The Glittering World

The Colony

        He held the lighter up to the ceiling. A red-skinned angel, expression beneficent with eyes closed in either ecstasy or solemnity, was painted on the scratched boards overhead. Flowing white robes draped the angel’s chest like a toga, its red wings aloft in massive crests, cellophane traced through with fine pencil mimicking gold leaf that reminded him of a butterfly’s wings. Spiraled in cursive beneath the figure was written Borealis the Mother was sent up from the Heavens of the Faraway World to bring comfort to the New Children of the Screaming Places on a curled banner scroll; the words that followed trailed off the ceiling into illegibility.

        Above the angel’s head, a tiny halo: an actual gold band, like a wedding ring, embedded in the wall. He’d seen this ring before as well. He was sure of it. Could it have belonged to his mother? His grandmother? Or was it always right here, stuck to the closet ceiling?

        On the floor was yet another illustration, this one painted across the wooden slats. It was similar in manner to the angel, wings spanning the cramped space from edge to edge. Only this was no angel. Naked skin chalk white, its bright honeycombed eyes stared out from a tapered and sunken face, jagged teeth bared like an insect’s mandibles. The wings were leathery like a bat’s wings, wide and capped by elongated fingers that ended in serrated claws. Blue squatted and brought the increasingly warm lighter closer to the rendering. The creature’s nails and teeth were tiny rusted staples riveted directly into the floorboards, its eyes hollowed-out copper filings hot-glued inside the dark spaces between the slats.

        There was a legend beneath this one as well, but it was written on the floor behind him. He stepped out of the closet for a better look when a hand grabbed his arm.

        “Do you hear that?” Gabe said, head cocked.

        They crept down the hall. Blue thought of the words from the woods, spoken in that unidentifiable yet achingly familiar tongue. The shifting wind through the open windows made any sound difficult to place, and he wasn’t sure if his imagination was getting the better of him.

      “I think so,” Blue said. “Someone whispering?”

      “Someone whistling.”

      Elisa and Jason stole down the stone stairs. They all heard it, a lilting little tune carried on the air, soft and then softer, depending on the direction of the wind. They went out back—not much there but an old covered well, along with some sodden kindling and planks—and stood silent for a few moments, trying to pinpoint the sound. There was a crunch of leaves farther out in the woods, and Jason stepped forward, placing a protective hand in front of Elisa. “Hello?” he called out. “Is someone there?”

      The whistling stopped. Another sound now, softer but no longer masked: water, close by and babbling. Jason tiptoed off the path into the trees with Blue behind him, while Gabe and Elisa hung back.

      About ten yards into the woods there was a break in the foliage where a small creek wound its way downhill. Beside the water a man in a checked flannel shirt and nylon waders crouched upon a rock; a book was laid open across his lap, but he stared into the distant trees.

      “Donald,” Jason called out. The older man raised his head and smiled, then returned his attention to the spot where the stream disappeared into the woods. “How are you doing today?”

      “Not terribly,” Donald said. “Just out here looking. Dry summer...”

      “Find anything interesting?”

      “Not yet.”

      Elisa and Gabe made their way down the embankment, and Donald tracked them, shielding his eyes from a shaft of sunlight penetrating the leaves. “There’s four of you,” he concluded. “Bridge numbers.” A loud rustling sounded behind him and a large brown dog scampered from the underbrush. “This is Olivier. He was trained as a bird dog, which I grew up calling a pointer. He’s a rescue dog. My wife got him for me to ‘better my mood.’ ”