He said, “It’s always the same. Most of the time. He comes for me and takes me away and does… things.”
I wanted to scream out my horror, but I kept it in and said, “I’m here.”
Joe said, “Sometimes, he takes my mom. Or my dad.”
I put my hand in his hair.
Joe said, “This time, he took you, and if he can find you in my dreams, he can find you in real life.”
I said, “I’ll protect you,” and I’d never meant anything more in my life.
He fell asleep as the sun began to rise.
I didn’t sleep for a long time.
AFTER THAT, anytime he had a bad dream, he asked (cried, screamed) for me and I always went to him.
He would shake and sob, his eyes half-crazed with the trappings of his nightmare. But then my hands would be on his back, rubbing soothing circles, and he would quiet until there was nothing left but shuddery breaths and a wet face.
THREE WEEKS later, I found out their secret.
moon
“OX.”
“G’way.”
“Ox, wake the fuck up!”
I opened my eyes. It was still night, the only light coming from the full moon high in the sky.
There was someone else in the room, shaking me.
“The fuck?” I said.
“Get dressed.”
“Gordo? What the hell is—”
He stepped back, eyes narrowed. “You need to come with me.”
My heart was in my throat. “My mom—”
“She’s fine, Ox. She’s asleep. She won’t hear anything. She’s safe.”
I threw on a shirt and some discarded cargo shorts. Gordo waited for me at my bedroom door. I followed him down the hall toward the stairs. My mother’s door was partway open and I could see her sleeping. Gordo tugged on my arm.
We were outside before he spoke. The night air was warm against my skin. Everything felt too loud.
“There are things,” he said, and through my haze of sleep, I tripped over his words and couldn’t process them. “Things you’re going to see tonight. Things that you’ve never seen before. I need you to trust me. I won’t let anything hurt you. I won’t let anything happen to you. You are safe, Ox. I need you to remember that.”
“Gordo, what’s going on?”
His voice cracked when he said, “I didn’t want you to find out this way. I thought we’d have more time. If you ever had to find out at all.”
“For what!”
A howl rose from deep in the forest and I felt chilled to the bone. It was a song I’d heard before, but it sounded distressed.
“Fuck,” Gordo muttered. “We have to hurry.”
The house at the end of the lane was dark.
The moon was fat and white overhead.
There were stars. So many stars. Too many. I’d never felt so small in my life.
We entered the woods at a quick pace.
I was half listening to Gordo, trying to avoid tripping over tree roots and stumps. He was sputtering his words, false starts and syllables that died before they could combine into something more. He was nervous, terrified, and it affected his speech.
And then it wasn’t quite as dark anymore. Even with the moon.
“It’s like. You see. There are things.”
“Gordo?” I interrupted.
“What.”
“Your tattoos are glowing.”
Because they were. The raven. The lines. The swirls and whorls. All up and down both of his arms, they glimmered and shifted like they were alive.
He said, “Yeah. That’s one of the things.”
I said, “Okay.”
He said, “I’m a witch.”
And I said, “You’re a wizard, Harry,” because I thought there was a very real chance I was caught in a dream.
He laughed, but it sounded like he was choking.
I was distracted and my shin caught something solid. The pain was bright and glassy, and it shot through the fog. It was only then that I realized I’d never felt pain in a dream before and that I’d read somewhere it was impossible to actually feel pain in a dream.
“Fuck,” I said. “You’re a what?”
“Witch.”
“For how long?”
“My whole life.”
“What?”
Another howl. Closer now. We’d gone at least half a mile into the woods. Maybe farther. There was nothing but forest that went on for thousands of acres ahead of us. I’d gotten lost in it plenty of times. “What was that?”
“Your pack,” he said, and his words were so bitter I could taste them.
“My…. I don’t.” Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. It had to be, even with the pain. My leg was sore, but maybe I’d just wished it so and therefore it was.
“I tried to keep them away from you,” he said. “I really did. I didn’t want this life for you. I didn’t want you to be a part of this. I wanted to keep you clean. To keep you whole. Because you are the only thing in my life worth that.”
“Gordo.”
He said, “Listen to me, Ox. Monsters are real. Magic is real. The world is a dark and frightening place and it’s all real.”
“How?”
He shook his head. “Don’t be afraid.”
A cloud slid over the moon and the only light was the shifting kaleidoscope that rolled up his arms. Prisms of colors, all blues and greens and pinks and reds.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“What?”
“The colors.”
“No. It pulls and I push and it crawls along my skin, but it never hurts. Not anymore.”
“Where are we going?”
“To their clearing,” and the howl picked up again, but now there was more than one. There were many, and they mingled and rose together, the song hidden within a half step above and below, off-key until it wasn’t. And then it was beautiful.
“Who?” I asked as I itched all over because I felt something.
Instead, he said, “I tried to stop this,” and he was desperate and pleading but they were singing above him and—
come, the song said. hurry come now. here. please. hurry hurry hurry because you are us and we are you.
He said, “I tried to tell them to stay away. To leave you out of this.”
Ox. it’s Ox it’s him and he’s here and he is ours. smell him taste him he is ours and we need because he hears our song.
“But by the time I found out you knew who they were, that they were back in Green Creek, it was already too late.”
“They’re calling me,” I said, and my voice sounded light and airy.
“I know,” Gordo said through gritted teeth. “Ox, you can’t trust them. This.”
“I can,” I said, even though I didn’t know who he meant. “Don’t you hear it?”
Ox Ox Ox Ox. bring him food rabbits fowl deer. show him we can provide because he is PackOursMineBrotherSonLove.
“Yes,” Gordo said. “But not like you can because I’m not pack. Not anymore.”
Pack.
Oh god. Pack.
I started running.