Hello.
It had been so long since Cyrus had signed to another person other than a head doctor that he had almost forgotten how to converse, but slowly, then faster, he began to sign in return.
Hello. My name is-
Cyrus. I know your name.
How do you know my name?
I know all about you, Cyrus. You, and your little larder.
Cyrus had pulled back then and returned to his cell, where he lay huddled in the corner for the rest of the day while the voices shouted and argued over one another. But the next day he returned to the edge of the recreation unit, and the old man was waiting for him. He knew. He knew that Cyrus would come back to him.
Cyrus began to sign.
What do you want?
I have something to give you, Cyrus.
What?
The old man paused, then made the sign, the one that Cyrus made to himself in the darkness, when it all threatened to become too much for him and he needed some hope, something to cling to, something for which to yearn.
A woman, Cyrus. I’m going to give you a woman.
Barely yards away from where Cyrus lay, Faulkner knelt in his cell and prayed for success. He knew that by coming here he would find one that he could use. The ones in the other prison were no good to him; they were long-term prisoners, and Faulkner was not interested in long-termers. So he had injured himself, necessitating the transfer to the Mental Health Stabilization Unit and access to a more suitable population. He had expected it to be more difficult, but he had spotted Nairn instantly and had felt his pain. Faulkner tightened his fingers together, and the whispering of his prayers increased in volume.
The guard Anson approached the cell quietly, then paused as he stared down at the kneeling figure. His hand flicked in a neat, practiced movement and the ligature passed over the head of the praying man. Then, with a swift glance over his shoulder, Anson tugged and Faulkner was dragged, retching and clawing, to the bars. Anson pulled him up, then reached through the bars and gripped the old man’s chin.
“You fuck!” hissed Anson, keeping his voice low, for he had seen the men in Faulkner’s cell before the preacher was moved and suspected that some form of monitoring was in progress. Already, he had spoken to Marie and warned her to say nothing of their relationship in case his suspicions were correct. “You ever open your mouth ’bout me again and I’ll finish what you started, you understand?” His fingers dug into Faulkner’s dry, hot skin and felt the bone beneath, fragile and waiting to be broken. He released his grip, then allowed the rubber cord to slacken before he jerked it back again, banging the old man’s head painfully against the bars.
“And you better watch what you eat, you old cocksucker, because I’m gonna be playing with your food before you get it, ya hear?” Then he slipped the cord over Faulkner’s head and allowed him to fall to the ground. The preacher raised himself slowly and staggered to his bunk, drawing deep ragged breaths and touching the indentation on his neck. He listened as the guard’s footsteps faded away, then remaining seated and keeping his distance from the bars, he returned to his prayers.
As he sat, something on the floor seemed to draw his attention and his head turned to follow its movements. He watched it for a time then brought his foot down hard and firm upon it, before scraping the remains of the spider from his shoe.
“Boy,” he whispered, “I warned you. I warned you to keep your pets under control.”
From close by came a sound that might have been the hissing of steam or an exhalation of barely restrained rage.
And in his own cell, half asleep, the remembered smell of damp earth flooding his senses, Cyrus Nairn stirred as another voice was added to the chorus in his head. This one had been coming to him more and more regularly in the previous weeks, ever since he and the preacher had begun to communicate and share the details of their lives. Cyrus now welcomed the stranger’s arrival, feeling him stretch searching tendrils through his mind, establishing his presence and silencing the others.
Hello, said Cyrus, hearing in his head his own voice, the one no one else had heard in so many years, and signing his words by habit with his fingers.
Hello Cyrus, the visitor responded.
Cyrus smiled. He wasn’t sure what to call the visitor, because the visitor had lots of names, old names that Cyrus had never heard spoken before. But there were two that he used more than others.
Sometimes he called himself Leonard.
Mostly he called himself Pudd.
7
THAT NIGHT RACHEL watched me, unspeaking, while I undressed.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” she asked at last.
I lay down beside her and felt her move in close to me, her belly touching my upper thigh. I placed my hand upon her and tried to sense the life inside.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Great. Only puked a little this morning.” She grinned and poked me. “But then I came in and kissed ya!”
“Lovely. It’s a testament to your personal hygiene that I didn’t notice it being any more unpleasant than usual.”
Rachel pinched me hard at the waist, then raised her hand so that she could run it through my hair. “Well? You still haven’t answered my question.”
“He said that he wanted me-us, I guess, since you’ll be called too-to withdraw from the case and refuse to testify. In return, he promised to let us be.”
“Do you believe him?”
“No, and even if I did, it wouldn’t change anything. Stan Ornstead has doubts about my suitability as a witness, but I think he’s just edgy and those doubts really don’t extend to you anyway. We’ll be testifying whether we want to or not, but I got the feeling that Faulkner didn’t really care about our testimony and that he was pretty certain of making bail after the review. I don’t understand why he called me to him except to taunt me. Maybe he’s so bored in prison that he thought I’d provide some amusement.”
“And did you?”
“A little, but he’s kind of easily amused. There were other things too: his cell is freezing, Rachel. It’s almost as if his body is drawing all the warmth from its surroundings. And he baited one of the guards about a relationship with a young girl.”
“Gossip?”
“No. The guard reacted like he’d been struck in the face. I don’t think he’d shared that information with anybody. According to Faulkner, the girl is underage, and the guard confirmed as much to me later.”
“What are you going to do?”
“About the girl? I asked Stan Ornstead to set something in motion. That’s all I can do.”
“So what’s your conclusion about Faulkner? That he’s psychic?”
“No, not psychic. I don’t think there’s a word for what Faulkner is. Before I left him, he spit at me. Actually, he spit into my mouth.”
I felt her stiffen.
“Yeah, that’s kind of how I feel about it too. There isn’t enough mouthwash in the world to take that one away.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He told me it would help me to see better.”
“See what better?”
This was delicate ground. I almost told her then: about the black car, about the things on the prison walls, about the visions of lost children that I’d had in the past, about Susan and Jennifer visiting me from some place beyond. I so badly wanted to tell her, but I could not, and I did not understand why this should be. She sensed some of it, I thought, but chose not to ask. And if she had asked, how could I have explained it to her? I was still unsure myself about the nature of the gift that I had. I did not like to think that something in me drew these lost souls to me. It was easier, sometimes, to try to believe that it was a psychological disturbance, not a psychic one.
I was tempted too to call Elliot Norton and tell him that his troubles were his own, that I wanted no part of them, but I had made a promise to him. And as long as Faulkner remained behind bars, awaiting a decision on his bail, I believed that Rachel would be safe. Faulkner, I felt certain, would do nothing that might endanger the possibility of his release.