Him

You took too long getting to the park, and lingered too long there afterwards. Now it’s getting dusk and time to go home – and home is still the better part of an hour away, to go the long way. The alley would be much shorter, naturally, but that’s out of the question. Once the streetlights come on, He’s going to be there, waiting. You don’t need to go and look. You know.

Still, you’re in a quandary now, as they say. Any longer and Ma is going to make a big scene again. No use trying to explain about the alley either, not after the last time. Better to nod and say “Okay” and just face the music. At least Ma gives you grief because she loves you. Nothing He wants with you has anything to do with love.

But the truth is that late’s late, and you might as well stop for a minute and enjoy the sundown while it’s here. You just hope that nobody asks what you’re doing. Adults never seem to believe you when you say you’re enjoying the sunset. It’s like you’re causing trouble just by sitting there on the bench. When you get noticed at all, that is.

Not many people out at this time, though. Not many people seem to like just sitting in the park anymore, come to think of it, except maybe bums. Though there’s someone there by the fountain you haven’t seen around before – not a bum, to go by looks, but not like any of the park regulars either. A college boy? No, a young woman – not a girl, Sis would have a fit if you said “girl” for an over-eighteen – in eyeglasses, her hair cut short and boyish, but still long enough that a strand or two hangs in front of her eyes. She’s wearing a long black coat and smoking a cigar, which is also pretty odd for a woman, and watching, with great interest, a flock of sparrows wheeling and diving overhead in the darkening sky.

You figure you’ve passed by without her seeing you, but then a female voice from behind you says, “Hey, kid.”

Aw, shit. “Hi.”

You turn to see her smiling at you, the trail of cigar smoke curling around her head. “Little late to be out alone, don’t you think?”

You shrug. “I’m going home.”

“Where’s that, if you don’t mind me asking?”

You wave an arm in the right direction. “Five blocks that way. You know where the model-train shop is, and the place that sells candles and stuff? Near that.”

“Yeah, I know where that is.” She pulls at her cigar, blows a perfect smoke ring. “That’s right by the little Korean market on the corner, isn’t it?”

“Uh-huh. I live right over that, actually. It’s my parent’s store.”

“No kidding? I love that place.” From behind her glasses, she gives you a kind of sideways look. “Trouble is, that’s not the direction you’re headed.”

You could kick yourself; you walked right into that. “Uh, I’m taking the long way, actually.”

“I should say so. You really think that’s a good idea?”

You shrug, again. “I just like it better, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh. Better enough to walk a long way on a dark night in the opposite direction. You wanna tell me why?”

A crawly feeling comes up inside you. She’s acting like she knows something, but you can’t see how that could be. Nobody else knows anything about Him. You look at your shoes. “No, not really.”

It’s her turn to shrug now. “Okay. If you say so. You don’t want my help, it doesn’t break my heart. None of my business, right?” She turns back to the fountain.

You almost walk away now, but something in the back of your head talks you into hesitating. You turn back. “What do you mean by ‘help?’”

She looks back over her shoulder at you. A glow from the streetlamp flashes on her glasses. “I mean, I can get you home and past the thing that’s scaring you. Maybe take care of it for good. If you want, that is.”

“Well, yeah, sure. I mean –” You’re suddenly not sure what the right thing to say is. “Um, how did you know I –”

She turns back to you. Her coat hangs like another shadow among the lengthening shadows. “A little bird told me. So come on, if we’re doing this. Time’s a-wasting. Lead the way.”

And that’s how you find yourself walking alongside this strange woman, on the streets leading to the alley where He is sure to be waiting for you, saying very little for the first stretch of the way. The smoke of her cigar has a bitter, pungent smell, a little sweet. She’s actually walking a half-step ahead, despite having told you to lead; the trailing orange glow of that cigar has become like a little beacon, leading your way as the night grows darker.

At about the second block, she speaks to you again.

“So tell me about what’s waiting for us at the end of this.”

You hesitate. This is not an easy thing to talk to grownups about.

“It’s ... Him. That’s what I call him, in my head. Just Him. A ... big, black dog that waits in the alley. Not just a regular big dog. Like the biggest, scariest dog you’ve ever seen, all teeth and yellow eyes and ...”

“Okay. Go on.”

“There’s ... something else about Him. He’s got a kind of ... vibe, I guess. Like he sends out waves. Fear. I know He wants me to be afraid of him. He doesn’t want me in his alley, and he wants me to be scared.”

