The Dead and the Dark
Courtney Gould
For Mom, who taught me that love is what holds back the Dark.
Some of the thematic material in The Dead and the Dark involves child death and endangerment, violence including strangulation and drowning, and homophobia and homophobic slurs. For a more detailed description of sensitive content, please visit gouldbooks.com/books/tdatd.
Interlude
For the first time in thirteen years, it snows in Snakebite.
The snow is a gentle thing, lilting like dust on the early-January wind, coating the rocks along the Lake Owyhee shore in thin slush. The lake water is black and seeps like ink into the snow-hazy sky. It is nighttime, the people of Snakebite warm in their homes, fingers pressed to their windows while they nervously watch the snow fall. For a moment, the world is silent; it is only the wind and the shifting trees and the hushed pulse of water against stone. It is held breath.
A boy stumbles to the lakeshore.
He thinks he is alone.
He holds his hands in front of him, palms up as though the snow is only a figment of his imagination. Flecks of it stick to his eyelashes, in the navy netting of his basketball shorts, in his hair the color of the golden hills that border town. He pauses at the water’s edge, looks out at the horizon, and sinks to his knees. He is far from home, far from the light, far from anything.
The Dark watches the boy. It is tucked into the body of a new host, staggering across dead grass and juniper boughs for a better view. This new body is unwieldy to the Dark. It will take time to adjust to this skin, to these eyes, to the anxious beating of this new heart.
What are you afraid of? the Dark asks, quiet as the whispering wind. You have a plan. Act.
The host tenses. His fingers are clenched at his sides, lips pressed together, eyes wide. He is a wild animal frozen in fear. “Something’s wrong,” the host whispers. “Why’s he on the ground?”
Does it matter?
“I don’t know.” The host does not move. “What do I do?”
Go, the Dark breathes.
The host nods. He inches from behind a thick juniper trunk, standing closer to the boy, just out of sight. The boy does not notice. Does not move. Through the flickering snowfall, the boy’s face is tear-streaked, red with grief, hollow. He stares out at the black horizon, but he stares at nothing.
The host hesitates again.
The boy pulls a cell phone from his pocket. The glare of the screen washes over his face, the only light in the unending dark. He taps out a message, and then stares at it in silence. Tears are still wet on his cheeks, rivulets of white light.
All at once, the host is overtaken with the idea of marching forward, grabbing the boy by his collar, pressing thumbs to the column of his throat. He feels skin under his fingertips, the tangy scent of iron mixing with the snow. For years, he has imagined this. He pictures death running through him like a current.
As quickly as he imagines it, he chokes the vision.
The Dark has dealt with this kind of hesitation before. It slithers through the host, coiling around his heart until it finds the black rot of hate it knows well. This host craves death. The desire has bubbled under his skin for as long as he can remember, but he has been too afraid to claim it as his own.
Do you want me to help you? the Dark asks. Do you want me to make you strong?
The host scowls. “I do.”
It is the truth.
Then do this, the Dark breathes. It simmers in the shadows, the water, the sky. It is the truth you have been hiding from all these years.
“The truth,” the host whispers. He clenches and unclenches his fists, fingers fidgeting at his sides. A silent moment passes, then another.