Chapter LXXVIII

Ellar Michaud and his two sisters sat in the kitchen of their home, the slow descent of the afternoon sun visible through the window behind them. Ellar had broken out a bottle of the gin distilled by Eliza from a brand of cheap vodka that otherwise threatened to induce blindness in the frail or unwary, enhanced with almond, juniper, and coriander. Aline didn't generally hold with drinking, and certainly not while it was still daylight, but these were exceptional circumstances.

There was no question but that the interlopers currently residing on Hickman land would attempt to investigate more closely Kit No. 174. Even had Ellar not been tracking the two men and guessed the direction of their thoughts, Lars Ungar had already revealed that his people were curious about the old house. If they succeeded in entering, they might well be curious about the dirt floor of the basement, even though Ellar had raked and smoothed it after the interment of Mattia Reggio. The house smelled of death, and not just recent death either. Generations of Michauds had been putting bodies in that ground since long before Kit No. 174 was raised. Decay, by osmosis, now infused its walls and boards; or that, Ellar thought, was one explanation, even as he suspected there was more to it, just as the permanent cold inside could be attributed neither to climate nor to the disposition of the dwelling itself. The wendigo made it that way.

Of course, the women disliked hearing that name used for it. Words like "wendigo," "chenoo," and "giwakwas" were not for civilized white people like themselves. Anyway, whatever inhabited Kit No. 174 was not beholden to the superstitions of the Mi'kmaq or the Abenaki. The tribes might have been aware of its existence, but they had not called it into being, and it was no god of theirs. Instead, it had long ago allied itself to the Michauds, blessing their existences and those to whom they elected to extend the boon of its presence. The first Michauds had heard it calling and heeded the summons, the spirit having chosen them. In return for good fortune, it demanded only small offerings: a body upon waking, preferably a child, so that it might have company in the dark.

And it was true that the Michauds had always been fortunate. They traditionally enjoyed long lives and good health. Prosperity came their way—not so much as to draw suspicion, but sufficient for them to be able to dwell in comfort. Yes, there were occasional setbacks, though they seemed to coincide with moments of doubt in the Michaud clan: a questioning of their duty to the spirit, even its actuality. So it was better, it had been decided, not to interrogate, only accept.

Yet still Ellar vacillated, if silently, for he had learned to guard his speech around his sisters. Was it not in the nature of men to attribute patterns to coincidence, and in this way bring gods into being? Once they became trapped in that mode of reasoning, any departure was rendered fraught, and thus action, or inaction, reinforced belief. Might not the Michauds have created the entity, or the idea of it, because logic dictated that men originated gods rather than the opposite? If so, could they not also bring it to an end by withholding that same belief?

But it was easier for Ellar to indulge such speculations in private, or far from home. When he was on the land, or in the house itself, with his sisters by his side, he had less difficulty in believing. But credence did not denote outright acquiescence, and Ellar was worried. Enemies were gathering. For the first time in years, he felt vulnerable.

Ellar had read about the town of Prosperous, Maine, and the old chapel shipped there from the north of England centuries earlier. He had listened to the whispers about the Prosperous community, and learned that something was said to have dwelt beneath their ancient chapel, something transported with it from the old country; even some distant cousin of the wendigo, for who knew what manner of spirits preexisted men. That chapel now lay in ruins, destroyed by an explosion, leaving Prosperous in a state of terminal decline. A person could make of that what they wished, but one fact was indisputable: Prosperous had attracted the attention of the private detective, Parker, and suffered for it. Now Parker was involved in the search for Henry Clark, which had, in turn, led the man named Reggio to their door. Inevitably, others would follow.

At the kitchen table, Ellar spoke.

"We ought to have gotten rid of the house a long time ago," he said. "I wish it had never been raised to begin with. We might as well have lit a beacon."

The idea behind its construction had been to install some part of the Michaud clan where the entity could be monitored, so they might more easily know when it woke, and move to appease it. It was also intended to serve the same purpose as a private temple or chapel: a signifier of familial belief. Finally, Ellar's great-aunt had wanted a place of her own in which to live, having grown tired of the company of her clan. It said much about the Michauds, Ellar thought, that she would have preferred to share her living space with a predatory wraith than with her own flesh and blood. Ultimately, she had died before she could take up occupancy, leaving whatever dwelt in the soil to possess and corrupt the house, or find in its flawed aspect a reflection of its own nature.

