Dead and Alive

stepped outside, she heard sirens in the distance.
    To the northwest, a strange luminosity played through the low storm clouds: throbbing, wildly flailing forms of light, as radiant and fiercely white as spirits might be, if you were one who believed in such things as spirits.
    The burning sky was a reflection of an unimaginably hot and hungry blaze below. The place where she was conceived and born, the Hands of Mercy, must be on fire.
    The rain driving through the trees and spending itself on the soaked lawn made a sizzle something likefire, but here the night had no scent of smoke. The washed air smelled clean and fresh, and the fragrance of jasmine came to her, and in this moment, for the first time in her brief but event-packed existence, she felt fully
alive
.
    She returned to the library and sat on the footstool in front of Jocko’s armchair. “Little friend, you have followed the secret passageway to the hidden room and seen all those lock bolts on the two steel doors.”
    “Jocko isn’t going there again. Jocko’s been in enough scary places. He wants just nice places from now on.”
    “You have seen the hidden room and the glass casket, and the shapeless shadow alive within.”
    Jocko shuddered and drank some Scotch.
    “You have heard it speak from the casket.”
    Unsuccessfully trying to make his voice deeper and rougher and menacing, the troll quoted, “‘You are Erika Five, and you are mine.’”
    In his natural voice, he said, “There’s something in the glass box that’s at least fourteen hundred times too scary for Jocko. If Jocko had genitals, they would’ve shriveled up and fallen off. But Jocko could only faint.”
    “Remember, I took you there so I could ask your opinion about something. Before I ask, I must emphasize that I want to know what you
truly
feel. Truly, truly.”
    Clearly somewhat embarrassed but nevertheless meeting Erika’s stare forthrightly, the troll said, “Truly, truly. No more Jocko-needs-to-pee-Jocko-is-gonna-vomit. That’s the old me. Good-bye to that Jocko.”
    “All right, then. I want your honest opinion about two things. We don’t know what that shapeless shadow is. But based on what you’ve heard and seen, is the thing in that glass casket just another thing—or is it malevolent?”
    “Malevolent!” the troll said at once. “Malevolent, malignant, venomous, and potentially very troublesome.”
    “Thank you for your honesty.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    “Now my second question.” She leaned toward Jocko, riveting his gaze with hers. “If the thing in the glass case was made by some man, conceived and designed and brought to life by some man, do you think that man is good … or evil?”
    “Evil,” Jocko said. “Evil, depraved, wicked, corrupt, vile, vicious, rotten, hateful, totally unpleasant.”
    Erika held his gaze for half a minute. Then she rose from the footstool. “We’ve got to leave New Orleans and go to the tank farm farther upstate. You’ll need clothes.”
    Plucking at the picnic tablecloth that he had fashioned into a sarong, Jocko said, “This is the only clothes Jocko ever had. It works okay.”
    “You’ll be out in public, at least in the Mercedes.”
    “Put Jocko in the trunk.”
    “It’s an SUV. It doesn’t have a trunk. I’ve got to find you clothes that make you look more like a normal little boy.”
    Amazement made yet another fright mask of the troll’s face. “What genius would make such clothes?”
    “I don’t know,” Erika admitted. “But I’ve got an idea who might. Glenda. The estate provisioner. She shops for everything needed here. Food, paper goods, linens, staff uniforms, holiday decorations….”
    “Does she shop for soap?” Jocko asked.
    “Yes, everything, she shops for everything.”
    He put aside his empty Scotch glass and clapped his hands. “Jocko would like to meet the lady who shops for soap.”
    “That’s not a good idea,” Erika said. “You stay here, out of sight. I’ll talk to Glenda and see what she can do.”
    Getting up from the armchair, the troll said, “Jocko is feeling like he better twirl or cartwheel, or walk on his hands. Whatever.”
    “You know what you could do?” Erika asked. “You could browse the shelves in here, choose some books to take along.”
    “I’m going to read to you,” he remembered.
    “That’s right. Choose some good stories. Maybe twenty.”
    As the troll moved toward the nearest shelves, Erika hurried to find Glenda.
    At the door to