He wanted to see Gaspar before leaving. The kid’s visit to the guesthouse was the result of their talk at the lookout tower, and he was sure he would find the door. Even he could sense it, and he had never dared set foot in the Other Place.
He found Gaspar on the beach and the guards on high alert: the nearby river made them nervous. They were new guards: Florence had decided to change them after the suicide attempt. She had even toyed with the idea of making Gaspar be handcuffed to one of them every time he left his room. The idea was dismissed when Gaspar started accepting food again and exploring the grounds with renewed curiosity. She wasn’t stupid. She knew she had to let him find his place of power. It wasn’t impossible that he would be able to summon exactly where his father had, but it was unlikely. And if it didn’t work, Florence was capable of sending the kid to travel the world, even at the risk of losing him. She needed a medium in order to maintain a power that was unraveling, as always happens after so great a disappointment. And with Juan it had been a double disappointment: he had died, and when he wasn’t able to occupy his son’s body, it was clear that either the medium had disobeyed, or not even the Order’s most powerful member was capable of carrying out the technique ordered by the gods. She insisted: the technique has not yet been given to us in full. We need a medium to complete it. She treasured those all-too-short moments they had kept consciousness alive inside a Recipient body. She had seen different durations. Mere minutes in the overwhelming majority of instances. Hours on one occasion that had reduced her to tears. Power was slipping from her hands, slowly, just as life was slipping away from her.
Stephen approached, and Gaspar stayed standing beside him. The guards were annoyed and told Stephen: Se?ora Florence prefers no contact between you two. I know, he told them.
We can talk now, he said to Gaspar then.
You should really work on your technique, then they wouldn’t even hear you.
You want to fight. I’m glad, it reminds me of the boy I knew.
You never knew me and I don’t trust you. It’s the second door in the upstairs hallway. Where they store paintings.
You have to take them there.
Will it be easy to convince them?
They know you found the door that opened for Adela. They don’t know anything about the extent of what’s on the other side.
I don’t know either.
You’ll explore it together. We’ll explore it. And then you’ll be able to do what you have to do.
You have to make sure they all follow me. Were you ever behind the door, in that other place?
You sound like your father.
You’re getting nostalgic. I haven’t forgotten you didn’t stop them when they decided to split my uncle like a chicken. You think my father would have forgiven you for that?
Your father killed my brother and I forgave him.
I don’t believe you. Deep down you’re a son of a bitch, but you’re all I’ve got. I don’t care about your brother, especially if he’s dead. Did you ever go to the other side of the door? I know how to come back. I don’t know if I’m going to let you come back, you’re going to have to risk it.
Can you keep this up longer?
No. And it’s not safe.
Is it possible to summon all the members of the Order who exist?
No. There are a lot, I don’t know how many.
First I’m going to give a small demonstration for the ones who are here. Disconnect now.
Stephen left the beach walking slowly. He was destined to be a servant, he thought. His family’s servant and Juan’s and now Gaspar’s. A servant and a traitor. But now he was about to light the fire, days away from seeing flames on the horizon.
It was a procession, and Gaspar was its leader.
He heard the others panting and dragging their feet. He pretended to be exhausted and enjoyed the sight of them so desperate as they traversed the marsh, which was crossed by a path through scrubland. It was hard going because, from among the scrub, hands reached out. Hands like the ones that touched Pablo, he’d thought the first time he saw them. The hand that had marked his father’s arm. They didn’t touch him.
The hands had dragged some Initiates off through the grasses and into the still water. “Initiates” was the word they used. Gaspar was learning the jargon only from what he overheard. He was a servant. Stephen had told him that he was a servant, too. But no, Gaspar had told him. It’s one thing to be the black sheep. You’re the black sheep, the prodigal son, the family’s shame. You could conform. All I can do is rebel. My dad could only rebel. Non-conformity is only possible for those who are not slaves. Everyone else has to fight.
The people the hands grabbed and pulled underwater wore smiles of ecstasy as they were dragged away. They didn’t scream. They disappeared in seconds. Your father said they are only food, but they don’t know that. And if they do know, they don’t care, they want to feed their god. Gaspar ignored Stephen. The hands couldn’t touch him. With him they were stupid and slow. Stephen had learned to stand near Gaspar to avoid them.
Once the swamp was behind them, Gaspar turned around to look at the landscape. It was beautiful though muted, probably from the lack of light. It ended in an open field, small and empty, the solitude of a wasteland in a hollow world. There in the wasteland, things were left for them, the visitors. Small things placed right in the center of the field, very visible. Gifts. They had to go and get them. The Initiates who volunteered to collect the gifts looked small and frightened. The gifts were all different. They looked like jewelry—earrings, sometimes, or bracelets. After the first excursion they’d realized the objects were made of bone. Gaspar didn’t know what happened once they were back from the excursions, because everyone withdrew to rest, and so did he. He pretended to be exhausted, though he wasn’t tired.
My mother says the bones form letters. She thinks she’s getting messages again, Stephen explained. And what do they say? I’m not allowed in those meetings, Stephen answered. It was easier for them to see each other now: the members of the Order were so worn out after the excursions that no one monitored them except the guards, and they were annoyed at not being invited behind the door, so were less inclined to worry about that contact Florence preferred to avoid.
They still hadn’t seen, and Gaspar hadn’t pointed it out, that on the other side of the small valley where the forest began, a man hung from a tree. He was motionless. There was no wind behind the door. Gaspar began to dream about the man. In his dreams, the hanged man took the rope from around his neck and plucked bone fruits from the trees.
One night, Gaspar woke up and found his grandfather in the room: he had rolled his wheelchair in and was very drunk. The old man didn’t say anything, just tossed one of the objects on to the sheets—small bones tied together with a kind of vegetable twine. Gaspar inspected it in the moonlight. Its shape was identical to the scar on his arm. The guards didn’t do anything. They were unsure what to do when the person who entered was Adolfo Reyes. And they didn’t know what it was he had thrown on to the bed.
“They shouldn’t take those out,” said the old man. “You don’t take things from places like that.”
The guards, realizing the extent of his drunkenness, wheeled him away. And Adolfo Reyes went out yelling that the kid was his grandson and he could talk to his grandson whenever he damn well pleased. Gaspar listened to his shouts until the heavy silence fell again over Puerto Reyes, and he took the object in his hands. By then, they had brought back many gifts. How many excursions? Six? Seven. They had infested the terrain by now. He brought the mounted bones close to his mouth and whispered Dad, it’s you, you were here, you know these places.