The Good Demon Page 8

  I was so mad at Her, I cussed at Her in my heart. I said awful things to Her that I later regretted, things you should never say to someone you love.

  But I had to show you where the One Wish Man lives.

  “Just shut up and get me home.”

  I will. But you have to pay attention. You have to know the way.

  Soon we reached the highway, and big trucks came whooshing by in the darkness. I wanted to wave one down, to hitchhike somewhere safer.

  Not this one, She’d say, and I’d let him pass by.

  After maybe twelve trucks passed by, She said that the next one was okay. I stepped out onto the shoulder of the road and jumped up and down, waving my hands. It was a red Ford Ranger that pulled over. An old lady in a trucker cap was behind the wheel. She looked like she was seventy, way too old to be out so late at night.

  “Christ,” she said when she saw me. “What in the hell happened to you?”

  Don’t say a word you don’t have to.

  “Can you take me to town, please?” I said.

  “Which town?”

  I told her.

  “That’s ten miles from here. You telling me you walked the whole way, in the middle of the night?”

  You didn’t walk. I made you run a lot of it. That’s why you’re so tired.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is there something you’re not saying?” she said. “Listen, if you’re in some kind of trouble, you can tell me. I can get you somewhere safe if you need it.”

  “No, ma’am. If you could just take me to town, I would appreciate it.”

  The old lady was kind, and she let me sip coffee from her thermos. The old lady was a baker, she said, she had to get to work early to make pastries for the morning. I let her drop me off at the post office, about half a mile from home. It was still dark—the sun wouldn’t be up for another hour. My mom and stepdad would never even know I’d been gone.

  When I got home safe I took off my clothes and lay in my bed and huffed at Her. My feet hurt and my legs were sore and I was exhausted.

  “You can’t just take me where you want to,” I told Her. “I could’ve been killed or run over or something.”

  I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. You’re my Clare.

  “You shouldn’t have done it.”

  But you had to see where he lives.

  “I don’t want to hear another word from you about the One Wish Man,” I said. “He isn’t real. He’s made-up.”

  But it’s important, Clare.

  Oh, but I was mad. I’ve never been so mad as that before.

  “Not another word. Ever. Do you hear me?”

  Fine. If you want, I’ll never mention the One Wish Man again.

  “It’s what I want.”

  She kept her promise. We never spoke about the One Wish Man after that. And eventually, well, I forgot all about him.

  Could that be why She wrote Remember the stories instead of just saying his name, all because She promised me not to? Yeah, of course it was. She was like that, it was Her nature. And I bet the One Wish Man was the same person Kevin had gone to see.

  Even though it was years ago, I had a good mind for directions, and I almost never got lost. She had made me walk all that way, repeating back to Her the directions, wiring them into my brain. It would take a couple of tries, but I thought I could get back there eventually. Soon enough, I would find out for sure.

  That night, when Roy’s dad fell asleep and he called me, I asked him a question:

  “Tell me, Roy. Have you ever heard of the One Wish Man?”

  A few days later me and Roy found a time to meet up again. Mom and Larry had a date night, which just meant they’d go to Olive Garden and Larry would get so drunk he could hardly walk. The whole thing would take hours and hours and then they’d fight when they got home. It was the same thing that happened every time they had a date night.

  I waited for Roy in my driveway, same as last time. I would have gone to pick him up, but Larry’s car was in the shop, and they had taken Mom’s for the night. I wore a dress, a long periwinkle blue one. Roy was wearing the pink shirt I’d picked out for him. He wasn’t nearly so sweaty as last time. I figured maybe he’d biked slower.

  “Nice shirt,” I said.

  He blushed.

  “I got something to show you,” I said. “It’s a secret.”

  I took off walking toward the woods behind my house. He stayed a few steps back, walking behind me, looking all cautious.

  “What are you so worried about?” I said.

  “Snakes,” he said. “I always figure they’re everywhere.”

  “Come on.” I held my hand out to him. “Nothing’s going to hurt you while I’m here.”

  Soon we came to a partly fallen-down garden shed. Rusty tools lay slacked and discarded, pruning shears sticking out of the dirt blades-up like the forest had claws. A hammock hung in a sad smile from tree to tree. A chimney stood there, no house around it. It leaned, bent and blackened, like a stooped bald old monk. The sun poked through the trees in long spears of light.

  “What is this place?” he said.

  “It’s a secret spot,” I said. “Not a single other person knows about it except for me, and you too now.”

  “What did it used to be?”

  “I don’t know. Probably somebody’s house about a hundred years ago.”

  “I wonder what happened to it.”

  “Burned down, likely. It’s been like this ever since I found it, when I was just a kid.”

  “You been coming here that long?”

  “Yep,” I said. “You know, it was here that I met Her. When I was a little girl.”

  “You mean your demon?”

  A breeze hushed through the woods, leaves scattering in little scritches across the forest floor. Dust motes floated in the light. The woods were full and breathing. Never had I been surrounded by so much life. In my mind everything was watching me, taking note.

  “I bet that’s why the house burned down,” he said. “I bet the demon did it.”