She pulls on the cigar, blows blue smoke into the dark. “When did you first see Him?”

You think for a moment. It can’t be that long, now, but it feels like forever. “I guess… about a month ago? Maybe two. I can’t remember, exactly. I came home after dark. And He was waiting for me. I was sure that was true, somehow. He’d known I was coming. I couldn’t get past Him, and I had to go back and take another way home.”

“Musta been late when you got back. What happened?”

“I guess it was even later than I thought, ‘cause I got in and my mom was already crying. She wouldn’t even look at me, she was so mad. And she definitely wouldn’t listen when I tried to explain about Him. She just got more upset the more I tried to talk about it. And Dad ... I don’t know. He was working at his desk, and I almost didn’t even try to talk to him. But I went in and tried to explain where I’d been, and he just got a funny look and rubbed his eyes and didn’t say anything. So I went to bed.

“I went back to the alley the next evening and I could feel Him in there. I didn’t even have to see him to know he was there, waiting. I could feel his… vibe. So I started going home the other way from then on.”

“I don’t blame you. Things been okay since then? At home, I mean?”

You shrug, even though it’s probably getting too dark to see. “I guess so. Everyone’s been kinda quiet and weird since that first night. I try not to get home too late. My parents aren’t the type to talk too much about stuff, but I know they were disappointed. And my sister’s seventeen, she’s just weird anyway. So I stay in my room a lot.”

“I see.” And she says it in a way that you can tell she really does.

You’re getting closer now. The buildings here are mostly row houses, narrow and a little shabby. Lots of them have odd little porches or turrets that don’t feel like they quite belong, stuff that looks patched-in. That’s what this part of town is like: a patchwork neighborhood, new parts stitched onto old buildings, different styles and elements crazy-quilted together under the lines of mismatched little peaked roofs.

“You like living around here, kiddo?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I like this part of town. Used to be mostly Irish, you know, like a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago. There’s a place just up the street here you can still get the best stout in the city, homebrewed from a recipe three centuries old. Not that I expect you’re a big drinker or anything.” She grins at you , and you can’t help but smile back.

She continues. “Of course, it wasn’t long before you started to get a lot of other immigrants here. Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Czech. A lot of Poles and Jews during the war. And a little later, Middle Easterners and Philippinos and Chinese. Koreans too, like your family.

“The thing is, a lot of the stuff the first inhabitants brought with them ... resisted being moved like that. Some things people didn’t even quite know they had. Old powers and spirits and gods... “

You wonder if she’s joking, but she’s not smiling now. “Gods? For real? Like, Mount Olympus gods?”

“Kind of. Not so big and powerful, though. Little gods, who watched over farms or houses or fields. Some of them just dispersed after a while, or found new places to go, new things to be. Some of them changed enough to adapt to their new homes, get along with their new neighbors. And some of them ... some of them just stayed, lingered on. Kept doing what they always did, just in a new place. Things like the black dogs.”

“You mean ... like Him? Is that what He is?”

She nods. “I think so, yeah. There aren’t many of them left these days. They’re guardians, protectors. Used to prowl churchyards, watching over holy ground, keeping the land safe. You could always be sure that a black dog was the only thing haunting a place like that, if you saw one; restless spirits and evil things didn’t dare come near it.”

“So why doesn’t this one like me?”

She smiles at you, over her shoulder. “I’m guessing he sees you as a stranger. You don’t feel right to Him, and he only knows he’s supposed to keep intruders away from his ground.”

“What, ‘cause he thinks I’m a foreigner?” You kick at a stone lying on the sidewalk. “That’s stupid. My family’s been here for three generations now.”

“I know. But they don’t always have the same sense of time as we do. It moves differently for them, and slower.”

The two of you walk in silence for a few minutes. A streetlight overhead flickers as you pass beneath it, and turns off.

“Hey,” you say after a little while. “When we ... y’know, get there ... ?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you going to do?”

She smiles and blows a smoke ring, small and perfect. “I’m gonna get you through. Do you trust me to do that?”

You think about it, and nod, slowly. “Yeah, I guess I do. I don’t know why, but I do. It’s just ... I mean, are you going to have to hurt Him?”

She laughs, and shakes her head. “Kid, you are really something special, you know that? Your parents must ...” She stops, for a moment, like she’s weighing her words very carefully. “Well, they must love you very much. And be very proud.”

“I guess. Whatever. It’s hard to tell, sometimes.”

