The director shook his head. What could he say? I turned away in frustration. It was a sunny day, perfect weather for the beach. A kid was walking down the sidewalk toward the water, a fishing pole over one shoulder, a bait bucket in his hand. As long as there are leviathans in the deep, there will be boys to hunt them.
“I never should have given them to you,” the director said. An apology. “I should have read them myself.”
“I thought I could find him,” I admitted. “I thought I could bring him home. Everyone has someone. You remember telling me that?”
He nodded. “I do. And he does.”
“Who?” I demanded. “Who does he have? Who does he belong to?”
He looked surprised. “You. He has you.”
The hunter in his blind. The bleating goat tied to the stake. And the amber eye glowing just outside the circle of light.
I began his hunter. I ended up his prey.
He is there; I feel him, one ten-thousandth of an inch outside my range of vision. I stalk him. He stalks me. The man who wrote these books is not the man who lives in them. That man is the form; Will Henry is the shadow. And now that shadow lives in me.
And it lives in you.
Turn around now.
Will Henry has come home.