‘There was a voice in my head, like Eden’s but not Eden at all. It was only like his voice the way a peach full of maggots is like a peach. Do you know what I mean? It seemed to come from a long way off, but it was near too, like the voice was using a lot of effort to speak though it was really close. Moses looked up at me like I was mad while I listened. I must have been straining my ears or screwing up my eyes, ’cause he thought I’d let up and forgotten about him, and he made a pretty good go at getting loose.

‘So I hit him. The first time I ever hit my Pappy. It was like it happened real slow. I saw my fist swing down and the knuckles smashed into the side of his nose with a snapping wet noise. Soon as I did it, it was like the voice got some new strength. I could hear the words this time, I didn’t have to strain to listen. It was real simple. It just said, “Show him how to use it, Sam.” Like I say, it was Eden, but I knew it wasn’t. Worse thing was, I didn’t care. I looked down at Moses’s bloody face and I felt how sweet that dark feeling in my spine was again.

‘“Pappy?” I said right into his face, my mouth inches from his broken nose. “Promise not to hit me no more?” He nodded at me, gurgling on his blood. Then I said, “Then I be showin’ you how to use it. We goin’ to use it together.”

‘Slowly I let my knees off his chest, watching him all the time, and let him up. But he was a crazy mixture now, all scared and excited too, like being hit by his son wasn’t so bad. He sat up and put his hand to his swelling face. “What we need first?” was all he said. That’s all. Like what we’d done had never happened. It made me feel weird. Like he’d planned all this or something, but I knew that couldn’t be.’

Calvin held a hand up suddenly, gesturing Sam into silence. There was a scuffling noise behind them in the tunnel. A tiny scratching of claws. Both men stiffened, listening with more than their ears. The silence was profound, broken only by another lonely drip, falling to its pool like a lost soul. Calvin let his hand fall to his knee once more, and looked back at Sam.

‘No matter. We are both awake.’

Sam looked back at him with horror, but despite his instant instinct to deny the truth of what the shaman implied, he nodded. He took a breath of cold air and resumed his tale.