The Talisman

floor to do his business. And not come out for two, maybe three hours. He felt the approach of black work – very black work.
    THUD-THUD!
    Fuck the turkey pies.
    Rudolph took off his apron, tossed it on the counter over the salt cod he had been freshening for tomorrow night’s supper, and started out of the room.
    ‘Where you going?’ Irwinson asked. His voice was suddenly too high. It trembled. Donny Keegan went right on furiously peeling potatoes the size of Nerf footballs down to potatoes the size of Spalding golfballs, his dank hair hanging in his face.
    THUD! THUD! THUD-THUD-THUD!
    Rudolph didn’t answer Irwinson’s question, and by the time he hit the second-floor stairs, he was nearly running. It was hard times in Indiana, work was scarce, and Sunlight Gardener paid cash.
    All the same, Rudolph had begun to wonder if the time to look for a new job had not come, could you say get me outta here.
    5
    THUD!
    The bolt at the top of the Box’s Dutch-oven-type door snapped in two. For a moment there was a dark gap between the Box and the door.
    Silence for a time. Then:
    THUD!
    The bottom bolt creaked, bent.
    THUD!
    It snapped.
    The door of the Box creaked open on its big, clumsy, homemade hinges. Two huge, heavily pelted feet poked out, soles up. Long claws dug into the dust.
    Wolf started to work his way out.
    6
    Back and forth the flame went in front of Jack’s eyes; back and forth, back and forth. Sunlight Gardener looked like a cross between a stage hypnotist and some old-time actor playing the lead in the biography of a Great Scientist on The Late Late Show . Paul Muni, maybe. It was funny – if he hadn’t been so terrified, Jack would have laughed. And maybe he would laugh, anyway.
    ‘Now I have a few questions for you, and you are going to answer them,’ Gardener said. ‘Mr Morgan could get the answers out of you himself – oh, easily, indubitably! – but I prefer not to put him to the trouble. So . . . how long have you been able to Migrate?’
    ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
    ‘How long have you been able to Migrate to the Territories?’
    ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    The flame came closer.
    ‘Where’s the nigger?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘The nigger, the nigger!’ Gardener shrieked. ‘Parker, Parkus, whatever he calls himself? Where is he?’
    ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
    ‘Sonny! Andy!’ Gardener screamed. ‘Unlace his left hand. Hold it out to me.’
    Warwick bent over Jack’s shoulder and did something. A moment later they were peeling Jack’s hand away from the small of his back. It tingled with pins and needles, waking up. Jack tried to struggle, but it was useless. They held his hand out.
    ‘Now spread his fingers open.’
    Sonny pulled Jack’s ring finger and his pinky in one direction; Warwick pulled his pointer and middle finger in the other. A moment later, Gardener had applied the Zippo’s flame to the webbing at the base of the V they had created. The pain was exquisite, bolting up his left arm and from there seeming to fill his whole body. A sweet, charring smell drifted up. Himself. Burning. Himself.
    After an eternity, Gardener pulled the Zippo back and snapped it shut. Fine beads of sweat covered his forehead. He was panting.
    ‘Devils scream before they come out,’ he said. ‘Oh yes indeed they do. Don’t they, boys?’
    ‘Yes, praise God,’ Warwick said.
    ‘You pounded that nail,’ Sonny said.
    ‘Oh yes, I know it. Yes indeed I do. I know the secrets of both boys and devils.’ Gardener tittered, then leaned forward until his face was an inch from Jack’s. The cloying scent of cologne filled Jack’s nose. Terrible as it was, he thought it was quite a lot better than his own burning flesh. ‘Now, Jack. How long have you been Migrating? Where is the nigger? How much does your mother know? Who have you told? What has the nigger told you? We’ll start with those.’
    ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    Gardener bared his teeth in a grin.
    ‘Boys,’ he said, ‘we’re going to get sunlight in this boy’s soul yet. Lace up his left arm again and unlace his right.’
    Sunlight Gardener opened his lighter again and waited for them to do it, his thumb resting lightly on the striker wheel.
    7
    George Irwinson and Donny Keegan were still in the kitchen.
    ‘Someone’s out there,’ George said nervously.
    Donny said nothing. He had finished peeling the potatoes and now stood by the ovens for their