandpa killed."

Holding her emotions tightly in check, Janet slipped her arms around her son. "No, Michael. There's nothing out there…"

"There is," Michael repeated, his voice growing stronger. "Shadow's out there looking for them, helping Nathaniel find them."

"No!" Janet exclaimed.

Michael pivoted to face her, glaring at her with furious eyes. "Yes! They're out there, and Nathaniel has to find them, and I have to help him."

He began struggling in her arms, trying to wriggle free, but Janet hung on. "No!" she screamed. "There's nothing out there, and there is no Nathaniel, and you have to stop pretending there is! You have to stop it, Michael! Do you hear me? Just stop it!"

Michael was still in her arms, but suddenly his eyes, blazing with fury, gazed into hers.

"You don't know," he whispered. "You don't know, because you don't know Nathaniel."

For several long minutes the two of them stood frozen in a contest of wills. Then, at last, Janet knew what she had to do.

"All right," she said, letting go of Michael. "Let's go find out. Right now, let's go find out what the truth is."

Taking Michael by the hand she left the house and strode across the yard to the toolshed. Seconds later, Michael's arm still firmly gripped in her right hand, a shovel in her left, she started toward Potter's Field. "We'll dig them up," she told Michael as they climbed through the barbed wire. "If there are any bodies in this field, we'll dig them up right now, and look at them."

Shadow's head came up, and he watched them as they approached. Then, as he recognized them, he bounded over, his tail wagging, a happy bark ringing out over the prairie. Michael threw himself on the dog, scratching him and petting him, but Janet stood still and silent. Finally, when Michael had begun to calm down, she spoke.

"Where are they?" she asked. "Where are they buried?"

Shadow's ears suddenly dropped flat against his head, and his joyful barking faded into a wary growl.

"It's all right," Michael soothed. "It's all right, boy. We're gonna help you." Then, slowly, Michael began moving through the field with Shadow at his side.

"Here," Michael said.

Janet moved the stone at Michael's feet aside, and plunged the shovel into the earth. She worked silently, not heeding the stress she was putting on her body, caring more about proving to Michael that there was nothing in the field than about any danger to her unborn child.

And then, a moment later, the bone fragments appeared.

Janet stared at them, then reached down to pick one of them up. She studied it a moment, then handed it to Michael. "Look at it," she said. "It's old and crumbling,, and it could be anything. It might be human, and it might not. But whatever it is, it's far too old for your grandfather to have buried it here."

Michael's temples were pounding now, and he glowered at his mother with barely contained fury. "There's more," he whispered. "All over the field, there's more."

"Where?" Janet demanded. "Show me where. You keep telling me Aunt Laura's babies are buried out here, Michael. But where are they? If they're here, show them to me."

Trembling, Michael glared at her, then silently hurried away. He moved across the field, then finally stopped.

"Here," he said once more. "If you want to see it, it's right here." Wordlessly, Janet began digging once more.

Nathaniel watched for a few moments, then turned away and moved slowly through the barn, looking at it all for the last time. The little room beneath the trapdoor where he'd spent so many years; the tack room, from which he'd watched the burials on those strange nights when the children had been born and then died.

His children, the children he could reach through the powers of his mind. There hadn't been many of them, but he still thought of them as his.

There had been his brother. On the night Nathaniel was born, he had called out to his brother, and his brother had answered him. But then he'd gone to sleep, and when he woke up, his brother was gone. For a long time after that, Nathaniel had called out to his brother, called to him for help, but his brother had never come to him.

There had been two others since then, two others that he had felt, but in the end, they had brought them to the field, and buried them.

And then, a few months ago, his brother had come back. Nathaniel remembered it so well-he'd awakened one morning and sensed that he was no longer alone, that at last his brother had returned to help him avenge all the wrongs that had been done. For a long time, he and his brother had talked, and his brother had promised to come for him, to take him outside, to help him destroy their enemies.