  “Could be,” I said. “But She was always real nice to me. When I was a kid, we used to have tea parties, just me and Her. We used to play blindman’s bluff and I lost every time.”

  “What did you call Her?” he said.

  “Just ‘You.’ That’s all I ever called Her for a name. She knew me, though. Clare, She said, right when I first met Her. But look here.”

  I reached into the fireplace and pulled out a small leather satchel. And inside the satchel were two teacups and a bottle of peach rum.

  “I took it from my mom,” I said. “She had like six bottles, so she won’t notice.”

  “Rum?” he said. “Isn’t that what pirates drink?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Want a sip?”

  Roy nodded. He seemed a little scared. We sat down in the leaves next to an old stump that was flat enough for a table. I poured him a teacup full of rum.

  “Cheers,” I said.

  We drank. Roy made a face.

  “Delicious,” he said, and I laughed.

  We drank for a while and played One Wish Man. Little by little Roy was getting the hang of it, even though I could tell he thought it was a kid’s game.

  “Right now I’d ask for a Mexican Coke,” he said. “With some peanuts in it.”

  “You have to be kidding me.”

  “No, I’m serious. You ever had Mexican Coke, drop a few salted peanuts in it? An old guy at the nursing home named Colonel Jasper showed me when I was a kid. He said it was the best drink in the whole world. And Colonel Jasper was right. You don’t get any better than that.”

  “I’m a little horrified right now, Roy.”

  “Well, what would you ask the One Wish Man for?”

  I couldn’t tell Roy the truth, that I wanted Her back and nothing else. I knew he wasn’t ready to hear something like that from me. So I told him the next best truth I had.

  “I’d wish for money enough to leave here.
Enough to get a car and a fake passport. To drive and not get caught. To leave for somewhere with no Mom and no Larry, just gone off and free, the whole world waiting for me.”

  “Can I come, too?” said Roy.

  “I don’t see why not,” I said. “But you’d have to earn your keep. You couldn’t be any old slouch about it.”

  “I think it sounds real nice,” he said.

  “Nice? That’s all you got?”

  “It sounds like a dream. It sounds like being free as pirates, traveling from ocean to ocean, falling asleep with new stars over your head every night.”

  “There you go. That’s how you say it.”

  It was near dusktime now and the fireflies were coming out, rising up from the grass.

  Roy smiled goofily. I could tell he was drunk already.

  “Look at them,” he said. “Look at ’em go.”

  “The fireflies?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Floating around there. Like the ghosts of grass. Like dead grass ghosts.”

  I laughed. It was good to see Roy letting loose a little, not being such a square all the time. He was enjoying himself, I knew it. He was enjoying being here with me.

  “There you go with that fancy talk,” I said. “What else you got?”

  “Crickets scritch like angels,” he said. “And cicadas make flying-saucer noises. Tree frogs are drunk old men croaking gospel songs.”

  I clapped my hands and near fell over laughing. I guess I was feeling it too at this point. It was so nice not being alone, sitting out here hidden away with another person, someone who seemed to truly like me.

  “You’re getting really good at this,” I said. “Want to come sit up in the hammock and tell me more?”

  Roy nodded and tried to stand up, but he almost fell and had to sit back down again. I laughed and helped him up. I led him down to the hammock, and when we both sat on it I was scared it would break, but it didn’t. I leaned my head on his shoulder.

  “Clarabella . . .” he said.

  “Do more,” I said. “What’s the moon?”

  “A quail’s egg.”

  “What’s the milky way?”

  “Old star blood.”

  “And what are the stars?”

  “God crying His eyes out to see me drinking like this.”

  “Well, you know what I think the stars are?” I said. “I think they’re peepholes for the angels. I think the angels in Heaven get bored up there and poke holes in the sky so they can spy down at us, see what all trouble we’re up to.”

  “I like that,” he said.

  “What? That the stars are peepholes?”

  “No, that you and me are up to some trouble.”

  “Preacher-boy Roy,” I said. “You got a little wild to you, don’t you?”

  “I sure hope so,” he said.

  We were quiet then, the both of us. But the woods weren’t. The woods were loud, every creature stirring itself up, yapping wild. It was like walking into the most crowded city in the world, everybody speaking different languages, raising a racket like you wouldn’t believe. Except you couldn’t see a single person. It was like they were all ghosts talking, all spirits, speaking languages ancient as old stars and time. It felt peaceful to be in the middle of all that invisible life. Roy’s eyelids were droopy, and he seemed all glazed over, lost somewhere in his head.

  “What are you thinking about that’s got you so still all of a sudden?” I said.

  “I was just thinking about this dream I had when I was a kid. I told my dad about it and he said it wasn’t a dream. He said it was a vision. People were having visions all the time in my church, but it was the first time I ever had one.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Naw,” he said. “Nobody likes hearing about dreams.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “I love to hear about dreams. I think dreams are about the most fascinating thing in the world. I mean it. People used to treat dreams with respect. Now we just think dreams are your brain messing around with itself. Kind of sad, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess it is. It must have been real scary for somebody like John to dream Revelation. Or Ezekiel’s visions. All those scary angels with their eyes all over their bodies, even on the palms of their hands.”

