47

Eighty-four gazed at me with an emotion in her face that I could not decipher. Maybe she hated me for standing in the way of her happiness. Maybe she wondered at the deep connection between me and her man. I had no answers for her. John and his war with the being called Wall was just as much a mystery to me as was the sun in the sky or the secret to how birds learned to fly. All I knew for sure was that he was right about my wounds. I couldn't have risen to my feet if an angel flew down and bade me to follow him to the Pearly Gates.

Just at that moment a dog bayed not ten yards from where we sat. Eighty-four and I turned our heads to see, at the furthest extreme of orange light, the snout and tail of one of Tobias's hounds! The dog was tinted orange by John's glowing apparatus. It seemed to glance at us, or at least in our direction, but then he turned away, howled, and ran off into the night.

For a moment I saw one of Tobias's men come into the glow but he just looked through us and then went on after the dogs.

We all sat silently for long moments after the hunters had gone. The dogs' braying faded into the distance.

I was so tired that when I closed my eyes I couldn't open them again. But I wasn't quite asleep. I could still hear John and Eighty-four talking.

"What we gonna do if'n we cain't run?" she asked.

"When the sun comes up," he said, "I can take you and Forty-seven one at a time to a special place."

"An' we just gonna wait till then?" she asked.

"I guess."

"Then why don't you come ovah here an' sit next to me t'keep me warm?"

I heard a rustling and then I passed over into the darkness of sleep.

18.

When I awoke I was laying face up upon a large flat stone. The sun was hovering above the level of the pine trees. I could see its red glow beyond my feet. The pain from the whipping wasn't as bad as it had been before but I was still very weak. Even the morning sun couldn't warm my bones or brighten my eyes.

"Forty-seven," John said.

"Yeah, John?"

"I'm sorry but you are dying."

"I am?" I could hear Eighty-four crying but I couldn't see her.

"I'm sorry," John said. He was standing to my right, looking down on my demise.

"It wasn't yo fault," I said. "I was the one wanted to go back and save Eloise. I'm glad we did it but I feel terrible about Mud Albert. If I die will you bury me next to that river we saw? The one where the bears was."

"You won't die," John said. "At least not today."

"But you said "

"I said I was sorry. I wanted to wait a while before we became brothers. I wanted you to grow into a man and learn the heritage of your race. A young man like you will find it hard to wage the kind of war that is bound to arise between you and Wall and his agents."

"His agents? Like sheriffs?"

"Something like you will be for me," John said.

And even though I was dying I got exasperated by his riddles.

"What you tryin' t'say, nig " I stopped myself from using the insult and my friend smiled.

"I am going to perform a ritual that my people have been doing since before any man walked on the earth," he said. "I am going to put my cha into yours. You will still be you but you will begin to know everything I know and everything my people have known. You will have power that no human being has ever dreamed of. And with that knowledge and that power you will save the world."

It was as if I were in a dream. I saw John in that morning light even though darkness seemed to be descending. I heard his words, but they might have just as well been a memory.

John nodded and Eighty-four came into view. She sat next to me on the big stone and took hold of my shoulders. And then John sat on the other side of me. The light of morning seemed to gather around his head and his visage became saintly like the pictures in Tobias's illustrated Bible that Big Mama Flore used to sneak and show me.

John brought his hands behind his neck and grabbed hold of the light. He lifted it up above his head. It looked something like one of the Calash though not hard and angry but gentle. The appendages wrapped themselves around John's fingers in a friendly caress. Then my friend placed the living light upon my chest. The insubstantial tentacles released him and wrapped themselves around my body and my head. I felt a sense of joy so intensely that I couldn't remain still.

"Hold him down, Tweenie," John commanded.

Eighty-four tightened her grip.

He grabbed hold of me too.

I didn't want to fight them but as the creature of light pressed itself into my heart and mind I pushed hard to free myself. I kicked and screamed and bit and shouted. I twisted and knocked my head against the stone below me. As the light filled me I had the desire to fly, to rise above the world and see the oceans and the continents. Continents? How did I know about continents? I wondered. How did I know the names of oceans and constellations and phrases in languages both human and inhuman?