At first, she didn’t recognize the feeling, but when she realized what it was, tears began to pour from her eyes. She felt what it was like to be put first. What it was like to be loved without condition by someone bigger who could protect her and make things right. She was her own parent. She was safe. She had never been so happy in all her life. But it was more than happiness. It was more than safety. It wasn’t what she felt. It’s what she didn’t feel anymore.
There was no pain.
It was gone. All of the guilt. The fear. The blame she took for his dyslexia. For their poverty. For their situation. It all melted away. There was no failure. She saw herself only as he saw her. A hero. All powerful. All knowing. The most amazing person who ever walked on the face of the earth.
She looked up at her son smiling down at her like he had every Movie Friday. Every time he picked up a book for her. Every time he pretended to love a movie for her. Every time he made her a beer on the rocks. She felt her own smile. Her hugs. Her cooking. Her beauty. An eternity of moments stretched out in front of them as they looked up at the light of one hundred billion stars.
“Mom,” he said. “This is who you really are.”
In that moment, Christopher closed his eyes and gave his mother back all of the love she had ever given him.
She was in Heaven.
Christopher’s nose stopped bleeding. He put a warm hand on her forehead, and she curled up like a little girl ready to fall back asleep.
“Go to sleep, Mom,” he said. “It’s all a bad dream. It’ll be okay in the morning.”
“Okay, honey. Good night,” she said.
“Good night.”
Christopher bent over and kissed her warm forehead. She would be dreaming now.
“I will never let them hurt you,” he said.
Then, he stood up. Christopher had taken in all of her pain. His joints swelled. His knees creaked. His arms felt skinny and weak. He looked back through the clearing. The town stared back at him with their dead eyes. The nice man had taken them all. All but his mother. There was no one left. Christopher was all alone.
He took his broken body and limped toward the tree.
The town parted like the Red Sea. Hundreds of frogs not understanding why they were suddenly starting to feel so bad. Christopher knew that he was walking to his own death, but he had no choice but to walk. For her. For them. For everyone. He reached the bottom of the tree. He moved his skinny arms up and climbed the little 2x4s like baby teeth.
Christopher reached the tree house.
He opened the door and looked inside. It was just a little room, empty and cold. With nothing but the sheriff and Ambrose lying on the floor, twitching unconsciously, muttering horror in their sleep. The smell was all wrong. The light was too bright. Something had changed. The nice man controlled the portal now. Christopher didn’t know what would be different once he closed that door. All he knew for sure was that the nice man couldn’t kill the hissing lady without him.
And that Christopher was the only thing keeping Hell from Earth.
Christopher stepped into the tree house, holding the hissing lady’s key in his pocket like a lucky rabbit’s foot. He turned and looked at his mother sleeping peacefully on the ground. The only light left in the world.
“I love you, Mom,” he said.
Then, Christopher closed the door and walked into Hell.
Part VII
The Shadow oF Death
Chapter 121
Christopher opened his eyes.
He was still in the tree house. He saw his physical body still lying next to Ambrose and the sheriff, lost and twitching. But something was different. Something had changed. Christopher moved to the door. He put his ear to it. He listened for any signs of the nice man. All he heard was whispering. Voices he’d never heard before. Hissing his name.
“Chrissstopher.”
“We know you can hear ussss.”
He turned to the windows to see who was whispering, but the windows were so fogged over that he couldn’t see out. The clouds were all around them. Covering both sides of the world like a blindfold.
“Chrissstopher…you’re running out of air.”
The voices were right. The air inside the tree house had become hot and thick like breath under a