Darkheart

The Present: Name & Claim

"It names two, it claims two," Suzanne Kensington had said. "Adds two to its keepers, takes two for its own."

Kevin had tried to argue that, argue for letting Jeremiah stay, even said he'd go instead (no question, ever, whether Heather should be the one to go), but even Jeremiah himself had spoken against it.

Taking Kevin aside, the redhead had looked across the lake toward the lighthouse. "There's no need to try to act noble. What have I got to stay for? Nothing--I've got nothing. No one will miss me. You--you've got that kid coming."

"How'd you know?"

Jeremiah had laughed a little. "I don't know, lucky guess. The way you two keep looking at each other." He'd grown serious once more. "So see? You have something. They'll make you rich, you know. You'll have all the luck in the world. You can give that kid a good life."

"What does it matter, even? All this . . ."

Jeremiah had known what Kevin's fading words meant. "It'll matter to your kid. Keep him away from it, Kevin. Let him have the illusion of purpose. If you can, get out of here. Whatever it is down there, it's older than any of us, than the first slimes that crawled out of the oceans, probably, since before creation itself. I don't know. And we can't understand it because really this place--this singular rock floating in infinity--it doesn't belong to us. We're just an annoyance on its surface. We're nothing to it. Our lifespans are a billionth or a trillionth of its own. The thing messed with us, read us, made us look at all our failings and fears." He'd turned to look at the other man, studied his features, thought he'd seen goodness trying to work its way through the apathy. "We hardly know anything at all. We think we do, but we are so, so small. In all the eons of time and space out there, dark things are moving, taking shape and wandering throughout infinity, and they've been doing it forever. We just ended up here, for some reason, and whatever that thing below is, it's got its own end game. But--and I've been thinking about this, Kevin--I've spent the last fifteen years believing nothing matters, there's only this, here, and whatever this is, it's in charge. But I realized, I think, that I was looking at it too small, too much from my own limited head. Because the truth is, we have no reason to think there isn't something more out there, something better or worse, maybe even something good, something that doesn't fit into our brains."

"And we just ended up in this shitty place."

"The ultimate tragic fate."

They'd stood in silence, turning away slowly from one another and toward the water, toward boys and girls playing with snakes and smoke bombs on the sand. Jeremiah's thoughts had moved beneath the calm surface, beneath the fish and shipwrecks, beneath the sand and stone and mud and crust . . . making its way there.

"You don't have to do it. I can go. You can take care of--of my kid."

Jeremiah had only sighed with a sort of finality. "No. You don't mean that. You want to stay. And anyway, I need to find my friend."

Some unidentifiable emotion had filled Kevin. "Heather and I--we'll figure it out. We can stop what they're doing here, from the inside. I swear we will never stop trying to change this, even if there's no point."

Tearing his gaze from the horizon, the joy of the children incongruous with his mounting dread, Jeremiah had restrained his feelings and said in sincerity, "I think it's a lot more likely they'll change you."

Those had been their last words to one another. Familiar faces had arrived, phantoms from the shadows around the cottage, from the passageways through the trees, and surrounded him, as if he'd needed convincing. Kai (it wasn't her name, and yet he struggled to think of her any other way) had inclined her head, and they'd walked the beach to the resort's own quaint dock, where a small boat awaited him. She'd stepped into it with him; a few others had joined, and then they'd been off across the black water.