The others would be weakened by their doubts, the boy would be weakened by his human concerns—especially his concern for his mother—and if the boy died, it could close the door to the outside again, close it with a bang, and then take the others.
It was afraid of the boy, especially in its current weakness. Most of all it was terrified of being completely shut up beyond the narrow throat of the ini again, like a genie in a bottle. But that didn’t have to be. Even if the boy brought them, it didn’t have to be. The others would be weakened by their doubts, the boy would be weakened by his human concerns—especially his concern for his mother—and if the boy died, it could close the door to the outside again, close it with a bang, and then take the others. The writer and the boy’s father would have to die, but the two younger ones it would try to sedate and save. Later, it might very well want to use their bodies.
It rocked forward, oblivious to the blood squelching between Ellen’s thighs, as it had been oblivious of the teeth falling out of Ellen’s head or the three knuckles that had exploded like pine-knots in a fireplace when it had clipped Mary on the chin. It looked into the funnel of the well, and the constricted red eye at the bottom.
The eye of Tak.
The boy could die.
He was, after all, only a boy . . . not a demon, a god, or a savior.
