

Red Hair Rising

Christian Gothic Tales

By Craig Davis

Published by St.Celibart Press at Smashwords

23 Castlerock Cv. Jackson TN 38305

Copyright © 2016 Harry Craig Davis

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN: 978-0-9829567-7-9

Davis, Craig, Red Hair Rising

StCelibartPress@yahoo.com

www.StCelibart.com

Contents

The Living Thing

12:22 to Chicago

Sea and Scorpion

Spinning Wheel

Annelies

Jericho Jones

Theo and the Aliens

Red Hair Rising

Porn Stars In Love

1 Cor. 13:5

Strength Is In Their Weakness

Pinned in Peniel

Balaam

London After Midnight

From A to B

Dream Shadows

Introduction

Over the years I have written a lot of things. As a newspaper columnist, I wrote about whatever I could think of that would fit within thirteen inches. As a homespun Bible scholar, I've written studies and essays of various length and depth. In the realm of fiction I've written parable, fantasy, adventure and corporate foible. Hiding just underneath the surface in all these pieces lurks my Christian roots. Then my attention turned to the literature of my heritage, the twisted path of the American South, that region Flannery O'Connor famously described as "Christ-haunted." I didn't know O'Connor had said that until after I read O'Connor and appreciated the underlying truths woven deftly within her stories. The parallel paths of my coming of age, Christianity and the South, had come to Robert Johnson's crossroads, and the wonders of Southern Gothic opened themselves to my eyes.

However, that genre seems to belong not just to a particular region, but also to a particular time, that tortured era between the repeal of Reconstruction civil rights and the modern movement to reinstate them. The South still produces its notable writers, but the vagueries and grotesques of the gothic style have fallen out of favor and perhaps even usefulness. The New South (praise be to God) has no more use for them, or perhaps has joined the rest of the culture in failing to recognize them. But writing between the lines will never lose its allure, literature will survive formula-driven genre fiction, and we must press on. So I have coined a new term that can serve the same purpose that O'Connor pursued, without the dictates of time and place, to view the changing and unchanging world with a plumb line true and faithful.

To that end, these stories embrace the paradigm of the unseen middle. They explore mystical understandings of the human condition. They investigate the movements of that Ghost that not only continues to haunt the South, but all of mankind over all creation as well. Please join in, and enjoy these excursions into Christian Gothic fiction.

The Living Thing

The night before, a Sunday, as he crawled into slumber, Samuel MacGregor had already felt different in some way. Exhilarated, he'd sorted through his new outlook, a competing paradigm, and over again until at last sleep captured him. Dreams had tumbled recklessly through his unconsciousness. Then before arising in the morning he had felt a slight pressure upon his breathing, an annoyance making his rest difficult. He thought perhaps his situation – stretched out on the kitchen table, head and arms dangling over the edges – might be cause of his discomfort. Or perhaps it was the clammy chill of his soaked hair. But not until he saw his image in the mirror did the boxy swelling upon his chest present itself, with its two wires emerging through his skin.

He recalled ecstatic words projected over a tinny sound system, temptations barked out in commands and invitations. Spare music, straining to keep undisciplined voices together, punctuated the enthralling show. The walls about him had billowed like a nightmare – bizarre, phantom movements mesmerizing him, preparing him for any whim of the snake charmer. Sucked in by the spiel, he walked gladly into the jaws that awaited, the manhandling persuasion of the chorus. As they laid him upon his back, the roof towered overhead, braced upon a single pillar, roughly wooden but carved with ancient runes and hung with rings. A shaman or wizard, or sexton, seemed to pull him through the moist warmth of the womb – him staring with wild, elemental eyes – and into a new awareness. The rapturous whirlwind swept him up in its arms and delivered him somehow to his breakfast table.

Now he confronted a box the size of a deck of cards bulging within his body. The sudden fright of his discovery set his heart racing, and it pounded away within him unabated, its rhythm throbbing through a vein in his neck. An exploratory push with a finger did not budge the lump. The two wires came out over the top of the shape, arcing toward each other but not touching; Samuel reached a finger near one wire and felt a sudden shock like electricity, like an old-fashioned joy buzzer. He winced at the tenderness of the bright pink skin surrounding their exit wound – if there had been any evidence of a wound. "What have they done to me?" he asked the reflection of his pale eyes. He ran a hand through his well-trained hair, parted down the middle, and wondered how such an operation could occur without his even noticing. He wondered what kind of devilish imagination might work such mischief upon him. And how could he explain this change with his family, and at his job? His office still required business dress – shirt and tie – but the new growth would clearly show through one of his trim white shirts. Samuel had gained a reputation for outlandish ideas in his short history at the company, and he could not allow his appearance to attract more scrutiny. Leaning into the mirror, he studied his breast, the rectangular nodule centered neatly upon his breastbone, fanning chest hair around the curve of its edges. He saw no stitches nor even cuts, no evidence of forced entry. "How did this happen to me?" he despaired, and struggled to piece together bits of memory simmering from the night before.

The clock in the living room chimed the quarter hour, and he panicked at the passing minutes. His small morning window of time dwindled; Mr. Snider expected him to arrive promptly. Tracking down whoever had implanted this unnatural thing inside him, and figuring out how to treat it, would have to wait until after work. As he ran an electric razor over the weekend beard of his sturdy jaw, he mentally ran through a list of options. Of course, he could call in sick, but what about tomorrow? The swelling might go down, but the wires probably not. No, the problem surely would remain – might as well deal with it now. Mr. Snider would not like him to miss a day, anyway, and perhaps this little inconvenience would prove to his bosses how well Samuel could handle adversity. He stared at the mass a moment before falling back into desperation. Wearing a sport coat would do nothing to hide the box. He could try to get by wearing a sweater, but that would not be technically in line with the dress code. Wrapping his torso in bandages would only invite questions. Samuel sighed and shrugged at the only choice he could see. Though it was the dead of the Southern summer, he strapped on his shirt and tie, then draped himself with a bulky sweater.

Sneaking into the building through a back door, he avoided the usual morning interaction among coworkers. He hunched his back and thrust his shoulders forward, hiding as best he could the outgrowth over his heart, and slipped into his cubicle. The tall partitions neatly separated the room into a maze of isolated caves, cutting each person off from the rest of the room; he slinked to his little sanctuary and slumped at his desk, propping his elbows and resting his head in both hands. Lights blinked out of sync on his phone. Occasionally, when someone walked past his entryway, Samuel would angle his back toward the person, speaking only clipped greetings over his shoulder. Try as he might, he could not wrestle his attentions to his work. Instead, his mind drifted constantly toward the night before, and the horrible discovery of the morning, and how he might return to what he was before. His brain ached, he massaged his forehead, straining at the recollection, the muddled dream of his new genesis. The waving sea of bodies that seemed so welcoming then, so inviting into a different world, flooded back to him, and just beyond his memory's reach lingered the epiphany that lured him to gladly join in. "I must think," he gritted his teeth, but he couldn't – his new essential was not a formula he could compute on the calculator sitting before him, he couldn't break it down to reassemble by his own design. Weird sing-songing rolled over in his mind, pidgin languages repeating, "Tame lie fanned lit beckon secret eddle ord toothy. Tame lie fanned lit be you all right? MacGregor?"

Samuel's awareness snapped back to him to see Don Snider hovering at the door to his cubicle. "Are you feeling all right today, MacGregor?"

Now he was stuck: He could not keep his back to the boss. Samuel crossed his arms over his chest and wheeled his chair around to face Mr. Snider. "Yes, Don, I'm okay. No problem."

"I don't know, MacGregor," he frowned from above, "You seem distracted, maybe even a little feverish. You got chills?"

Samuel suddenly realized how much he was perspiring under his heavy sweater. He wiped at the beaded moisture upon his forehead with the back of his hand in a careless manner, but his voice trembled. "Oh, no, I'm fine. No problems here."

"Well, all right then. Look, we've got a meeting coming up next week on the Jamison account. I need you to work up those figures, just a preliminary look. Don't sweat it too much, 'cause we'll have accounting come up with the final report anyway, but I want an early look. Can you get that done today?"

"I'll try, Don."

"Well – I want those numbers this afternoon. All right?"

"Yeah, okay."

"You take care of yourself, MacGregor," Mr. Snider looked at him as if he were really seeing him. "You don't seem like your old self today."

"No. Er – yeah, sure."

Samuel struggled to focus on the assignment. Deep within him he grumbled against the added duty, a vain pursuit worthless even in the mind of the man who demanded it – and immediately at that. The pressure upon his chest, from within and without, intensified as he called the necessary files up on his computer screen. "If I can just get through this," he thought, "I'll go. I'll get out of here. Don as much as said I could go. Then I can attend to this thing, this important thing. This other matter." An aching crackle grew from underneath his steamy shirt, and he imagined himself casting off a shell, like a hermit crab, ready to seek a more fitting home. The numbers blurred as he tried to make sense of the rows and columns, rendering the arrangement meaningless, morphing it into a dreamlike crossroads stretching to the hazy horizon. The voices called to him again, they grew into thundering rolls, like a bowling ball rumbling to its violent mission, and he fell into the same disoriented feeling he sometimes got from watching late-night TV, flickering black-and-white scenes from ancient horror movies, tableaus of unconvincing monsters caught in their own nightmares. He shook his head clear and forced his eyes back to the screen. Somehow he willed himself through the figures and printed out his thin report. Fairly sprinting, he blew by the hutch for inter-office memos, inserted the papers into Mr. Snider's slot on the fly, and fled the building. His lungs gasped for what breath he could manage.

Safe in his car, he cranked up the air conditioning and gratefully peeled off his sweater to bathe in the cool caress. Still, his chest heaved as he gulped for air, and he felt like belts had been pulled tight around his ribcage. His soaked shirt stretched taut, and he could easily see through the fabric that the box appeared bigger, so much bigger that it threatened to pop the buttons from their holes. How could it be growing, Samuel thought in a panic, what size is it now, a box of macaroni and cheese? Perhaps a deluxe-size crayon box, the kind he'd always coveted as a child? He didn't know which, he couldn't tell; maybe it was some other size. Regardless, now it was increasing within him, becoming a larger part of him. He set his will firmly to find the people who had done this to him, and make them take it back.

Samuel had gone to the gathering with an acquaintance – someone from his building wanting company for the day's end – who had done the driving. He hadn't really paid attention to their route in the lazy evening, and remembered the ride home not at all. Like drawing lines between dots to form a picture, he tried to trace stray landmarks dimly recalled to a thing he recognized. There, the bank, and then a restaurant he frequented, he thought he recollected, or was that from some other day? Power lines overhead dipped and rose, pretending to point the way, until he did not know which direction to turn. Then a sign caught his eye, a glorified trailer with an electric arrow and disheveled letters, hastily re-arranged, on two lines, "SSON ON FEEL LITTLE EGYPT," and he was sure of the broad field spreading out beyond the street. But the tent no longer stood there.

Parking his car and switching on the hazards, he exited to inspect the vacant lot, hard-packed dirt with a covering of silken dust, pocked with scraggly weeds. One of the "L"s on the sign was a clumsily broken "E". Nervous anticipation fluttered within his chest, and he knew it was beneath the box, perhaps even guarded by it. Though nobody else gathered with him there, he felt a glad belonging, as if he had arrived at a mysterious communion. His feelings turned from demanding satisfaction to a sort of floating peace, a security within his time and place. It is right that there is nothing left, no people, no structure, he thought, that this lies before me destitute, like a spent battlefield. He felt as though he could stand there endlessly, perched to the side of that narrow lane, but as the sun drew down to darkness he conceded he must resume his life as he knew it.

As he walked in the door, his apartment seemed cozy and inviting, something he'd never particularly noticed before. There was his ratty chair, kneaded to fit his body, and there hung the cheap bit of art from the knick-knack store. He practically hummed as he prepared for bed, and he meditated upon the operations of fate and what things he had no power to alter. The night passed with no more than the usual brew of dreams, taking him into realms surreal beyond his imagination – even his subconscious tried to persuade him, his new reality was reasonable, it was real beyond whatever he knew before. He had no choice but to sleep on his back, and his snoring more than once awoke him with a start. Finally propping himself with pillows into more of a sitting position, he stretched his legs and toes within the soft warmth of the sheets. His thoughts rambled, from the security of his father's sedan in his childhood, to moments of rollicking camaraderie in college. Samuel smiled and sighed in his dozing, feeling an illogical complacency about his situation and what lay ahead. In the hushed darkness he ticked off the hours until the clock in the next room chimed five. At that point he gave up, lurching out of bed and into the bathroom.

In an instant, a flood of anguished alarm reclaimed him as he spied the progress of the implant, now the size of Moby Dick. The wires still erupted from their wounds, which looked yet angrier and more seeping. "What a fool I am!" his panicked thoughts raced. "I was so close to finding those people last night! Now I'll never track them down! What can I do? I'm turning into a circus freak!" The thing's weight too had increased, and he grimaced as he tried to straighten his back. Again the frightening prospect of his reception at work shot through his mind. After the previous day's encounter with Mr. Snider, and his early exit, Samuel couldn't risk staying home. He had to go in and make a good showing. He hopelessly attempted to stretch a shirt around the growing mass, realizing a sweater was now his only choice; to get around not wearing a tie, he chose an old turtleneck. Still the shape of the box showed through, so he looped a pair of heavy scarves behind his neck, and tied them loosely over his chest. This failed-model look made him even more self-conscious. A confident pose before the mirror produced only a contorted expression – like a death's head – as he struggled vainly to stand straight, yet somewhere deep behind his hard-set jaw a quiet perseverance lay in wait, and he puzzled at his own gaze.

Mr. Snider was a tall man, and he peered over the wall of Samuel's cubicle like Kilroy. Samuel had entered the building through a back door again, but this morning made no attempt at sneaking into his office space; his colleagues' worried gaze followed his trudging passage to the desk. Now his boss flexed like a cougar on a mountain ledge – Mr. Snider had a slight facial tick, pulling at his nostrils by stretching his upper lip. Samuel was aware of his presence without turning to acknowledge it. Slowly Mr. Snider appeared around the edge of Samuel's doorway.

"How are you today, MacGregor?"

"Fine, Don," Samuel murmured, not looking up. "I feel like a new man."

"Good. That Jamison report yesterday was a little short on numbers. I need the figures for the last five fiscal years. Just a cursory overview, you know. Can you handle that?"

"Yes, I'll get on it."

"Don't let me down, MacGregor."

"No, Don, I won't."

"Now, look, this other thing, MacGregor," Mr. Snider paused to find just the right words. "Your behavior has been mighty odd this week. You're not up to snuff on the dress code. The code is very clear on appropriate office attire. Where's your tie today?"

"I have two scarves on."

"Yes, I see that. You must be miserable in that sweater. Don't you know it's August? You look like you just came out of the pool."

The sweat trickling down tickled Samuel's face, and trying to wipe it clear casually, he could tell his hair was saturated. He stared at the moisture on his fingers.

"This is not acceptable attire, MacGregor. Scarves do not take the place of ties. I don't want to have to write a memo about this. You don't want a memo in your permanent file."

"No, Don."

"All right then. Get that report ready for me, then go home and change into something appropriate on your lunch break."

"Yes, I'll do that."

When Samuel did get home, he found the structure set over his heart had grown to almost the size of a shoebox. He desperately stretched his sweater pulling it off, and fell dizzy and exhausted to his bed, as though he'd just finished a wrestling match. As the blood returned to his head, and he lay there panting, a strange warmth seeped into his chest, and he smiled at the ceiling, imagining himself lying there for years like Michelangelo, stiff and aching. The idea of suffering for beauty filled him with a tranquility against his straining for explanation. Whatever he knew about what had happened to him, however he could rationalize it, would not change its reality and how it had taken over his life. His wonderings again returned to the people from the other night – did they have boxes within them, beneath their robes that flowed to the ground? – he couldn't remember. Surely he would have noticed, but then, nobody had noticed his. Was this really his secret, or did it belong to many?

The clock marked its insistent passage of time, and Samuel realized he was supposed to return to work. He lifted himself to his feet, his momentum very nearly throwing him forward to the floor; only by catching onto the dresser did he save himself. It felt like cast iron; even from his overhead perspective, the mass shocked him, the size of a basic tackle box now, increasing at an alarming rate. The weight hung upon him like responsibility, and he hoisted himself supporting the swelling with both hands as though he were pregnant. In the mirror he had to laugh, in a resigned way, shaking his head at the absurd calamity visited upon him – there was not a single piece of clothing in his closet that would cover this scandal now. The object pulled his skin tight, the wires still poised serenely from the side edges, and he sobbed a little at the aberration he'd become, and laughed again. With no hope of meeting the vanity of the dress code, he hung a tie around his bare neck and threw on his bathrobe, gleefully imagining Mr. Snider's tick.

He didn't disappoint. His nose seemed particularly uncomfortable as he strode toward Samuel's cubicle. "Are you trying to be funny, MacGregor?" he barked.

"No," Samuel lifted his face and chest from his sitting position, looking Mr. Snider in the eye.

"What – what is that?"

"I don't know, Don. It's me."

"What happened to you?"

"That's what I'd like to know. I went somewhere Sunday, I don't remember where, and woke up like this."

"That's hard to believe, MacGregor."

"Yes, it is," he smiled sadly. "But, what choice do I have?"

"Are you bucking for some time off? Workman's comp, maybe?" Mr. Snider turned gruff.

"No," Samuel tried to look sincere. Some things never change, he thought.

"Look, MacGregor, I understand you haven't felt quite normal this week, I can see that. But that's no excuse for your attitude. First the scarves, and now wearing a bathrobe – it's not acceptable under any circumstances."

"I didn't think so. But I don't have anything else that will fit."

Mr. Snider paused to shake his head. "MacGregor, I didn't want to do this, but I'm going to have to report you. I'm going to have to type up a memo, and I'm damned if I know what to think about this. You'd better go report to H.R. now. I'll think of something, some way to dump this in their laps."

"I tried not to make a disturbance."

"That's all fine and good, but it doesn't change what that thing is in you – whatever it is. I think we'd better just let H.R. take care of this."

"Okay," Samuel said, and braced himself to stand.

"You always were an oddball," Mr. Snider said after him, "but I never thought you'd let it go this far."

"No, me neither," Samuel said under his breath as he shuffled along.

By the time he made it to the Human Resources office, the protrusion was big as a toaster oven. He couldn't even attempt to cover it anymore. The woman he'd surreptitiously had his eye on for weeks audibly screamed as he emerged from the elevator, and he almost looked forward to the H.R. secretary's expression, caught in a small office with him. "Hi," he said as if he were simply greeting strangers from a park bench, and he pushed the visitors' chair back from her desk to make room. "Samuel MacGregor. Don sent me up here – Don Snider."

She stared dumb-founded. She was a young woman, brunette with round red lips, and a horrified expression that seemed only to emphasize her cuteness. Samuel sighed heavily.

"He's upset that I wore a robe. I think you're supposed to scold me."

"What did you do to yourself?" she sputtered.

"Well, I didn't have anything else that fit, so I wore a robe."

"That's not what I mean," she collected herself and tried to put on a severe look. She turned away from him to type nervously at her computer keyboard. "The company goes to great lengths to present a unified front – a spirit of teamwork. Your robe is only an outward show of your resistance."

"My what?"

"Here it is." She looked like she was addressing the wall. "Your choices about appearance do not conform to the professional image the company wants its associates to put forward publicly. You've obviously done something to set yourself apart from the team effort the company expects of you."

"Are you talking about my chest?"

"Well – I'm not allowed to suggest what you can do with your body. That's a constitutional right. But the company has a deep interest, and a clear policy, concerning the public face it projects. You should particularly do something about that –" she visibly shuddered and waved dismissively in his direction, "– those wires. Now you go right home and comply with these guidelines you agreed to when you came aboard – then everything will be fine. But I remind you that you're still in your probationary period as a new hire. Until you take care of this situation, you no longer belong here." Her printer hummed and she held the printed page toward him, still not looking.

"Okay, but I don't know what to do about it. I'm not even sure how it happened."

"That would be your decision. Please – my advice is to go to a doctor. But your case is no longer a Human Resources matter. Thank you."

"I'm done?"

"Yes, we're done today. I hope to see you back to normal tomorrow. I'll print out your file and keep it handy."

"I'm supposed to leave now?"

"Yes, please do. Good-bye."

Samuel lifted his great bulk out of the chair, both hands braced on its arms of solid wood and sturdy Swedish design. The secretary stared after him through her office window, before closing the blinds to the scene; he headed for the elevator, leaning backward to balance his weight, and pushed the button for the garage. The workday would soon end, and he figured the only doctor he might find would be in a 24-hour clinic. Squeezing behind his car's steering wheel, he tested the driver's seat and found he already had pushed it all the way back. He reversed the car blindly, unable to wrench around to see over his shoulder, and crunched a taillight on a guard rail. With no direction nor clue, he drove aimlessly, not knowing the route to any walk-in health center. In fact, not until dusk overlapped the day did he find a doctor's office, its neon sign scorching the sky, declaring it open for business.

His lungs ached against the unbearable pressure, the growth had expanded so much: It was fully the size of an aquarium. He struggled to extract himself from the worn car, delivered only by the flattened padding of the seat back. The clinic's revolving door caught him in an awkward grip, forcing comically constricted steps as he tried to enter. Filling in forms at the desk proved to be its own challenge, and Samuel slumped into the waiting area's uncomfortable plastic chairs, feeling and looking wrung out. His breaths came slow and shallow, barely lifting his extended chest, then escaping with a low moan. He sat blankly, his arms wrapped around the outgrowth as if hugging it; his face sagged, dark circles visible beneath his eyes, and his fluffy hairstyle lay plastered to his scalp. The background music played insipidly as he thought about the secretary, and Mr. Snider, and pondered the frenzied bustle of his office, the futile chasing after goals that seemed pointless to him now. Their wonderment at what was within him, whatever it was, at least gave them something worthwhile to consider. He didn't think he'd changed that much; maybe just his perspective had, looking over the top of the box. Though a dozen or more patients sat waiting, many decided what they had wasn't so bad, and the spooked crowd thinned quickly. The nurse soon called Samuel to the back.

"Seems to be some kind of foreign body," the nurse said with false calm.

"Wow! Never seen anything quite like that!" the doctor said. "Let's get some vitals."

Samuel watched with disinterest as his temperature spiked, his blood pressure escalated and his pulse raced. The doctor tapped his huge chest, listened closely with his stethoscope and passed him through the x-ray machine. The prodding made Samuel protective of his lump, wanting to defend it from inquisitive meddling, and he considered simply walking out. But as he lay upon the examination table, he found he couldn't get up.

"Well, there's no sign of an incision," the doctor mulled with carefully masked anxiety. "The only wounds seem to be around these wires." As he reached for one slender strand of metal, a spark arced across the space to his finger, and he jumped at the shock. His finger shaking in the air, and his voice as well, he yelped, "Hey, what was that?"

"I don't know," Samuel said with a crooked grin. "I'm not sure of a lot any more. But that's a bit of a blast, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's something all right. I'm not sure what's going on with you, either. The most puzzling thing is the x-ray." He stuck it on the light screen on the far side of the room to show Samuel. "The object seems to be fused to your ribs. There's no indication of screws or braces, just a kind of grafting onto your ribcage. I don't know how a surgeon would ever remove it."

Samuel nodded as if he understood, and gazed placidly at the ghostly image.

"There's one other thing," the doctor said. "It's ticking, you know."

