Chapter 23 - The Man of Wind and Moss

In April, Sasha told Marco that Pansy’s child was dead. Was born dead. She had only just found out. He was house-sitting again for Paula. She and Christopher were away in Greece, and it was the only steady job he could keep. A storm was over the city and a downpour fell in large sheets and Marco watched it come down onto Paula’s balcony. The French doors were open, and the sound was immense. Rain splattered on the metal balcony and splashed inwards onto Paula’s wood floor. Marco didn’t care. He sat on the floor in the dark, and he drank cheap beer, and he watched the rain, and it took a moment before he realized his phone was vibrating on the coffee table.

“You spoke to her yourself?” Marco asked. “Or did you see it through a window?” He tried very hard for the word “window” to not drip with disdain, but it came out anyway.

“I spoke to her myself,” Sasha said. Also with a tone. “It was a healthy child all the way to the end.”

Marco set the phone on the coffee table. Sasha’s voice was hard to hear over the rain and that was intentional. He flicked the tab of his beer back and forth. He looked around Paula’s dark apartment. The empty doorways. The windows blurry with rain. The soft glow of electronics.

“Maybe you should reach out to her,” she offered.

“I don’t think she wants to talk to me.”

“There’s something else, Marco.”

“What?”

“I saw Dean.”

Marco sat up. Something cold nipped at his wrists. He pulled the phone closer to him.

“What did you say?”

“It was late at night. In the subway. He was on the other platform.”

“He’s in the city? When was this?”

“Like a week ago. That’s why I reached out to Pansy. Apparently, after, um, it happened, Dean ran away. She hasn’t seen him since. I didn’t tell her that he’s here of course.”

“And you’re sure it was him.”

“I’m positive. But he wasn’t waiting for the other train. Not like the others. He was looking at me.”

“He saw you? Did he say anything? Did he wave?”

“No, Marco, he didn’t wave.”

“And it was definitely him?”

“Yes. And Marco?”

“What?”

“He didn’t have any eyes.”

“What?”

“He didn’t have any eyes, but he was looking right at me. He saw me.”

Marco stared at the phone. Sasha’s name glowed softly on the screen, the seconds of their phone call counting up. “Marco, are you still there? I know what I saw,” she said. “Marco, what did you do?”

But Marco hung up.

When the three of them had stumbled out of the woods covered in blood and crying for help, the attendant, John, first made a face like, what now? He was still wearing the jacket from the lost and found and when he emerged from his booth and saw them in full, his tune changed quickly. He called for help and within half an hour a large SUV pulled up and out of it, a ranger, a tall woman with a butch haircut, hopped out. She and her team had been searching for the other hunter, and when she learned that he was the one that had caused all this mayhem, her suspicion only grew. But then when she learned Pansy was pregnant, she melted.

The ranger’s name was Beth Hartke, and Sasha offered Dean’s gun to her with trembling hands like an offering to some protector god. Hartke received it and placed it on the hood of her truck, and she took off her sunglasses, these athletic yellow things, and the three of them explained everything that happened. Sasha spoke the most and Marco listened and tried not to look at Pansy who still hadn’t stopped crying.

Ranger Hartke was so cold and metallic to Sasha and Marco, but so warm to Pansy. She seemed fixated on the revolver too, constantly opening it and counting the remaining rounds. “This was your man’s? This was Dean’s? Why do you have it?”

“He gave it to us for protection.”

“Yes. Protection. I see.”

Back then, when it seemed less sinister, Hartke had told them that the search for Dean would continue until something turned up. And, at some point, after the switcheroo, Dean did turn up. They had all read the article. But what’s become of him now? Did he look at this girlfriend and his stillborn child and see a flash of tree branches and black arms? Or was he normal and looking for Sasha and Marco as a regular, pissed-off human? An eyeless one besides.

Obviously, Marco thought of his assault on the bookseller.

An hour or so later, the storm was dying down and Marco was pulling the French doors closed. He stood on the balcony and looked down to the street below. In the rain stood a figure with his back to Marco. His head moved left to right like he was looking for something, looking for a way out of the rain or looking for a car to come get him. Nervous, Marco backed up and placed his body behind the balcony door. He didn’t know who the guy was and knew, realistically, that it couldn’t have been Dean, yet the shudder of Sasha’s voice stayed in his head. He imagined the figure turning in the rain and looking up at the balcony. Two pits in his face collecting water. If it was Dean, then how fit he’d be. If it was Dean, then how mad he’d be. If it was Dean, then what he’d do if he got his hands on Marco.

But I didn’t do anything wrong.

Know. Your. Place.