She looks at you for a long moment. Behind the glasses, her eyes are very deep and wise. But her face, her amused half-smile, gives nothing away. “Yeah, I guess it must be. Anyway, no. I don’t think I’ll have to do anything to hurt him. Were you worried about that?”

“I just – yeah. Yeah, I guess I was, all of a sudden. I mean, He must be very lonely after all this time. I wouldn’t want to… spend forever like that.”

“No one does. That’s what I’m here for. You know what a psychopomp is?”

You think for a minute, turning the word over in your head. “What, a snobby crazy person?”

She smiles wide at that. “Not quite. It’s someone who – well, helps lost things get unlost. And puts them on the way to get where they need to go.”

You nod. “That sounds very nice. It sounds like a good thing to do.”

“It is. Mostly, anyway.”

But now you begin to realize that you’re almost there. Half a block away, you can see the dark mouth of the alley opening onto the street, not quite touched by the glow of the lights. And you get the first rush of the vibe – the wave of fear. His fear, like a hand on your heart.

Her own hand reaches out and takes yours, very warm, very strong.

“Okay, kid,” she says. “We’re going in. It’s okay. Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” you say. Your voice sounds very small and faint.

Twenty paces from the alley. Fifteen. Ten. You’d stop, you’d turn and run away, but her hand is holding yours so tightly, and she keeps going, not fast, but steady and sure, one pace at a time.

Would you run, with her watching? Would you do anything to bring disappointment to those deep, unfathomable eyes?

Five paces. He’s even stronger here than you remember; the power of His fear bores deep into you, clutches at something very small and frail in your inmost self. Three. Two. One.

The alley yawns before you, black on black. Somehow, since you’ve seen it last, it has become even more a place that the light seems to flee. How is it that you can’t see where it opens on the other side? Not a passage now, but a wall of shadow, and there, within its depths, an even deeper and more solid darkness ...

Within that darker shadow, two orange eyes burn like coals. He is immense where He looms in the blackness, even bigger than you remember, bigger than any dog – a horse, a rhinoceros. And He has been waiting for you.

Another wave of His terrible dread rolls over you, a gale wind, freezing you with His ferocious hate. If you stood here for long, it would simply sweep you away into nothingness. Because that’s what you are before Him – nothing, a wisp, something to extinguish. There are no real words in the rush of His terror, but the meaning of it is coldly clear: OUTSIDER. AWAY. NOT-BELONG.

And then the hand that holds yours tightens just a little, and you feel the ground come back up under you again.

“I do belong.” you say, a defiant whisper. “I do. I’m not going away.”

“Hang in there just a little longer, kid. Just a few more minutes, and I’ll get you through.”

STAYING HERE. OUTSIDER. WHY?

“It’s okay, old warder.” Her voice is like a bell ringing on a clear morning, even though her words are soft. “It’s alright. Relent, relent.”

MY GROUND. MY DUTY. OUTSIDER. AWAY. FAR AWAY, RUN, FLEE.

“I mean it. It’s alright. I’m here, he’s with me. He just wants to pass through. Listen.” And she begins to say words to Him, strange words, quietly. They sound beautiful, but alien too, like a poem from a book long forgotten and lost, and you find yourself full of sadness and longing.

RELENT? MY GROUND, RELENT? Now, for the first time, you feel Him hesitate. Still terrible and strong and wild, and the rush of His terror doesn’t let up. But there’s something else there too, now, an impossible thing in the face of His power. Uncertainty.

“Relent, yes, please. Just a little, just to let us through. You can trust me. You know you can. Just one more time, please, and I’ll take care of this.” She almost whispers this last, and there’s such sadness in her voice that you think your heart will break. And you realize that there’s something going on here you don’t understand.

“What do you --?” you start to say, but she squeezes your hand.

“Shh, kid. Just a minute. Let’s get through here first, okay?”

And she starts to walk, holding your hand gently but firmly, and you follow, your head swimming. The shadows are lifting just a little now, like mist when you walk into it after rain. Now you can see the lamp burning, like a single candle in a dark room, at the far end of the alley, and your heart cries out to go to it. You gather your strength and look into the darkness, and you see Him there, crouched and waiting. Huge and dreadful, to be sure, but also magnificent, His coiled muscles like ink and mercury, the arch of His great back like a hill. His eyes are fearsome orange fire, but sad and lonely too, now you see Him closer. And you realize, suddenly, that He’s afraid too, all alone here for so long, trapped and confused in his little corner of the city and the night. Unwanted and forgotten and… lost.

