Ike Hamill - Migrators

Alan nodded. He rubbed his eyes. He’d spent the night on top of the covers. Liz had spent the night at the desk, but she looked better rested than he felt. She moved to the door to Joe’s room and pulled it open enough to look through.

“Don’t wake him up,” Alan said. He looked at his timer. “We have to check his temp again in ninety minutes.”

Liz winked at him. She went into Joe’s room and closed the door.

Alan swung his feet to the floor.

Inspiration came to him in flashes of bright white light exploding in his brain. He closed his eyes. Alan reached for his phone.

“Hello?” Bob answered the phone.

“Bob, you remember that book we read?”

There was silence on the line.

“Bob?”

“Yeah?”

“In that book—did you get the sense that anyone could do that process, or that it had to be done by one of the women in that lineage?”

“Well,” Bob said, “one of them thought it could be anyone. I think it was Marie. She seemed to think that with the right process anyone could tame the… you know.”

“So why not anyone?” Alan asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What did Sophie call cancer?” Alan asked.

“Sophie—well all of them in the book—called cancer ‘demons.’ If someone had cancer they would say they had demons in their blood. If the women of that family had any inherent skill above their training, it was the ability to spot cancer. They’re like cancer-sniffing dogs. What are you working on, Alan? Why all these questions about the book?”

“Bob, Joe has cancer,” Alan said.

“What?”

“It’s not one-hundred percent, but we’re pretty sure he has brain cancer. At the beginning of the school year, Polly told him that he had demons in him. I think she knew it back then. He’s supposed to go to Portland on Friday for an MRI.”

“Oh, shit, Alan. I’m sorry to hear that,” Bob said. “If there’s anything I can do.”

“Do you mean it?” Alan asked.

“Of course, why? Can I help with something?” Bob asked.

“Yes,” Alan said. “Come to my hotel and help me teach my wife the process. If the Prescott clan can do it, then Liz can. She can learn anything. We’ll give her a crash course and then she can perform the process tonight.”

In the generic hotel room of American Suites, with Joe watching TV in the adjoining room, Bob and Liz sat in the chairs. Alan sat on the edge of the bed.

They’d been talking for the better part of an hour. To tell the story, Alan started all the way back with Joe’s first school confrontation with Polly. He condensed six weeks down into a brief outline. Liz simply listened. Bob told the parts of the story he’d witnessed, and he described what he understood from the diary. Liz crossed her legs and bounced her foot. Alan finished with his proposal—they would perform the procedure the Prescott women had documented. If it worked as described, the process would draw the migrators to remove Joe’s cancer.

Liz looked between Alan and Bob.

“Do you two want some time to discuss?” Bob asked.

“No,” Liz said. She turned to her husband. “This is quite the leap, Alan. It’s not like you.”

“I won’t deny it—I’m grasping at straws. I’m looking for a miracle,” Alan said.

“You think this has a chance?” Liz asked.

Alan nodded. “Yes.”

“Let me see the book,” Liz said.

Alan went back to the farmhouse first. He drove his little Toyota into the barn and parked it. Under his jacket, he was sweating with nervous energy. He walked out through the barn door and regarded the house. The sun had set over the trees and the light was soft and thick in the dooryard. The house was dark. It was a nice evening for trick or treating, but they wouldn’t get any kids in this neighborhood. As long as they left the house dark, they shouldn’t need to worry about unexpected visitors.

Bob pulled up the drive. He parked his SUV to the side, in front of the Cook House.

Alan walked around to the passenger’s door.

“You want to give me a ride down the road? I want to retrieve the truck from the woods,” Alan said.

“Hop in,” Bob said. “I heard a rumor over at Christy’s this morning.”

Bob turned around and then turned left at the end of the driveway.

“What did you hear?” Alan asked.

“Apparently there are a lot of Prescotts missing from town lately,” Bob said.

“Really?”

“Seems like they’ve found compelling reasons to move away.”

“Huh. That’s interesting. I’ll get the truck, then use that to move wood for the fire,” Alan said.

“What do you want me to do?” Bob asked.

“After I get the truck, we’ll meet back here and then we’ll stick together. We have a lot to do. Pull over here. The truck’s up that road.”

Alan got out and limped up the logging road. The muddy trail of the big green truck was still visible. He stepped over a tree that had fallen down in the storm.

The truck will probably be smashed, he thought.

He was wrong. The truck stood at a weird angle—its left wheels were higher than the right—but it looked fine. Alan climbed into the cab and it started right up. He backed up to the tree and then jumped out to hook up a rope between the tree and the rear bumper. The truck pulled the tree out of the way easily. Alan backed down the trail to the road. Bob was waiting to make sure he was okay. Alan waved and then led the way back to the house.

Bob parked out of the way and Alan waved him to the truck.

“I want to collect the wood for the fire before it gets too dark,” Alan said. Bob climbed into the cab.

Out back, across the bumpy field, Alan and Joe had stacked a bunch of wood. The tarp looked tattered, but the wood underneath was mostly dry. Alan and Bob loaded it into the truck.

“Are you concerned about next year?” Bob asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you do this process this year, do you think that those things will seek out Liz next fall also?”

Alan stopped with a big chunk of wood in his hands.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Alan said. “I’m pretty focused on getting Joe fixed up.”

“Understandable,” Bob said.

“The diary strongly suggested that the migrators were called by the bones of the old practitioners. I’m going to tear up the floor of the attic and get rid of any bones I find.”

“Huh,” Bob said. He picked up another log and loaded it into the truck.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No—please tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Well,” Bob said, “there’s a lot of missing details here. The Prescott women passed this process down from generation to generation through that ceremony that you witnessed. And then, when it went from mother to daughter, the mother died. Can Liz survive without the passing down ceremony?”

“You remember your idea about this whole thing?” Alan asked.

“Which?”

“You said that maybe they built all the ceremonies as window dressing around a hard nugget of fact. Well maybe the process itself works without all that craziness about passing it down from mother to daughter in an elaborate ceremony. In fact, that’s why I’m willing to give this a try at all. If it doesn’t work—nothing shows up and Joe is still sick—then we haven’t lost anything but some effort. There’s no danger to Liz because she’s not part of the Prescott clan and she didn’t have the elaborate ceremony to move the power to her. But, if that’s all window dressing, then maybe all we need is the science behind calling the creatures. The fire, the blood, the borax, the water—if those things work, then we have a chance at a miracle.”