"It likes that place," said Aline. "The house has become its nest."

"Did it tell you that?" said Ellar. "It speaks to you now?"

But Aline wouldn't be drawn into an argument. Ellar guessed the gin might be having some effect on her, but Aline also had a different, more cryptic attachment to Kit No. 174 than he and Eliza. In summer, she would sleep there for a night or two, returning to them stinking of defilement.

"It doesn't have to speak to me," she said. "I know when it's at peace."

"It won't be at peace for much longer if Hickman's settlers keep nosing around," said Eliza, "and we don't have time to go moving bones. Even if we did, their eyes are on us now. Any activity will only add to their suspicions."

"I say we demolish the house," said Ellar. "We can plant trees, let the roots shatter whatever remains are left in there and drive them deeper down."

"I told you," said Aline. "It doesn't want that, and neither do I. Who knows, we might even harm it. It could turn against us."

Not for the first time in his life, Ellar fought the urge to grab Aline by the scruff of the neck to shake some sense into her—for all the good it might have done, Aline having long since developed a resistance to reason. If he did try to act without her consent, he could see her grabbing a rifle and taking up position on the porch of the house, daring him to take one step closer. He wouldn't have put it past her to kill him. Objectively, he realized, the three of them were crazy, but Aline was the craziest of them all.

"What options do we have?" Eliza asked her brother.

Ellar swirled the gin, conjuring from it a strong scent of almonds. If Aline ever decided to poison him, cyanide in the gin would be the way to do it. But he had an answer to Eliza's question. He'd been working on it ever since it became apparent that the outsiders weren't going to be leaving voluntarily anytime soon.

"We could move against Pinette and the rest," he said.

"They outnumber us, and they're well-armed," said Eliza.

"I wasn't advocating a gunfight. They're not the only ones who can cross creeks. I've taken a look at their camp. They're using hundred-pound propane cylinders to supply their needs. They've rigged hot-water showers, refrigerators, and heaters to a series of DuroMax generators, and haven't made a bad job of it, but that's a lot of propane. A leak, a naked flame, and the whole campsite could go up."

Ellar could see Eliza picturing flowers of fire blooming in the night.

"What about the smell?" she asked. "Won't that alert them?"

"You ever smell propane? It stinks like a skunk's spray. Hard to distinguish between them, unless you're born to the land. That would be the way to hide it."

"There'll be an investigation," said Aline.

"What of it? I can make a firebox that'll burn to ash, leaving no trace."

Ellar knew he was talking himself into an act that common sense—those words again, so alien to his family—should have led him to reject, but he accepted that Aline might be right about retaining Kit No. 174, if for the wrong reasons. Destroying the house wouldn't cure them of the headache of the Hickman camp, because he and his sisters would never be free of surveillance as long as it was there. The camp was rapidly developing into a permanent settlement, as Ungar had hinted, which would escalate the existing dispute over boundaries and trespass; and it wasn't as though the Michauds could seek recourse through the law, as that would involve more strangers coming to survey the land.

But there was also the question of what Ungar or one of the others might already have seen, which included the arrival and subsequent departure of Mattia Reggio's vehicle. Witnesses, even ones as unreliable as a bunch of armed degenerates, would lead to a search, and a search could uncover bodies. Poulin, the town constable, knew better than to go peering under rocks unless it was unavoidable—he was a creature of Gretton, whether he realized it or not—but state or federal law enforcement would not be so inclined to a willed lack of interest.

"How soon can it be done?" asked Eliza.

Ellar had a couple of bottles of Rickard's Skunk Essence that he used for deer hunting off Michaud land. He'd also noticed a dead skunk by the side of the road outside Gretton earlier that day, and he couldn't see any reason why it wouldn't still be there.

"Best to act quickly," he said. "Then we can put an end to the whole sorry business."

"Tonight?"

It was the time of the new moon, the darkest phase of the lunar cycle. Ellar saw a chasm gape before him and marveled that he had, with the aid of his sisters, contrived to create it.

"Yes," he said, "tonight."