The Talisman

down there in Point Venuti, aren’t we?’ he asked.
    Jack said, ‘I’m going to take care of you, Richard. You’re the herd now.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nobody’s going to hurt you, not unless you scratch yourself to death.’
    Richard muttered to himself as they plodded along. His hands slid over his inflamed temples, rubbing and rubbing. Now and then he dug his fingers in his hair, scratched himself like a dog, and grunted in an only partially fulfilled satisfaction.
    3
    Shortly after Richard lifted his shirt, revealing the red blotches on his back, they saw the first of the Territories trees. It grew on the inland side of the highway, its tangle of dark branches and column of thick, irregular bark emerging from a reddish, waxy tangle of poison ivy. Knotholes in the bark gaped, mouths or eyes, at the boys. Down in the thick mat of poison ivy a rustling, rustling of unsatisfied roots agitated the waxy leaves above them, as if a breeze blew through them. Jack said, ‘Let’s cross the road,’ and hoped that Richard had not seen the tree. Behind him he could still hear the thick, rubbery roots prowling through the stems of the ivy.
    Is that a BOY? Could that be a BOY up there? A SPECIAL boy perhaps?
    Richard’s hands flew from his sides to his shoulders to his temples to his scalp. On his cheeks, the second wave of raised bumps resembled horror-movie makeup – he could have been a juvenile monster from one of Lily Cavanaugh’s old films. Jack saw that on the backs of Richard’s hands the red bumps of the rash had begun to grow together into great red welts.
    ‘Can you really keep going, Richard?’ he asked.
    Richard nodded. ‘Sure. For a while.’ He squinted back across the road. ‘That wasn’t a regular tree, was it? I never saw a tree like that before, not even in a book. It was a Territories tree, wasn’t it?’
    ‘’Fraid so,’ Jack said.
    ‘That means the Territories are really close, doesn’t it?’
    ‘I guess it does.’
    ‘So there’ll be more of those trees up ahead, won’t there?’
    ‘If you know the answers, why ask the questions?’ Jack asked. ‘Oh Jason, what a dumb thing to say. I’m sorry, Richie – I guess I was hoping that you didn’t see it. Yeah, I suppose there’ll be more of them up there. Let’s just not get too close to them.’
    In any case, Jack thought, ‘up there’ was hardly an accurate way to describe where they were going: the highway slid resolutely down a steady grade, and every hundred feet seemed to take it farther from the light. Everything seemed invaded by the Territories.
    ‘Could you take a look at my back?’ Richard asked.
    ‘Sure.’ Jack again lifted Richard’s shirt. He kept himself from saying anything, though his instinct was to groan. Richard’s back was now covered with raised red blotches which seemed almost to radiate heat. ‘It’s a little worse,’ he said.
    ‘I thought it had to be. Only a little, huh?’
    ‘Only a little.’
    Before long, Jack thought, Richard was going to look one hell of a lot like an alligator suitcase – Alligator Boy, son of Elephant Man.
     
    Two of the trees grew together a short way ahead, their warty trunks twisted around each other in a way that suggested violence more than love. As Jack stared at them while they hurried past, he thought he saw the black holes in the bark mouthing at them, blowing curses or kisses: and he knew that he heard the roots gnashing together at the base of the joined trees. (BOY! A BOY’s out there! OUR boy’s out there!)
    Though it was only mid-afternoon, the air was dark, oddly grainy, like an old newspaper photograph. Where grass had grown on the inland side of the highway, where Queen Anne’s lace had bloomed delicately and whitely, low unrecognizable weeds blanketed the earth. With no blossoms and few leaves, they resembled snakes coiled together and smelled faintly of diesel oil. Occasionally the sun flared through the granular murk like a dim orange fire. Jack was reminded of a photograph he had once seen of Gary, Indiana, at night – hellish flames feeding on poison in a black, poisoned sky. From down there the Talisman pulled at him as surely as if it were a giant with its hands on his clothes. The nexus of all possible worlds. He would take Richard into that hell – and fight for his life with all his strength – if he had to haul him along by the ankles. And Richard must have seen this determination in Jack, for, scratching at his sides and shoulders,