Malorie(68)

“We have to hurry,” she says. “The real monster’s got Tom.”





TWENTY-SEVEN


“Well, they’re really just a pair of glasses,” Tom says, his voice shaking with nervousness. “I made them out of this…this…do you know what a two-way mirror is?”

The woman sitting before him on a stool nods. She sits on the very edge of the wood, her veined hands gripping her knees, a long brown ponytail with streaks of gray reaching past her shoulders.

Tom hasn’t seen her enormous eyes blink since Henry brought him into the tent.

This is Athena Hantz.

“Okay. Good,” Tom says. “Yeah…in the office of the camp we lived in, we lived there forever, it felt like. You ever feel like that? Yeah? Okay. Well, in the office was this two-way mirror so that the camp director could look down at the campers eating or at whatever was happening in the main lodge area without everyone being able to see him.”

He pauses. Is she following this? Are any of them?

Two men younger than Malorie sit on the ground, flanking Athena. There are others in the tent, too.

Tom hears constant motion outside the tent. Indian River is active.

“Go on,” Athena says. “This is interesting.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tom says. He pauses again because he wants to make sure he words this next part right. “So…my mom, she told me those two-way mirrors were in grocery stores, back when people could look around freely, you know? And she said they were in a lot of movies. Detective movies? I can’t be sure. Anyway, she also told me that the man I was named after, Tom, he sounds like a cool guy actually. Like someone I would’ve been friends with. Well…he was the first to tell my mom that maybe the creatures are…infinity. It’s hard to explain.”

“We know the theory,” Athena says.

“Yeah, okay,” Tom says. “Well…so…if the creatures are something we can’t understand, because our heads can’t comprehend what they are…what if we could like…what if we could make them do something we can relate to? That’s what I was thinking. If we could make them do something, anything, that makes sense to us, or is familiar to us…well, maybe then we could understand them. Even if it’s only a little bit.”

The two seated men exchange a look. Tom thinks they probably think he’s crazy. Or not smart. But when they look back to him, both appear to be wholly interested.

Athena reaches out, taps Tom’s knee.

“Go on,” she says.

“So…one thing I was thinking was…one day I was in the office and I thought, man, what if I looked through the glass and saw a creature in the lodge. Right? Well, I guess I’d go mad. Mom would say so, anyway. I think most people would. And my sister, she has this idea that the creatures have no face…not like ours, I guess? She says they’re all face and all not at the same time. That’s her theory anyway. So it struck me that…if a creature was in the lodge…and if it was reflected, right? If it looked at the glass…which, if it’s all face, on all sides, then if it was reflected at all it would be looking, right? Well, in this case, it wouldn’t see me. You know? It would see itself. In the mirror.”

The people in the tent are silent. Henry smiles as if he thought of this idea himself.

Athena’s eyes seem to be frozen on Tom. As if he’s talking to a photograph.

“And I got to thinking…if a creature saw itself…wouldn’t it…couldn’t it maybe…consider itself? I don’t know if that’s the right word exactly. But…maybe it would look at itself and be forced to consider what it is. And while it did look…at itself…while it did consider…what it is…maybe that’s something I could understand. That’s something I could relate to. Making it…you know…safe…to…to look at it.”

He could talk for hours about this subject, but for now, he feels done. Or like he’s told them what the glasses are supposed to do, and either they think he’s crazy or they don’t.

“So I cut up the two-way mirror and made glasses out of them.”

He feels like he can hear the seconds ticking. Then: “Genius,” Athena says. “Absolutely genius.”

“Like I said,” Henry says.

One of the seated men raises a finger, as if about to debate. Then he lowers it.

“Well, I think that’s one of the brightest ideas I’ve ever heard,” he says.

“Really?” Tom says. “You do?”

“Have you tried them out?” Athena asks.

“No.” He feels ashamed of this answer.

“That’s okay,” she says. “You’re going to.”

Her face looks like one large smile. As if she has a second, hidden smile behind her lips.

“May I?” she asks, reaching for the glasses.

Tom hands them to her. She hands them to the man seated to her right. Her eyes remain fixed on Tom.

You’re going to.

What did she mean?

The man tries the glasses on.

“We’ll have to modify these,” he says. “Make sure there’s no peripheral vision.”

“They’re the safety brigade,” Athena says to Tom. “I rather liked them the way you had them. Risky. And do you have the rest of the mirror?”