Samuel didn't know, but it didn't surprise him. Nothing could surprise him at this point.

"I don't know what to tell you. This may be immediately dangerous, and it may not. It certainly isn't normal. Long-term, it will no doubt have a major impact on your quality of life. But the ticking, that I think makes it an urgent matter, but not necessarily a medical matter. I think you might want to report this to the police – maybe they have the training to tell you what hazard the structure poses. But, yeah," he put on a thoughtful look, "I think this matter belongs to the police."

"Okay," said Samuel. "Thanks, doc," and he tried to heave his body up, but failed. "Can you give me a hand up please?"

The staff guided him at arm's length through the revolving door again, this time an even more difficult passage. Samuel inched across the parking lot, barely lifting his feet to step, his knees bent and back slumped. Upon opening his car door, he could tell the object had grown yet more, to about the size of a cooler, and he would never fit into the vehicle again. Sighing and slowly collapsing to the ground, he came to rest against a rear tire. Crickets joined together to sing their swelling chorus somewhere within the invisible backdrop.

The recent days' onslaught of anguish and confusion had left him wrecked, but as he simply sat still a mist of unknowing serenity wrapped around him, soothed his mind and quieted his troubles. Pinned to the ground by the heavy swelling, unable to do one thing about his condition, he gave up on his efforts and simply waited, for what he knew not. His questions had transformed from why to what, and then to how long. Would he suffer this burden the rest of his life? Would he be able to carry it alone? Did he have anything to look forward to? He laid his head to rest upon the top of his appendage, and he could hear its ticking, like a second heart beating above and beyond his own.

The night drew long. Single cars drove by sporadically, purring engines and sweeping tires like specters, their drivers not seeing him in the gloom of the parking lot. Though the starry sky was clear above, he watched lightning flicker silently far to the north, dancing among a bank of high clouds, each flash casting them into Greek Titans in cameo. The universe seemed to point directly to him, to stage its wonders for his audience alone. He remembered the same feeling from two nights before, when he was flooded with the idea that some fundamental essence had held him in its thoughts since before time. The chorus returned to his ears, the tune and chanting words he could not quite put his finger on. Suddenly the lightning dropped low along the horizon, sharp and dazzling, and a tremendous peal of thunder broke across the sky. The atmospheric theater played out in silhouette, creeping stealthily from the west to the east. Samuel remembered the meeting in the tent.

The pinkish dawn revealed him at his car, his legs straight and splayed toward the street, the growth as big as a steamer trunk. Now drivers saw, and sped past; soon a squadron of police cars appeared and set up a perimeter around him. Officers took positions behind cover, pistols cupped in two hands and pointing accusation at him. A bullhorn was handed to a man whose stomach hung prominently over his belt, and he cried, "Don't move!"

"I can't," Samuel replied hoarsely.

"What is your status?"

"I am beset by a growing distress. They have put a thing in me, and I cannot tell what is me, and what used to be me."

"What is the nature of the object?"

"It's ticking."

"Ticking? Is it a bomb?"

"I don't know. Whatever it is, I'm sure it will be the end of me."

Samuel watched with a sense of detachment as the fat officer handed off the megaphone and conferred with an underling. Talking through the radio in one car, he called out the bomb squad, which quickly arrived in an armor-plated truck. A young man in a thickly padded suit, tucked behind a helmet with a large clear visor, received final instructions and made his way gingerly toward Samuel.

Suddenly Samuel remembered clearly the words of the chorus. Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee.

"Take my life," he whispered.

"Take it easy, bud," the officer said. "No one's going to hurt you."

"I'm not afraid."

Speaking into a transmitter perched upon his shoulder, the officer reported. "Confirm the ticking. Seems to be completely encased by subject's body. Identified two identical wires, loose ends not connected."

"You can't help me," Samuel moaned.

"Honestly, buddy, I don't think I can do a damn thing for you. This may not even be a police matter, but I have to contain you – got to think about public safety first."

"There is no longer any harm in me."

The officer took out a small pair of wire cutters, then again reported into his shoulder, "The wires appear loose. I'm going to try cutting them away." The other officers crouched behind their cars in anticipation. The young man held a deep breath and reached toward one wire with his cutters. He received the shock even through the rubber-coated handles and heavy gloves. "Holy crap!" he jumped, and after a moment turned thoughtful, looking into Samuel's tired eyes. "You — you chose this, didn't you? You took the awl through the ear!" his voice faded into a smile of familiarity.

Samuel responded in kind, weakly. "I don't belong here anymore."

"No, we don't." Samuel caught a glimpse of white over his black collar as the man crouched over his slumped body like a sheltering tent. "Some people it hurts more than others, but it is the blessed end of all of us. Most of us keep it hidden pretty deep," he heard a husky whisper.

"I couldn't hide this with a bushel," Samuel replied. His face relaxed into peace in the soft glow of dawn, and he laid his head down again upon his burden. As he heard it ticking even as his old heart ceased, his soul was comforted. And the sun arose.

12:22 to Chicago

The bench Dan Robeson chose may have been cold and hard, but it offered ample room for his suitcase underneath. The sun headed toward setting, and he hadn't yet decided what he should do. The chill air in Newbern sunk into his bones, even before dusk, and he was still shaking anyway.

Dan hadn't eaten all day as he scrapped his way up from Finger, but he didn't really feel his hunger. He had the money, but supper could wait – first he had to settle on his best plan. One thing was sure, he had to get out of there. He removed each shoe to massage his swollen feet for as long as they could stand the cold; then restored the shoes for as long as he could stand their pinching. Only half hitch-hiking, he'd turned down a number of rides along the way, and walked the rest.

"Where ya goin', kid?" the driver asked. He peeked out from the passenger window, out from under skeptical eyebrows.

"Just north. Any room for my grip?"

"Not much. You can stow it in the trunk."

"Naw," Dan said, dodging his eyes. "No thanks. I'll just walk."

He knew he could have caught the bus in Milan, but he feared being stopped in a town as large as that. Just the place they'd expect him to go. Newbern, small and destitute, was much safer, he thought, but it had no bus depot. Traipsing up Highway 77 with his burden, he'd passed through the town's odd collection of traditional houses, its mom and pop businesses that appeared about to crumble to dust, and all sorts of Churches of Christ, and churches of Baptists and of Methodists. Dan's choices now, as he shifted on his bench, were to continue walking or take the train. He contemplated the large concrete fountain blurbling insipidly before him.

Sitting within the somewhat triangular island in the town's center, he eyed the depot, directly to his right. He wasn't sure if he trusted it. A blend of solid brick structure and dilapidated wooden ramps, the building straddled time what with its sterile metal Amtrak sign that appeared to have been put there sometime in the future. Ever since Dan had arrived, not a single soul had entered the building – a good portent, he thought. To his left, City Hall loomed like a vulture, and he guarded against looking in its direction. He could afford no false moves before city authorities had left for the day. He imagined eyes upon him, and nervously sought a sanctuary.

With one exception, the businesses around him were all a forlorn gray or brown. On the street directly in front of Dan, what looked like an empty mattress warehouse featured a couple of stained-glass windows, like earrings on a pig. The effect had not helped it prosper. Also suffering the rigors of capitalism was Mom's Buffet, just a few doors down, the window bearing a "closed" sign that had faded from long days in the sun. But nearby stood the City Café and Pool Room, the lone bright building on the square, a sickly orange color painted upon a pressed-metal façade. Garish beer signs proclaimed it open, and told Dan it would likely remain so for hours to come.

This one time won't hurt, he thought, I've got to eat something. It's not like I'm throwing my life away in there, like those drunks do. All those down-and-outers, in there all day already, probably, they'll get so wasted they couldn't leave town if they wanted to. He couldn't afford that, especially not today. Thanks be to Jesus he wasn't tempted that way – at least he wasn't tempted that way. He could go in there and not have anything to drink. It couldn't touch him. He knew that soon, though he'd have to step inside the City Café, he would triumph over it. At least there was that.

For now his gaze returned to the train station. He carefully fished the suitcase from under his bench and stood. His mind was mostly made up, but first he would check out the depot from the inside.

The flimsy door had no latch to speak of, and swung open a little too willingly. Dan walked into a single long room, two wooden benches like pews, back-to-back running down the middle, and another along one side. On both walls hung bulletin boards, encased in glass, and Dan grimly studied the curling notices within. The train would come in northbound, eventually leading to Chicago. He could get his ticket from the conductor. Newbern stop, 12:22 a.m. The cover of darkness drew quickly closer, and Dan liked the idea of traveling by night. No one could see him vanish into the dark.

Chicago would be perfect, Dan thought – in such a massive city, he would disappear into the teeming population. By ceasing to be seen, being absorbed into a vast body, he would no longer be exposed and afraid. He would find a place to fit in, to escape scrutiny. He didn't belong here anymore, that was for sure.

Dan suddenly felt the weight of the suitcase, still dangling from his arm. An old leather job, his parents had received it as a wedding present, and the years very nearly used it up. The leather straps that had once bound it together had been replaced by a collection of men's belts, and they now in turn were cracked and frayed with wear. All his life it had periodically disappeared from its place under a bed, sometimes with his father, sometimes his mother, only to return eventually with the wayward parent. The deep mystique of its history fascinated Dan, along with the chafing miasma of rotten leather, and the lining turned to dust. Now it was joined to him. He checked the empty benches behind him and set the case down for a moment, shaking the circulation back into his hand – but only for a moment. His parents' suitcase seemed foreign to him, and yet felt like home, and now he could not let it go.

Dan's feet ached again. His arrival in Newbern and the train's schedule clearly merged into one, a confluence of events that God had prepared beforehand. That settled it – he would continue his journey by rail.

He rather limped toward the City Café, the suitcase swinging from his other arm. Dan worried about his timing – the café would hide him from public view as long as it took for City Hall to empty out, but he also didn't care for a company of rowdies to see him. Suspicious types are always suspicious. Perhaps that crowd came in later. He walked past the windows a couple times and tried to casually peer in to see what was going on, but the darkness was too much. Hanging out on the sidewalk is just the kind of thing that will draw attention to me, he thought. He'd just have to go inside and trust that nothing would happen, trust the shadows within.

A bell rang cheerily, but the dim light still prevented him from seeing. The smell of cigarette smoke hit him like a wall. He could barely make out a figure at the bar turn to look at him, then away again. A wash of voices, clacking sounds and bad music came from somewhere inside the bowels of the building. Small booths lined the front window, and Dan chose the one in the corner. He clumsily kicked his suitcase as he tried to squeeze it and his feet into the confined space under the table.

"Hey, bub," a grizzled man said as he set down a single piece of greasy paper. It was a menu. "Want a beer?"

"No," Dan croaked. "Just water."

"Sure."

Dan's eyes slowly adjusted, and he held the menu up to the window's light. He found nothing on it he particularly trusted.

"Here." The water came in a plastic cup that was either once colored and now badly faded, or once clear and now yellowed. "What'll ya have?"

Dan imagined worms crawling out of the hamburger, and fries swimming in 20-year-old grease. "Does your bologna come from the store?"

"Do I look like I make it here?"

"I'll have fried bologna. And chips, in the bag."

"Sure."

Dan peeked through the window, and now the outer light burned his eyes. By this time he could see the billiards area in the café's shadows, the players walking slowly around the table, like elders with mighty staffs. A couple of old black men, in stained clothes that once had been in style, joshed with each other in unknown tongues as they took their turns and threw back beers. Dan scoffed under his breath. No telling how long those sots had been here, drinking their day away. Probably got up early to cash their Welfare checks, he thought, then headed straight here. At least he wasn't going to waste his whole life. At least he was white, he thought, if he had anything to be grateful for, at least there was that. There were black Robesons back in Finger, but at least he was from the white Robesons.

He chastened himself, I shouldn't think things like that. God will certainly punish me for such thoughts – such thoughts lead to worse. Jesus put me here to give me a train, He blessed me with a train, and here I go provoking Him. Why do I think those things, he wondered.

A heavy stoneware plate, cracked and chipped, clunked in front of him. Dan gazed upon the spare feast, the whitest of bread embracing grilled bologna, with plain potato chips. He called for a second glass of water just to get the little supper down, then a third to make him feel full. The soft song of balls doing battle upon a lush cushion of felt serenaded his meal. As he paid at the register, legs straddling his suitcase, he carefully pulled a single bill from his pocket and left no tip.

Dan stood in front of the café waiting for traffic to clear; a driver gave him a long look, then drove on. He grasped his suitcase with both hands and drew it up before him slightly, something of a shield, and watched after the car's rear end as he crossed back to the grassy island. The sun had set, and no lights remained in the windows of City Hall; he felt the weight of human eyes seem to lift from him. A short walk delivered him back to the train station.

Again the door swung freely to allow him entry, and he found the waiting room his alone. Happy in his solitude, he settled into the far end of a bench and set the suitcase under his elbow. The seat was well-worn and polished by long decades of patience, and Dan fought to keep his posterior from sliding forward. The floorboards too were smooth and grooved – their joints now loose, allowing the planks to bend and flex under the weight of footsteps – bearing the scars of the years. Dan looked about himself distractedly, gazing at the quaint mural of a diesel engine, the ancient coal stove, the Victorian clock that said 4:19. He didn't have a watch, but he knew that time couldn't be right. He stared at the clock face, as if peering deep into its works, finally realizing that it had stopped, leaving him in an eternal lurch until the train's arrival would signify 12:22.

Dan was left with nothing but judgment to entertain his thoughts. What a broken-down mess this is, he said to himself. What town would force a traveler to wait in such a dilapidated place, a decaying, ramshackle dump? Looking around, he spotted a patch in the ceiling where the plaster had fallen, exposing the laths. Whoever's supposed to be maintaining this building is sure doing a bang-up job, he thought. Bet the stove doesn't even work; probably would burn the joint down if it did. The water fountain beckoned, and boredom persuaded him to believe he was thirsty. Its cracked porcelain veneer spoke to its long service, and the fixtures promised a gay gush of water straight into the air. But it came up dry, and Dan stood there feeling parched and foolish.

I don't know what I expected, Dan thought. Denied a drink, he decided instead that he needed to take a leak. He wrestled his suitcase down a narrow hallway, bumping back and forth between the walls, until he found the restroom. The door was no more secure than the depot entrance, and Dan was not able to make it stay closed. The archaic urinal loomed before him like a great marble sarcophagus, and he neatly tucked the suitcase against its huge bulk. Quietly he left his mark in the vast receptacle, keeping a wary eye upon the door.

Going down the hall again, he noticed the pay phone. If I needed to call someone, that's the way I'd do it, he thought. If I had a cell phone, I wouldn't use it, 'cause they could trace me with it. I'd use the pay phone, and they'd never know it was me. If I needed to call anyone.

Dan re-entered the waiting room, horrified to find someone else had come in – a worn out old man, wearing clothes that didn't fit and holding a crumpled paper grocery bag, sitting on the bench along the wall. He looked at Dan and smiled, which Dan ignored. "Waiting for the train?" he asked.

Why else would I be here, Dan thought. "Yeah."

"Some folks just come in to get out of the weather. Some folks got nowhere to go, no reason to do nothing but live, but they don't like the weather."

Dan grunted and sat with his back to the man. He tried to put his suitcase under the seat, but it was too cumbersome. He ended up tucking it under his knees, more or less extending the bench, and as a result he could not comfortably lean back. So instead he set his hands upon the bag and thrust his weight forward onto his stiff arms, letting it support him.

"Me, I don't come here often myself," the old man kept on, "but today my bunions are hurting me."

Can't you tell I don't want to talk, Dan thought.

"This room ain't a bad place, though it's got its faults. It gets a body out of the wind. In the old days, used to be the waiting room just for black folks."

No wonder it's so run-down, Dan thought. But that's got nothing to do with it, he hastened to add.

"They turned the white-only waiting room into a museum," the old man threw a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the next room over. "But they keep that one closed all the time – can't nobody get in." He started to laugh.

This man is crazy, Dan thought. He tried to draw his suitcase more securely under him.

"Ain't that the way? Ever'body's equal now, ever'body's equally cut out."

The man's prattling made the minutes even more excruciating, and Dan tried to sort his thinking in between the distractions. Distracted, he scanned his surroundings, noticing the detail of the smudges on the door window, the papers on the bulletin boards hanging askew, the intricate designs of the cobwebs overhead. He remembered sitting mesmerized by the fountain outside, the dying sunlight dancing upon the water, as he waited for a hint of what to do. He thought about Chicago, his perfect sanctuary, now only hours away. The events of the past would be forever forgotten there, the burdens that had fallen upon him in recent days, and he would never have to worry again. The background noise of the old man's voice grated on and on.

"No, ain't a bad place. Ain't cozy enough to want to stay, neither, but you can't really expect anything more. Worl' don't make no promises."

Suddenly it was black as ink outside, and Dan thought maybe he had dozed off. His wrists buzzed with that sleepy numbness of being constricted too long, and he shook his hands alive again, happy to find them still upon the suitcase. The old man was gone, but a small collection of others had gathered. A distant horn blared, and he knew the train had awoken him to its arrival, like a thief in the night.

He dragged his suitcase out to the platform, and waited for the sleek locomotive to ease to a halt. The porter set down a wooden step by the door for passengers to use. The conductor took tickets as the people filed aboard.

"How much to get to Chicago?" Dan asked him.

"That's an $87 fare."

"Uh –" Dan tried to sort one-handed through his money.

The conductor considered the wad of bills. "Fifty dollars gets you to Centralia, and sixty to Mattoon."

Chicago was out of his reach, at least for the moment. Dan had never heard of Mattoon, but it sounded small and obscure to him. It wasn't perfect, but it might do for now. "I have to get to Chicago," he said.

"You're cutting it close, son."

The pressure to decide ticked against Dan. "Mattoon, then," he said, frustrated. At least he would get far out of reach of Finger. At least there was that.

"Take your luggage, sir?" the porter asked.

"No, I'll keep it."

"That's a little big for carry-on, sir. You'll have to check it."

"No," Dan's eyes grew urgent. "I have to hang on to it."

"Sorry, sir – "

"I have to. I have to keep it – it – it's mine, and no one else's." Dan lifted the suitcase into the cradle of his arms. I don't have to justify myself to these people, he thought. No, stop thinking that way. I'd better not make them angry.

The porter looked to the conductor. "It's not terribly big," he said.

"I'll keep it under my feet," Dan offered.

"All right, then, get aboard. It's okay, Gaston, I'll write the report," the conductor said. "Do you have everything you need now?" he asked Dan, an edge to his voice.

"I believe so."

Dan found his seat and settled in, propping his feet upon the suitcase, which drew his knees uncomfortably high. But he didn't trust the porter – he would try to stay awake so the man couldn't sneak his suitcase away. He hoped nobody would sit next to him at another stop; the car was nearly empty, so he thought it unlikely. Perhaps soon he might arrive at the place where he would belong. The train lurched forward, and soon its hypnotic motion was rocking his head side to side. The rich blackness outside passed by silently. Try as he might, Dan could not keep his eyes open.

A tremendous screeching howl jerked him awake, and his world churned violently into sudden chaos, catapulting and tumbling through the deep.

Dawn broke on the wreckage, railroad cars sheared open when the derailment shot them into a bridge abutment. Shining metal peeled back like a sardine tin revealed a jumble of seats, packages and bodies. Emergency workers picked their way carefully through the jagged edges, seeking signs of life and retrieving mangled personal effects.

"Holy crap! Look at that suitcase!" one said.

A ragged leather suitcase lay on the ground, its weary lid popped open by the shock of impact, its contents scattered and exposed.

"What the hell's that?" said another. "A head?"

"Oh, God, it's a head. Looks like some little black kid."

"How'd that happen to a passenger?"

"A passenger? This head packed in a suitcase?" The man's eyes hung open, incredulous at the thought. "No, this used to be somebody's baggage."

Sea and Scorpion

Not even the slick wingtips Hector Stone wore upon his feet could allay his repulsion at this onerous journey, climbing the worn wooden steps of his old home. He would never have returned of his own will. Scanning the weathered porch, he thought the paint was peeling even more than when he'd left the place for university. His mother had pressured him to scrape it down and put on a new coat back then, but the future was calling him. She still hasn't gotten it done, he shook his head knowingly – no surprise there.

She'd had plenty of time to see to the job, too. Since his departure Hector had finished off his under-graduate work, clerked a few years in a law office and put a great dent in law school. He hadn't quite finished, but already he'd learned enough legal trickery to know he needed to get his mother's affairs in order. Ill health had taken its toll in recent months, and now as the dutiful son, he would move back into the house to take care of things. He didn't particularly want to, nor did he feel obliged by any warmth; in fact, it was a bit of an imposition. But he thought it the sensible thing to do.

His exit from the house those years ago had felt like an escape from prison. For as long as he could remember, his intellect and prospects had strained at the tiny house nestled in Salem's oldest neighborhood. Drawing the walls even tighter was his mother: In her eyes he could do no wrong, as long as he did what she expected. Anything else would bring only creeping disaster. After she'd lost her husband, she appeared to lock Hector in time at age twelve, resulting in a string of crushing humiliations. His one attempt at courting a girl gave rise to an embarrassing monologue about his inexperience, as the young woman giggled uncomfortably. The old bat went so far as to apologize for the movie they planned to see, without knowing what it was. When Hector began saving to buy his own car, she clipped ads for scooters and other vehicles she considered cute. Even his interest in law fell prey, inspiring her ladies' club to decide that he should do something about folks who let their yards go to the dandelions, as he was compelled to stand and listen. While he could already feel the back of his neck tingle as he crossed the porch, still he hoped his long absence had released him from her maternal anachronism.

He tapped lightly on the screen door in mock politeness before sticking his head inside. "Mother, I've arrived!"

"Well, come in! Come on in, Hector!" She sounded like he'd only left that morning, like he had never lived anywhere else in his life.

The voice came from a corner, and Hector found the front room even darker than he remembered. A musty odor filled his head, and he was struck by the heavy fabric decorating the room. Finally he spotted his mother, in a dingy Queen Anne chair, her walker cast off to the side. She could not get around easily anymore, added to her general loss of memory, and the walker served only for trips to the kitchen or bathroom. In her letter inviting Hector to return – in between emphasizing how much he would enjoy again seeing the cradle of his enchanted past – she pointedly mentioned she would have to ask the neighbor child to mail it.

The towering chair made her look yet more frail than she really was, but in spite of that, to Hector she loomed like the smothering overlord of his childhood. Certainly in her shrunken state, she had become even less able to fathom his sagacity. But she still aimed to preside from her throne, he thought, to twist everything he said into a royal decree of her own making. He resolved to give her neither the ammunition nor satisfaction, he thought to himself; whatever she said, he would destroy her with sly nuance.

"How was your trip?" she asked.

"Everything you might dream a cross-country jaunt with a busload of circus freaks could be," he replied.

"I'm so glad. You loved the circus so – and how cute that one Halloween when you dressed in your little clown suit!"

Hector felt his button being pushed, and wondered how he'd fallen so easily into a pit. Surely the time drew short not only to get his mother's affairs in order, but also to set her straight. His huge suitcase, packed with more books than clothes, fell heavily to the floor, and he sat upon it like a barrister's bench, leaning upon his elbows and petitioning with gestures.

"I didn't come all this way to discuss Halloween costumes, Mother. How are you feeling?"

"I feel just fine, now. Just wonderful!"

"Then why am I here? You haven't even gotten out of your chair – how can you say you feel wonderful? We won't get anywhere if you can't be honest with me."

