Chapter Twenty-One #4
“What? No!” Meredith stumbled back a step and clutched at a nearby birch for balance. “You can’t have Bianca, never in a million years, and you can’t have me, either.”
“Is that so?” hissed the Erlking. “You’ve always got to be difficult, don’t you?
No matter. If thou art unwilling, then force I’ll employ!
” With outstretched hands, he started the last few paces toward Meredith, but the moment the Erlking made to seize hold of his arm, he recoiled with a cry as though he’d been burned.
It took David a moment to realize that Meredith was speaking, low and toneless, eyes squeezed shut, fists clenched at his sides.
No, not speaking—reciting. David could make out only some of the words: “Wer half mir…wer rettete vom Tode mich…Hast du nicht alles selbst vollendet, heilig glühend Herz?”
Though David did not understand their meaning, he recognized the last line as the same one Meredith had recited under quite different circumstances as he’d stood before him naked the night before.
The same words David had traced with his fingertips, the words Meredith had etched into his very skin—and which, through some mechanism David could not guess, appeared to prevent the Erlking from laying hands on him now.
“Enough!” snarled the Erlking even as he fell back a pace.
“Perhaps you elude my grasp for the moment, but it’s only a matter of time until you give in.
And you!” He swiveled to face David. “Always chasing after the next thing you pretend will make you happy—a promotion, a raise in pay, a new house, your darling Cartier. But you know the truth, don’t you?
You know you’ll never be happy. It’ll never be enough for you because you don’t care a damn for what you’ve already got. ”
“I—but—” David faltered.
“You think you’ve got it all figured out with your bloody numbers and spreadsheets and everything totaled up in neat little columns, don’t you? But you don’t understand people at all. You don’t even understand yourself.”
David could only nod as cold despair filled him from head to toe. It was true. Meredith had told him nearly the same thing, and hadn’t even meant it as an insult.
You like to go putting everybody in neat little boxes.
He really doesn’t know how to switch off business mode.
It’s sad, isn’t it?
“You pretend you can’t stand that boss of yours, but do you think you’re really any different?
You know exactly what your future holds, and it won’t be long until you become just as much of a disgrace as he is.
As it stands now, you’re merely tolerated, and when it really comes down to it, what have you got to offer?
You’re nothing special. You’re nobody’s favorite.
Nobody likes you best, and could you honestly expect them to?
” The Erlking’s harsh cackle rang through the clearing.
“Perhaps you’re the one who’s not real.”
“Stop it,” whispered Meredith.
“You know I speak the truth,” said the Erlking to David. “You’re blind to what’s right in front of you, and you go hurting everybody you claim to care about. No wonder all your lovers have left you. No wonder—”
Meredith stepped between them. “You leave him alone! This is between me and you, and I won’t have you dragging him into it. Come on,” he told David. “We’re leaving.”
He grabbed David by the wrist and dragged him along back the way they’d come.
“Don’t you walk away from me,” roared the Erlking. “You’re bound to me by blood. I’ll have you yet, you’ll see.”
Meredith turned back. “Will you,” he said, his vicious sneer coming out full force. “I’d like to see you try. But you can’t, can you? You can’t even touch us.”
As Meredith stormed through the underbrush, it was all David could do to keep up in spite of his longer stride.
He felt disoriented and numb, the movements of his own body distant and unfamiliar to him.
It didn’t matter, anyway. Nothing mattered, not when the things the Erlking had told him were all true.
For a moment, David wondered distantly whether he oughtn’t to be concerned about the Erlking catching up—but no.
It seemed that he couldn’t do any harm to Meredith, not now, even if David didn’t entirely understand why.
Perhaps it had been something in his words, or the conviction he’d had in speaking them, in his certainty that the Erlking could do them no physical harm—David was not sure whether it was strictly truthful to say he’d done them no harm at all.
He also doubted that Meredith’s apparent immunity extended to him, though he had no desire to test this theory.
Not that it made any difference since even the Erlking didn’t want David. Nobody did, and he couldn’t blame them.
“Come on.” Meredith shoved aside a low pine branch with far less care than usual and trampled straight through the carpet of glossy green leaves and white blossoms spread out before them.
“But—but—” David groped around his mind for a coherent thought, and settled for the first that he could put into words: “Aren’t you furious with me?”
