flat, unresponsive eyes, which were no longer windows on a soul but
mirrors to keep out the world.
If it was a psychological problem, there was no doubt about the
cause.
They’d been through a traumatic year, enough to drive a grown man–let
alone a child–to a breakdown.
But what was the trigger, why now, why here, why after all these many
months, during which the poor kid had seemed to cope so well?
“In what bodies?” Toby demanded sharply.
“Come on,” Jack said, taking the boy’s gloved hand. “Let’s go back to
the house.”
“In what bodies did they go on?”
“Toby, stop this.”
“Need to know. Tell me now. Tell me.”
“Oh, dear God, don’t let this happen.”
Still on his knees, Jack said, “Listen, come back to the house with me
so we can–” Toby wrenched his hand out of his father’s grasp, leaving
Jack with the empty glove.
“In what bodies?”
The small face was without expression, as placid as still water, yet
the words burst from the boy in a tone of ice-cold rage.
Jack had the eerie feeling that he was conversing with a
ventriloquist’s dummy that could not match its wooden features to the
tenor of its words.
“In what bodies?”
This wasn’t a breakdown. A mental collapse didn’t happen this
suddenly, completely, without warning signs.
“In what bodies?”
This wasn’t Toby. Not Toby at all. Ridiculous. Of course it was
Toby. Who else?
Someone talking through Toby. Crazy thought, weird. Through Toby?
Nevertheless, kneeling there in the graveyard, gazing into his son’s
eyes, Jack no longer saw the blankness of a mirror, although he was
aware of his own frightened eyes in twin reflections. He didn’t see
the innocence of a child, either, or any familiar quality. He
perceived–or was imagining–another presence, something both less and
more than human, a strangeness beyond comprehension, peering out at him
from within Toby.
“In what bodies?”
Jack couldn’t work up any saliva. Tongue stuck to the roof of his
mouth. Couldn’t swallow, either. He was colder than the wintry day
could explain. Suddenly much colder. Beyond freezing.
He’d never felt anything like it before. A cynical part of him thought
he was being ridiculous, hysterical, leting himself be swept away by
primitive superstition– because he could not face the thought of Toby
having a psychotic episode and slipping into mental chaos. On the
other hand, it was precisely the primitive nature of the perception
that convinced him another presence shared the body of his son: he felt
it on a primal level, deeper than he had ever felt anything before, it
was a knowledge more certain than any that could be arrived at by
intellect, a profound and irrefutable animal instinct, as if he’d
captured the scent of an enemy’s pheromones, his skin was tingling with
the vibrations of an inhuman aura. His gut clenched with fear. Sweat
broke out on his forehead the flesh crimped along the nape of his
neck.
He wanted to spring to his feet, scoop Toby into his arms, run down the
hill to the house, and remove him from the influence of the entity that
held him in its thrall. Ghost, demon, ancient Indian spirit?
No, ridiculous. But something, damn it. Something.
He hesitated, partly because he was transfixed by what he thought he
saw in the boy’s eyes, partly because he feared that forcing a break of
the connection between Toby and whatever was linked with him would
somehow harm the boy, perhaps damage him mentally. Which didn’t make
any sense, no sense at all. But then none of it made sense.
A dreamlike quality characterized the moment and the place. It was
Toby’s voice, yes, but not his usual speech patterns or inflections:
“In what bodies did they go on from here?”
Jack decided to answer.
Holding Toby’s empty glove in his hand, he had the terrible feeling
that he must play along or be left with a son as limp and hollow as the
glove, a drained shell of a boy, form without content, those beloved
eyes vacant forever.
And how insane was that? His mind spun. He seemed poised on the brink
of an abyss, teetering out of balance. Maybe he was the one having the