"It's wonderful to see you. And besides, where there's life, there's hope," she smiled as though the notion had just come to her. "That's wonderful."

"Yeah, well, that's a fine sentiment, but it won't get you far at your age," he sneered. "We have to face facts and start getting your estate planned."

"Oh, there's plenty of time for that," she assured him. "I've got lots of time."

He let out his exasperation in a great sigh. "We need to face facts," he repeated. "Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, you know."

"I don't know what you mean, but I'm sure it's very clever."

Hector had to pace; he felt like a prosecutor pleading final arguments before a jury not quite his peers. "I mean this, that there's no use clinging to false hope. It's best to realize you're dying and just live with it. Clinging to a dreary existence isn't living at all, anyway. Best to just recognize your problems and move on."

"Well, I know I have some problems. I haven't slept through the night in years. But I won't wallow in it – at least I'm not suffering like my little neighbor."

Her neighbor was the four-year-old who lived next door, Abbie Fisch. Her real name was Absalom – the youngest of seven daughters, her parents sincerely believed she'd be born a boy among the various Sarahs, Rebeccas and Rachels and so on. But God brought her out a girl just to show He might not do what is expected. Her folks decided to stick to the solid biblical name they'd chosen anyway, and for her sake called her Abbie.

Abbie had suffered most of her life with mysterious symptoms and behaviors. She'd been a bright baby, nothing out of the ordinary, but shortly after reaching toddler age a number of odd manners had arisen in her. She did not prosper physically, a lack of appetite leading to lack of growth. The pediatrician there in town blamed it on her chronic constipation, and prescribed an endless series of suppositories. But Abbie never did eat with relish, and learned which hours of the day to hide from her treatments. She was sometimes lethargic, sometimes too energetic, and could be irritable either way. Her parents learned to take her day-by-day, never knowing which Abbie would get out of bed that morning. But one thing they could count on: She loved her visits with Dr. Croswell.

Dr. Croswell was new to town, just in the last twelve months or so, but he was old to the world. Having spent a career practicing in the big city, he'd semi-retired to Salem to putter away his final years. He'd seen it all, from old conditions like measles, to new ones like attention deficit disorder. Nothing fazed him, and he poured out learned attention upon each new patient, regardless of prognosis.

Though a general practitioner, he particularly liked seeing the children. He had a natural gift to draw out their love, either with silly antics or the gentle comfort of his smooth accent. Abbie was no exception, and strangely, though he often pierced her arm with a needle, she excitedly anticipated her monthly appointments and luxuriated in his consolations afterwards. With a head round and fleshy, he might blow out his cheeks like a blowfish, or perhaps pull his entire face into a pucker. His round glasses emphasized his eyes, blue and bright, and his cavalier attitude toward haircuts created a blurred white nimbus around his countenance.

"Now you be sure to come see me again next month!" he'd grin at her.

"Yes! Yes!" Her words were few and simple.

"You sure you can keep on charging us nothing, Doc?" Mr. Fisch hung his thumbs from ragged overalls. "You sure you want to keep seeing this little squirt?"

"You just keep bringing her around as long as it makes her happy." He played peep-eye with her through the mirror strapped to his head. "You going to visit me again? I expect to keep seeing you for a long time."

"Yes! Yes!" she jumped in place.

"She reminds me of Shirley Temple!" Hector's mother said. "You used to love her movies on television – you'd try to dance along with her! You were just so darling. She's far sicker than me. It's just wonderful how Dr. Croswell treats her. He makes her so happy, she doesn't know she feels bad."

"That's ridiculous. Of course she feels bad, she's sick. But maybe there is hope for her – she's young enough to get her strength back, not like you." Hector hid his pleasure at learning another educated man had come to town, someone who loved facts and didn't let fancies warp his thinking. Maybe he could find some time for intelligent conversation as he suffered through the insipid business of his mother. So his heart sank at her next utterance.

"Oh, no, no hope at all. Dr. Croswell says there's no hope."

"What? Well, why the hell doesn't he just tell her that! It's cruel to lead her on."

"Hector! I wish you would watch your language! This is still my house, and I'll not have you dirtying the air with cursing! Why, I remember when your uncle came to visit, though you were only six, you scolded him and scolded him, and all he said was 'dang.' So now don't you bring any filthy language in here."

"Mother, I'm a grown man. I'll talk any way I want."

"I won't spend my last days listening to that trash."

At least she's grasping her futile condition, Hector thought. He'd just have to look for an opportunity to straighten out Dr. Croswell himself. "I'm going upstairs," he cut the subject short.

"Remember that low part of the ceiling over the staircase. Don't bump your head."

With a painful grunt, he headed to the winding stairs and made his way up the narrow passage. The suitcase barely squeezed through. His eyes followed the wallpaper's pattern the same way they always did, and at the top he automatically made the hairpin turn into his room. Not a thing had changed since the last night he'd spent there years ago, except somewhere along the line his mother had made the bed. As he looked over the walls, smaller still than he remembered, the things he had left hanging there through high school surprised him – pennants, pin-ups, even childish drawings.

He drew nearer to scrutinize one in particular: A school art project of watercolors on cheap paper, which he'd thought enough of at one time to frame. It portrayed two figures, one large and one small, bent toward each other, working at abutting desks. Hector's father had been Salem's lone lawyer, going back to youthful days when he'd plunked down a black bag at the bus station and decided this one-horse town suffered a void. Since his earliest days, Hector had hung upon his father's promises that one day he'd join the firm, Stone & Son Attorneys at Law, continuing the tradition into eternity. The old man would tower in the living room, tall and strong, wrap his arm around Mother and promise. Hector believed it with his whole heart, right up to the day his father ran off with the secretary. Looking back now, the deed made sense to Hector, but at the time it was a shock. He wouldn't have minded so much if he'd expected it.

He took the picture from its nail and set it upon the floor, propped up facing the wall.

The bed creaked as he sat upon its edge and mulled his fate. He couldn't figure why he was appointed to such a distasteful bit of business, but he knew his best bet was to get through it as fast as possible. First he would need to get some idea of his mother's paperwork, then follow where it took him. He doubted her assets could amount to much, probably only a bank account or two, plus the house. As he sat projecting the future, he suddenly became aware of his mother's voice, calling out in an urgent tone.

Hector swung through his door and around the corner; his head banged into the low part of the ceiling. He cocked his voice to curse, then stifled it to a growl under his breath. Rubbing his hand through the well-cropped shock of jet black hair, he stumbled down the steps and to her chair, wondering what news could be so dire. "What's the matter?"

"Oh! Hector! When did you get here?"

"I've been here for some time now. Did you call me?"

"No, but since you're here, I wish you would dig up my beds for me. The bulbs will be sprouting soon."

"What? Mother, I moved back here to do important work for you! I don't have time to be your gardener."

"The bulbs are important. Don't you want the hyacinths to come out nice? You used to pick them for me every spring – you were so sweet. You used to say they were bottle brushes. 'Bottle brushes for you, Mama.' "

This prattle thoroughly turned Hector's stomach. "That's all very good, Mother, but I came back to work on your financial affairs. That's important work, and it will demand all my time."

"Well, just go out and look at the flower bed. You always knew how to take care of it so well."

"I never knew anything of the sort. I can't stand gardening and never learned anything about it on purpose."

"Well, I wish you'd go look."

Hector went out on the porch anyway, just to get away from the conversation. He pointedly ignored the flowers, and instead surveyed the neighborhood as he leaned against the rail. The street hadn't changed after all these years. The superficial pleasantry of the clapboard houses reflected perfectly the banality of the people within, and he shuddered to think he might need their help with his mother. The dogwood blooms had peeked open, and Hector breathed in the crispness; the early warmth gladdened him, for summer was on its way. The thought of longer daylight hours turned grimly toward the neighbors, and he imagined them puttering aimlessly in their lawns and gardens, not once thinking of what service they might be to him.

Without warning he realized he was watching a little girl in front of the next house down. Her quiet behavior had lulled him – it didn't seem like she was doing anything. He didn't have any experience to base this judgment upon, but he didn't think she looked as old as four. Still, he thought, this must be Abbie. Her hair was done up in a disheveled ponytail, and she wore the smallest pair of cat-eye glasses Hector had ever seen. On closer inspection, he could see she had a bottle of soap bubbles: Time and again, she inserted the wand, then waved it much too vigorously to make a bubble.

She looked small, but not particularly sick. Perhaps she has some rare cancer, a disease too mysterious for the bumpkins here to recognize, he thought. He imagined an exotic tumor deep within her, undetectable by x-ray but still exploring her body with its poisonous tendrils. She really is an object of pity, not only so ill but completely ignorant of her condition. If she knew, at least she could prepare herself; perhaps she could even demand better medical care, he thought. She could force her parents to take her away, take her to doctors who actually knew something about treating the sick. Maybe I can save this child, Hector thought, knowing the truth would help her. Nobody else in town would be honest with her, maybe I can do her a favor. He'd try being friendly with her, then bring up the subject of her illness.

"You're waving your wand too hard," he called out helpfully. "Wave your wand gently to make a bubble."

She looked in the direction of the voice, her owlish eyes magnified in the glasses. She held up the bottle and turned it upside down. "No soap," she said.

Hector drooped his head and shook it wearily. She's no different from everyone else here, he thought – at least she has her age as an excuse. "Oh," was all he could reply. "Are you Abbie?"

"Yes."

"You're a cute little girl," he crooned. "I'll bet you're smart, too."

Abbie didn't answer, but she shook the bottle to make sure there really was no soap.

"Do you go to school?"

"No."

"How old are you?"

She sorted out four fingers and held them up.

"Will you come closer, so I don't have to yell at you?"

"No."

"Why not? I can't talk to you if I have to yell."

"No! Mama says, can't go over there no more!"

"Please? I won't hurt you. I'm Mrs. Stone's son."

"No! No!" Abbie grew cross.

"But why not?"

"Dr. Cros'l says no! No! No! No! No!" Her voice grew into a piercing scream, like a whistle with a pea in it.

Hector stood stunned.

"Leave me alone! Not going to you!" Abbie clinched her fists as she berated him.

The door to the house opened, and Mrs. Fisch leaned out. "Abbie! Keep your voice down!" She cast a stern look at Hector and added, "You'd better come on in." Abbie marched up her porch steps, the empty soap bottle lying spent on the ground, leaving Hector alone and confounded, as though he'd forgotten to study for a test.

The encounter only made him more determined to help the girl. Obviously, she'd been thoroughly conditioned, and he'd have to do some work to break through to her. Perhaps he should talk to this Dr. Croswell first, and see if he knew anything. He decided to patiently watch for the right opportunity with the girl, and, in the meantime, he turned his concentration to his mother's affairs. In the spare bedroom he found towering stacks of papers, a collection of old forms and documents, mixed with unopened mail. Hector's thoughts roiled as he realized the mountain of difficulties he had to climb. The days dragged into weeks as he sorted through each sheet of paper, and he could feel his interest and energy for the project draining out of him.

Despondent, one stormy day he simply planted himself on the porch to watch the downpour. Sitting in front of a screened window, he carried on an exchange with his mother, in her chair just inside.

"That gutter has a leak," said the voice through the window. A stream of rainwater was pouring over the edge of the porch roof.

"That's the kink in the gutter," said Hector. "The downspout's clogged, so the water rushes over that bent part."

"I wish you could look at that."

"I am looking at it."

"You haven't done any work here since you were in high school."

"Mother, I've been working on your estate ever since I got back. That's all I've been doing, and it's killing me. How could you let so much paperwork accumulate? I don't think I should have to fix the house, too."

"You haven't done a thing I asked you to, ever since you were in high school."

"It's been some time since I was in high school."

"I remember. I remember the little shoeshine kit you made in woodshop. You're so cute when you use it out there on the porch. Is that what you're doing?"

"Mother, that box fell apart a year after I made it, and I haven't been in high school for a long time now. You need to accept that I'm an adult. Life goes on."

"I have some shoes that need shining. I wish you would take care of them."

The rain came down as the day grew old. In the horizon the canopy of dark clouds broke, and the setting sun burned the sky red. Next door, Abbie Fisch came out to play in the warm showers. She stood with her head pitched backwards, feeling the drops patter upon her face. Hector hadn't seen her since their first meeting, such had been his devotion to organizing papers, and he tersely observed her play. She was wearing a baggy pink one-piece swimsuit, with cartoon kittens all over it. Apparently her parents didn't care much about her, letting her get drenched in a storm, he thought. He moved his chair to the edge of the porch.

"Aren't you afraid getting wet will make you more sick?" He dispensed with niceties and addressed her illness directly.

"You make me sick," she said back casually.

Hector already didn't like the way the conversation was going. He tried a different tact.

"Why don't you like me?"

"Ma says stay 'way. Dr. Cros'l says stay 'way."

"You like Dr. Croswell, don't you?"

"Yup."

"But he's never helped you. He can't make you better."

"He loves me."

"But he can't make you better. Doesn't that upset you?"

"No."

"It doesn't make you mad?"

"You make me mad. Dr. Cros'l says stay 'way."

Hector grew impatient. "Well, you don't have to listen to him. He's not telling you the truth – he doesn't want you to know. But you're not going to get well."

"You leave Dr. Cros'l 'lone! He loves me!"

"What kind of love is not being honest with you? He hasn't done you a bit of good. It's better for you to know."

"Dr. Cros'l says stay 'way!" Abbie's screaming became intense again. "Stay 'way!" She ran back into her house, and Hector stood from his chair. As she disappeared he called out, "You won't get any better!"

"What did you say to that child?" his mother asked when he entered the house.

"You're not getting better, either," he said flatly.

The piles of papers turned into endless calls to local bankers and insurance agents. The small-town idiots didn't seem to have any answers for him, nor an idea of how to find any. Hector felt trapped, in a staring match with the same deeds and contracts day after day, trying to discern some hint of how to cut through the legal tangles. Finding delinquency letters from Internal Revenue did not help his mood, and tax forms haunted his dreams, blowing in the tumbling wind just out of his reach. His resentment toward the weight of responsibility grew, and he longed to pursue only his own interests again. Filial service, once a mere annoyance, now seemed futile and a complete mockery.

He could feel his future fleeting away – he, himself, Hector Stone, the only man of Salem who might make something of himself, was slipping into the clutches of this shabby little world, like an insect looking for morsels in the loose dirt of a doodlebug's lair. His grand dreams of high-rise offices and power lunches sank into illusion, his elevation over fellow aspirants becoming a ruinous downfall. Gazing in the mirror, he thought creases had begun to draw down his chiseled face, and gray had sprouted within his hair. I have to get out of here, he thought, I have to break out. But something prevented him from escape – something greater than his mother's petty files and papers. He first must confront the hollow tranquility that folded over this town, crush its vacuous resistance to plain-spoken reality. "I'll not leave until I've made a public show of this Dr. Croswell." And still the work ground on and on.

As spring fully put on summer, often Hector would have to recess to the porch, pausing to relax his mind in its cool shade. He never saw Abbie in her yard during these times, a fact he attributed to the heat, if he happened to think of it at all. He'd done all he could for her anyway. But one day he spied a small collection of cars in front of her house. Hector studied the goings-on from a distance, neither welcome nor willing to stand aside. People filtered in and out of the house, until at length an elderly man in a frumpy suit sauntered out and into the yard. He sucked idly on a pipe, and when the two men's eyes met, he meandered closer to Hector's mother's house.

"Are you Mr. Stone?"

"And you are the great Dr. Croswell!" he replied, smiling thinly.

"Abbie mentioned you to me."

"I'll bet. How is she? Still buying into false hope?"

"No – she's died." He peered at the pipe as though it was plugged.

"Oh." Hector was not really surprised, but to hear it said so frankly – without sentimentality, but a benign peace filling its message, that caught him off guard. "I don't suppose you ever did know what she had."

"Oh, I knew from the first day. Lead poisoning – by the time I saw her, she never had a chance. All the classic symptoms: Anemia, lethargy, what we call 'failure to flourish,' some outbursts of bad behavior – you might have noticed that."

Hector silently nodded.

"Yes, you don't see it much anymore, but that was it, no doubt about it. Kidney failure finally was too much for her. Probably got into peeling paint – funny thing about little children, how they will eat paint chips, totally innocent to the danger, of course. Old paint was full of lead." Dr. Croswell looked up at Hector as he relit his pipe. "If only she could've stayed away from that peeling paint."

"So I was right, she didn't have any hope."

"No, not for her body, it wasn't going to get well. But we kept her spirits up. Abbie enjoyed her life, right up to the last day, dwelling on the love she found. She was a bright and wonderful child, in spite of her suffering. She never surrendered to it. You couldn't kill her spirit, like her body. You couldn't've done it, no matter what you said."

Croswell walked away with no parting word, and Hector returned silence. The doctor considered Abbie's house carefully as he passed by, then disappeared down the sidewalk. Hector stared blankly at his departure.

He retreated into the darkness of his house. Something about the conversation had left him troubled – why could he reply nothing? Why could he not throw out some sharp comeback, a retort that Croswell could never hope to answer? Something about the doctor had struck him mute. He remembered Abbie's childish rebukes, and how no reply from him had any effect on her simple adherence to Croswell's words. A bitter frustration grew in him, a humiliation he'd never experienced, even at the hands of brutal law professors, even from his mother. This vile, simple people had left him with nothing. All that he had left to take hold of was the damnation of his mother's vain paperwork. If a child could smile her way to death, what good is knowledge? What good is the law – its accusations can't inspire fear if hope undermines penalty. He saw himself straining at a gnat, wasting his life sorting out the details of his own paltry inheritance. An angry despair enveloped him, as his lonely sanctuary of severity echoed within. The law is the law, what's right is right – throw hope out of the mix. Hector's hatred for the town rose from his gut and raged into his chest. I offer knowledge, his mind stormed – no more is needed. He – they – all of them must submit to their dire lives, and expect nothing more. They must pay the price – and he would decide, he was worthy. The thought that a child might cling to grace made his throat clinch. The musky drapes of the front room hung like a shroud around his mother, hung like a condemned man all around him.

"Has something happened?" her innocuous face beamed.

"Can't you just get done with it, and die?" he replied.

Spinning Wheel

I

Well, the war had ended. Joy swept across the weary cities and worn homesteads of the nation, drawing cheering crowds into the streets, and drained wives and mothers out of farmhouses, waving their aprons. Flashbulbs caught euphoric couples in mid-embrace, and microphones sent exultant speeches to all the country's radios as politicians congratulated themselves. Years of struggle and hardship left the population exhausted, yet also elated at having merely survived, each man and woman outlasting their emotions as well as the enemy overseas. The rationing imposed by war had capped off more than ten years of the unofficial but no less cruel disciplines of the Great Depression – everyone knew there was nothing great about it other than its tenacity. Now the news of young men returning from the bombed-out buildings of Europe and the island fortresses of the Pacific, ready to man the revived industry of their own cities, offered a new hope of prosperity. On the dusty roads of her dingy hometown, however, the oppressive weight of poverty still hung in the air, with no promise nor suggestion of ever relenting.

Even with the massive collection of GIs marching off transport ships and back into homes, Rogers would not be among them. A telegram arriving more than a year earlier had made that clear. Always one to rush into a roiling storm, Rogers volunteered early after Pearl Harbor and signed up for the Army Air Corps, thinking that would launch him into battle most quickly. But training and timing delayed his progress, and days passed endlessly within steaming corrugated Quonset huts, marked only by endless pushups and marches. Finally he was assigned to the 101st Airborne, but Rogers still had not participated in even a skirmish until D-Day, when he saw more action than he had ever bargained for. Gently through thick darkness and shrapnel he descended upon France as a paratrooper ahead of the Allied invasion. Floating out of the gloaming sky and into oblivion, nobody was sure that they ever saw him again afterwards. One report had him possibly advancing with the First French Armored Brigade; another said he might have been seen in action near Chartres. Regardless, nothing was settled until the U.S. Army ran out of patience with Rogers and sent word to his family that he was missing and presumed dead, and that was being charitable. She could never bring herself to accept that conclusion, though, and neither did her father and mother, but for far different reasons.

She and Rogers had known each other only a few months before they were married. For two years he had wandered the countryside as a handyman, still only a teenager, when one afternoon he came upon the little cotton farm her family worked. There were cinderblocks to haul, two in each strong hand, and in the midst of a grueling afternoon she had brought out a pitcher of lemonade. That was all the encouragement he needed, and that night found him throwing gravel at her bedroom window. Picking-time came, one thing led to another, then led to a wagon half-full of the fluffy fibers. They sunk into white softness and the black of sin, and were compelled to marry. Her folks were less enthusiastic about Rogers's enjoining than he had been, both insisting upon and at the same time hating the cleaving together of him and their daughter, and they did not try to hide their disapproval. She had not yet graduated, and was forced to drop out of school and give up her daydreams of studying at the distant junior college. The young couple had no choice but to stay in her parents' home, where evening conversation always turned to warnings and regrets. Her daughter entered into the family mix some six months later, but not before Pearl Harbor had blasted Rogers into the Army.

Now he was gone for good, as best as anyone could tell. At first he had come back home from his base to visit every now and then, arms clumsily cradling his little daughter, but always with a growing eagerness to return to "his buds." Then after deploying to England, his letters arrived increasingly fewer and further between, until at last they ended altogether. The telegram from the Army had come as a period of sorts, putting a solid but uninspired end to her waiting, but in no way settling the matter.

So at the final signing of surrender papers, celebrations rang across the victors' communities, filled their churches and taverns with rejoicing, but her tired West Tennessee town had little reason to join in. The humid air hung lifeless overhead as it always had, a shroud, like the ages of economic promises unrealized; what future the rest of the nation now foresaw, these folks steadfastly refused to believe. Do not fear sacrifice, do not fear military machines, do not fear fear itself: All rang hollow. Life under the Southern sun would continue as no more than a slog of survival, and the wartime peek into the outside world had only served to underline that fact. On the farm – with a youngster in tow, no diploma and no more military benefits in the mail – she fell back into the unflinching authority of her father.

"While you under this roof, you under my thumb," he growled. "You take on that fella like a sow in heat – now where he at? Huh? He run off an' left you here. You gonna live under my roof, you do what I say. You pull yore weight 'round here – that guy run off. Run off, left you here on my hands. You gonna pull yore weight 'round here – you gonna bring some money in!" His fingers hung crooked with wear and abuse as they stabbed the air.

"How? I never went to no school. I hadda take care of my girl." She dandled the toddler like a shield upon her knee.

"See that spinnin' wheel? My mamaw ain't drag it over here from Ireland for no reason. It still spins; you gonna set 'round all the day, then you can do yore settin' at that wheel. Get on down t'th' gin and beg off some cotton. Tell 'em you'll pay 'em off from the yarn you spin. Get as much as you can and set yore fat hams down at that spinnin' wheel! Pull yore weight 'round here."

The whirring machine threw a mist of fibers into the air thick as the anger. Dutifully she went to her work, the daughter playing at her feet, sometimes mimicking the wheel by spinning a pie tin upon a pin. Always next to an open window, occasionally a precious breeze caressed the glowing perspiration upon her face and cleared the air, and she would look out over the scrubby brush and grasses to the road leading beyond the horizon. The wheel reeled and twisted with a mind of its own and tightly bound the spindle with yarn. Shelves overhead, and tables and cabinets to every side, worn smooth with use and years, displayed timeworn pretties of some twenty years before: lamps of glazed glass, decorated with porcelain figures; brittle dolls with disheveled hair and one eye closed, brown from cigarette smoke; music boxes and crocks and a Charles Lindbergh souvenir ribbon. The repetitious clacking, the rhythmic treadle, played with her mind as she counted along, relived the events that had brought her there, and pondered others that passed somewhere out of reach.

