Page 366 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

desperately from the spaces under and between the bars.
Submerged beneath my astonishment lurked legions of
pleading whispers—all the murmuring sibilance was
piled atop the same frantic need—to see the pictures the
Photographer tossed into air above the prison.
He threw them away like one might toss bread at pigeons.
“Feed our eyes!” they screamed in voices shaped from
hisses and hunger. The photographs went into the air, one
by one, the souls of the photographed howling out their
fear. And when at last they came into range of the waves of
straining fingers, they were tossed from one clawing cluster
after the next, like tiny rafts thrown about by the restless
sea. Eventually, when one of the pictures was taken beneath
the bars, the howling intensified, reaching an incredible,
horrific crescendo before abruptly vanishing. Apparently,
for the creatures pent beneath the landscape of prison bars,
seeing was eating. But then a photograph was withdrawn
from the man’s pocket that did not scream, but only fumed
with unkempt rage, seething with a talent for killing. It was
the photograph of the Wolf. I stepped into view, my father
in my hands.
I nodded to the picture in the photographer’s hand. “That
does not belong to you,” I said. “Or them.” The man did
not seem surprised to see me. In fact, his expression never
shifted, only his eyes moved, burrowing into mine.
There was a long silence as the sea of claws evaporated,
the unseen things withdrawing their fingers from the spaces
betwixt the iron slats. Finally, he lifted the lethal snapshot
in an expression meant to taunt me. I could feel a power
welling up within him, an old power—the worst kind. He
took a step toward me, the air thickening, becoming coarse.
But I was prepared. I shifted the head of my father, revealing
a view of the photographer’s vintage camera, which had
been left leaning against the wall behind me. I looked down
at my father and back to the man, smiling.

The Red Son | 369