The Talisman

or kicking with his feet, he knew that, just as he knew they weren’t going to let him out just because he screamed to be let out. But he couldn’t help it. Wolfs hated being shut up above all things.
    His screams carried through the Sunlight Home’s immediate grounds and even into the near fields. The boys who heard them glanced at each other nervously and said nothing.
    ‘I seen him in the bathroom this morning, and he turned mean,’ Roy Owdersfelt confided to Morton in a low, nervous voice.
    ‘Was they queerin off, like Sonny said?’ Morton asked.
    Another Wolf-howl rose from the squat iron Box, and both boys glanced toward it.
    ‘And how!’ Roy said eagerly. ‘I didn’t exactly see it because I’m short, but Buster Oates was right up front and he said that big retarded boy had him a whanger the size of a Akron fire-plug. That’s what he said.’
    ‘Jesus!’ Morton said respectfully, thinking perhaps of his own sub-standard whanger.
    Wolf howled all day, but as the sun began to go down, he stopped. The boys found the new silence ominous. They looked at one another often, and even more often, and with more unease, toward that rectangle of iron standing in the center of a bald patch in the Home’s back yard. The Box was six feet long and three feet high – except for the crude square cut in the west side and covered with heavy-gauge steel mesh, an iron coffin was exactly what it looked like. What was going on in there? they wondered. And even during confession, during which time the boys were usually held rapt, every other consideration forgotten, eyes turned toward the common room’s one window, even though that window looked on the side of the house directly opposite the Box.
    What’s going on in there?
    Hector Bast knew that their minds were not on confession and it exasperated him, but he was unable to bring them around because he did not know what precisely was wrong. A feeling of chilly expectation had gripped the boys in the Home. Their faces were paler than ever; their eyes glittered like the eyes of dope-fiends.
    What’s going on in there?
    What was going on was simple enough.
    Wolf was going with the moon.
    He felt it happen as the patch of sun coming in through the ventilation square began to rise higher and higher, as the quality of the light became reddish. It was too early to go with the moon; she was not fully pregnant yet and it would hurt him. Yet it would happen, as it always happened to Wolfs eventually, in season or out of it, when they were pressed too long and too hard. Wolf had held himself in check for a long time because it was what Jacky wanted. He had performed great heroisms for Jack in this world. Jack would dimly suspect some of them, yet never come close to apprehending their incredible depth and breadth.
    But now he was dying, and he was going with the moon, and because the latter made the former seem more than bearable – almost holy, and surely ordained – Wolf went in relief, and in gladness. It was wonderful not to have to struggle anymore.
    His mouth, suddenly deep with teeth.
    3
    After Heck left, there were office sounds: the soft scrape of chairs being moved, a jingle of the keys on Sunlight Gardener’s belt, a file-cabinet door running open and then closed.
    ‘Abelson. Two hundred and forty dollars and thirty-six cents.’
    Sounds of keys being punched. Peter Abelson was one of the boys on OS. Like all of the OS boys, he was bright, personable, and had no physical defects. Jack had seen him only a few times, but he thought Abelson looked like Dondi, that homeless waif with the big eyes in the comic strips.
    ‘Clark. Sixty-two dollars and seventeen cents.’
    Keys being punched. The machine rumbled as Sonny hit the TOTAL key.
    ‘That’s a real fall-off,’ Sonny remarked.
    ‘I’ll talk to him, never fear. Now please don’t chatter at me, Sonny. Mr Sloat arrives in Muncie at ten-fifteen and it’s a long drive. I don’t want to be late.’
    ‘Sorry, Reverend Gardener.’
    Gardener made some reply Jack didn’t even hear. At the name Sloat , a great shock had walloped him – and yet part of him was unsurprised. Part of him had known this might be in the cards. Gardener had been suspicious from the first. He had not wanted to bother his boss with trivialities, Jack figured. Or maybe he had not wanted to admit he couldn’t get the truth out of Jack without help. But at last he had called – where? East? West? Jack would have given a great lot just