"You sit there and behave while Mama works. Lord knows I gotta get this wool out afore Pappy gets in. He'll be a sight if'n I don't. I daren't get less'n a basket of yarn ready. I daren't, if'n I want any quiet from him tonight. Cut that out now! You sit there and behave, or I'll wear you out 'til you can't sit. I dread that road, that road leads him back here. I can see him now, in my mind I see him even now, dragging them dusty shoes along that road. Always wants his shirts pressed, but his shoes just as dirty as dirt. Always him, always him comin' down that road. Ain't never Rogers.

"Why, just look at that mockin'bird! That rascal, a jumpin' and preenin'! He's a-lookin' for a girl, that show off! Listen – how he sings. Ha! An' see 'im flutter up in the air just so the girls can see! That mockin'bird, he's more like a man than he knows. I could be a mockin'bird, I wouldn't mind it, singin' so pretty like they do. I just can't see eatin' worms, though. How could somethin' sing so pretty after eatin' up worms? It just don't seem fittin' the Lord would raise up somethin' so pretty outta worms. He brings somethin' good out of the slimy ol' dirty mud, though, He shore does.

"That bird could turn a girl's head. I – I gotta get to work. Hell to pay if I don't get a basket ready. Not my fault I have to sit here. Not my fault you sit there. Not my fault yore pappy ain't around. I'll never get past it though, Lord knows you and me, we'll never get past it. Just live with it and make do. Make do. Cotton – this cotton be the end of me. None o' this my fault, but yore gran'pappy, he don't care. All he cares 'bout is the yarn, so that's what you and me better care about. That's all there is to it. All there is."

"Ain't Gran'pappy be Pappy to me, Mama?" asked the daughter, just to be talking.

"Lord, girl, the things you ask. My pappy can't be yore pappy too. You just keep playin' there, and one day I'll teach you to spin. That mockin'bird, flutterin' around, free and happy. Who knows where he'll go next. Them girls better watch out. No tellin' where he's at now. Where you gone off to, Rogers? Where you gone to, and left me here? Pappy said you was no account. Pappy still says it's so – I guess it is so. You shore ain't 'round to argue 'bout it, are you, Rogers? What were you thinkin', floatin' down out of that sky? Did a bullet get you? Did a bullet bust open yore heart, too?" She shook her curls violently. "Pappy's comin' soon." Her face set grimly to the work. "Hate that road."

"You sit there nice for Mama, okay, until lunch, okay? Gotta get this yarn done, gotta get this yarn done for yore gran'pap. Gotta make this ol' spinnin' wheel sing for yore gran'pappy. Turn an' turn, you wheel, pay off yore debt to Pappy. Idle hands do the work of the Devil. Keep yore hands busy, little one, an' keep yore head busy too. Idle thoughts turn to evil, so you keep yore brain busy. Busy, busy bodies and thoughts. I wonder, what you thinkin', Rogers? Who knows what you thinkin' now. Who knows what men's ever thinkin'. Just to run yore life, little one, here or there, they's just thinkin' to turn the women folks' life upside-down."

She could hear floorboards creaking beneath the paper-thin woven rug, footsteps approaching in the waning hours. As he entered the room, his bowed legs hit both sides of the door facing, or nearly so. Back from another ragged sharecropper's day, her father bore down with hostile silence.

"Got yore work done?"

"Pert' near, but not plumb. I'll finish up after supper."

"You'll finish up now. I ain't puttin' you up for free here no more. That free-loadin' no-good of yore's can't stick around long enough to take care of you, it ain't my lookout no more. You pull yore weight here before you feed yore face. That bum you couldn't wait to bed down done flown the coop on ever'one, so you better get used to it. A lot you got to get used to. An' you better get back to spinnin' that yarn right now!" The dusky light caught some white stubble careless shaving had left upon his chin, and floating cotton fluff took hold.

II

The dry days and years slipped through her fingers, as the cotton fibers left her hands rough and cracked. The daughter grew up at the side of her labors, early in the mornings before school, late in the afternoons, and throughout the summers. Miles of thread flowed from the spinning wheel, never enough to make their lives any different but at least able to keep her father satisfied most days. Words arose and faded into the dusty air, but the cloud of dread hung heavy. She tried to occupy her mind upon those few happy months before the war, buoyed by notions of a new love's blooming, but in the end she knew that expectancy could never be birthed.

"Set still and watch me, you. You have all the attention of yore pappy. He's why I set here day an' night, an' you better b'lieve I'll make you work this cotton, too. You're no better'n me, an' you're not too good for this work, neither. So set still there and watch me."

"I'm tryin', Mama," and the daughter strained at twisting loose fibers that hung lightly from a comb.

"You can't do it 'cause you ain't tryin'! You clumsy – you're ruinin' ever'thing! Just like yore pappy. He never did have no 'count at anything. Now watch – twist lightly, pull the cotton gentle, so's it don't pull apart. I declare, girl, you're as light as a plow horse. Clumsy as an ox.

"Just like yore pappy – no 'count. Pap 'uz right 'bout him all along. Cotton nuttin' but trouble for me, and here's you, causin' me more trouble. You better straighten up, or next time we're in town, I'm leavin' you there."

"No Mama!" the girl's face was a sudden puzzle of fear and betrayed trust unique to children.

"You know what I mean – you know that home for war orphans. You ain't never gonna see yore pappy again, and you won't never see me neither. I'll put you in there an' be free. You better obey me right, or I'm leaving you in town. You better listen up an' set still there an' learn how to spin yarn like me. I ain't sittin' here the rest of my life for yore benefit. An' you ain't no better'n me. So set still!" She emphasized her closing words with a couple of sharp slaps to the daughter's thigh.

"Yes, Mama," she squeaked, trying hard to keep her sobs silent. You never wanted me, she thought.

"You think yore all set 'cause you countin' on love. Well, it don't work that way. You had better love me right, that's yore lookout. I'm ever'thang to you. Tell yore Mama you love her."

"I love you Mama."

Time plowed furrows deep in her forehead, just as the overused land grew scarred and sterile. The choking dryness sometimes blew up into the air like a skeleton attempting a jig, only to fall lifeless back into place. While thousands marched change throughout the Southland, life in the ramshackle home seemed more and more the same. Bright eyes turned pale and harsh. The girl learned much at her mother's side, gradually taking the lead in spinning the yarn. As the wheel buzzed around, she thought of travel and marriage and children, but never spoke a word to her mother, so dear she held her approval. Young womanhood blossomed as the old man's life became quickly frail, right before their eyes, thoughts as hard as his labor taking their unrelenting toll. His dogged bitterness fell mostly into silence, his energy and interest in belaboring his disappointments finally finding an end. The moon projected a pale blue light through the open window, casting long shadows upon the little family's routine.

"I ain't long for this world," the old man droned. "I ain't had a day of peace, even yet. Ever'thang been against me."

"You ain't ever give anyone a day of peace, yoreself," she snapped back. "You and Rogers together, you never have give me a moment's rest. You hated him, but you been workin' alongside 'im all these years to hate on me. It was me you hated, all the time, you just hated on me even before he came around."

"Oh, go on," the old man slumped deeper into his ratty chair.

"One man can't hang around, the other'n won't go 'way," she paid his words no mind, glaring sideways in his direction. "Either way, nothin' but aggravation for me. Couldn't ever do nothin' good enough for you. Not schoolin', not keepin' house, not even spinnin' after you force it on me. You ol' goat! You fool ol' goat! I done taken all I'm gonna of yore hatin'. You even hate on this one here," her words grew more heated, and her eyes flashed toward the daughter.

"But, Mama – " she began.

"Shut up! Who asked you anything? Why ain't you backin' me up, anyway?" her anger flashed as well.

The daughter submitted, casting her gaze downward.

"I'm all you got in the whole wide world, don't you forget!" she turned back to her father. "You think you can live here by yoreself? What if I was to go off and live on my own, and take this one with me? You think you'd make it here by yoreself? No, you wouldn't. Maybe I'll do that, go off an' have myself a career. I can still make my own way, I don't have to sit here spinnin' yarn no more. I could go off an' sing – lots of places in the city for singers. Lots of people would pay to hear my voice."

The old man sat without an opinion.

"Yeah, I think maybe that's what I'll do, leave you flat. Or maybe take you into that old folks home an' leave you there. You like the sound of that? Maybe that's just what I'll do. Maybe I'll just set you on the road walkin' that direction, see how far you get. That'd make room in this house for another man, some man you won't hate at first sight. Might be too late for me, but maybe this one here could find a man you can't chase off."

The daughter snapped out of her pained disregard for the diatribe, for this was the first time anyone had ever openly connected her with the possibility of marriage. So sudden and unexpected was the epiphany that she couldn't help but giggle a little, and wound her ball of yarn with new vigor. From the corner of her eye she caught her mother's harsh glance, and her expression went blank. But the thought had been planted. Certainly her mother would never have said such a thing if she couldn't bring herself to approve. The idea of a visiting suitor filled the girl with simultaneous excitement and dread, knowing what the unsuspecting young man would face within her home. Certainly only disaster could result. Such an impossible daydream it seemed even to her young heart, she set aside such concerns and dwelt only upon the wonder of it all, how it might feel to serve delicate teacakes smilingly accepted, to laugh gaily at small talk, to have a man around who didn't smell like her grandfather. The only other man she'd ever so much as stood close to was Rev. Fletcher, mightily supporting her as she fell back into baptismal waters, lifting her safely out of the clutches of death.

Not long afterwards, then, Franklin became a recurrent thought in her mind. Boldly he had sat near her at the church Swiss steak supper, boldly asking for the salt. With coy smile, she subconsciously invited him to pursue other spices, but Franklin proved to be shy on the uptake. Still, every Sunday there he was, pulling up in his two-toned Bel Air, sitting in his accustomed pew, beaming in a collar and tie knotted into medieval rigidity. A peek upwards coming in, a smile going out, and gradually she made her impression on him. The county came out and paved the old dirt road, sticky hot tar pretending to tame the fine dryness of the dusty ground, and upon this asphalt Franklin tooled into the girl's front yard – and there he stayed. Unwilling to enter the house, he pulled in conspicuously close to the Model T, inert for years, and there polished his car to a high gloss as she sat watching in the shade, until he joined her, aglow with sweat.

"What's that boy do?" the mother growled one day.

"He say he's got prospects. Since he got out of the Army, it's tough to find a job 'round here, but he got prospects."

"Army – pfssh! What's he want from you? What's he need from a girl sittin' around spinnin' yarn?"

"I don't gotta keep spinnin'. I can be somethin'."

"How you gonna do that? You got too much to do 'round here, girl. You ain't got any call to think of schoolin' or workin' or movin' off somewheres else. You got way too much work right here. Livin' here's good enough for me all these years, it's good enough for you, little bitch. You ain't better'n me – don't be gettin' big ideas 'bout takin' off an' leavin' me behind. I'm yore mama, an' you ain't got no wheres else better to go."

"Well, Franklin ain't tryin' to make me go nowhere."

"I'll tell you what he wants you for – he got a itch he lookin' to scratch. He got a lust in his pants. You watch out for that no-good, or he be fillin' you with more than ideas. While you're livin' here, what I say goes for you, an' nobody else got nothin' to say. He ain't got no other use for you, an' he don't think no more of you than that."

"He says I'm beautiful."

"Ha! Sure he tells you that. Listen here, there're some folks who're beautiful, but that don't mean nothin' 'bout you. I reckon mebbe some folks might be beautiful inside, but life'll drain that right out. The ugly is just as useful for men like yore precious Franklin. so don't you be getting' no foolish ideas."

The girl's face fell forlorn.

"What? You got somethin' to say to me? You better b'lieve you don't. Ain't never known a man who ain't been trouble to me – my pappy, I swear, I'd still like to take a maul to his gravestone. This boy ain't no different. You watch out for him, you better watch his step, or I'll kick his ass all the way down that blacktop he drives. I find one thing you up to with him, and you won't be able to sit there an' spin. Ain't nobody done more for you than yore mama, an' I ain't lettin' nobody steal you 'way. Ain't nobody you can love more than yore mama, ain't that so? Ain't that so, girl?"

"Yes, Mama."

"You'll learn one day, I'll get you to learn somehow. You get him over here for supper, where I can keep an eye on you two, an' I'll show you what he's all 'bout."

So the invitation went out, and Franklin came for a spare meal of collards, hog jowl and corn bread. The girl worried terribly what her mother might say, but she portrayed the picture of grace to Franklin's face. Somewhere under the surface she spied out the hesitation he had shown her daughter early on, the timidity that sought approval. She found him receptive to simple affinity, enough to test him with teasing then pull him back, like playing a fish on a line.

He settled into the parlor davenport and regaled them with adventures from his overseas deployment – the time he dove into a pool of mud to retrieve a lost hammer, the time the man next to him couldn't remember the word "rifle" during inspection. Franklin got to feeling downright at home that night, fully relaxed on the sofa next to the daughter, fielding barbs and then good-natured conciliation from the mother, clinging to softness in her eyes, never noticing the knowing glances she cast into nothingness. The heavy air somehow felt familiar, genial but still something less than comfortable. He stretched out to his full length and looked around the room as though he belonged there, taking note of each worn detail and thinking how drab a coffin must look from the inside. So it was much to his own bemusement to lose himself to events, to find himself fully married and moved in, lying on that couch with a newspaper, half used as a job listing and half as a blanket. Slowly he realized the trade-off he would make for the security of a consistent home and food on the plate in front of him: In this little house not much better than a chicken coop, his mother-in-law ruled the roost, under her roof and under her thumb.

"Where's that lunkhead at?"

"Who?"

"Franklin. Where's that good-fer-nothin' at tonight?"

"He went out with his friends. Shootin' pool, I think."

"Out with his buds, huh? Heard that'n before. No tellin' what kinda women roamin' the streets in town, pullin' him in by the eyeballs. He got a taste for the skirt, and you just lettin' him get away with it. Let him get away with that, and in the end you jes' plain let him get away."

This evening the daughter worked the treadle, listening to the wheel whirr through its never-ending circles, as the mother gathered the yarn into an ancient basket. "I trust him. He ain't like your Rogers."

"Don't you disrespect yore daddy. And don't you be callin' him that – he yore daddy. Don't know what all he did over in Europe, but it was the war that took him away, not some floozy in red makeup. Sure as shootin' Franklin's got his arm around some waist – no panty-waist, neither, someone with some backbone to her, not the simpering miss you turned out to be. Someone with some spunk he can't jes' walk all over."

The daughter struggled hard between being hurt and letting her mother see she was. "No, it ain't no woman Franklin's after," she whispered. "He says he's just got to get out of here sometimes."

"What fer? Don't I do ever'thing for him here? All day cook and clean, pick up after him and tip-toe all around that couch he holds down there, with him bringin' in not a cent to help out. Lunkhead sits around all day on his ambition, there with the paper, makin' sure his name ain't in the death notices."

"That's what he gotta get away from. He ain't around 'cause you drive him out."

"What's that, girl? You blamin' me? You got some nerve, dumpin' yore problems on me. I do ever'thing for you and that man, and don't get a bit of thanks. Twenty years I been at that spinnin' wheel workin' out a livin' for this household, an' now I gets the blame for yore man goin' out on you? Let me tell you somethin', little girl, you owe ever'thang to me, ever'thang you got or ever will have you owe to me. You wouldn't have Franklin if it wasn't fer me. An' if'n you don't get control of yore man, you gonna lose him, an' I ain't gonna help you ag'in. You better take hold of who he sees and where he goes, or he gonna be good an' gone."

"He wouldn't be happy with that."

"Happy?! Happy?! Who ever said there was anybody happy in the world? You think I ever spent one day happy?! When yore pappy visited from the Army, you think I was happy? He forced himself on me, stinkin' and drunk, he forced me into bed. If I said no, he beat the hell out o' me, ever' time I stood up to him, he just beat me black and blue till I couldn't stand it no more. He beat the happy out o' me, I tell you. He beat me till I tol' him don't never come back."

Her mother balled up her fists, and angry tears spilled from her eyes. The girl thought of how often she had seen her mother cry, but she'd never seen her sorrowful – only angry.

Her voice grew more shrill as she went on: "Wasn't anybody ever happy 'round yore gran'pappy, neither. Never known so much grief as whenever he was around. So don't you bring up this 'happy' bull with me, honey. You ain't never seen the amount of not happy I can make for you. You remember that, or you can get yore worthless ass out, and drag that brain-dead man of yore's outta here too, you little shit."

The daughter's countenance sank into a sleep-like stupor, and she tried not to feel the ache, tried not to hate her mother, tried not to hate Franklin. She just hoped it would go away. "I'm sorry, Mama. I don't want to leave you."

" 'I'm sorry, Mama. I'm sorry, Mama,' " she mocked. "You keep that to yurself. You got a long ways to go 'fore you can talk to me ag'in. An' when yore bonehead husband gets himself home, you better give him a earful, or else I will."

Franklin indeed came home that night, and all other nights, for his wife did rightly see in him a sense of duty, however much he needed to get away. His mild interest in the job listings became real yearning as he sought a variety of places to spend his time. Finally he found the best of both worlds as a night watchman in a brand-new department store in town, the middle-aged economic recovery promised decades before finally taking hold. The months traded stifling heat for drab chill, leaves tender with greenness for bright, brittle color – but at work Franklin could not tell anymore, as only one season existed within the area's first air-conditioned building. So he was left to himself through the night in the great maze of shelves, and allowed to sleep during the day to the hum of the spinning wheel, happily oblivious to all else. One day a tornado touched down across the road from the rickety shack, ripping to shreds an ancient barn and lifting a tractor daintily into a rich neighbor's swimming pool, as if it had drowned in a diving accident, but Franklin learned of it only after his wakeup call for dinner. The voracious wind made no impression on the defiant old house, nor could it budge the dark thunderhead always hovering over the daughter's head.

Her mood lightened noticeably when she learned she was pregnant. Now things will be different, she thought. I will want you, she said silently to her belly. But her body would not leave her joy alone, and she suffered greatly at first, unable to hold down any food, taking her discomfort and adding the worry that she was starving her baby. Often she found it necessary to retire to the toilet, emerging with just enough strength to find Franklin's old sanctuary upon the couch, prattling words tormenting her through the door and through the day. Only with difficulty could she compose her balance, just to fall into the cycle again. Her work slacked, much to her mother's chagrin, certainly too young to be a grandmother anyway. As voices raged around her from without and hormones within, she survived the days as best she could.

"You ready for supper?" the mother puttered with a large pot sitting on the stove.

"I don't want any supper."

"Sure you do. These dumplin's are yore favorite."

"Too much pepper for me. You always put in too much pepper."

"An' that's the way I'll always make it. You want it good, don't you? Just smell it – mmmm. You'll want some once you get a whiff of it."

"If I smell it, I'll get sick."

"I like hearin' that – my cookin' makes you sick."

"I don't mean it that way. I can't hold nothin' down now – you know that."

"Fine time to start complainin', after all these years I been cookin' for you," the mother persisted. "All you need is to get a little on yore stummick, then you'll be jes' fine."

"I don't want none."

"Then you'll go hungry, 'cause I shore ain't makin' nothin' else jes' for you. You go hungry long enough, an' you'll be beggin' me for a bowl."

The daughter's nausea grew into anger. "I will not. I'm not a little girl for you to smack around anymore. You can't make me want it."

"Don't you raise yore voice to me," the mother snapped back. "You may not be little anymore, but you still under my roof. I'm the boss since Pappy died. You'll do as I say long as you here, or you'll be out on that fat ass of yore's. Guess you could do with a little less eatin'," she smirked.

"Why are you always threatenin' me? Can't I even say what I like to eat? Do I need permission to be sick? Why can't you leave me be? An' where've you been?"

Roused by the voices, a sleep-logged Franklin shuffled into the room but snapped to attention at his wife's rebuke. "What?" he asked. Franklin never did know just what to say at just the right moment.

"You! Why don't you back me up? You sleep all day long and leave me to fend for myself! What about when the baby comes? You gonna sleep his life away too?"

The mother noted the shift, and took advantage. "Oh, he got nothin' to say. He don't jes' sleep in that bed, he hides there. He don't pay you no more mind than he would a rabbit in a cage."

Franklin silently craned his neck over the stove, looking for a cup of coffee. If he knew what the problem was, he thought, he'd try to fix it. But he didn't know, and experience had taught him he'd never find out.

"My back hurts so bad sitting at that spinning wheel," the daughter continued. "Can't you make more money? Workin' that wheel all day's killin' me. Can't imagine why you wanna work all night, anyway. Can't you get a real job during the day an' start makin' real money?"

"I'll tell you what he does all night – swipin' donuts an' kickin' his heels up at that big, fancy store. Prob'ly takes naps in the beddin' 'partment. Ain't a burglar in the world that'd bat an eye if'n' he said 'boo,' gun an' ever'thang."

Franklin himself could not hide an embarrassed smile at that, but his wife did not find the humor. "What you got to laugh at?" her eyes welled up – why didn't he defend himself? "You live in my gran'pappy's home, but you ain't my gran'pappy. Not by a long shot. You've got nothin' of your own here but that ol' car an' me. When're you gonna take care of me like you do that car? You don't take care of me any better'n my pappy, an' I di'n't even know him. You're as much good to me as my pappy gone missin'."

Why couldn't anyone love her, she wondered, why did her pappy disappear and leave her with not even memories? Why was she left with a bitter mother that she couldn't love enough to please, imprisoned in a childhood pocked with doubts and fears? Why was her husband so weak, unable to be father to her now, to protect her and make her happy? Soon the baby would come, and then she would have someone to love, and to love her without question, someone who wouldn't disappoint or abandon her.

And so the baby did come, a little girl born with clear blue eyes and softly curling blonde hair. Her tiny cry in the night sounded like a killdeer seeking its mate; as time passed, her delicate mind and fingers explored her hardscrabble existence. Rumors of a president felled and a moon conquered floated above and beyond the small world within the beaten shack. All things old were new again in the fascinated sight of the granddaughter, and even the blanketing dust served as a palette for her imagination. Over the years, the blank chalkboard of her mind was filled, smeared clear and filled again, time after time, her training into the family complete long before the time came for her to enter school. Franklin, still working the night hours away, saw her in the evenings and mornings, when he would help her prepare for her day.

III

She was finishing up her dressing in the living room.

"You got some nerve, puttin' her in those colors," observed the grandmother. A pair of small white socks lay on the sofa. The grandmother sat on them.

"She picked out her outfit," said Franklin. "I think she did a good job."

"Where're her socks at?" the grandmother said.

Franklin saw the looming danger. Harboring hopes of being able to sleep soon, he did what he could to avert an argument.

"The last I saw 'em, they were on that couch."

"Why don't you just say you don't know where they at?!" the grandmother scowled.

"No, I don't know where they are, but the last I saw 'em, they were on that couch," Franklin replied, keeping his voice low.

"Why're you arguin'?" the mother yelled. "Just go get some socks for her!"

Father and daughter disappeared into a back room, and the little girl emerged ready to go. Franklin did not appear again until that evening.

Back from a productive day of hesitant reading and careful printing, the granddaughter was put through her routine paces at home.

"Now, pull on the fibers, but not so hard," said the mother. "They have to stay together to twist around the spindle. There – no, not so hard! I swear, you're as fat-handed as your father!"

"Like this, Mama?"

