LITMIR.BIZ

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confused. What was she doing in this place? And the woman with the hole for a mouth; who was she?

      Boa’s skills with her body were growing as fast as Candy’s body was drained. She spoke now, her voice crude.

      “This is no way to die,” Boa said. “Where’s your dignity, girl? Stop struggling, and let me take what’s mine. You lived a fine life because of me. Brief, yes, but full of my insights. My lessons. My magic.”

      Somebody outside the chamber walls, but close enough to have heard Boa’s speech, apparently found it very funny. Her mockery echoed around the chamber.

      “Listen to yourself.” It was Laguna Munn. Again, the laughter ignited. “Such pretension. And from what? A cannibal. Yes, that’s the truth of it when you get down to the facts. You are able to devour the life of a girl who gave you sanctuary from those who had taken yours and would gladly have extinguished your soul. Let Candy go.”

      “Oh no . . . there’s no letting go.”

      “Is there not? We shall see about that.”

      As she spoke, the wall opposite the door began to fold in upon itself, and the incantatrix came into view.

      She was pointing at Boa, as she continued her accusations.

      “Whatever was good in you, and bright, has gone to corruption.”

      “You can say whatever you like, old woman,” Boa replied. “Your time’s over. There’s a new world about to be born.”

      “Funny. I hear that a lot,” Laguna Munn said, her voice thick with contempt. “Now let the commoner go, Princess. If you really want to dine on flesh, you shouldn’t be eating the hoi polloi.”

      The expression on Boa’s face suddenly cleared.

      “Oh my. She is, isn’t she?”

      “She’s not of noble birth, like you, Princess.”

      “No,” Boa said, her tone deeply grateful. “If you hadn’t stopped me—” She released Candy from her grip. “I could have tainted myself.”

      “And what a sad day that would have been for all those poor suffering aristocrats like yourself who would have lost a beloved sister.”

      “Oh me! Oh, poor beloved me.”

      As Candy stumbled out of Boa’s hold she turned and the subtle signs of deceit upon Boa’s face caught Candy’s attention. Boa didn’t wait to let Candy speak. She quickly was gone, out of the chamber and off up the wooded slope. Candy did her best to recover her equilibrium, but it was difficult. Boa’s thefts had left her body weak, and her thoughts ragged. She was only certain of one thing.

      “She would have killed me . . .”

      “Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Mrs. Munn replied. “But this is my rock, girl, and she has no—”

      “Mama!”

      The cry came from Covenantis. And as heart wrenching as his wails were, the terrible howl of anguish that followed was infinitely worse.

      Laguna was clearly torn between her responsibilities to her injured guest, and those she had to her son. Candy simplified things:

      “Go to the boy! I’ll be fine. I just need to recover my breath.” She looked up at Mrs. Munn. “Please,” she said, “don’t worry about me!”

      Her plea was lent force by another sobbing cry from her son.

      “Where are you, Mama?”

      Laguna Munn looked at Candy one more time.

      “Go!” Candy said.

      Laguna Munn didn’t put up any further argument. Instead, she addressed the walls of the chamber.

      “This girl is here as my guest. She’s hurt. Heal her.” She turned her attentions back toward Candy for a moment. “Stay here and let the chamber do its work. I’ll be back with my boys.”

      “Be careful . . .”

      “I know, girl, I know. Boa’s dangerous. But believe me, so am I. I’ve got a few tricks she wouldn’t want to see. Now heal. The dark Hours that are coming won’t wait for you to put yourself back together. Hurry up. The beginning’s been a long time over. And the end always comes sooner than you expect.”

      And so saying, she left the girl who was truly Candy Quackenbush, nothing added or taken away, to the healing hush of the chamber.

       Chapter 14 Empty

      NEVER IN HER SIXTEEN years had Candy felt as alone as she felt now. Though she’d tried many times to imagine what it would be like without Boa in her head, her attempts had failed miserably. Only now, alone in the vastness of her thoughts did she sense the horror of such solitude. There would never again be a presence to silently share the state of being as Boa had. She was utterly, unconditionally alone.

      How did people, ordinary people like those on Followell Street—even her own mother, even her father—deal with the loneliness? Did her dad drink himself senseless every night because it made the emptiness she was feeling right now hurt a little less? For them, was it the constant chattering of the television that helped them through the bad times? Or hurtful little power games like those Miss Schwartz played that helped them forget the hush in their heads?

      Candy suddenly recalled the big billboard outside the Presbyterian Church on Munrow Street in Chickentown that had carried the same message for as long as Candy could remember:

      THE LORD IS WITH YOU ALWAYS. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

      Well he’s not with me now, Candy thought. Nobody’s with me. And I just have to live with things being like this from now on, because nobody’s going to step in to help change it. All I can do is—

      A shriek interrupted her thoughts. Laguna Munn was shouting one word, its force fueled by horror and rage.

      “NO!”

      She stopped only when she ran out of breath. She inhaled and began again.

      “NO!”

      Finally, she let the word fall off into silence. Several seconds passed and then Candy heard her say, “My son. What have you done to my son?”

      Candy didn’t wait for any more clues as to what had taken place. She got up headed for the door, realizing as she did so that while she’d been contemplating her loneliness, the sentient chamber had obeyed Laguna Munn’s instructions and begun the process of healing her. She was no longer shaking as she had been just a few minutes earlier. And her weakened legs had recovered some of their strength. Even her thoughts, which had been left muddied by Boa’s attacks, were clearer now.

      Exiting the chamber, she didn’t need any further cries from the incantrix in order to discover her whereabouts. The powers she feared she’d lost to Boa’s devouring were unharmed. Once the chamber had washed from her thoughts the grime of Boa’s appetite, she remembered without effort how to locate Mrs. Munn in the darkness. All she had to do was follow the vibration that moved ahead of her, trusting it to choose a safe path up the slope.

      The temperature quickly warmed up as she ascended; the air carried with it a smell like rotted meat that had been burned on a barbecue.

      Bad magic, she thought.

      Then she heard Mrs. Munn again, speaking softly somewhere ahead of her.

      “What’s she done to you, child? Now you hush your weepin’. I’m right here. Where does it hurt?”

      “Everywhere, Mama.”

      Candy saw a light now, no brighter than two candle flames, hovering in the air a few feet above the ground. The scene illuminated was a grim one.

      Mrs. Munn was kneeling on the ground, tending to her favorite son, Jollo B’gog. He was in a terrible

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