But then his brother had died. He'd tried to warn Mark, but he couldn't. Mark was older than he and had ignored his warnings. And the old man had killed him.

And then, a few days later, Michael had come. He'd called out to Michael, too, and Michael had answered him.

And with Michael's help, he had destroyed his enemies.

And now, Michael and his mother were in the field, and would find the children, and know the truth.

Now, at last, Nathaniel could go home.

He left the barn and in the gathering darkness crossed the yard. He ignored the house-the house that had been part of his prison through all the years of his life, but that had, in these last days, been his secret refuge. Instead, he concentrated his mind on his goal: the house where he'd been born.

He moved quickly, slipping easily through the barbed wire, and in a few seconds, he was there…

Janet's shovel struck something, something that stopped the blade's penetration of the earth, but was too soft to be a rock. As Michael stood by, with Shadow quivering at his side, Janet lowered herself to her knees, and began digging with her hands.

A moment later she felt the soft folds of a blanket.

Her heart began to beat faster as she worked, and then she pulled the object she had uncovered free from the earth that had hidden it.

She stared at it for a long time, afraid to open it, afraid it might actually be what she thought it was.

But she had come too far to turn back now. With a shaking hand, she folded back one corner of the blanket.

She could only stand to look at it for a second. Already, the flesh had begun to rot away, and the skin was entirely gone from the skull. Her stomach lurched, and involuntarily, Janet dropped the tiny corpse back into its grave. Her face pale, her whole body trembling now, Janet turned to gaze at her son.

"How did you know?" she breathed. "How did you know?"

"Nathaniel," Michael said, his voice steady. "Nathaniel told me."

"Where is he?"

Michael fell silent for a moment, then his eyes filled with tears.

"He's gone home," he said. "He's gone home to die."

Michael stopped, his eyes fixed on the window of his room. Janet, too, stopped. Following Michael's gaze, she looked up. The house was dark except for a single, oddly flickering light that glowed from Michael's window. Shadow bounded ahead to scratch eagerly at the back door.

"What is it, Michael?" Janet asked.

"Nathaniel. He's here. He's in my room."

"No," Janet whispered. "There's no one here, Michael. There's no Nathaniel." But even as she said the words, Janet knew she no longer believed them. Whatever Nathaniel was, whether he was someone real, or a ghost, or no more than a creature of Michael's imagination, he was real. He was as real to her now as he was to Michael, and to Anna.

Slowly, Janet moved toward the back door of the house. Michael followed her, his face suddenly gone blank, as if he was listening to some being that Janet couldn't see.

She pulled the door open, and reached for the light switch. Nothing happened. Shadow slipped inside, immediately disappearing through the kitchen and up the stairs.

Janet could sense the presence in the house now, and her instinct was to flee, to abandon the house to whatever had invaded it, to take Michael and run out into the darkening night.

Instead, she went into the living room and picked up the poker that hung from the mantelpiece. Then she turned, and as if in a trance, moved toward the foot of the stairs, and started up.

Michael followed. Once again, his head was pounding, and once again, his nostrils seemed filled with smoke. And once again, Nathaniel's voice was whispering in his head.

"This is my house, and I have come home."

Michael moved on, his vision starting to cloud.

"This is my house, and I will never leave it. Never again."

They reached the landing. The presence of Nathaniel was almost palpable. Shadow, too, was there, his great body stretched on the floor in front of Michael's door, a strangled whimpering coming from his throat.

"This was my mother's house, and this is my house. I will not leave my house again."

Michael stopped, staring at the closed door, listening to Nathaniel's voice, knowing what Nathaniel was going to ask him to do.

Janet, too, stopped, but then she moved forward again, and put her hand on the knob of the door to Michael's room.

She turned it, then gently pushed the door, letting it swing open.

In the center of the room, his empty blue eyes fixed on her, his ashen face expressionless, Nathaniel stood, illuminated by the soft light of an oil lamp.