"Just pull gentle, and keep the wheel spinnin'. As you pull, you can make the yarn as thick as you want. See? But it's got to stay the same. Ain't nobody wants thread that goes thick and thin all the time. And keep the wheel spinnin'! Won't do you no good at all if it ain't spinnin'! I swear, girl, you ain't gettin' it at all."

"I'm trying, Mama. It's hard."

"Ain't that hard. 'Specially with short stumpy arms like you got, you hardly workin' with any cotton at all. Them thick little arms, just like your pappy's. Don't know why I even wanted a child with him. Shore ain't havin' another!"

"I heard that!" the old grandmother crowed.

"That lazy tub o' goo, he's always either hidin' at work or hidin' in bed. I'd give anything to know what he's really doin' all night – ain't even got a telephone here, or I'd be checkin' up on him good an' plenty, you can bet on that. I'm sure he's up to somethin'. But at least when he's gone, he's not all over me."

"But I love Daddy," the little girl said.

"Oh, shut up. You don't know anythang about livin' with him. Keep yore feelin's to yourself. Ain't no one you love better'n yore mama anyway."

The mother went on. "No good to me at all – give me this child then disappear like a ghost. Knocks 'round this house like some kinda ghost, that's it. Might as well be gone for good. Can't let him run my life anyway, ain't never gonna let him tell me nothin'. No man gonna ruin my life like they did yours." She looked at the grandmother. "Nobody gonna ruin my life like you done – like you done let 'em."

"Ain't nobody ruint my life," she shot back. "Don't you worry 'bout me an' my life. My life jes' fine, thank you. Ain't nobody ruint my life but maybe you."

"Mama, you always goin' on and on about Rogers, and your pappy. Never stop yappin' 'bout them. They're messin' with your life even now."

"Shut up! Don't you worry 'bout none of that! You just worry 'bout that piece of deadwood you married to!"

The granddaughter cringed at the conflict. "Mama?"

"What? Di'n't I tell you to be quiet? I don't need to hear nothin' from you. Lord, you wear me down wantin' stuff. I'm worn to a frazzle with you. Can't take care of yourself, an' can't learn nothin'. You get on outta here, 'less you gonna learn this spinnin' wheel an' take it off my hands. You leave me alone with your whinin' and beggin'. You start thinkin' more 'bout how to help me. Who brought you into this world? You owe me! You better do what I tell you, 'cause you flat-out owe me that – you owe me love. Tell Mama you love her."

Dutifully the granddaughter followed after her mother, learning the spinning of thread and the ways of her world. Sometimes she would stand mesmerized at the whirring wheel, staring through the blurred spokes as the cycles turned endlessly, thinking she could see into the future darkly. Sometimes she daydreamed of Sleeping Beauty, wondering if a prick from the spindle could really send her into drowsy escape. The heat never failed to bear down through the window, like a beast ravening at its helpless prey. Years churned mercilessly, leaving behind them days of frustration and nothingness. The grandmother grew small and frail before her time. Franklin became more and more missing.

"Where's Dad?"

"Who am I to know where's he's at?" said her mother. "Doesn't tell me anythang 'bout where he's goin' or who he's with. He knows I wouldn't let him go 'round with that trash if I was to know. You ask him when he gets home, an' he'll lie 'weren't out with anybody.' You just ask an' see."

"I'm supposed to get a ride from him."

"Oh, for you he might show back up. He'd never do that for me, but for you he might. He never gave a hoot in hell for me – he always hated me. Where you think you're goin'?"

"Rev. Fletcher expects me down at the church tonight."

"Rev. Fletcher!" the grandmother broke in with a craggy wave of her hand. "You stay away from that ol' fart! He jes' tryin' to mind-control you. He jes' wanna take advantage of all you young girls!"

The granddaughter stared silently, then addressed her mother. "How'm I supposed to get to church?"

"Don't come askin' me that – I don't know, an' I don't care! Yore precious daddy got the car, the only thing he ever loved. You take care of that yurself, if you're so set on gettin' over there. I ain't had no use for that since I don't know when, an' I don't care if I never walk through that door again."

Well, Franklin did show up, just in time to give his daughter a ride and then go to work early. Days and nights, empty and contented, rolled past for him, never seeking any other position at the big store. A delicatessen was added, allowing him to eat breakfast there at the end of his shift, leaving even less time for him to endure at home. His little girl grew into a shining athlete, and he spent many happy hours watching her at practice and sporting events. It seemed a scholarship to better education might even lie in her future. She became the picture of accomplished youth, bright with spirit, and drew the attention of a young Guardsman named Paul. Called to duty across the Earth in Kuwait, he promised to marry her upon his return.

"Where you been all afternoon?"

"Shopping," the granddaughter hedged her answer. "I bought some things for school. And I've got some things to shop around for."

"Like what?" the mother eyed her suspiciously. "Don't you keep no secrets from me."

She braced herself. "I found an apartment for Paul and me when he gets back."

"Faugh! Look at you, makin' fool plans! You better just hope he does get back," said her mother.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just that – he might not come back. Men have a way of not showin' up when you expect 'em."

"You're just saying that because of granny. Just because her husband skipped out on her doesn't mean Paul's not coming back."

"You just wait to find out, that's all. You just wait an' see before you make plans."

"I don't need to wait. I know Paul's coming back to me."

"Sure he is, dear. Sure. Why you lookin' for a 'partment? This place not good enough for you? What you gonna use for furniture in a 'partment? You ain't got nothin'."

"Dad says we can have the old table and chairs in the shed."

"Huh! Whut yore pappy says! I got somethin' to say about it!"

"He gave it to me! And I found a beat-up dresser for real cheap. Paul can fix it up – he's good at that."

"Imagine he'll have plenty of time on his hands – nothin' to do after he gets back from fightin' Eye-rack."

"Oh, not that much," the daughter beamed. "He's got a job lined up in the new auto plant, good hours at good pay. Soon we'll be able to afford newer things. And I'll get a job after I graduate."

"Graduate! Don't you throw that in my face! You no better'n me. You skinny runt, you sure put a heap of stock in this little peckerwood. You know he ain't ever give you near as much as me. You jes' don't be so surprised when he leaves you flat."

Tears bristled in her fierce eyes. "Stop saying that! Paul will not leave me, he's going to come back to me! I know grandpa was lost in the war, I'm sorry he didn't come back for granny, but that doesn't matter a hill of beans to me. I'm not granny! And what have you given me? All my life I've heard the same complaining and bitterness over and over, and now you're turning it on Paul! He's going to come back! Of all the things that lay ahead, this one thing I'm sure of, that Paul's coming back for me. Never in my life have I found a place to rest, a place where I don't have to worry that one wrong word might be said, or one wrong thing done, that might make some hailstorm come down on my head – a place where I can just be at peace. I'm ready to have my own home."

Shaken, the mother pretended nothing had transpired over the past few moments.

"Of course you do. How 'bout something from your granny for your home? That'd sure please her, if she was around to know, if you had somethin' of hers for your new place. I know – how 'bout takin' this ol' wheel?"

"I don't want any part of her damn spinning wheel!" said Jackie.

Annelies

Laughing dances,

Little scamp, clattering upon steep stairs,

Only in the still of night.

Girlish mischief heads into harder times.

Concealing walls warm greatness,

Cramped rooms hatch grand testimony.

Huddled under the chestnut tree,

Under the spreading heavens,

Seen only as the window lifts its eye –

Pieta in hiding.

Cheeky teen bullied into stark endurance,

Cling no longer and claim your victory.

Stand against the guilty

Who didn't believe in your life,

Who don't believe your death.

Cruelty gives you voice, Annelies Marie –

Their sword

The unwitting ally to your pen –

Your dream realized beyond even your imagination.

The wicked are snared in the work

Of their own hands.

Higgaion.

In your tragic weakness

God shows Himself strong,

And your life is not passed in vanity.

Jericho Jones

The only name he still knew was Jericho Jones. As if his very existence had vaporized into the ether, his identity bent to just what his listeners willed. He no longer mattered in anything but what they heard, and what he could hear – that gathered by his ears and that hidden within his head. He wove a tapestry of sound, trailing through melodies and rhythms nobody else dreamed of, but they bled out of his veins without a thought. Sometimes accompanied by pounding feet, and other times just uncomprehending stares, his music flowed through the stratosphere and into worlds unknown. He could not keep a job, he could not afford a roof over his head, he could not read nor write nor count his change. But, man, could he play that trumpet, could he wail. The way he could blow, they said, he could bring down the walls of Jericho.

Every street corner served as his stage, every lamp overhead his spotlight. He leaned back upon the mojo, his breath steaming from the trumpet's bell, moisture dripping from the spit valve. A fellow drumming on the bottom of a bucket might join in, or another with a pair of spoons. Bouncing off his brick backdrop, his songs reached into every corner before rising to every star. The gullet of his battered porkpie might beg for spare coins, but the music existed for its own sake, and Jericho Jones existed for the music.

Thin as a pencil, he meandered through a maze of streets, pulsing with the rhythm of the city, his horn hung over his shoulder by a rope. His mouthpiece, lovingly wrapped in a white handkerchief – the only truly clean piece of cloth on him – nestled carefully in his left pants pocket. Sidewalks and gutters, gravel roads and grassy shoulders, he walked them all, casting the seeds of his art upon whatever soil he found. Did he eat? Perhaps he might pick an apple from a tree, or find a sandwich tossed into the upturned hat, but the question seldom even arose. The thrills of his instrument fed his heart, and sometimes he had to smile so big he could not play for a moment.

He was the Pied Piper of joy, leading it around by enchantment. The gift was offered to all within earshot, listening the only price asked. He was master of his talent, passing along his work at no cost, thereby loosing the bonds of owners, sellers and critics. For those with no money, there was no fee; for those with no interest, there was no refund. The music took on life, like the air it rode upon, free to alight upon the sensibilities of any who rose to it. Like a caress upon a sleeping child, its touch might never be acknowledged, but was known of itself.

There came a day when a couple men of obvious means hung at the edge of the crowd, sort of hiding around the corner of a building, as Jericho Jones tore it up. Head to toe in sharp, three-piece suits, spats and hats, pins and baubles, the two nodded and laughed to the trumpet's siren song. A new inspiration filled his lungs, and his tones pealed through the urban landscape. Under a midday sun, the gleaming instrument could shine no brighter than its own notes, hanging like stars in the sky. They danced a respectably slight jig to the jitter-bugging jazz, whooped in appreciative praise, with "yes!" and "uh-huh!" and "play it!" The meager audience dissipated, a couple of small silver discs fell into the porkpie, and the two lingered.

"Son, you've got no business playing on this street corner," one said. A gold watch chain drooped across his ample stomach.

"I've got no place else," he replied. "One corner's as good as another for me to stand on."

"Let us help you. We can set you up in clubs, in theaters," said the other. "You've got no business playing that music for free."

"Can anything make the music better?" asked Jericho Jones. He bit the coins and made out like they had a bitter taste.

"Maybe, maybe not. Won't be able to tell until we put a price on it."

The gigs began small, in church basements and restaurant patios. Soon those venues became cramped, as his audience – the wide world – tried to fit within brick walls. Then he graduated to music halls and nightspots, and the fans poured in. With prosperity came a change of clothes, and a velvet bag to carry his trumpet. Its golden voice continued to cry out his muse, the inner workings of his heart and soul, as he poured a libation of emotion and empathy upon his willing proselytes. The gospel of music flowed over the land, even three hundred tables alert to its call, worshipping at its altar, prepared to rise in answer as it beckoned the people to its screaming refrains.

Rafters shook off dust, glittering a shower of magic upon eager audiences. Walls seemed to tremble with every stomping beat as the tempo had its way. Metallic echoes of gleeful celebration rang within the halls – joined by lights spinning and flashing quick glimpses of glad faces – a carnival of unhindered bliss. He bent to the notes, his body dancing interpretation to the pain and rapture of each new strain. Fingertips coaxed colors through the valves never before heard, the slide finessing an arc of passion, and within his closed eyes he could see the tones and phrases painting a canvas of melody. A covering of grace flowed from the instrument and over every spirit within the tabernacle.

The moon, round and silver, sent jealous beams from the early morning darkness as the three men walked away along the deserted street. They fairly glowed from the evening's bash, stepping to the beat as it rang within their memories.

"Man, were you hot tonight!" said one.

"You sure can play that trumpet. Enough to bring down the walls of Jericho."

They did not notice the half-dozen or so men appear from an alley's deep shadows. Burly and ragged, they carried bats and ropes, hitching their jeans as they hurried to catch up.

"You fellas been doing pretty well, haven't you? You're looking mighty fancy," one ruffian said behind them.

They turned, three men in all their finery, and the dim lamplight revealed the teeming menace.

"You fellas seem to have forgotten your place."

"What are you talking about?" said the man with the watch chain.

"You fellas think you're coming up in the world," he patted his bat against an open hand. "Thought you might need a reminder of where you belong."

"We're on our way home now," the man said in overdone innocence.

"Not yet you're not," he said, and the bat sent a fine fedora flying through the air with a sickening crack. Down went the man, his blood seeping onto the pavement, but nobody could see in the blackness. Scuffling blows and kicking resistance made mockery of beautiful suits and shoes, and hatred overcame hope. An incoherent mix of muffled groans followed, and hefty cords gracefully arched over the high arm of the streetlight. Ugly nooses hung limply until fitted over swollen and bloodied heads, and two ropes drew taut under the weight of helpless bodies.

A bat fell sharply upon his shoulder, knocking the trumpet bag loose. As he stumbled upon his knees, he felt his fist tighten around the mouthpiece in his pocket. No, he thought, nothing from you but beauty.

"You really think you can live white, nigger-boy?" a man leaned into him to jeer.

Terror ripped his heart, and his brain swirled like cigarette smoke. He raised his face to the light, prepared to witness death.

"Hey! Hey, man, wait," one attacker lifted a hand and checked his mates. "You – you're Jericho Jones, aren't you?"

"Jericho Jones!" arose a murmur.

"Yeah," he spat out a little blood.

"Oh, man, you're great! I saw you years ago, playing on a street corner! And that's your axe, right there!"

"Jericho Jones!" a whisper floated over the scene.

He fell to the sidewalk, propped upon one arm, reconciled to fate.

"This here is the greatest musical genius of our time! Man, you should hear him jam!"

I'm done for, he thought, and hung his head. Lord! So take your trophy.

"Man – we met Jericho Jones! I'll never forget this day! He's the best of all time!"

The band of men had turned suddenly jovial – an inexplicable mix of magnificence and atrocity – and walked off into the darkness. "What a night! Jericho Jones! Man, can he play!"

He sat in stunned silence upon the curb, his legs straight out, his friends dangling above him in awful silhouette.

The voice turned somber. The beat slowed, and tones sank and mellowed into thoughtfulness. A mournful wail lifted itself from the trumpet's bell and called out to the heavens. No more clubs, no more halls. Back on the streets, back on the road, only open skies and solitude would suffice. He hunkered down in dark corners, destitute parts of town left to wilderness, and played out his anguish. Pushing the frustrated notes from his heart and out through the instrument, he sifted his mourning with charity and resolve.

His voice would not allow hatred. Determination, yes, and perseverance, even anger, but the bitter wickedness of hatred had no home there. The phrases drooped under their new burden, lines repeated two and three times, because there was nothing more to say. Smooth and velvety, a darker timbre flavored his accusation. A slow vibrato shook his cry, and his knees supported the horn as sobbing tones fell muted by the sidewalks. Still he played, refusing the silence that might also mean safety.

Over bridges and through woods he trudged, seeking something that he didn't know, but what he thought might bring peace. The travels returned his clothing to the rags he remembered so well, and wore his shoes down to paper-thin shreds. These things mattered little, as he searched the sun and sky for new reasons to hope, dappled light cutting through the waving shade of leaves overhead. Invisible song fell like rain, birds well-hidden within the branches, not caring what had passed and what might come. They left no trace of existence except their song, and he could hear it and know them to be birds, though he could not see they were birds. "I am a man," he called in return, "though they don't see me." He raised his trumpet again, from the back end of a caboose tearing around a curve, and a brilliant blast of defiant joy echoed off purple mountains.

His art could not be stilled, nor either his humanity. Stirred again within, the grace of his muse returned, the supernatural inspiration that makes more of one than what he is returned, as he weighed the vain valuations of the world. Brassy melodies again flowed from him like a rushing stream, bumping smoothly over unexpected nuances, forever bubbling along with glad anticipation. The music spoke with new authority, with new purpose toward not just accommodation but enlightenment as well, a new light to shine upon a forlorn land. And on one day he found his audience again, the audience that would truly listen, and he lifted his voice before an immense crowd gathered around still waters, gathered to hear Jericho Jones preach.

Stones, cold stones laid one upon another make a wall, as do hearts of stone. And he played before the giant stone image of a white man, on an early April Sunday morning, he played before the temple, and his song rang out over the people.

Theo and the Aliens

The clemency of autumn has arrived, that blessed time and climate we used to call Indian Summer. After a full five months of the best heat Memphis could produce, we would luxuriate in the cool breezes, and the supple caress of leaves giving up life to reveal their true colors. Even the reconvention of school could not kill our inherent relief; summer vacation could hardly be enjoyed under furies reaching triple-digits, under oppressive humidity and even overnight lows in the 80s. In the waning days of our childhood – somewhere within the cusp of Vietnam and Watergate, when the radio ruled our lives, and rock and roll ruled the radio – stores still displayed snow-packed placards in their windows declaring "COOL INSIDE". The school I shared with Theo and Simmy bore no such sign. Box fans sat scattered upon classroom floors, spinning their futile drudgery in no more than stirring the super-heated air, and long lines of pupils waited anxiously for a taste of wet relief at the water fountains. So with glad assent we welcomed Indian Summer, the appointed time to rake leaves into giant piles, gloriously cool pallets, soft landing pads as we launched ourselves recklessly out of the swing set; to comfortably scrimmage in flannel shirts and jackets; to test the crisp night air with breath blown out like cigarette smoke. Even now I can conjure up those same feelings of home and belonging, now when dry, temperate winds blow through Southern treetops. It was the time that I became a true believer.

Theo Doocy was somewhat older than us, though we were never sure exactly how much. He was two grades ahead of us in school, but rumors floated that he'd been held back at some point. Regardless, he gravitated toward younger kids, and we made him something of a king within his circle. He gave us a cachet among our peers, and provided handy protection against the occasional bully. Awkward in bearing, a product of his age, he comprised a strange muscularity mixed with glasses-bound intellect – he had a practical fascination in many matters, how things worked, what people and things could do for him. Theo had grown a little too big for his spider bike, but he used it unashamedly to drag around a beat-up push mower, acquiring a fortune eight dollars at a time. He bragged that he would buy a car as soon as he reached his sixteenth birthday, and we couldn't wait.

I say "we," and by that I mean myself and Simeon Bishop. We'd known each other for longer than either of us could remember, and spent every spare moment together. There was no event nor experience that did not escalate through the presence of Simmy. He was kind of a roly-poly kid, not fat but stout, and as such often brought up the rear, but in another way he was always in the lead, and often played the defining role in our adventures. Though he often suffered insult – as does every child – his round face was always punctuated by a snaggled grin, and his laugh was a high-pitched machine gun of mirth. One night when we were out roaming, I rode my bike smack into a mesh fence that I couldn't see in the dark: I clung desperately to my handle bars, and must have appeared to be suspended in air for one lingering moment before falling into a heap upon the pavement. Simmy had the good graces to check that I was okay first, then lay down on the ground and laughed for a full five minutes. Non-stop. I was afraid he would suffocate. His sense of wonder and joy infected each new idea that crossed his mind, and offset my own tendency to consider every possible pitfall. It was just that way with the pursuit that ultimately shaped each of our lives.

The new school year had begun, and we gleefully found ourselves in the same fourth-grade class. The smell of paste, pencils and peanut butter hung thick in the air. After the prerequisite days of organization, of teachers and students testing each other's mettle, our class made the first of its biweekly trips to the library. The stacks were organized in age-appropriate sections, and this was to be a moment of epiphany: our first foray into the area reserved for the upper grades, books that could hold even a sixth grader's interest. Musty hard covers perhaps two decades old spread before us like a smorgasbord, too many to intelligently choose from. I poked around timidly, finally picking out a boyish adventure tale that seemed not too challenging, and a classic title I recognized from once reading a biography about some president's childhood. After getting the date duly stamped in the books, I retreated to a table and read the last pages of both stories. While wondering how each narrative got to its finish, my attention was arrested by Simeon coming up beside me, bursting with an excited whisper.

"Lookit! Lookit this book I found! Is this cool or what?" He brandished a thin volume before me, its title faded upon the worn fabric of the cover. Still, I could make out the block print – Stonehenge and Other Alien Outposts.

"Shhh!" hushed the librarian.

"Alien outposts? What's that mean?"

"They're saying Stonehenge was made by aliens! You know, that big bunch of rocks in England all piled up on each other? Lookit, they got chapters on Easter Island, the pyramids, all sorts of places. There's places right here in America."

"Far out! Where in America?"

"Well, South America," Simeon had to back off his enthusiasm a little. "They built pyramids in South America, too. What a great book! Can you imagine? Aliens came to Earth and left all these weird things, and we didn't even know it, until right now! Decent!" Simeon admired the fine binding and typography of his great treasure.

I glowered at my two works of fiction. "Why can't I ever find a book like that?"

"Everyone line up! Time to return to class!" the teacher, Mrs. Dalrymple, intoned.

Through the rest of the day I could see Simeon in the corner of my eye, rushing through his assignments and at every opportunity sneaking a peek at his book. He even tried the old trick of hiding the book within his science text, until Mrs. Dalrymple asked him to read page twelve aloud. He pretended to have a question while he tried to find his place. Simeon always was able to think on his feet, though he seldom could make his feet follow through. Finally the three o'clock bell brought the day to an end, and we piled out of the classroom, zealously swinging backpacks and lunch boxes.

Simeon kept his head tucked into the open book as he walked alongside me. He exulted under his breath, mostly to himself, as we crept along: "Easter Island! There's these giant statues there that weigh 80 tons! Nobody ever knew who put 'em there, until now! Aliens!"

"What's spaz muttering about?" said a voice. It was Theo.

"Dude! Check this out!" Simeon offered up the book.

"Where'd you get this?"

"The library, doofus. Can't you see the sticker?"

"Big deal. I've seen library books before," Theo turned it over and back again, and gave the cover a cursory look.

"You've just never read one," Simeon reached for it. "It's the coolest book I've ever seen."

Theo held it over his head just clear of Simeon's hand. "UFO stuff, huh? You know, pretty much anything can be a UFO."

Simeon snapped his fingers for the book. "Hand it over, uncle."

"Say uncle." Only then did Theo realize he'd been pre-empted, so he returned the book and went on, "Any bird you see flying, if you don't know it's a bird, it's a UFO. Big deal."

"It's not just about that kind of thing," I offered.

"Yeah, this is real evidence," Simeon earnestly waggled the book in Theo's direction. "Listen to this:" and he flipped through a few pages, " 'Mexican alienologists have located 3,000-year-old landing pads in Mayan ruins.' There, what do you think of that?"

"Whatever blows up your skirt," Theo replied. "Let's get out of here, it depresses me."

