“I’m trying to fix this!”

“Fix what?”

Isaac fed a few more grains to the shadow.

Trent tried to swallow but found his throat a sandy tunnel. “What’s down there, Isaac?”

“Hardly anything now,” Isaac replied. “I told you, I let it out. Every night I’d hear it scraping and scratching inside the earth here. Every morning I’d pray that the noises would stop. Finally I came up here and did what I thought it wanted; I dug it out.

“I know it was a mistake. I know that now. So all I can do is try to right the wrong and try to fill the whole thing up so it’ll stop leaking out.”

“So what will stop leaking out?”

“It’s spoiling everything, everything it touches. And that big empty is getting into everything. I found this black rock here to plug the hole. I thought it would be fooled by the black colour, that it’d think this was still an open hole. It didn’t work.” Isaac held up his crude pendant. “I’m pretty safe though. I built myself a seal for protection. I’m airtight. But you? I don’t see a seal. You’re a fool coming up here without one. You’re a damned fool.”

An eel of nausea began to wriggle in Trent’s stomach, swimming up with such velocity it seemed to set the whole Earth spinning. He shut his eyes and saw dark amoebas splattering and splashing against his eyelids; tassels of midnight lustre that shrivelled as quickly as they thrived.

He was absorbing them now, eating this Dark Matter, his eyelids chewing the particles, his brain digesting them. Whether they were invading him from the open bluffs or whether he’d been contaminated in the old iron-ore mine was irrelevant. These seeds were beginning to hatch. They sprouted teeth and they were eating him, gutting him. Trent could feel them chewing up his muscles and bones, rendering him hollow. They passed through him like a rapid, ravenous cancer. And once he’d been voided of organ and bone, sinew and breath, Trent experienced the awful rasping sound as the Dark Matter grated and spun and revelled in the great absence within him.

He touched his chest. The lack of a protective talisman drained all the strength from his body.

Now intoxicated, Trent staggered helplessly back along the path.

Despite this drama and din, Isaac remained riveted by his task.

*

Trent hid among the pines until he felt he had his contagion under control.

He eventually returned to the cottage, telling Melissa that he’d gone for an especially long run this morning. She informed him that they were going to the beach after lunch. Trent layered himself in clothing to keep anything from radiating outward.

“You’re going to roast!” she declared as Trent exited the patio door.

He stood dumb, dazed.

“Beach, mommy!” Jasmine cried.

They walked.