Chapter 111
Sabine Drew and Tim Sadlier walked behind the rest, Sadlier deliberately slowing so they would be out of earshot.
“Whatever it is,” said Sabine, “say it.”
“What kind of men are they?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”
Sabine took his hand and kissed it.
“At least one of them,” she said, “may not be a man at all.”
From the woods, the child watched them go. She did not recall any longer the manner of her passing, only the pain of it, and her hatred was pure and uncorrupted because she had died so young.
A voice spoke from beside her. She had not heard the woman approach. This surprised the child, who heard everything. The woman wore a summer dress and her face was a skinless mask of red.
you’ve been out here for too long, said the woman. i’ve come to take you away
where am i going? asked the child.
to the sea
and after?
you’ll forget
i’d like that
The child now saw another woman standing nearby, older, with a portion of her skull neatly excised.
who is she?
she is your grandmother
The child gazed at the woman with the ruined skull but made no move toward her, and the grandmother stared blankly ahead, so that each might have been a stranger to the other.
and her? asked the child. who is she?
By the smoldering sycamore stood a girl, no older than the child. Her face, too, was bloodily despoiled. She was peeking through the hole in the tree at what remained of the angel.
she is my daughter, said the woman. but she’s dangerous
dangerous like me?
no, said the woman, dangerous like her father
She took the child’s hand.
would you like to hear a story while we walk to the sea?
yes, said the child.
once there was a being that asked the question the rest of its kind feared to ask
go on
can you think what that question might be?
no, said the child.
that question, said the woman, was ‘why?’