Simeon continued to read within his own world, somehow successfully negotiating the curbs as we crossed each street, and Theo explained the intricacies of algebra after just a few days' study. I walked along contemplating what Simeon had said, and wondered at the ancient monuments. It's fine to say aliens did all these things centuries ago, I thought, but what have they done lately? If they're so industrious, shouldn't there be some recent activity to see? Theo's voice buzzed like a fly in my ear, and my interest turned to tuning him out, until late that evening, when Simeon beeped me on our walkie-talkies.

"Sivad to Happy Hal," he crackled. "Come in, Happy Hal. Over."

"This is Happy Hal. Reading you, Sivad. Over," I replied.

"The Incas had giant drawings. Over."

"Great. Now what? Over."

"They can be seen only from the sky, but they were made thousands of years ago. Over."

"So what? Over."

"Aliens!"

"Good night, John Boy. Over."

The next morning was no different, such were the depths of Simeon's enthusiasm. "Hey, there was a close encounter of the third kind in Roswell, New Mexico!" he yelled at me, with nothing close to a "hello," as I stepped out the kitchen door.

"A what?"

"An alien spacecraft crashed!"

"Bummer, man. When was that? A million years ago?"

"No, man, 1947! The army shot it down and is still covering it up! They took all the stuff to a place called Area 51."

"Really?" Perhaps this was just the confirmation I'd wanted yesterday.

"Of course! They couldn't put it in a book if it wasn't true!"

"Guess not."

"Look, you and Theo meet me after school at The Ambush. I've got a great idea, but I have to get some things together first."

The Ambush was a wooded lot in our neighborhood that for some reason had never been built upon. Trees stretched back for a mile, it seemed, heavy timbers of oak and hickory and ash. The lot was elevated six or eight feet before the front fell off steeply to the street. As little kids we took our Tonka trucks there to work the eroded clay of the incline, and then in our youth we'd disappear into the woods to hang out and poke through the scattered garbage. We used the place as a depository for our empty Coke bottles, and teen-agers did the same with the beer they could hustle. In the imaginations of our rag-tag community of boys, it was a great place for an ambush. It was like heaven on Earth.

I caught a ride to The Ambush with Theo, delicately balancing on his bike's banana seat as he stood to pedal. It offered a view of his rear end I'd never really wanted. We tramped around waiting on Simeon, picking through the discarded treasure.

"Man, look at all these bottles!" Theo gushed. "This weekend I'm coming out here to collect all these for the deposit. They're worth ten cents apiece!"

"For sure," I agreed.

At length Simeon appeared, carrying his library book, a notebook, a folded newspaper and a giant drink from the Stop-N-Go. "Come on," he instructed us, "We've got to go deeper into the trees. This is highly secret."

We trailed after him through the bracken, Theo demanding to know what this was all about, and Simeon grousing that he'd find out soon enough, clumsily sipping at his straw. The undergrowth grew ever thicker as we pushed farther from the street. Finally Simeon wheeled around and said, "Welcome to Area 51."

"Oh, please," said Theo. "This is The Ambush."

"Everyone else may think that," Simeon spoke in clandestine tones. "Only we know it's actually Area 51!"

"Zoinks!" I said for comic effect. This type of thing really made Simeon tick, and I became giddy just being part of his peculiar exploits.

"Exactly!" Simeon replied. "Look, I've been studying this book. I knew there was something to this, only I couldn't put my finger on it. Then, I remembered!"

"We all know about the book, man," Theo said. "It's got you completely psyched out."

"Look, we know aliens have landed in this country. It was only about 25 years ago, so it's not like they were wiped out in some galactic nuclear war. They've got to still be around."

"Sure, why not?"

"Well, I thought I remembered something I'd seen, and I couldn't figure out what it was, until this morning when I woke up."

"Did you have dragon mouth?" Theo yawned.

"Ask your sister. I remembered a headline in a newspaper at the Stop-N-Go, so I went down there after school. It was a few weeks ago that I saw it, but they let me look in the paper-drive bin for old copies."

"Out by the garbage cans? I thought I smelled something," Theo sneered.

"Yeah, well, check your gym bag," Simeon said. "I finally found a bundle of the papers – and here it is!"

Simeon dramatically held up a copy of Weekly World Weird, one of those scandal tabloids on display at the check-out counter. The big, bold headline screamed "Queen pregnant with Elvis' child," but at the top was a smaller headline saying, "Crop circles found in Lexington, Alabama."

"This is it, boys," Simeon announced. "Not only do they exist, they're among us, and only one state away, more or less."

"What are crop circles?" I asked.

"It's a pattern made in a field of wheat or something by a spaceship landing. Look, here's a picture inside."

Simeon fumbled with the paper looking for the right page, giving Theo a chance to offer ridicule. "Come on, that was probably just pigs rolling around in the field. Or wind just blew the stalks down."

"Oh, yeah?" Simeon retorted. "Look at that! Are pigs going to make a pattern like that?"

It was a beautiful thing to behold, a piece of art on a pristine palette of grain. Several small disk shapes surrounded a large circle, the middles flattened perfectly, all of which were connected by other small circles with the center stalks still intact. We gawked at the photo as though we contemplated the Mona Lisa.

"Probably trick photography," Theo finally croaked.

"If it was a spaceship, wouldn't the rockets burn the crops?" I asked.

"They don't use fuel!" Simeon said, as if I'd suggested the sun was blue. "It's all electro-magnetic power! There's no fuel burnt at all!"

"Oh," I said.

"So here's the thing. I propose we form a club to hunt out the aliens and discover them once and for all. We three together, finding evidence and making contact with them. We should call ourselves the Society for Investigating Men from Mars and Yonder. It'll be bitchin'."

"That spells SIMMY," I noted.

"Does it?" his front teeth stuck out from his grinning face, all cheeks and freckles. "Even more great. We'll meet here at Area 51 and plan our investigations, and share our information. But nobody else can know until we have proof. Are you guys in?"

"I'm in," Theo said quickly, more enthusiastic than I'd have expected. "But we need to do it right. Give me your notebook, I'll make a list." Simeon handed the notebook over, and stuck his head back in the magazine while Theo found a clean sheet of paper and licked a pencil.

"Okay, we're all going to need flashlights, and we need to carry our walkie-talkies." He scribbled industriously as he spoke. "We each will have to carry extra batteries for both, just in case. Have you two got compasses? 'Cause we'll need one to plot bearings, in case any of us gets lost. Get yourselves notebooks to keep records, a journal or something that you won't use for anything else. And gather up a bunch of pens, some that won't run out of ink all the time. Anyone think of anything else?"

"How 'bout some cord and a jackknife? Could come in handy." Simeon didn't look up.

"I'll have to borrow a knife from one of you guys," I said. "My mom won't let me have one."

"Mama wouldn't want you to get hurt, Pansy," Theo was still writing.

"Your mama."

"Got your lists?" Simeon finally reappeared from his reading material. "Lets get this stuff together – looks like we'll each need a duffel bag or something. Let's meet out here again tomorrow, and decide what's our first step."

So began meetings of the Alien Club, the name we used because it took so long to say Society for Investigating Men from Mars and Yonder. We cleared out a little area deep inside Area 51, and set some large cut logs around a broad tree stump – maybe five feet wide – to serve as a council table, or dais. Simeon waxed eloquent about whatever new thing he'd learned, and Theo and I might make a statement too. Of course, Simeon eventually had to return the library book, but he had memorized it by then and never shied from reciting from it. There we made all our plans for listening in on interstellar radio broadcasts, and for flashing light signals into space from dark hilltops. We didn't have much luck making contact at first, so we spent most of our time simply paying tribute to the wonder of our alien friends.

"The mosquitoes here are brutal!" Theo growled.

"That's a drag. Add this to our equipment – bug repellant," Simeon said officiously.

"I think mosquitoes might be aliens," I offered. "Just look at them! They look like they're straight out of a horror movie."

"Good point," Simeon said. "Scratch the bug repellant."

"I'll scratch, all right," Theo said, and wrote it on his list anyway. "This is fast becoming not worth it."

"How can you say that?" Simeon sounded sincerely puzzled. "Extraterrestrials have left all kinds of signs they exist. If we find one, we'll be famous."

"There's nothing on Earth that can't be explained," Theo grumped.

"Look at this," Simeon pulled out his journal. "I copied this out of the World Book. It's an old hieroglyph for the star Sirius – a stick figure, like a man with a weird head! How come the Egyptians did that? Aliens came from Sirius, and sort of wrote themselves into our world! Shoot, they could have even planted us here."

"Like in a garden?" I laughed. "Now you sound like Rev. Fletcher. Wonder what he'd have to say."

"Aw, who's gonna believe all that Bible stuff?" Theo said.

"Could be, just like a garden," Simeon insisted. "Aztecs did human sacrifice to try to get the Siriusians to come back. It was probably the beginning of all religions. Maybe they all come from the first close encounter, when they put us here."

I shuddered. "I don't know. If all that's so, then where did the aliens start from?"

For once Simeon didn't have a quick answer. "That's why we have to find them. So we can ask."

We kept careful logs of our "progress," and the air turned chill. Nature drew her dark shade earlier and earlier each evening, and late Alien Club meetings took a toll on our extra flashlight batteries. Simeon never gave up hope, always devising some new way to bring down beings from the heavens. He even brought his crystal set out to one meeting, but nothing happened. His hope for meeting some other, mysterious incarnation of life filled his days, his imagination and words. He had me pretty nearly convinced. For Halloween I joined him in alien garb, sticking our heads into grotesque papier maché globes with slanting black eyes like ripe avocadoes. Though too sophisticated for dressing up, Theo was not too proud to join us begging for candy, so he just wore a jacket. He told one lady at the door he was going as a teen-ager.

"Now that's really scary," she said.

The crisp temperatures had turned Area 51 into a kaleidoscope of flittering crimson and golds, sweetgum and dogwoods undergirding the tall ashes and maples. The summer had been dry, and leaves already fallen crunched beneath our feet. Sunlight dappled through the foliage as long as the day, before dipping below the horizon. We breathed in the sharp and dusty air, filling our senses with a pungent irritation, as the season prepared to turn toward winter's sleep. Above the canopy, clear skies offered stark contrast for a smear of stars, brilliant in the absence of street lights. If something or someone did hover over us, its view would be perfect in scope, clarity and perspicacity, set to judge either wisdom or folly. Such a night spawned the series of events that sank the Alien Club for good and slung each of our lives into an unforgiving and relentless future.

"Extraterrestrials love it when the Earth is tilted even with the sun!" Simeon's face reminded me of the full moon that night.

"You know, technically, the sun is an extraterrestrial," Theo mocked. "Everything that's not on Earth is an extraterrestrial."

"I'm cold," I said.

"Yeah, and it's awfully dark in these woods. All the flashlights are dim as they can be," added Theo.

"I couldn't afford any more batteries," I said, feeling responsible.

"Me neither. I'm saving my money," Theo said.

"Well, anyone have some matches?" Simeon asked.

"Yeah," Theo dug into his pocket and pulled out a box of waterproof matches. "It's on my list."

"Let's gather up some deadwood and build a fire on the stump. It should be all right."

"Cool!" said Theo, and we used up the flashlights collecting a grand pile of fallen branches and discarded paper. After a couple of false starts, Theo had the fire going, and we stood in silent ceremony, basking as it danced warmly to the rhythm of pops and snaps. Like simple primitives, each of us soaked in the blaze's mystical charms, comprehending that we were closer to the ancients than we had ever known. The flames reached higher, hot fingers eager to grasp yet more sacrificial wood, until the ends of low branches began to glow red. Suddenly each of us realized that we'd badly overdone the pile of wood, that the roaring fire had grown out of control, a voracious beast that had begun to swallow up the trees.

"Spread out the fire!" Theo yelled. "Break down the fire!" He ran aimlessly looking for a limb to use as a tool, but they were all in the holocaust.

"It's too late!" Simeon took off his jacket and used it to brush dirt onto the inferno, "It's too hot!" I joined in his efforts, but the fire's elevation upon the stump protected it. The burning branches of the low trees transferred the blaze to the taller ones, and a mighty tower of flame climbed higher. At last we could do no more than stand there convicted, watching the sparks fly upward into the growing devastation.

A bellowing blast from the street and revolving red lights snapped back our attention, and we looked upon each other's shocked faces, our absurdity lit bright. "Fire department's here! Someone called the fire department!"

"Come on, guys, let's beat it!" Simeon screamed, eyes wide but controlled.

"Out the back!" Theo yelled. We snatched up our bags and lit out toward the back, running clumsily through the underbrush. Breaking out into someone's backyard, Theo barked out, "Marty, you go that way! You take off the other way, Simmy. Meet up tomorrow!" And so we took off in three directions, all careful to avoid the trails of gawkers heading toward the show. I ran like a man with hounds at his heels, and was careful to avoid my folks as I climbed through a downstairs window and crept into my bedroom. I paced the room for a while, gasping for breath, wondering what had happened to Simeon and Theo – and whether I'd burned down the neighborhood – before crawling into bed. My heart kept me from sleep, racing like it never had before, and I still lay awake when my mother peeked in to check on me. She stood in the doorway an unusually long time, and I could hear her breathing sharply, before finally turning away and closing the door on the night.

I felt terrible in the morning, but I managed to breeze through the kitchen without noticeably stopping. "Sorry, Mom, got to meet Simmy," I chopped my words as I grabbed a banana and sprinted out, and she let me get away with it, saying only, "Don't slam the door." Later she would learn when to ask questions, but up to that point I'd never given her reason, up until that very day. I jumped on my bicycle and left the driveway behind.

Sure enough, Simeon was out early too, walking toward my house. "Let's go back and get your bike," I said, and I kind of walked my bike while straddling it as we went along toward Simeon's house. "Any trouble last night?" I asked.

"You mean after burning down The Ambush?" he said.

"Yeah."

"My old man 'bout had a heart attack, but that was because I hadn't done my homework. ''Liz'beth, I'm comin' to join ya', honey!'" He clutched his heart and staggered about in mockery. "Good grief. So I did my homework."

"Heavy. I went straight to bed. My mom didn't say anything this morning."

"I guess we're good," Simeon sighed.

By that time we'd picked up Simeon's bicycle, and we made a quick trip by the remains of Area 51 to confirm the damage. From the front it looked like a flood had occurred, the bare earth a rich red. Not far into the woods, though, the greenery gave way to charred remains of old growth, standing like totems in a ravaged Indian village. "Dang." The three great logs still lay around the stump, now a blackened basin, obviously the center point of the fire. "Well, in the end, it's just an empty lot," Simeon said, and I stared in a trance, until he nudged me that we had to take off for school.

"Maybe they'll think drunks set the fire," he suggested.

"Maybe."

We spent a nervous day in class, not daring to talk unless we had to, and beat a hasty retreat afterwards. Theo caught up with us on his bicycle.

"What's up?" he asked.

"What do you think is up, Sherlock?" Simeon snapped back. "We went out to The Ambush this morning. The place is fried to a crisp."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

"Your folks give you any grief last night?"

"My mom about had a cow. I had to tell her what happened."

"You what?"

"I told her. She smelled smoke on me, and thought I had taken up cigarettes again. What was I supposed to do?"

"Did you mention us?" I dreaded the answer.

"Had to."

"You rat fink!" Simeon yelled.

"She had the belt out, man. I'm not taking the belt for anyone, especially if I'm not even getting to smoke. And she said she wouldn't let me buy my car. The forest fire actually calmed her down."

"Is she gonna call the police?" I asked, seriously worried.

"I don't know – I don't think so. She didn't seem to care about a bunch of trees."

"Oh, who cares about that?" Simeon gritted his teeth. "She's gonna call our moms, you can just bet! Did you tell her about Alien Club?"

"Yeah, I sure did," Theo turned snide. "She had some things to say about that, too. Pretty stupid, when you get down to it."

"I swear to Buddha! Can't you keep your mouth shut about anything?" Simeon's voice trembled with indignation. "Alien Club is top secret!"

Theo seemed to take on an air of superiority. "Yeah, I told her all about your little club, and that the fire was your idea. She said I know better, and I should be making the decisions for you guys, 'cause I'm the oldest."

"I can't believe it, I can't believe you told! You totally sold out!" Simeon was ranting without really listening.

"Look, I'm doing you a favor," Theo turned hot. "Snap you out of your little fantasy land. If you're ever going to get anywhere in the world, you'd better have both feet planted in the world – this world! My mom said from now on you do what I say," Theo continued. "I'm old enough to know better, and she says you two have to do what I want from now on."

"Everyone knows now, and we don't even have proof yet!" Simeon said, mostly to himself.

What were we supposed to do? It was Theo's mother. The authorities had taken charge of Alien Club, and we were a couple of little kids.

"You shouldn't a told," I said.

"Well, it'll be better this way, anyhow, runt," Theo said. "Nobody believes all that alien garbage anyway. Nobody in his right mind."

"Maybe not, maybe you don't. But it was fun, anyway, and it was just for us."

"Well, that doesn't mean a thing. What you can't put your hands on doesn't do you a bit of good. If you don't grab hold of what the world has, you're wasting your life, you might as well be dead. So I say we knock it off. I say we get out of here and grab a Coke. I'm going to the Stop-N-Go. Who's with me?"

"Everything's ruined," Simeon said, not listening. He looked like he might cry.

"Oh, all right," I told Theo for both of us. "Let's go while we can. We'll probably be grounded by tomorrow."

"Follow me," Theo ordered.

"Come on, Simmy, let's get something to eat. It'll be okay, you'll see."

"Everything we know, everybody else will take it," Simeon mumbled, disconsolate. "They'll steal what's ours, change it around and make us take it back on their terms, like it wasn't ours in the first place. They'll sell it back to us at their price."

Theo had sped off, and I applied my pedals energetically to keep up. Simeon followed behind, utterly subdued by the devastating betrayal he had suffered. I had seen the spirit of wonder disappear from his eyes – even his brash indifference toward the destruction of Area 51, that feeling that his beliefs were safely tucked away, that they hadn't gone up in smoke to be blown by a capricious wind. All that was gone; he now seemed hopeless. On my bike I tried to bridge the gap between Theo's lead on us and Simeon's depressed lagging behind.

I saw Theo some fifty yards ahead of me. We were heading toward the top of a T-intersection, where a stop sign stood. Theo was leading us like a parade, and I thought perhaps he would wait for us there. But he didn't stop – I saw him turn left directly onto the crossing street, four lanes wide with a double yellow line down the middle. He turned like a grand gesture sweeping across the sky, and disappeared beyond the house on the corner.

I pedaled hard to catch him, and looked over my shoulder to yell to Simeon. He was coming, a little more zealous, a couple lengths behind me – but he kept his head down, his mind still elsewhere. Traffic was clear, but tall houses stood at each street corner. I flew into the intersection without looking, following Theo. Into the paths of three cars bearing down, two from the left, one from the right. The car from the left in the nearest lane was farthest away, bringing up the rear about one length. The two in the inner lanes passed by each other just at that moment, like millstones coming together; the space between them could not have been even three feet. I stood up on my pedals, willing myself into a small target. I saw into one panicked driver's face, little kids in the back seats, and I heard tires screech in alarm. Somehow my bicycle threaded those yellow lines as though they formed the eye of a needle, perfectly parallel I was to both cars. For the life of me, I don't know how I escaped. Not even a touch, not a scratch. In a second the danger had passed, forty miles an hour in each direction, and there seemed an epiphany of calm before I heard the sickening crunch of twisted metal behind me. Something had guided me safely through those gates of grinding violence, and something had chosen not to guide Simeon. The third car caught him squarely.

What happened afterwards doesn't really matter – it was just the rest of my life, and Theo's. But I learned many things that autumn. I learned that the bonds of friendship are resilient and brittle. I learned not to build fires under low-hanging branches. I learned to discern the signs of a greater being, and how to test them. I learned that sometimes only death reveals true colors. And I learned that real believers who entrust their riches to a philistine tread a treacherous path deep into human nature.

I didn't see Theo much after the accident. He made himself scarce after school, staying mostly at home, as I did. As time passed I wanted him, to talk to him, to share our guilt and consolation, to take in the wisdom of his more aged life. But he stood apart, unsociable, he seemed like a distant patriarch too busy for remembrance of the dead, too detached from Simeon to care. I can only say for myself that without Simeon, I found our old elemental joy difficult to raise up again. After the term passed, Theo moved on to the junior high school, and I lost touch with him completely. I think by the time I moved into seventh grade, his family had left town, and no doubt he found other friends with perhaps more common interests, things more practical than the Alien Club. Perhaps he found a flock or horde truly his own. Perhaps he did get that car on his sixteenth birthday. I found new friends as well and made my way through life as best I could, though those days of boyish innocence in the world, our genuine first love, have never returned: A time when we might truly believe, as Rev. Fletcher would have said, "ye are gods."

The season has cycled around, the leaves serenely slipping off their lives like drab robes. The long nights pull a gentle veil over an empathetic sun, and the hearth glowing low welcomes within. Bitter cold looms ahead of me, and I will wait for things that were and may one day be again.

Red Hair Rising

Mercer stuffed the envelope into his coveralls pocket; he didn't need to open it to know what the memo said. He directed his blank attention to the control panel before him, gazing deep into dials and gently caressing buttons, as if stealing one last encounter with a lover before making a clean break forever. Reflected within the clear plastic cover, his safety goggles stared back, and he recalled the foreman handing over the two envelopes, his eyes dancing away. They always think delivering these things along with your paycheck somehow makes it better, Mercer thought, severance or not. The size of several tractor-trailer rigs stacked like bricks, the mighty press rumbled, pumping out perfectly folded papers at amazing speed, flowing like a stream of consciousness. Mercer picked up a copy to inspect: Four pristine sections of one sheet apiece. The news media inched like a glacier toward electronic delivery – grinding underneath anything caught in its way – through computers, phones, e-readers and virtually everything else Mercer could think of besides the printed page. Finally the jig was up. Years ago he had barely made it through high school, much less studied the technology of the new millennium; he had no choice but to go down with the ship, the dying newspaper industry.

There's no surprise to any of this, he thought as he peeled off his coveralls and tossed them into his locker. The old letterpress used to throw grease all over the pressmen, he noted, not even that remains – this new offset press leaves us sanitary as a morgue table. But it would never pay for itself. Linotype, broadsheets, woodcuts – Mercer could count any number of newspaper traditions that had gone the way of the oxcart. And the afternoon news cycle, the schedule of his paper, that was a particular dinosaur – Jurassic, not even Cretaceous, he smiled to himself. No reason to expect the trend to stop. He tucked the crinkled envelope into his jeans pocket, not thinking for a moment that it might pacify Rachel.

He sat at his steering wheel for a moment, weighing his options. I need a beer, he finally settled his mind, and cranked the engine. Pulling in behind Buddy's Tavern, he sauntered in among the late-afternoon crowd, still pretty sparse, and propped himself upon a stool. Taxidermy covered the walls; most patrons referred to the place as the Dead Animal Bar. Mercer shook his head, remembering the time Buddy told him people like dead things, frozen in place while time raced ahead. "It holds an odd fascination," he had said, scanning his collection. "As long as you're not dead yourself." Mercer imagined the family cat up on the wall, but she meant too much.

Sturdy though they were, his arms felt weak as his elbows hung upon the bar, and his thick fingers gingerly manipulated each new bottle. Repeatedly reading the Happy Hour sign, a dingy placard hanging over the register, he knew the times had come and gone for him, passed him by. Mercer settled his tab and clumped out, still in his steel-toed shoes, like a solitary lawman leaving the dust of the one-horse town behind him. The drive home lasted longer than usual, as he hit every red light along the way, and he could feel the clock leaving suppertime further and further behind.

