The python-woman. Her face was horribly stretched, and she no longer wore clothing. She approached my father with the grace of a snake.
He smiled, oblivious to her horrible appearance. “Where is Caesar, my dear?”
“Caesar,” she repeated. She slunk along the side of the wagon. My stomach clenched. Montgomery swore I wasn’t like the beasts, but if I stopped taking my treatment, I couldn’t help but fear I’d end up like her.
She gave a few hissing chuckles. “Caesar says no more.”
More creatures emerged, creeping toward us slowly. Bodies stretched unnaturally, moving on four legs. Montgomery placed a hand on his rifle.
“Where is he?” Father commanded. The smile was gone. “Bring him out!”
Python-woman laughed again. Her forked tongue darted in a lipless mouth. “Bring him out, bring him out, he says.”
Creatures started to swarm like flies, blocking the road behind us. At last we heard a faint wheezing. The creatures bobbed up and down like a restless herd. A giant figure passed through the crowd, taunted as it came forward. I covered my mouth. It was Caesar, antlers broken off, only splintered nubs left. One shoulder twisted at an unnatural angle. Black stains covered the skin around his eyes and mouth.
“We should leave,” I said. But no one responded.
Father took one look at Caesar and moved his hand to his pistol. “You weren’t supposed to stop his treatment,” he growled at Montgomery.
“I didn’t,” Montgomery said calmly. “This isn’t regression. The others did this to him.”
Father rested a foot on the worn stone stand. “Recite the commandments, Caesar,” he ordered. “They seem to have forgotten!”
But Caesar bobbed his head, as if rubbing his antlers on a phantom tree. “Speak!” Father ordered again, and the python-woman hissed.
“Caesar says no more,” she repeated.
Father grabbed Caesar’s jaw and forced his mouth open. There was a gurgle of saliva and clinking teeth, and Father’s mutterings to himself. His back went rigid, and then his hand fell away, releasing Caesar. The elk-man dropped his chin to his chest.
Father came over in long, reluctant steps, running a shaky hand over his whiskers. “They’ve cut out his tongue,” he said.
I drew back in revulsion. “My God.”
Father gave me a sharp look. “We can do just as well without him.” I didn’t know if he meant Caesar or God himself.
Father turned back to the crowd. “Listen! I shall speak the commandments myself, you wicked creatures! You call yourselves human, yet you live in filth. You crawl upon the ground like four-legged things. How soon you have forgotten the commandments!” The shuffling and murmuring in the crowd quieted. They cocked their heads as if remembering a long-forgotten song.
“Thou shalt not drink spirits! Thou shalt not eat flesh of living creatures! Thou shalt not roam at night!” Father paused. I knew what came next but I waited, as breathless as the creatures. “Thou shalt not kill other men!” He stamped his foot. “This is the word of your god!”
Silence pervaded. The creatures stared with dull, watery eyes. No, I wanted to shout. They aren’t the word of any god. They’re the words of a madman.
“Yes!” A husky voice broke the silence. “Yes, the word of our god!” Low murmurs ran through the crowd. We all strained to find the voice. A hulking creature pushed his way toward us. His gait was lilting. It was the bearlike creature I’d seen in the jungle with Jaguar. His hands were crippled into twisted claws he kept tucked against his chest.
He stopped in front of Father. The islanders huddled closer like cattle. “The word of our god!” the bear-man shouted.
I glanced at Edward. His arms were folded, muscles tight as wire.
“We shall not drink spirits!” The bear-man cried again, dancing on his monstrous legs. “We shall not eat flesh! The words of our god!”
The beast-people began to stir again, as uncertain as I. Python-woman slunk up to me, her slanted eyes blinking. She licked her mouth with an unnaturally large tongue. I sucked in a breath.
“Very good, Antigonus” Father said to the bear-man. His lips twisted in a self-satisfied smirk. “Now, my fellow, tell me who did this horrible thing to Caesar.”
Antigonus took a few stilted steps toward Father, beckoning with a clawed hand. His other hand still clutched at his waist. Just as he leaned his bear snout close enough to whisper, a knife blade glinted in his hand. It jerked toward Father’s throat.
A shot rang out.
Montgomery had scrambled for his rifle, but Edward had fired first. The creatures panicked, climbing over each other to get away. Antigonus’s body fell at my father’s feet, spilling blood on his leather shoes. Father’s eyes were wide. One of his precious creatures had turned on him.
Montgomery rushed to the body. Dust clouded around them. But I couldn’t take my eyes off Edward. He had killed. Defending my father, no less. The pistol fell from his hands. He looked as stunned as I felt.
“Edward—” I said, but I couldn’t finish. He was a killer now, too.
His face was blank, wide-eyed. He ran a hand over his head, shaken, staring at the fallen body as though it was going to stand up and haunt him. His eyes held the same look as when we found him in the dinghy, torn between life and death and sea madness.
He turned and disappeared into the jungle, as though he could run from what he’d done.
WE RODE BACK IN miserable silence. There was no sign of Edward, no matter how much I’d yelled for him. Montgomery assured me that a man who could survive twenty days in a battered dinghy could make it back to the compound. But at sea the only thing hunting Edward had been the inescapable sun and his own haunted memories, and here there was a monster loose.
Someone shouted ahead. Through the leaves, the compound’s walls appeared. Balthasar came running, big chest huffing, eyes rimmed in red. I recalled the first time I’d seen him, when I thought he was hideous. Now, after the horrible faces of the python-woman and Antigonus and the others, he looked as human as any of us. I hoped Montgomery would never stop giving him the treatments. I couldn’t stand to see Balthasar regress.
“What is it?” Montgomery asked. His hand tightened on the rifle.
“Come quickly,” Balthasar said, out of breath. His lower lip trembled. “Hurry.”
Montgomery handed the reins to Father and jumped from the wagon. He took off at a jog with Balthasar. Ahead, I saw the wooden gate was broken. The boards had been splintered by a terrible force.