The Final Descent (The Monstrumologist #4)(63)

There was a tall, broad-shouldered man watching us from the grave site. He was frowning.

“Is that your husband?” I asked Lilly.

“The latest one. Promise you won’t punch him or eviscerate him or feed him to anything.”

“Oh, I’m done with that. I haven’t killed anyone for a very long time.”

“You sound almost wistful about it.”

“I am not a monster, Lilly.”

“No, more like a ghost. Frightening but impotent. What is it?”

“What is what?”

“What you’ve come to tell me.”

“Oh. Never mind. It doesn’t really matter.”

“After nearly forty years, it must a little.”

It was a lovely spring day. Cloudless. Cool. The leaves of the sycamore tree a startled green. The man was still frowning at us from the grave site, but he had not moved.

“What’s his name? Your latest husband.”

She told me. “James?” I asked, thinking she had left out his last name. “Like the philosopher?”

“No, but James is his middle name.”

“Ah. His parents must have admired the brothers.”

“Brothers?”

“His brother was a novelist.”

“Whose brother?”

“The philosopher’s.”

She laughed, and still the sound was like coins tossed upon a silver tray.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s have a drink.”

Her laughter stopped. “Now?”

“We’ll celebrate your father’s life.”

“I can’t go with you now.”

“Later, then. Tonight.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? He won’t mind.” Nodding toward the frowning man. “I’m harmless; you said so yourself. The impotent ghost.”

She turned her head away. Her profile was lovely beneath the sycamore tree.

“I don’t understand why you’ve come,” she murmured, raising her face to the sky. Its blue paled against the blue of her eyes.

“I wanted to tell you something.”

“Then why won’t you tell me and go away?”

I pulled the old photograph from my pocket. She saw it, and suddenly she was happy again.

“Wherever did you get that?”

“You gave it to me. Don’t you remember?”

She shook her head. “Look how round I was.”

“That’s just baby fat. You said—do you remember what you said?—for when I got lonely.”

“Did I?” And she laughed again.

“And for luck.” I slipped the photo back into my pocket. I feared she might try to take it from me.

“Did it work?” she asked. “Has it brought you luck?”

“I’m never without it,” I answered, meaning the picture. “Is he a good man? Is he kind to you?”

“He loves me,” she said.

“If he ever wrongs you, come to me and I will take care of it.”

She shook her head. “I know how you take care of things.”

“I am glad to see you, Lilly. I was afraid you might be . . . gone.”

“Why would you be afraid of that?”

“I have . . . an illness.”

“You’re sick?”

“An affliction. It can be passed on by even the most chaste of kisses.”

“And that’s what you wanted to tell me?”

I nodded. She said, “I’m fine. Perfectly fine.”

Her husband was waving at us. I noticed; she did not.

I said, “I like him. He has a good face: not particularly handsome, but noble. And I like his name very much. A philosopher-writer. A writer-philosopher.”

She looked at me closely. Was I joking?

Impulsively, she rose up and pressed her lips against my cheek.

The most chaste of kisses.

FIVE

Do you know who I am?

A stranger stands behind you in the checkout line. A man in a shabby coat passes you on a busy street. He sits quietly on a park bench, reading his paper. He’s in the seat two rows behind you in the half-filled theater.

You hardly notice him.

He is a practiced hunter who stalks his prey patiently. Years do not matter. Decades do not count. His quarry hides in mirrors. It lives one ten-thousandth of an inch outside his range of vision.

These are the secrets.

He wakes from restless sleep to the sound of his name. Someone is calling him. He rises, reaching in the dark for a tattered hat that is not there, to answer a summons that did not come. He is the hunter; he is the hunted. The bleating goat tied to the stake.

These are the secrets.

One day—never mind when—he finds himself upon a bridge—never mind where—and the water rushing below is dark and deep, and squawking on the balustrade is a murder of crows, hard black eyes and graceful beaks. River runs to the sea, is borne back again: a circle. The crows hold him in their eyes. Frozen there, he cannot climb the barrier. What would you? the crows ask with their hard black eyes.

A boy carrying a fishing pole and a bucket comes along. He throws his line down, and the crows release the man, for they have smelled the fish. They flock toward the bucket, a flurry of black wings and the comical hop-hop upon stick-thin legs. The boy wears a tattered old hat two sizes too small. Freckle-faced, light-skinned, and a mouth seriously set.