"Jeremy – where've you been? I wish you could get here on time. Your plate is as cold as ice," Rachel snapped.

"Had some trouble at work," Mercer said. "Why's Shayla still sittin' there?"

"You might've called, you know. She's decided she's not eating meat anymore."

"Wouldn't have made any difference," he replied, putting his plate of food into the microwave and punching up a couple of minutes. "Everything would still be cold. Did you eat?"

"Not hungry. It would have made a difference to me. Would you talk to her please?"

"Don't you like chicken nuggets anymore?" he asked his daughter.

"It's made of chicken," she said. She sat at a small breakfast table with benches on both sides, and held both hands in her lap, as far from her plate as possible.

"I told her she can't get up until she eats. She needs protein," said Rachel.

"It might be chicken, and it might not," Mercer said, sidling in next to Shayla. "Nuggets have always been your favorite. Why the big change?"

"I don't want the chickie to die." Shayla's six-year-old eyes opened wide, as though she expected her dad to prefer the chicken over her.

"Oh. Well, I understand that. How 'bout Tommy? Should we let him eat the chicken?"

Tommy looked up dolefully from licking himself.

"Don't you dare!" said Rachel.

"If Tommy-Cat wants them. I don't."

"Oh, Tommy will love them – cats kill chickens to eat, when they're hungry enough."

"They do?"

"Yeah, if we had chickens around here, Tommy would probably always be in trouble, killing them day and night."

"Would you be mad at him?"

"Not me, personally. A cat's just made to hunt his food, mice and things. Killing things is how cats survive in the wild," Mercer gave Shayla a crazed glare and wriggled his fingers in a creepy way.

"But I love Tommy-Cat. Why does he have to kill micies?"

"That's just the way they're born, Sweetie. There's nothing wrong with it – you can love him anyway. Some animals kill to eat, and others are killed to be eaten."

"Oh. But why?"

"It's just the way the world works. If cats didn't hunt mice, mice would overrun the place. Chickens, too. It turns out to be a good system."

"Tommy-Cat can't help it?"

"No. He helps the world stay in balance, not too many chickens. You're lucky you're a little girl. There isn't anything that wants to eat you."

"But it makes me sad the chickie dies."

"I know. But there's not much we can eat without something dying. Vegetables die, the grain in bread and cereal. Fish, chicken, hotdogs," he paused to think.

"Oh," she said, to fill the gap.

"Now, fruit and nuts come from trees, and I guess drinking milk doesn't mean anything dies. I can't think of anything else – "

"How 'bout honey?" Shayla offered.

"Yes, that's a good one. If you lived in a land of milk and honey, you'd be all set. Get it? – 'bee' all set. But there's something else, Kiddo." She looked at him expectantly. "There's this stuff in meat called protein. It's very important for you. You have to keep up your strength."

"Yeah, I know. Mama said."

"It's a good reason for a chicken to give its life."

"So I have to eat the nuggets?"

"Yes, you do. I'm sorry – maybe you should have extra ketchup with them."

"Okay. I'll pretend it's blood."

Mercer wondered at this odd new approach, but decided to be grateful for small favors and not ask questions. He warmed up his plate again as Shayla chewed slowly and Rachel worked silently.

"How 'bout Teddy Gra'ms?" Shayla asked. "Are they dead?"

"I think Teddy Grahams are fine, Sweetie."

"If you'd been here on time, we wouldn't have gone through all this," Rachel sat down opposite them.

He pulled the two envelopes from his pocket and flopped them down on the table before her. "Payday."

"What's this?" she picked up the extra one.

"Bonus," his eyes stared vacantly through her.

She knew that tone of voice, and suspiciously ripped the end off the envelope. "Oh, no. It's finally happened."

"Been expecting it."

"This is just great!" she turned angry. "If you'd only made something of yourself there, it wouldn't've been so easy to lay you off!" She bolted from the bench and fled the kitchen.

Mercer's fork poked at his instant mashed potatoes as his thoughts atrophied. Shayla was babbling about something he only pretended to listen to. He remembered Rachel from years ago, the girl who loved to talk on end about ideas and dreams, without demanding a resolution. After the wedding she focused on encouraging Mercer's advancement, urging upon him any number of college classes or training workshops; the more she pushed, the more he resisted, until he'd sharpened the edge in her voice. In their ten years of marriage, she had aged twenty, he thought. Then with Shayla, her attentions were yanked elsewhere, and she had come to float from one level of hopelessness to another. She deserved better, she'd always deserved better, he knew this to be true, and he had never given her the effort. But he'd loved her, the Rachel whose greatest worry was her hair, who unconsciously knitted her eyebrows while thinking, who could always find some inspiration for joy before life handed her more burden than she could carry.

She reappeared in the doorway, her eyes red but face stoic. "Time for bed, Shayla."

"But I want to play with Tommy-Cat."

"It's too late – you stalled on supper too long. Get ready for bed, and I'll read you a story."

"Winnie-the-Pooh?"

"We'll see. Just hurry and jump into bed."

"Okay," Shayla's voice betrayed reluctance, but she took her plate to the sink.

"Jeremy, I wish you would take the garbage out to the compost heap."

"Okay," he mimicked Shayla and snuck a grin her way.

"I need your support," Rachel said, stony-faced, trundling Shayla off toward the bathroom.

Mercer held the fetid grocery bag away from himself as he poked through the backyard. A loose roll of wire screen contained the compost, and he gingerly shook the garbage out onto the rotting heap. In the dying sunlight he could see the layers of decay, fresh slops at the top, gradually turning into the rich, decadent soil below, full of potential life. The stench of recent deposits rose into his nostrils and lodged there, a herald of the cycles that embrace the Earth. "From the soil you were taken, and to the soil you will return," he muttered as a kind of benediction. He considered the insignificant little corner of his homestead, and wondered how much longer he would own this particular pile of trash.

He had no idea how many people his non-descript house had seen over the decades, nor did he know who had done what with the beaten wood and paint over the years, always just good enough. As the frail screen door slammed weakly behind him, Mercer wondered about the next residents. Would they finally fix the gutters? Or that doorbell? Would they bring in a baby one day, and elevate it to a proper home? Shayla had entered on a July afternoon, knocked out by the torrid heat in between the air-conditioned car and the house. West Tennessee was a harsh mistress. He remembered cranking up the window unit in that very living room to revive her, and gazing fascinated at her innocent lack of self, there in her bassinette. Hands in pockets, he surveyed the poor trappings within the four walls, and judged them unfit to have witnessed that momentous event. This night his defeated eyes saw the place the way her mother always had, a testament to missed opportunity, a lost future. Framed photographs and drawings dotting the hallway drew him through history and toward Shayla's bedroom, until finally a door taped over with childish mementos marked her territory. Rachel's voice floated softly out the doorway like the low light, and Mercer stuck his head in for final good-nights.

The child's bedtime drew a pall of hushed silence over the living room, a eulogy spoken over empathy, a quiet moratorium. Mercer knew what they had to talk about, but not how to start. He stared across to her chair, studying Rachel's face as she pretended to read a magazine, knowing something hidden roiled within her mind. Breaking the ice might mean plunging into a frigid sea. He looked at her as if they had never dated, like she remained a unattainable mystery. His spontaneity back in those days – the devil-may-care attitude that drove him and danced in her bright smiles – these days produced no more than irritation.

"Want decaf?"

"No," she said. Her still eyes filled, and he knew she could feel his gaze. Mercer blew across the top of his steaming cup and thought about how a cheaper brand wouldn't taste like anything.

"I guess we'll just have to find ways to cut back," he offered in not much above a whisper. "We'd better start now."

"I'm afraid," Rachel said without looking up. "How are we going to keep the house?"

"We'll do it. I'll find a way."

"Oh, you'll find a way," she flipped her magazine shut sarcastically, and discarded it to the floor. "You're such a go-getter, you can certainly find a way."

"I'll find something. Just trust me," his voice turned flat.

"Why would I trust you? You never did anything I told you, and now you've lost your job. You never did anything for our security before, so why would I trust you now?"

"Maybe if you'd nagged less and helped me find classes or something," he suggested, slumping in his chair and looking away, unable to face her with his lie.

"You bastard. Nagged?" she spoke with genuine hurt. "I did find classes for you, but you'd never listen. You wouldn't hear me, just like you're not hearing me now – I'm scared."

"Yeah, I know. I know I blew so many chances. But I can't afford to be afraid, I've got to do something. I won't let you and Shayla go hungry."

"I know, I know," she turned more calm. "And besides, Dad will always help us out. But it's not just that. I'm afraid for Shayla."

"The lab results?"

"Yes, she's got a doctor's appointment tomorrow, and it's got me so worried – will you go with us?"

"No, I'd better not."

"Why not?"

"I don't have any more paid days off. I need to work as much as I can these next six weeks, so maybe we can sock something away."

"So I have to take her down there by myself?"

"I'm sorry, but – "

"Great," Rachel snapped, and lurched out of her seat. "Just dump it on me. I'll take care of it, and do it alone. Thanks a lot! First you lose your job, then abandon Shayla – what a great father!" She stormed from the room and disappeared into the hallway's shadows.

Mercer sat like a lump, moving only to watch the light coming out from under the bedroom door. He determined to wait as long as its glow remained. Imagining Rachel pulling her hair back over her right ear, like she did, and humming as she brushed her teeth, he thought of their honeymoon – just a night at the Peabody, until he could afford more. Another debt. That night had gone down in the annals of history, an irredeemable pilgrimage as they sank deep within moist passion, enough to turn the gods blushing away. Now in silence he sat with his chin fairly resting upon his breastbone, separated by a hallway and the patient waiting for a numb darkness. The light finally blinked out.

He stood inert in the shower, concentrating on the water pelting his face. The little chamber felt like a test tube, where he was being exposed to unreal extremes, observed to see how well he might hold up. A tangle of hair twirled in the eddy at his feet. In the mirror his face seemed to fall into the shadows under his eyes, and sparkles of white dotted his whiskers. Mercer padded into the dark bedroom, absentmindedly rubbing a towel over his wet hair, and found Rachel sitting on the far side of the bed, staring into the corner's shadows. He could hear a quiet sobbing.

"I'm sorry," she said as he sat on the opposite edge.

"It's not your fault," he said. "You're right about so many things." He slipped underneath the covers, and she lay down too, but with her back to him.

"I just feel so nervous all the time," she shuddered. "Everything is spinning in my head."

"Try to get some sleep. Sleep will be good for you."

She sighed heavily. "I know that." After a moment she added, "I wish – I hope –. I'll try."

"I love you," he said.

"Love you too."

Mercer draped his arm along her side and stroked her soft shoulder. He drew closer, and his fingers found the space beneath the strap of her nightgown. Lightly he used his other hand to move her long, auburn hair, and breathed in the fragrance remaining upon her neck. Her curves fit well against his body, and his heart beat heavily against her back.

"No," she pulled away. "Just leave it."

In the morning she worked silently at the kitchen counter, as Shayla busily packed her plastic backpack with the kitten of Japanese design on it, prepared for a long day of waiting. Mercer poured milk on her cereal, and sat at the other side of the table. "Got your Paddington?" he asked, and she officiously pulled the stuffed bear's head out in answer, then stuffed it back in. Her hands weren't big enough to manage everything she wanted to take. "Let me help you," he offered, and stacked a few books into a neat pile.

"Are you going with us?" Shayla asked, drops of milk trailing down her chin.

"No, Kiddo, I'm sorry, but I have to work today." He glanced at Rachel's back, which looked like a brick wall.

"Here's your snack," she said, handing a paper bag to Shayla. "Come on, we have to go now."

"Put on your cap, Sweetie," he pulled the bill tightly over her head, shading her fair complexion. He caught Rachel's eyes. "Good luck."

"Right. Come on, Shayla," and she ushered the little girl out the door. Mercer watched as the car pulled out the drive and slipped away down the street.

His locker opened its maw, and his coveralls hung inside like a lolling tongue. Mercer's work of yesterday sat discarded in bird cages and under puppies, and this day's had only just begun. Like housework, his duties traced the same motions as ever, just like yesterday, just like tomorrow. Ink fountains filled, negatives shot, plates made. Sunday Living run, real estate section run, news edition run. His work was so regimented, he sometimes felt that he had done it in his sleep. This day his mind was not on his work, but on it ending; not on the end of the day, but the end. That and Shayla – what was going on with Shayla. He did not expect a call.

He clomped into the house, again with his protective shoes still on, hoping Rachel would notice he was not late. The kitchen stood empty, just as it was left that morning. Sneaking into the living room, he found Shayla kneeling next to the hassock, using it as a desk for her drawing paper. In the chair her dolls posed for a portrait.

"Hey, Kid," he said.

"Daddy!" she smiled up from her work.

"Where's your mama?"

"She's in bed. She's got a my-brain."

"Oh," and Mercer turned a frown toward the bedroom. He could tell the door stood ajar, but no light came out. He found Rachel supine in the bed, fully dressed, deep in darkness. Quietly he asked, "Another migraine?"

"My head is killing me."

"Bad report, then?"

"It's back. Full force."

The months ground ahead like a millstone, and now Mercer sat in the uncomfortable hospital chair. He had explored every nook and corner of the room, and had nothing more left to do than sit. Over the course of time, he'd parted ways with the newspaper. Rachel had found part-time work answering phones at a real estate office. He had watched her sink deeper into herself, and her flat eyes returned to him only numb indifference. Since starting her job, her mood one moment lifted upon proud relief, then the next fell into guilt for being away from home – yet within the house only the soft sanctuary of shadows comforted her. Shayla had shown no improvement with aggressive chemotherapy, and awaited a bone marrow transplant; the phone call broke the silence late one evening, that St. Jude's had confirmed a donor. With Mercer having no ties left in town, it was decided Rachel would remain at her job, and he would move to Memphis to stay near Shayla.

"You've got friends there," she'd said sharply. "One of them can put you up."

"I don't mind driving it every day."

"Gas is too much, you know that. And what if something happened to Shayla, with nobody nearby? Besides, I could use a break."

"Oh, that's it," he had sensed it coming. "That's the way you want it?"

"To be honest, yes, I do. I just can't do this any more. I just don't want to." He remembered the look, like she had traded in for a new car and couldn't wait to get it on the road. He would never forget that look. "It's time," she'd said, and his arms ached with emptiness.

So he took a packed duffel bag with him when Shayla was admitted into St. Jude's. Indeed, he did find an old pal who took him in, let him stay in a dilapidated outbuilding behind his home. The old clapboard structure leaned to one side and hadn't been painted since Forrest's raid, it seemed. The furniture inside smelled dank and dusty, and open wounds in the old plaster revealed the laths underneath. Ceiling and carpet both bore the scars of the leaking roof, and water stains draped the walls like a shroud. As long as he could, Mercer decided to spend his days and nights in Shayla's crisp, sterile hospital room.

There he sat, wondering at the brave little girl in the bed, so weak from disease and treatment. She'd rolled up to the admissions desk in a wheelchair, making the nurse forget her world and smile for a moment with, "I've got cute lookema." Her baseball cap looked gigantic, balancing loosely upon her head. Now she spent most of her time asleep, exhausted, awaiting yet another procedure. Mercer tried to read, tried to think, tried to care about the daytime drivel ablaze on the TV screen. Somewhere within the piped-in background music a crystalline voice sang, "When I'm alone with only dreams of you that won't come true, what'll I do?" Cords and tubes ran to and from her slender body, and he couldn't tell if they were pumping in life, or sucking it out.

"Daddy?"

He looked down to half-open eyes, to a voice emerging from a reverie. "I'm here, Sweetie."

"What's it like to be alive?"

"Well, Honey, you're alive – I don't understand what you mean."

"I was alive once, before all the doctors and tests. Wasn't I?"

"Yes, you were almost three before all that started."

"But I don't remember –" her voice trailed off, and she stretched slightly.

"What it was like before?" he offered.

"Did I have fun?"

"You were the most fun girl ever in the world."

"What is it like?"

"Well, little girls get to sing and dance. They get to go out in the sun and smell flowers, and don't have to worry about who's going to hurt them, or what their parents have to tell them. They spin and twirl until they're dizzy, and they giggle, and fall down in the grass and it doesn't hurt anymore." Her eyelids slipped nearly shut, and he spoke in a whisper. "Little girls braid their hair, and wear taffeta dresses when they give tea parties for their toys, and all their stuffed animals bow low and say 'Thank you, Princess' and they play and play until they all fall asleep together in a soft bed filled with pink feathers."

She drew her breaths deeply, and Mercer leaned back into his stiff chair. Childish drawings, lovingly framed, dotted the walls of the place, art by children for children. Figures of people and animals danced in oddly Dali-esque contortions, an untamed world as seen by artists who did not yet know it would not be tamed. Mercer's eye caught the old crucifix over the head of Shayla's bed, carved delicately out of wood but painted crudely some time before time began. It looked profoundly out of place among the beeping chrome machines and sparkling implements. He studied the still countenance of suffering, the placid look of utter submission. No will was left in the bowed head, no struggle remained in the buckled knees. Whatever was accomplished, it was complete.

Mercer sighed. "Everything in this world hangs on death."

"Daddy."

"Yes, Shayla, I'm still here."

"I had a dream."

"Really? What did you dream about?"

"I dreamed I had hair," she stirred gently. "It was long and red, and blew high into the air."

"What a nice dream."

"I'm so tired."

"Go to sleep, Sweetie. You go on and sleep, float along upon your dreams. I'll be here when you wake up."

She lay motionless, and dropped off again. The IV ticked off the seconds, dripping into her arm. Mercer let his thoughts wander, from his job to his marriage, to the shack he lived in, to his daughter hooked up to an unknown fate. All that was left for him to do was wait and persevere. The music and voices and constant beeping blended into a wash over him, like a multitude of souls billowing within the ether, waiting, waiting. Finally he too drifted away into restless sleep, filled with visions of long red hair, flowing high toward the heavens like a blazing fire, and he knew that nothing in the world is more precious than the suffering of the innocent.

Porn Stars In Love

From the moment they met, they flowed like lava. Their gaze across the room seared through the other party-goers, clinching at the midpoint like an electromagnet. Conversation that evening broached nothing deeper than work or music, the default settings for modern small talk. A flame flickered, not the least quenched but rather fed by the moist smoldering of expectant flesh. Finding a spare bedroom upstairs, Cobain and Gisele would have consummated their passion then and there had a straggling wallflower not been pacing the hallway. As it was, their coupling had to wait until a dark street made even the back seat of Cobain's car inviting. She climbed him like a mountain, planting her ruby red flag upon his mouth, and their moaning breath left its steamy mark on the windows. Slaked but not satisfied, they lay in each other's arms until their desires arose again with the sun, and Gisele called in sick to work.

Cobain had grown up military, moving constantly from one group of superficial friendships to another. One year might find him in exotic Yokosuka, Japan, the next in backwater Millington, Tennessee. Gisele never set foot out of the state of her birth until the day she turned sixteen, when her single mother sprung for an outing all the way to Gatlinburg. But in North Carolina's Appalachia, money came too dear to take a friend along; even her sister had to stay behind. The hard school of poverty forced her mother into that strict discipline – a means to an end – but the end was a means unto itself with Cobain's father. His daily examination – of spit and shine, of school reports, of strength and determination – left a stormy cloud always hovering within the boy's mind, and gave him the spirit to fight lightning with lightning. Though he had learned the technical and personal skills to find steady work as a pipefitter, he lived owing nothing to anyone, as ragged and undisciplined as he could muster, and Gisele adored that as a moral triumph over the culture's expectation. For Cobain, the world was his strip club, but he had never before been so slain as by Gisele.

From her early lack, she knew the value of any income, and had offered many sacrifices before the dollar supreme; but more than anything else she wished for a man, that presence of male security and affirmation experienced in her childhood only in its absence. Tall and willowy, with dark eyes and hair, she moved as if borne upon the wind. She slipped in and out of his stout arms like a sylph as they pursued the dance of daily life. The little furnished house they rented had three simple rooms, and they tested every corner. Rooted in an old part of town – a collection of little bungalows and foursquare homes of brick and wood trim slowly peeling away – a house with a virtual revolving door sat to one side and a non-descript single man lived to the other. Within their sanctuary of pleasure, they felt sealed together, pulsating as one, as Cobain's strong fingers wrapped entirely around her slender arms, manhandling her heightened senses, and Gisele enveloped his desires like a blanket. The stiff bristle upon his chin scraped at her soft flesh, a rolling sea of firm, tender warmth, giving in and reaching out to every virile demand. Their limbs entangled in an arabesque of gratified sensuality, rising to yet more craving and greater exploration.

He stood on the porch and sucked on a cigarette as though he had been exhausted by some great undertaking, and out of the corner of his eye caught the neighbor puttering around in his yard.

"Hey, buddy," he called.

The man looked up from his thoughts. "Oh, hi. How are you?"

"Nice neighborhood, ain't it?"

"So far so good. My name's John – nice to meet you finally."

"Cobain." He reached out his strapping hand.

"I see your wife out every now and then. Never had a chance to say hello, though."

"Girlfriend. She's a pistol. She's in the shower right now."

"Oh," the man hesitated. "Well, these houses are a good size for me; I guess for a couple, too. Not too much to have to take care of."

"Yeah, she can go nuts sometimes, but she's a champ in bed. She'll leave you wasted and begging for more," Cobain smirked.

"Um –" John looked distracted, scanning the sky. "She seems nice."

"What a crazy body," Cobain exulted. "Makes you glad to be a man. Got this crazy little mole at five o'clock."

"Huh?"

"Right below her left nipple. Nipples all pink and puffy," he grinned.

John had a blank look on his face, as though Cobain were speaking some foreign language. "Well – tell her hello for me. Um. I think my phone's ringing, got to get inside. Good to meet you finally."

"Oh, I'll tell her hello all right."

The shower left every crevice of the tight house filled with sultry fragrance, a misty presence that rolled over and engulfed all it encountered, and its musky lure drew him toward the bedroom. The glistening water highlighted her curves, as he watched through a distant doorway, unbeknown to her. The base of his brain simmered as she barely covered herself with a small towel, the top of her thighs just beginning to flare into buttocks. She considered herself in the mirror, pleased with the upturn of her nose and the depth of her eyes. She was a treasure to be opened, to be claimed and spent, and she inhaled sharply at the thought of giving herself over fully. Only then did she spot the skulking figure in the mirror, and she loosened the twist at the top of her towel slightly, just enough to let it slip to the floor.

Her hair swept to one side, revealing the small yin-yang tattoo upon the curve of her back. He caressed the narrow passage of her waist to the arc of her hips. She turned and embraced his reclining shoulders, broad and strong, and clung for support against gravity. He pressed down as she sunk into the pillowy softness of the tangled sheets. Cobain grasped her wrists and pinned them down, lips eagerly gnawing at the base of her neck. Gisele's arms slowly twisted, his grip ever tighter, until they entangled behind her back.

"Ouch."

Sleep seldom intruded upon their nights, and each day dragged on until the moment their lips met again. No trouble arising from the outside world survived entry through the little house's door, none could trespass upon their private universe, washed away in the flood of their passions. A firestorm of excitement drove grievance and disappointment from their minds as urgent sensation wiped clean all reflection upon their life together, then faded into a bemused emptiness. Gisele brushed hair from her forehead and gazed past the ceiling, puzzling over who lay beside her, over what resided beneath the surface of his skin.