* * *

Paula and Christopher were to return in a week, and Marco made sure not to leave the house except for the absolute necessities: Tecate and pizza. Sasha rang a few more times, but Marco ignored her. Sometimes she texted him.

I saw him again, she sent at two a.m. He was awake and watching a Star Wars show. His mind had been racing since she called and now he was doing anything to distract himself. When his phone buzzed, he tossed it into the next room and shut the door.

The next day she texted at noon: I’m not crazy. Marco was on the roof, resetting the furniture that toppled over in the night. Some harsh winds had blown through Brooklyn, and he hadn’t gotten any sleep and when the sun came up, he was still on the couch with Disney+ staring at him. He was hungover and, right before she texted, he had been stalking the parapets, looking down at the street for any Dean-shaped strangers that may approach. He kept rubbing his eyes and mumbling to himself. When she texted him, he read it and just scoffed. He cursed himself that he let Sasha’s ravings worm into his brain again. They had won. They had won! He didn’t text back. He put the phone in his back pocket and picked up a deck chair that was on its side.

You can’t ignore me! We need to talk about what’s happening, she texted at 11:20 p.m. Marco was already a few beers in and had started digging through Paula’s liquor cabinet. He saw Sasha’s text and ignored it.

But then she sent the final text at midnight: What did you do?

Again, the image of the bookseller flashed across his mind. His head was wide open. There was no way he even lived, let alone identified Marco from the top of the stairs. Double let alone, recognize him.

He looked at Sasha’s text, but he didn’t answer that one either.

She didn’t text him anymore after that last one, and Marco considered it a temporary success. But later, in the middle of the night, it came like a shout.

The Man of Wind and Moss has come.

He sat up in Paula’s bed. He had sweat through the sheets. He listened to the AC whirr and buzz. His hands shook. It was in his head. A deep, groaning voice saying the rhyme like it was mocking him, like it was doing a mean-spirited impression of Sasha.

He comes when you are lost-a-come.

He didn’t want to let it finish the rhyme. He shouted to nobody. Barked almost. He covered his ears and shook his head. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and turned on Paula’s Sonos, blaring the first playlist he could find. Quickly, the whole apartment filled with music.

He’s here to protect.

No, no, no. The way it was unfolding was scaring him. It was like nails on a chalkboard. Nails that belonged to a grotesque, black hand. And the camera was panning, working up along the arm to the shoulder and soon he’d see its eyes and—he shouted again and climbed out of bed. He couldn’t let the poem finish. He wouldn’t allow it. He ran to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He turned on the shower and put his head under.

He’s here to direct.

Then there was a banging on the door.

He shut off the music and the apartment was silent. The presence of another person calmed him. It must be a neighbor, complaining about the music.

But the banging continued. Slow and steady.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

“I turned it off!” Marco shouted. “Sorry!”

Boom. Boom.

Marco took a step to the door. He didn’t know Paula’s neighbors. He didn’t know what to expect. But something felt wrong about this.

Boom.

He looked into the peephole and saw someone waiting for him. They were facing the ground. The top of their shaggy hair familiar. The tattoos on their forearms familiar. Also, the shirt he was wearing, ratty and filthy and covered in sweat and mud and dirty leaves. Marco pulled away from the peephole. He put his back to the door. He felt his stomach jump up and down. His shoulders shook. His mind was collapsing. “No,” was all he could mutter to himself. “It can’t be. We won.” Nothing felt right. He couldn’t explain it, but goddammit, you didn’t have to explain a feeling. It wasn’t a dissertation. It wasn’t some thesis on why the man outside his door shouldn’t be there. Why, no matter what, he shouldn’t open that door. It was a feeling. And it was terror.

The person on the other side moved without speaking. Marco listened closely. The person was carving something, stabbing maybe, chipping at the wood of the door. His breathing was ragged. “This isn’t my spot!” Marco shouted. “I’m going to call the police!” The rest of Paula’s place was bathed in darkness. The light from the street came through the French doors diffused. A gossamer aura reached out to him, pleading with him to come to the light away from the dark door and the dangerous man behind it.

But the person kept grunting and chipping. Then Marco heard pressure against the door. A hand was being pressed against the wood. Dragged across it.

And then the person left.

After a few minutes of nauseating stillness, when the adrenaline in his blood went sour, Marco found the courage to open the door. A 32″ carbon arrow wobbled on the other side. It had the blue fletching. It was one that Dean had left with when he continued uphill. It was stabbed in by a forceful hand, and underneath the arrow was a scrawl of blood: “Found u.”

And then it happened. The last line of the poem screamed into Marco’s head.

Tally up the cost.