"This is my house," he said. "I was born here, and I will die here."

Janet recognized them all in the strange face she beheld. It was an ageless face, and it bore no emotion, and all of them were there.

Mark was there, and Amos.

Ben Findley was there.

And Michael was there.

For endless seconds, Janet searched that face, her mind reeling. Even now, as she saw him, she still was uncertain if he was real or only an apparition.

"Who are you?" she breathed at last.

"I am Nathaniel."

"What do you want?"

"I want what is mine," Nathaniel replied, his toneless voice echoing in the small room. "I want what was taken from me. I want-"

"No!" Janet suddenly screamed. All the torment that had built inside her over the last months, all the tensions, all tht fears, overwhelmed her now, focusing on the strange being in Michael's room. "No," she screamed once again. "Nothing. You'll get nothing here."

She raised the poker, swinging it at Nathaniel with all the force she could muster. Nathaniel staggered backward under the blow, and then Janet dropped the poker, hurling herself forward.

"Help me, Michael!" The words thundered in Michael's head as he watched his mother throw herself on Nathaniel. Then, again, Nathaniel's words came: "Help me!"

Everything Michael saw was fogged now, fogged by the smoke that was choking him, and by the sound of Nathaniel's words ringing in his head.

"Help me, Michael. Please help me…"

His mind began to focus, and Nathaniel's wish began to take shape within him.

And then, as Michael silently commanded him, Shadow suddenly rose to his feet and launched himself into the room. To Michael, it was as if he was seeing it in slow motion: the dog seeming to arc slowly through the air, his lips curling back to expose his gleaming fangs, his ears laid flat against his head, droplets of saliva scattering from his jowls.

"Help me!" Nathaniel's words filled the room now, battering Michael's ears as well as his mind.

Then Shadow reached his target, his body twisting in midair and knocking over the little table that held the oil lamp as his jaws closed firmly on a human throat.

A scream filled the room as the oil lamp burst, and flames suddenly shot in every direction. The bedcovers caught first, and then the curtains.

Suddenly the room was filled with real smoke, and Michael understood with certain clarity that this was the smoke he'd been smelling all along, that Nathaniel, while showing him the past, had been showing him the future as well. And now he could hear his mother's terrified screams drowning out Nathaniel's bellows of pain and anguish.

His fogged mind cleared, and he watched for a moment, frozen to the spot, as his mother began flailing at the quickly spreading fire.

On the floor, his throat bleeding, Nathaniel lay calmly beneath the still attacking dog.

"No," Michael screamed. He hurled himself into the room. "No, Mom. Stop it-it's too late! Out! We've got to get out!"

Without waiting for her to reply, Michael grabbed her arm and began dragging her from the burning room.

For Janet, none of it was real anymore. Not Nathaniel, not Michael, not even the fire. She was caught in her nightmare again, but this time, she had to save them. Her family was going to die, and she had to save them.

She fought against the hands that restrained her, tried her best to stay in the burning room, tried to combat the growing flames.

Then, out of the smoke, a great weight hurled itself against her, and she fell to the floor. She recovered herself and got to her knees, then once again regained her feet.

But the weight was pressing at her now, pushing her toward the door, while the insistent hands still pulled.

And then she was out of the burning room and on the stairs. Her mind began to clear, and she recognized Michael in front of her, pulling her along. Behind her was Shadow, barking furiously, prodding at her, his large body preventing her from going back up the narrow stairs.

Then they were out of the house, huddled together in the yard, watching as the flames consumed the tinder-dry wood. Once, as she looked up, Janet thought she saw a face at Michael's window, but a second later it disappeared as the house crashed in on itself.

Then people began to gather around her; first the Simpsons, then the Shieldses, and then others, until soon most of Prairie Bend was there.

No one tried to save the house, no one tried to save anything that was in it: as the house burned, Janet's labor began.