  “No joke,” I said. “You know, this poet I like named Rilke said that every angel was terrifying. I guess that’s why whenever one shows up in the Bible everybody hits the deck. That or they try to worship them. Aren’t angels just the scariest things you could ever think of?”

  “Who’s Rilke?” he said.

  “He’s a poet. You’d like him, I think.”

  “I don’t know who anybody is.”

  “Just tell me your damn dream already.”

  “Okay,” he said. “It was of a garden, a great and glorious garden, not like anything you ever seen before. It was a garden where the wind sang and the sun made music when it shone and even the air was glad. The flowers were the flowers of all the colors of the world, big as babies, and they would turn and look at you as you walked by. It was so peaceful, and lovely, and I wanted to lie down in the garden forever and let it take me, swallow me whole, until I became a part of the garden, too.”

  “It sounds like the Hidden Place,” I said.

  “What’s that?” said Roy.

  I didn’t know how to explain it to him. I didn’t have the words for it. So I lied.

  “Just somewhere I made up,” I said.

  “Well, this wasn’t made-up,” said Roy. “It was Heaven, I think. I mean, I know it was. It had to be, you know? And I wanted to pluck a flower so bad, so bad. I reached my hand out toward a dandelion bigger than my head. A voice in the wind told me to stop, that it wasn’t mine to touch yet. It was hard because the garden was so lovely. But everything was sharp too, like it had an edge on it, and even the flowers could cut you. Just being in that garden was so beautiful it was painful, it hurt me. But I never wanted to leave.”

  Roy began to cry.

  “Whenever I think about that garden, I always hope my mom’s there,” he said. “I always hope she’s sitting there, waiting on me.”

  I brushed my hand over his cheeks, smearing his tears. I turned his cheek to make him face me straight on.

  “That’s a beautiful vision,” I said.

  And just like that he kissed me.

  I don’t know. I’d been kissed before and it hadn’t gone so well for me. But this time kissing felt good, and maybe I wanted more of it. So I kissed him back. I kissed him back and I enjoyed it.

  Why shouldn’t I have a little fun every once in a while?

  About five minutes later Roy was snoring next to me. The rum had knocked him clean out.

  I was drunk and still reeling a little from all the kissing. It felt strange to be here without Her, with a boy. I had a million memories of this place, all tied to Her, some of the happiest times of my life. It was like a sacred place to me.

  Why had I brought Roy here anyway? It was like I was always trying to tell him something about myself, something I didn’t dare put into words. I wanted him to understand me in a way that only She had, in a way that maybe only She could. And this was what She wanted, wasn’t it? For me to be nice to him?

  But what if I wasn’t doing “nice” right? What if I was letting things go too far?

  It started to feel wrong, like I’d betrayed Her somehow. It was a stupid idea to bring Roy here. It was our place, just mine and Hers. I never should have brought anyone else here. I felt all my good warm happiness drain away, leaving my insides black and empty. Even with Roy sleeping next to me, I began to feel unbearably alone.

  I sat up and looked around in the darkness.

  “Where are You?” I asked out loud.

  I remembered the first day I found Her. Mom and Dad were fighting like crazy, they were all fucked up on drugs and everything, and I just wandered out of the house, nobody even noticing I was gone. I couldn’t have been more than six years old. I w
andered right on out and sat here by myself, watching damselflies hop around on the grass.

  She was just a feeling at first, a notion, a breath between my fingers. I was just a little girl, but I knew She was there.

  “Hello?” I said.

  Do you want to play?

  She was a whisper in my ear.

  “Yes,” I said.

  And then I felt Her beside me.

  At first She would wait for me here, every day, and I would come to Her to play. Games, tea parties, pretend, whatever I wanted. It was the same as any other lonely kid does, the same as every kid I’d ever met. Except She wasn’t imaginary. She was real and sometimes She would hold my hand. It didn’t feel like a person’s hand. It felt like a warm breeze, like the wind would swoop down and wrap itself around me.

  I missed Her something awful right then. A deep pain, a stabbing right under my heart. It hurt, Jesus Christ, it hurt.

  I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Some kind of shadow, moving, just a darkness sliding out of place. I felt someone watching me, and I knew that me and Roy were not here alone.

  Roy lurched up from the hammock. His eyes were wide, his mouth all twisted like a gargoyle’s. I could see his gums, his teeth bared at me, the veins in his neck bulging. He whipped his hands around him, like he’d walked through a spiderweb, like he was ripping the threads from his face.

  “No,” he screamed. “Get away from me.”

  I didn’t know what to do. He thrashed about in the hammock, hollering. I was scared he’d tip us over. I reached my hand out to his face.

  “Roy,” I whispered. “Shhhh. It’s me. It’s Clare.”

  Roy’s whole body shook. He panted little short breaths, gasps for air. I ran my fingers soft across his cheeks, calming him.

  “Calm down, now. It’s okay. You’re here with me.”

  He looked at me, eyes wide like he had no idea where he was.

  “I had a nightmare,” he said.

  “I could tell.”

  “I feel awful,” he said. “I feel . . .”

  Roy vomited off the hammock. It splattered all over the dirt. He groaned. I patted his head.