“Okay, here we are,” you hear the woman say. But there’s a little break in her voice that doesn’t fit the words. You turn to look up at her.

“I think I’m okay now,” you say. “You can let go.”

“No,” she says quietly, “I can’t. I’m so sorry.”

The world spins around you. There’s your place, you can see it, the lights in the windows above the darkened store, and you want so badly to go there, so badly… “Why? What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“Let me ask you something,” she says. Her voice is soft, and so sad, and the thought of something that would make her sad, when she’s so solid and strong, is suddenly much more frightening than He is. “What have you been doing all day, these days?”

It’s a weird question, all of a sudden like that, but it makes you stop. It’s hard to think about, now she mentions it. “I don’t know. Stuff, I guess. I go to the park…”

“In the afternoons. Not all day. Haven’t you been in school?”

“Yeah, sure. I must’ve. Maybe. I can’t remember now…”

“I didn’t think you could. I think there’s something you should see.”

She walks you over, her hand still firmly but gently around yours, to the wall of the brownstone where you live. Right by the stairway going up to your place, set in the brick of the wall, there’s a plaque, brass reflecting the last fading light of the day. There are flowers on the street below. And on the plaque is etched a name, and two dates.

The name is your name, and the second date is a year ago.

“But…” you manage to say. It comes out as a breathy whisper, so faint… “But…”

“Think about it just a moment, kiddo. How no one seems to pay attention to you or even notice you these days. How your family’s been so sad. That’s why.”

“I’m… I’m not…”

“You’ve been… lingering. He knew that; it’s why He was so frightening to you. But it’s time to go. Move on, so they can too.”

“But this is my home.” It’s the only thing you can think of to say, and it sounds stupid even to you.

“It used to be. It’s time for you to leave, though.” She squeezes your hand, and smiles at you. “Your family loves you very much, you know. But they can’t get on with their lives while you’re… still around. You have to let them go, so they can let you go. It’s not fair, but there it is.”

You look up at her. Her long coat is like a robe of shadows; cigar smoke curls and trails up into the dark behind her, ash-blue-grey, seeking the sky… And you realize for the first time that she’s beautiful, that under the glasses and the tousled hair and the shapeless coat, she’s beautiful and wise and terrible, like the city at night. More terrible even than He is, much more, like a fire next to a candle. And much more sad.

“Where would I go?” you whisper.

“That’s between you and the Mystery, sweetie. I’m just… an agent, sending you off to wherever it is you’re meant to be next.”

“Helping lost things get unlost.” You can’t help but smile as you say it. But you want to cry too.

“That’s it.” She crouches down in front of you now, and looks in your eyes. “I know this isn’t easy. Believe me, I know. But it’s time. Past time. Will you let me guide you?”

You look back at the alley. He’s still there, huge and black and fearsome, His red eyes burning, a great knot of wild rage all but lost in the city’s shadows. Prowling his tiny patch of ground, back and forth, back and forth, forever and all alone. How long has He been there, hanging desperately to the thing he used to be while the rest of the world moved on and forgot? It seems like an awful fate.

You don’t say anything for what feels like a long moment. And then you nod, and say, very quietly, “Yes.”

She nods too, and smiles at you. “Well, come on, then.” She’s still holding your hand, but when she stands up, her other hand makes a quick, odd gesture, and she says something under her breath. And then the city around you… changes.

Now every shadow is like a doorway, and every light a star. Off into the night, the streets seem to stretch forever, a hundred roads to everywhere. You look down one, and a constellation glitters over it, a trailing cloud of jewels, and your heart cries out to its splendor and beauty, filling you with the desire to see where it leads…

“I think —” you say, with only a small hesitation, “I think I know where I’m headed now.”

“Good,” she says, and you can hear the smile in her voice as she lets go of your hand. “I think you’re gonna be okay. If it means anything, I sure liked you, kid…”

But her voice is already fading, with the shapes of the buildings around you. Now there is only light and shadow, and the long road winding ahead, and your feet seem to move with a will of their own as you take your first steps down it. Something new stirs and flutters in your heart as you begin, and it’s been so long that it takes you a moment to recognize it, to remember it at last: joy, touched with wonder. Though you want to desperately, you don’t look back. But one last time, for a brief, fading moment, you can hear the sounds of your city stirring to welcome the night, and smell, faintly, the sharp sweet smoke of a cigar.