“Yeah,” said Meredith, finally releasing his hold on him, “only I’m not leaving you with him, am I? You can never find your way about the Wood, and even if you c-can’t stand me, I—” His voice broke.
“Meredith—”
“Shut up.”
It was the first and only time Meredith had ever told him in all seriousness to shut up, and that stung worse than anything the Erlking had said.
David shut up.
Meredith, however, was only getting started. “Do you think, David, that I don’t know how impossible I am to be around? Do you think I don’t realize I’m—I’m”—he whirled on the bank of the creek to face him, flapping his arms in frustration—“an insufferable fuckup?”
Astonished, David stopped in his tracks. “Whoa, whoa, where is that coming from?”
“Do you know why Kinley and I don’t live together?” Meredith continued across the creek without waiting for him, and David hurried to catch up. “Haven’t you ever wondered?”
“I have, actually, but—” He offered a steadying hand as Meredith slipped off a moss-covered stepping stone to land in the streambed up to the ankles in clear dark water.
Meredith batted his hand away and splashed his way to the opposite bank. “We tried, did you know? Lasted about a month before he said, I’m sorry, I love you, but I can’t live with you or we won’t be friends anymore.”
It took David a moment to register what was off—and when he did, his blood ran cold. Meredith hadn’t even bothered with an imitation.
“So I moved out and came to Midnight Cottage. And it’s all right, between him and me, but do you know what it’s like when even your best friend can’t stand to live with you because you are Too Much?
And everybody else has left, too, every single one, except you.
I’d thought—I’d thought maybe—” He broke off.
The edge of the Wood was in sight now, the light of day bleeding in between the distant trees.
With it came reason. Of course there was nothing in what the Erlking had said, no more than the barest shade of reality, amplified and distorted into an ugly half-truth.
David could see that now; surely Meredith must realize it as well.
“Now, look,” David began. “Don’t you think you’re taking this a bit—”
“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Meredith exploded again. “That speech ain’t about setting expectations for anybody else. It’s for me, so I don’t forget myself and go thinking anybody will ever care enough to stay.”
They passed through the last row of trees and out of the Midnight Wood. Before David could say a word—not that he had the least idea what to say—Meredith took off at a brisk pace down the hill without so much as a single look back.
David watched him go. As much as he wanted to follow, perhaps it was just as well if he stayed behind. Really, he told himself as he started back toward Midnight Cottage, the space was much needed; the two of them had scarcely had a moment apart since yesterday morning.
Meredith seldom got truly angry, and when he did, it never lasted long.
Of course the real object of his wrath was the Erlking; David had just been a convenient target.
The Erlking had touched a nerve, obviously, but once Meredith had had time to clear his head, he’d come to the same conclusion and dismiss his remarks for the hateful rubbish they were.
Except in Meredith’s case, it wasn’t entirely rubbish, was it?
David had thought those things, even if he’d never had any intention of saying them aloud, even if he didn’t mean most of them, or even remember them once the momentary frustration had passed. But how could he possibly explain any of that to Meredith?
And if that much was true, did that mean he believed everything the Erlking had put in his head?
Did that mean Meredith really was filled with the despair the Erlking so craved? Could David really have overlooked such a thing?
As he crested the hill, he was met with the commotion of Todd on the back deck, attempting to fend off a trio of enormous vultures with a rolled-up newspaper.
“Fuck off!” he shrieked at them, and soundly whacked the nearest bird with the paper. With an indignant squawk, it took to the air.
Abandoning his ruminations, David hurried over and helped to shoo away the other vultures, then went to fetch the broom. When he returned, Todd had sunk into a deck chair, face in his hands.
David set about sweeping up the remnants of Todd’s breakfast dishes that lay scattered over the floorboards, along with the odd stray feather. “All right?” he asked.
With a violent jerk, Todd looked up, disheveled ringlets falling into his face.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m all good.” He leaned down to pick up an overlooked shard of coffee cup with a trembling hand and rose to his feet.
“Schwarzy did try to tell me, but I didn’t really think…
I didn’t think he meant it.” He trailed off, gazing toward the dark and foreboding treetops in the distance.
“No,” said David, his mind on a different track entirely, “neither did I.”