LITMIR.BIZ

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departure. Somehow.

      He shook his head to clear it. What was going on with him? It was not his place to feel such things, only to watch and support evil’s procedures. He forced a smile, expecting, and getting, no response from Junior.

      “Do you know why you are here?” he asked gently, circumspectly, spreading his arms to indicate the world.

      Junior slid his hands over the cover of Every Child’s Omnibus of Wisdom and lifted it straight up. Then he repeated the movement with one leaf after another until five stood vertical, and page six was exposed. He rested his hand by the illustration there. It showed three boys. One was dark-haired, his face rugged, his eyes slitted, and his mouth set in a wicked grin. He was shoving a second boy, who had yellow hair, rosy cheeks, and an expression halfway between a smile and astonishment. He was falling backwards over a third boy, pinched, meager, mouse-haired, and scared, who was on hands and knees. Below was a nursery rhyme:

      This little boy is the good little boy.

      He smiles on all he sees.

      This little boy is the bad little boy.

      He does but as he please.

      This little boy is the fool of a boy.

      He gets down on his knees

      That the bad little boy

      The good little boy

      Shall sorely trick and tease.

      Junior put his finger on the bad boy’s head.

      “Yes.” Dubykky spoke slowly, kneeling. “But you’re not here about little boys.” He rested his forefinger under the T of the rhyme’s third line and drew it across as he read, “‘This little boy is the bad little boy.’ And so are some adults.”

      “And so are some adults,” repeated Junior. He pronounced the words exactly but in a dead, flat tone.

      Dubykky settled into a cross-legged position, a movement that made Jurgen spread his wings to keep balance. Junior’s eyes shifted to the bird and remained there until Dubykky reached over and turned the pages back to the very beginning of the book. He put his finger under the text’s first word, which began a short rhyme centered in a page-filling illustration: a broad meadow bordered by forest and split by a brook, rounded mountains in the background, in the sky a smiling sun shooting out thick golden rays.

      “‘For every evil,’” he prompted, pointing. After a hesitation, Junior looked at the words and repeated them. Dubykky slid his finger to the second half of the line, “under the sun.” Junior repeated again. And so on:

      There is a remedy or there is none.

      If there is one, seek to find it;

      If there is none, never mind it.

      In this way, Dubykky led the boy through the entire book. On occasion, Jurgen perked up at one or another of the words, even a phrase, and croaked out an imitation. Then Junior would shift his attention to the crow until Dubykky softly encouraged him to return to the lesson. After they read all fifty-four pages, Dubykky closed the cover and told Junior to recite. He did so, flawlessly, every rhyme and fable, in an uninflected, leisurely, whispery voice, ending,

      Come when you’re called,

      Do what you’re bid,

      Shut the door after you,

      And never be chid.

      “Why are you here?” Dubykky asked once more.

      “This little boy is the bad little boy. And so are some adults,” Junior told him.

      “Where is the bad one?”

      It was the all-important question. How much did the echo already know? Only a little, it seemed. Junior held out his palm in the direction of Hawthorne.

      “Who is the bad one?”

      Junior did not reply. Jurgen shifted uneasily on Dubykky’s shoulder as the silence lengthened.

      Who had caused the boy to appear in a desert town, a wind-blown valley, four thousand feet above sea level? Because someone had. After a human exploited and then murdered four others, purely for self-satisfaction, the lingering malevolence created a disturbance in that small portion of nature that was exclusively human, and rebounded. An echo. The echo of evil assumed a human form. Dubykky could not tell Junior who his target was. It was for the boy, not him, to follow the spoor; the mission was to tempt, lure, and trap the human monster. The echo killed that human and, if all went in accordance with evil’s intent, died in the process. The rules of evil, which bound Dubykky as much as Junior, recognized no other outcome, lamentable as that might be.

      Dubykky’s role? That was more delicate. He would watch, certainly. He might teach, he might guard against error and inhibiting injury, but above all it was for him to ensure a clear, neat, final vengeance.

      For the rest of the night—Dubykky could get by on almost no sleep—he taught Junior words and how to put them together and the rudiments of ideas and reasoning.

      Before leaving, he mulled what his parting words ought to be. He might not get the chance to speak to Junior again. He could not predict how the events would play out. Except at the very end.

      “When the time comes for you to kill,” he said carefully, touching Junior’s chest, “you will feel it here, and it will feel right.”

      The boy blinked at him but gave no sign of comprehending. Dubykky did not expect it. But he did hope that when Junior fulfilled his destiny, his own role would be simply as a witness, not as an executioner. For Dubykky’s duty was just that. If either survived the echo-human encounter, he would complete the killing.

      An echo’s existence was lonely and brief, sprung from violent death and ending in violent death. Whatever happened to Junior in between, Dubykky did not wish the boy to be companionless. And this did not have to be so. While Junior had taken in the dismal tutelage placidly, his eyes never wavering, he did show a flicker of interest whenever Jurgen repeated something. The young crow sparked emotion in the young echo. It pleased Dubykky, for that was exactly as he had hoped.

      “Now I have someone I want you to get acquainted with.”

      It was early on in the morning but before the eastern mountains developed a pale border of light, the little shack still dark beyond the yellow glow of the flashlight. Dubykky roused Jurgen, who was beginning to doze again, and guided him onto his wrist. Smiling at the crow, he pointed to his mouth and then said to Junior, “Smile.” The boy repeated the word dutifully. Dubykky pointed to Jurgen and spoke his name.

      “Jurgen,” Junior repeated.

      “Smile at Jurgen,” Dubykky told him, and Jurgen, grouchy from being awakened before dawn, also enunciated, “Smile,” if in a discontented scrape.

      Junior made an attempt to imitate Dubykky’s broad smile, faltering at first so that his unexercised lips looked wormy, but then managing it. Slowly, crooning to the young crow all the while, Dubykky extended his arm until his wrist was right by Junior’s shoulder. He shook his hand lightly. The bird stepped across, then daintily lifting his claws turned himself around until he faced Dubykky again. As he did, his tail feathers brushed Junior’s cheek. The boy smiled once more, and it was unforced, natural. With the neck flexibility equivalent to a newborn infant’s, he swiveled his head ninety degrees and directed the smile at the bird. He crooned to it, emulating Dubykky meticulously.

      He left boy, bird, and book in that sad cobbled-together shack feeling at odds with himself. Homely as he was, Junior had a winning smile, attractive because it was unworldly. Already, Dubykky was growing fond of him. Such a nice smile was typical for creatures like Junior, though, and made no difference in the long run. Only the fated dark, cruel end awaited him. It had been a lucky chance, then, that Dubykky had found Jurgen so that Junior could share what life was allotted him.

      Yet something was awry this time. Always before, an echo came into being knowing the name of its target human. Junior had

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