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He didn’t move when he spoke, though his mouth made the appearance of writhing slightly. Whatever sound his words made they did not come from his wall-like chest. My eyes were beginning to water; from pure distraction, I’d forgotten to blink.
I seemed to be face-level with his chest, but as dense as he appeared, there was a sense of fluidity about him too. It confused me and preoccupied me, the way a being so seemingly solid could also look ready to evaporate at a moment’s notice.
Maybe I waited too long to speak. He turned his attention to Dana and Benny, who still stood all-but-petrified beside me.
It is a name your people gave me.
He looked back at me and I understood. “The settlers? The white people?”
The old warriors, he corrected me.
That one took me a second. “The generals. There were two of them, Boynton and Van Derveer. That’s what they called you, a sentry?”
Yes. I guard them.
“The dead?”
He turned away then, and I thought at first that I’d offended him somehow. His shifting looked like a ship changing course—slow, and ponderous.
I left them.
“We know. They said the pact was up. You had a pact with the two old generals. ” He nodded, though his back was facing me now, so I only saw his shoulders bob. “You only had to stay until the last child of the generals was gone. And now there’s a boy who’s missing. ”
Dead.
Benny found his voice. “I knew it. ”
Killed not in war. Not to be eaten.
“We call it murder these days,” Dana chimed in. “Do you know where he is? Do you know who did it?”
I could answer the first question, and I did. “He’s buried in Dyer’s field, isn’t he? Back behind the house there. That’s what the ghosts have
been trying to tell us. ”
Yes. Ghosts? He faced me again, or rather he loomed above me once more. I saw something like eagerness in that inhuman visage.
“The dead. They’ve awakened. They walk the fields, trying to communicate. They said you were gone. They told us you left them. And they tried to tell us about the body someone buried in Dyer’s field. ”
Bodies.
“Bodies?”
Two men. Both killed. Same man dug the hole for them both. He paused. The dead. They walk?
“They walk,” I confirmed, but I tried to steer him back to his first point. “You said there were two? We only know about the one—the Boynton boy. There was another, too?”
Yes. One more. The dead should sleep. I have failed them.
“They’re okay,” I said, because surely it was more or less true. “They’re okay. They’re just worried. They want to know where you are, and what happened to you. They don’t understand. ”
They understood well enough to tell us about the pact, but I figured that knowing why and understanding why weren’t the same thing. “I know you fulfilled your agreement,” I told him. “I know you were doing what you thought was right. No one is angry with you. But they sure would love it if you’d come back. ”
I stayed. I honored the agreement. The last one died, and I can leave.
Benny broached the next question softly. “But you can stay if you want, too. Can’t you?”
The Sentry didn’t answer. Maybe it simply hadn’t occurred to him. I didn’t know why it wouldn’t, but there was much about this creature I did not comprehend. “Was there anything in the…in the agreement you made—was there anything that said you had to leave?”
