The One We Feed Read Online Free PDF

air until I found its source on the other side of a thick steel door.
    A heavily
draped canopy framed one corner in velvet, almost like a stage. An ancient toy
chest sat across from the door and looked as if it had gotten sick and spit
everything out. Toys were scattered around, some of them in pieces, many of
them far older than I. The dolls were either headless or balding, their glass
eyes at odd angles. The walls were decked out in all the finery that a five
year old with some paper and crayons could supply. It was a child’s room, in
pink and white, lace and flowers, but the lighting was dim, the wallpaper
peeling, the linens yellowed with age. It looked as if the child who lived
there was not a happy one.
    At one end of
the tiny, dark cell, there was a desk of sorts, jutting into the room with a
delicate colonial crackle finish, and atop it sat a bowl filled with what
seemed like water. The bowl was thick, dented, and bronze-colored, looking as
if it had been pounded out with a hammer. Its appearance was almost as
discordant as the man who sat at the edge of the white wicker chair, leaning
over it in consternation.
    “How can he be
dead? Malcolm was one of our best!”
    I recognized
the voice instantly from a phone conference with Karl, the first Sangha leader
I had thwarted. I had heard its gruff tones just before they tried to drain the
blood from my veins and leave me a husk.
    He was not
what I had pictured; short and stocky, he had a pronounced nose with a
flattened quality to it. Dark lashes shaded bedroom eyes, and his bottom lip
curled downward in a permanent frown. His dark hair was cut short and smoothed
back from his broad, tanned forehead, and he was dressed in a polo shirt and
light khaki Dockers. I half-expected him to glance at his watch and mutter
about his tee time.
    Across from
him, a small figure stirred. I had not noticed it at first, it sat so still,
wrapped in a blanket exactly the same color as its high, wing-backed chair.
    Though a tiny
female face peeped out, ringed in strawberry blond curls and covered in
freckles, she was anything but cute. Her eyes were deeply sunken, her skin
sallow, her lips dry and cracked. She leaned forward and put her skeletal hands
on the table, and the man retreated from her grasp.
    “That is not
something I can tell you,” she whispered in a sing-song voice. “He just...died!”
    “And where is
Jinx?”
    The blanket
moved around her in what I could only interpret as a shrug. “He sits atop a
mountain. He talks to himself constantly. But in many languages. I cannot tell
you what it means.”
    “Well….” He
shook his head and glanced at his watch. I waited for the tee-time comment;
instead, he reached up and tugged at his sideburns. “Is there anyone with him?”
    The girlish
creature tipped forward over the bowl, and I realized that she was sitting on
her knees in the chair. The blanket slid down around a much-abused violet dress,
complete with damaged lace collar and stained white pinafore.
    Her wide blue
eyes stared vacantly into the water for a time, until, finally, she blinked and
sank back into the chair. “If that woman was with him, I would never know it.”
    “Why?” The man
stood up uncomfortably and looked around, obviously unsettled. “We both know
what I am capable of, Petula. Do not test me!”
    The girl
blinked at him dazedly. “I cannot tell you about what I do not see.”
    He leaned in,
though it pained him to do so, and loomed over her threateningly. One hand
rested upon the table and the other upon the arm of her chair. His voice
dropped to a growl and his eyes narrowed.
    “What about
our other misfortune?” He sighed and dropped his voice. “As if I didn’t have
enough to worry about.”
    “She sleeps
now, though she thrashes.” 
    “And the
others?”
    She seemed to
shiver and tipped away from him. “They cry out for her, claw at the walls. They
tear themselves to pieces because you have taken her away.”
    “As long as
they