The breeze caught the gap in her blouse, and she placed a hand over the missing button. She had thrown the thing on, with nothing underneath, to step out onto the porch. Across the way neighborhood children played in the dirt and sand of the street, and she wondered at their glad recreation, using only the resources at hand with no expectation. She crossed to the corner of the porch and halfway sat upon its low wall. A quick flash of movement caught her eye – the neighbor, poking around in his backyard, tending to a patch of soil upturned by a tiller. It was red and frangible, and the man was breaking up clumps in his hands.

Gisele waited for him to look at her. He held his head low, slowly surveying his plot, pulling up stray roots and twigs. She sat fully upon the wall, her hips hanging somewhat over the edge, and looked down upon the hand laid to her chest, toying with the empty buttonhole. Thinking again, she replaced her palm flat upon the fabric, and raised her head to see the man approaching.

"Hi," he said. "Sorry, my hands are too dirty to shake. My name's John."

She smiled brightly. "I'm Gisele."

"Pretty. Glad to get a chance to say hello, finally."

"I haven't seen you before. Have you been here long?"

"Yeah, awhile now. I'm afraid I don't get out much." John diverted his eyes diffidently to the neighbor kids' merrymaking. "I met Cobain a while back."

"Oh, him," she gave a coquettish smile.

"Quite a guy."

"He wears me out sometimes. Are you doing some planting?" she cast a thumb toward his backyard.

He swung his head in that direction, still ambivalent. "Yeah, I'm a little late for this season, but I'll get something to grow. Tomatoes, zucchini – you can always count on zucchini."

"You can say that again. Nice shoes you've got."

John looked at his mud-caked shoes, once two-tone wingtips, and felt a wave of shame. "Well," he muttered. "Whatever works in a pinch."

"I always base my first impression on shoes," she offered. "I've always been that way."

"I guess I'm done for, then."

"Yep, you're history. Sorry," she smiled. "How do you get your first impressions?"

"Oh, I don't know," he looked back at his shoes. "Sense of humor. Eyes." He was fumbling in the dark, and decided to take a different approach. "Astrology."

"Those are all good," Gisele laughed.
"If I get any veggies to grow, I'll bring some over."

"That would be wonderful. Nothing like a big, thick zucchini."

"Hey!" a male voice rolled from inside the door.

"Her master's voice," Gisele rolled her eyes. "Gotta go. Nice meeting you."

"Yeah, same here. I'll try to be around more often."

"Sure. See ya."

Muffled voices rumbled from within the little brick bungalow, and John gazed at a small window. It stared back with the glare of early sunlight, an unblinking sentinel. The volume and pitch of the voices rose and fell; staccato bursts of emotion strained for meaning on both sides of the wall. Suspicion swelled into offense and then accusation, deflected by denial and then sobbing. She sat on the corner of the bed, her blouse open now from inattention, and tears fell upon her breasts. Brawny limbs wrapped tightly over his chest, Cobain stalked the room and took the measure of his work. Hands dropped to his hips to soften his stance, and the back of her head bobbed slightly into her tissue. Then his elbows drooped, hung straight to his sides, as he considered the smooth slope of her arms, the gentle hair standing at attention along their lithe landscape. She was chilled, and vulnerable. His fingers massaged her slumping shoulders and brushed the drape of her hair to the side, the nape of her neck exposed. He tenderly kissed at her skin, and they settled their differences as lovers often do.

Cobain had not taken a job for weeks, instead passing his mornings upon the couch and his afternoons at the tavern. That fierce independence from cultural norms, his refusal to bow to authority or others' expectation, itself slowly took hold as his master. Gisele began to feel the pressure of supporting her household, the resentment of returning from a day's work to an empty home. She hated having to wait to see his face, then hated the face as it appeared through the door. The carefully sculpted bristle of his rakish disregard for appearances graduated into a scraggly beard, and he sometimes bartered possessions for new tattoos. She wished for the days when his rebellious spontaneity had enthralled her, made her feel alive enough for the both of them. Instead the weight of responsibility hung from her like weeds, and she longed for the dark, when he could be anybody, when the man that he was didn't matter.

She extracted a hair from her tongue, and buried her senses in the musk just above his collarbone. His exploring lips found the crevices of her delicate ears, speaking their silent language of seduction. Her skin, supple as grass, spread before him with a resigned encouragement. Nails tested the resolve of his back, the muscular expanse that stretched across his ribs and spilled over his sides, leaving a trail of red marks. He pushed the urgency of his advantage, and she winced as her thoughts jumped back to the matter at hand. Only low, throaty sounds broke the stillness, and writhing legs pushed pillows to the floor. She tried to think of her high school boyfriend, the covers of romance novels she'd seen at Wal-Mart, even the uncle who would leer at her teen-age figure when he thought she wasn't looking. He gnawed at her neck, and she turned her face away, wary of the mark she would deal with in the morning. Flesh trembled with hard-won satisfaction, and the night drifted along into early morning light.

The summer heat had turned up an extra notch, and Gisele sat in front of the house, fanning herself on a Saturday morning. Cobain was already gone to a bar. She could hear John's water running across the gravel driveway as he hosed down his garden. Mercifully, her mind was blank as she surveyed the poor neighborhood before her.

"How do you like the shoes?" she heard John's voice say. He was standing at the steps to the porch.

"What?"

"These," he turned his ankles to model. "I've got different shoes."

"Oh!" she laughed. "Too late – first impression is long gone."

"Well. Rats. I really tried with these, too." They were faded red sneakers. "I hope we can be friends anyway."

"Friends."

An awkward silence floated for a moment. "Everything going all right with you?" John asked.

"Yeah, just great," she smiled. "How's the gardening?"

"Psshh. It's there." He wondered about her flirtish attitude from their first meeting, and where it had gone. "Well." She returned to gazing indirectly over the houses across the street. "Do you get any flooding along this wall?" He indicated the corner he stood by.

"It hasn't really rained since we moved in," she looked at him, puzzled. "Why?"

"I just notice that your gutters on this side have come loose. I wouldn't expect you'd ever see them. A big rain would pour a lot of water right against your wall here. Just wondered."

"Well, I don't know. I'll watch for that."

"If Cobain needs some help fixing it, I've done it before."

Gisele scoffed a little at the assumption. "He's not so good with his hands. He is good with them, and then again he's not. But good luck just getting him to try."

"It's not hard. We could do it easily, if he got a few yards of guttering."

"Well, I'll be sure to bring that up," she said with a definite edge to her voice.

"Okay. I was just offering."

"Oh, no, it's not that. He's just not one to do what he's asked – unless you've got a few hours to talk about it. I'd have to strike some kind of bargain with him. I'll get back to you."

John wondered what she meant and what details lay still concealed, and the sun beat down on him mercilessly. "Well, I'd best get back to my own work. It's a brutal day. Try to keep cool."

"That's exactly what I plan to do," she replied.

Gisele remained on the porch until Cobain's battered car pulled in, disappearing around the corner in a cloud of dust. John looked over his shoulder just long enough to raise a half-hearted wave. Cobain found the back door locked, and pounded with his fist to be let in. "Why the hell you lock me out..." John heard the voice fading into the house as he bowed his head to his labor.

The milling activity of their little block continued on, the children finding their own fun, the constant activity, day and night, running in and out of the house on the opposite side, punctuated by the occasional police raid. A parade of people passed through the neighborhood, each man and woman pursuing his own interests, doing only what seemed right to himself. Under their roof the silent frenzies of Gisele and Cobain churned through the day and into the night. The fortress revealed no hint of their ebb and flow, nor of the pressure imposed upon novelty by old and familiar habits built upon each other. The little window continued to stare back at John with its Cyclops eye.

The rains did come at last, a torrent one night accompanied by strikes of fierce lighting, thunderclaps that shook the ground, wind whipping water into porches and against windows. Trees twisted against the furies like a Dervish, and the morning gave witness to a thick groundcover of leaves and small branches. John poked around his garden to assess damage, until the decrepit clanging of an extension ladder caught his attention. Cobain set the ladder's feet as securely as possible upon the saturated ground, and slowly ascended the side of his house, a hammer in one hand and a box of nails in the other. He was saying something too muddled for John to make out, but the tone of his voice was clear.

Cobain shoved the bent, sagging gutters up against the eave as best he could, then clumsily hammered away. The metal resisted, and the wood, suffering from dry rot, cared nothing for the nails. The volume of his efforts grew with his frustration, as Cobain let loose a stream of curses upon his house.

"Can I help you with that?" John offered.

Cobain was too outraged to hear.

"Here, at least let me hold the nails for you," John said.

"What? Sure, here, knock yourself out," Cobain half-growled. "Bitch been naggin' me 'bout this for weeks."

He wrestled with the disfigured drain, driving a multitude of nails into the crumbling wood until the gutter was propped up by his will alone.

He's going to end up perforating the metal, John thought, then it'll come completely apart. "You really need some new lumber there."

"Yeah, I hear you're some kinda expert," Cobain grumbled. "She's down in the basement now, mopping up your damn water."

John wondered if it might be wise to leave. "Sorry about all this. I was just trying to help."

"Forget it. Landlord's fault, really – never would get his ass out here." Cobain turned more congenial and contemplated his handiwork. "Stinkin' slumlord. And damn skank won't shut her pretty mouth about it." He climbed down the ladder and slid it further down the eave. "At least she's got to slop up all that water. Filthy down there. Serves the bitch right."

John felt his pulse rise, and choked back his words. "Well, it wasn't her doing," he finally managed.

"If she'd ever learn to keep her trap shut," Cobain continued without hearing. "All day long it's, 'Do this, do that.' Then she gets her way, and it's still never good enough." He banged away with the hammer, emphasizing his points. "Other day rode my back all day to fold laundry. So I fold the towels – but no, they're not right. Got to have the tags folded inside! Who the hell cares? You'd a thought the world had caved in! You'd a thought I'd slept with her mama or somethin'. Still bitchin' about it last night – almost glad the rainstorm give her somethin' else to nag on."

John didn't know if he should try to defend Gisele, or if he could. He couldn't tell for sure what went on inside their home. Cobain scowled at each blow as he drove dozens of nails.

"That one's for you, dear. That one's for your pretty little ass!"

"Are ya'll – well – it's none of my business," John stammered.

"Take my advice, don't ever take up with a woman," Cobain sounded like an oracle. "There's no rest in it, but if she were to cut loose from me, I don't know what I'd do. What she's got, I gotta have. She's like an addiction, and I can't stop going to my dealer. It don't matter what goes on before or after, if that's the price, then I'll pay it to tap into that fine talent she's got. Man alive, I can't cut loose from that."

John's chest heaved with his breathing, keeping him from speaking even if he had thought of something to say. "Take my word for it," Cobain continued, "The first one may be free, but you'll pay for the rest."

"What are you doing?" called a voice from the porch.

"What do you think I'm doing?" Cobain yelled back at Gisele.

"Aren't you finished yet?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm finished."

"Well, when you can tear away from your little friend, get back inside. I need help with the water."

"I'll bet," Cobain grumbled under his breath. "Can't do anything on your own. See ya later, bud."

John had cringed at Gisele's patronizing barb, but still watched her turn away, fluid like a ballerina. Surely she's just upset, he thought. A prayer passed through his mind, a blessing; if I could ever pray over her, he thought, that is what I'd say.

A drape of cottony gray clouds still lay upon the sky as John slogged through the garden. The red clay, only cosmetically mixed with topsoil, clung doggedly to his shoes. His mind turned to memories. As a kid, only in the garden did John have license with the dirt, where his mother allowed him to dig, root, tunnel and wallow to his heart's delight. That's what brought him back, he thought, the luxurious belonging of his boyish adventure under the gaze of her approval. He could recall her face, and still share her joy at raising a bumper crop of vegetables and boy. The way she pretended to wipe soil from his nose, only to slather on a layer of mud. Their uncontained glee as she sprayed him down with a garden hose. He realized he'd never know that again, but it didn't stop his dreaming of something close. Born late in life, he knew his parents mostly as deep wrinkles within sagging features, topped by gray hair. His father, never in robust health, died after John had left for college, and his mother, devoted, was not long to follow. A killdeer's call broke across the sky, as the dissolving cloud cover made a spectacular show with the setting sun. John stared deep into the gloaming space spread out before his porch.

The house next door jealously guarded its secrets. When leaving for work, and then again upon his return, John would cast a penetrating eye upon the front door, but seldom saw any sign of activity. A broom might appear upon the porch, or a towel draped over a chair, but never anything more material than what amounted to urban ground debris. The diversions inside began to plague him in their abstraction within his mind. In his long musings, he began to notice more faults in the dwelling, small flaws which he thought could escalate into big conflicts. There came no way for him to know – the decaying house never gave a hint at what simmered within its rooms. He wondered at what kind of peace might be invoked upon the household.

For the first time John mounted the steps and knocked on Gisele's door.

"Hello," she said from behind the screen. The day was bright behind him, and she wore sunglasses.

"Hi, how are you?"

"Doing okay," she said. "He's not here right now."

"Who? Oh, I know. I mean, I see his car is gone. I just wanted to bring over some stuff." John reached into the grocery bag nestled in the crook of his arm, and pulled out a tomato.

Gisele's face brightened, and she emerged from the house. A whiff of fragrance reached out like a finger beckoning. "Oh! Wow, look at that!"

"Yeah, it's a big one. Yield turned out to be nice this year."

Gisele took the bag and looked inside. "I had no idea. All that work really paid off."

"Yeah. So, I wanted to share."

She beamed at him. "What are you, some kind of Green Giant? Some kind of gardening super genius?"

"I have a passion for it."

"I can tell."

"Yeah, I passionately hate it," he smiled weakly.

"Oh?" she laughed.

"Well, I'm kidding, but it can be more trouble than it's worth, to me. But, it's something I do. My mom taught me all the ins and outs, and I carry on for her, just out of duty, I guess."

"Well, from the results you get, I'd have said you loved it."

"No, I – " he hesitated. "No. My mom did, she really knew what she was doing, and passed it on. I do it her way, the family way, sort of what she'd expect of me. Some days I hate it, and others I just do it. But that's what life's about most of the time, isn't it. Duty – the daily grind – what gets you through the day more than thrills and chills. Whatever."

"Sounds very respectable. Maybe a little boring."

"Maybe – maybe more just reliable," he tried to see through her dark lenses. "Passion sure isn't boring, but it can go either way, either good or bad. Anyway, I wouldn't say it's gardening I love."

That awkward silence returned, which Gisele cut short with, "Well, thanks again. They're beautiful. I'm sorry I have nothing to offer in return."

"Oh, don't even think about it – I don't need anything back. Just hope you enjoy them," he considered the tomato, disinterested. "I've got way more than I could ever use, anyway. A single guy doesn't go through fresh produce very fast."

"Okay," she began to disappear into the house again. "I'll tell him you came by."

"Well, all right, then. Bye."

He stood there a moment, then retreated to his own home, and vanished into its sanctum. Like sentries the two buildings stood stoically, neither acknowledging the other.

The days rolled one into the next, the routine of work, sleep and empty recreation never broken. John lived inside his head, imagining conversations and thinking of elusive outings. He stared endlessly at the pages of a book, turning them until he was done, not knowing what it said. Within the background noise, his stereo rotated through the songs he'd listened to his whole life.

John pulled his living room shade and saw the flashing lights. Wrapping his robe tight around his waste, he jogged out the door as he tied the belt. A single police officer stood by the patrol car, back door open, in front of Gisele's house.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Please clear the area, sir," the cop replied, holding his raised palm before John.

"I'm the neighbor."

At that moment Cobain appeared through the door, his hands awkwardly behind him. A second officer led him by the handcuffs. Cobain's head sagged with each step, his hair disheveled, his shirt missing. "Watch it – don't push," he complained.

"Where is Gisele?" John croaked.

Cobain's eyes snapped toward him. "This is your fault!" and he spit in John's direction. "Always over here talkin'! Always hangin' around, messin' with her! It's all your fault!" he yelled. "Should'a let her alone, then it never would'a happened!" The cops stuffed him into the waiting car.

John never saw Gisele again, but every now and then he thought of her, and sometimes his heart ached, but other times it warmed the hurt away.

1 Corinthians 13:5

Do we, like Orual, scan

Heart's horizon – woman, man –

Sappho's bow and arrow aim,

Love's desire then prostrate slain,

Held so tight to stifle breath,

End by adoration death,

Clasping idol passion prayer –

More so than to tender share

Precious gifting, Spirit's muse –

Or seek mast'ry then abused;

More so than to give, to bless

And relinquish lorn caress –

Wind, who blows we know not where,

Scatters hopes upon the air,

Seeds to grow in distant lands,

Distant times of distant sands

Pouring from their glassen dome,

Bury heart that seeks its own;

When more kind to loose the snare,

Set the bird upon the air

Freed forever, passion's dove,

Never though less better loved;

Rather then rejoice in pure

Selfless zeal, agape's lure,

Rest content in promise still

Yet to come, and wait until

Love's lost prospect – love's return –

Long last quelled, no longer burn?

Strength Is In Their Weakness

Fiercely Scottish and fiercely old, she thumped the dull rubber tip of her cane solidly upon the porch for emphasis. The Swyre of Natchez hardly looked able to survive her abuse, but somehow it still stood. The old plantation house once had overlooked vast cotton fields nestled within the rolling hills, tucked into the lowlands that gave it name. Now only prefab lawns of soft grass were left under its gaze, but regardless of the Southern gothic bastion's gradual dissipation, Hephzibah MacDuff remained its matron.

"Take care with that mower!" she yelled to the man. He could see her lips moving, and nodded. "Don't you scalp that grass! I worked years to get that Bermuda to fill in!"

Known since childhood as Bunny, she had devoted ninety-seven years to this family homestead, and she had grown somewhat particular about how it should be passed on. What remaining family she had grudgingly allowed her to continue on at The Swyre of Natchez; in truth, they had no choice.

"I'll not have anyone telling me what's good for this place," she declared. "My forefathers watched over this land for nearly two hundred years, and me half of that. I expect I know my business."

A third or fourth cousin – Bunny knew which – of the second MacDuff generation to inhabit that spot of land had built the grand home, replacing a hefty log cabin first constructed there. A set of Greek columns stood guard before the first two floors of the house, and supported a veranda at the third. Not one but two cupolas arose from the roof, set within a collection of small chimneys, where Bunny often hid and played in her childhood. Like crows' nests, windows beneath the domes faced in every direction, offering an unlimited view of the grounds. She had loved those high and mighty vantage points, and never hesitated to cast judgment upon what she saw.

"I saw you! I saw you from the roof!" she wagged a stubby finger up at the field boss, her stern baby face daring him not to laugh. "You pulled rocks out of them pickers' cotton sacks! Daddy told you no more of that! I heard him!"

"Yes'm, Miz Bunny," he said, taking off the battered fedora to wipe his forehead, a richer shade of chocolate than his sun-baked arms. Boll husks had sliced and scarred his hands.

"Daddy says to fire them pickers! Don't you weigh no more rocks with the cotton!"

With nothing he could do but tolerate the belligerent seven-year-old, the man nodded and went about his business. "One day you'll be big enough to fill out your britches," he muttered, and she dutifully reported it. He got only a tongue-lashing for it at the time, but later he was fired, once she had reached her teens. Times were hard by then, and Daddy had no need to make excuses.

She'd long ago abandoned the cupolas, now dried to a crisp under the merciless sun, filled with cobwebs and relics of small animal life. The elderly Mrs. MacDuff cast her supervision from the relative comfort of the shaded porch, in a faded rocking chair. The grand house stood behind her like a weary phalanx, the wood siding showing its age even under several ancient layers of paint. Air-conditioning units punctuated the front windows like braces on a smile, a partial capitulation to her citified husband, and rarely – when the sodden air became too oppressive – she would retreat inside. But she preferred the porch, like a vast throne room elevated over her fiefdom.

Her family had laid claim to the land some four generations before her birth. During the Revolution, Angus Cináed MacDuff had willingly placed his teen-aged body in the way of British musket balls simply for the pleasure of firing back. As an added benefit, his efforts earned him numerous frontier land grants from a grateful Congress with no other way to pay. After another dust-up in 1812 claimed two sons, he resigned his military commission and joined an expedition to the Natchez Trace, cashing in on his compensation. Angus and his remaining family began clearing the land, built the log cabin and planted the cotton crop that soon would whiten the horizon like snow.

By the time Bunny arrived, the old mansion had already seen war and famine and near financial ruin. The upheaval of the Recent Unpleasantness and then Reconstruction had settled down, and a new slavery had arisen to rebuild prosperity. The plantation's ritual passed day after day, year after year without interruption, disturbed only by the occasional news of rumblings by social agitators from up North. These tidings always piqued Bunny's interest, for she prided herself in being able to see things coming, as if she were still on watch within the cupolas. The Swyre of Natchez depended upon its laborers. So even as a young member, she had penned her DAR chapter's letter protesting a Colored singer's performance in Constitution Hall.

"Peep!" she called as best she could in her frail voice. Her new head man's name was Pepe, but after seeing it spelled she insisted on pronouncing it "peep." "Take care around that hedge! I don't want to pay for all new boxwoods! Land, those people can't concentrate on what they're doing for more than a minute at a time."

She had known even back then that she would have to replace her servants one day. Indeed, the old house saw a lot of change in those days, back in the late '30s, a foreshadowing of things to come. The Pickwick Dam brought an end to floodwaters teeming over the Tennessee River's banks and onto the land, and instead delivered a flow of electricity. Her father wired the house from top to bottom, and the same system still moldered within its walls. But the biggest change was Mr. Bread, the young soap salesman from Cincinnati. He was just different enough to be a novelty, and he'd wooed and won Bunny.

A pasty white man, with thin, light-brown hair lining his head, Franklin Bread gained her admiration with his singing skill and sophisticated ways. But once installed on the plantation, he proved peculiarly ineffective at understanding its function. After the new Mrs. Bread's father died, Franklin became boss in name, but in reality she ran the place. Trapped within her times and culture, the good ol' boy businessmen from Savannah and Corinth hamstrung her with patronizing smiles, rubbed their bellies as they told her what she couldn't do, and none respected her judgments or demands. So like a puppeteer behind the painted backdrop, she learned to deftly implement her decisions by inserting them into Mr. Bread's mouth. Just such an irresistible force hit the labor organizer who drifted onto the land shortly after the war.

"That man's hanging around the Colored section in Counce again," she worried Mr. Bread.

"Which man?"

"That union man. He's stirring up our Coloreds when they go into town."

"Nothing we can do about that, as long as he's not on our land."

"If he gets inside their heads, then he'll be on my land. The price of cotton these days can't support any higher labor. We lose the Coloreds off the land, and we'll lose The Swyre of Natchez."

"Now, Bunny, don't you worry. Where are they gonna go? We give them cabins, we feed and clothe them – why would they want anything more?"

His calm approach just raised her fury – strangers were invading her affairs. She glared at the crocheting in her lap. "He has been on our land," she lied. "He came right up to the door when you were gone."

"What?"

"Came right up on this porch and cursed me! The most foul language you ever heard! Cursed me, and accused me of mistreating the help!"

"Well now, Bunny, I didn't know that!" Finally Franklin's temperature ticked up.

She played her cards masterfully. "I just didn't know what to do. I was so ashamed."

"Why, I'll teach that fellow – "

"What, and let him beat you senseless? You know how brutal those goons are! No, don't go do anything rash," she put on her own calm. "We don't want any legal entanglements. Just go talk to the sheriff – the MacDuff name still carries plenty of weight around here. Just tell Sheriff Hardin this outsider is stirring up trouble. He'll know what to do."

Franklin did meet with the sheriff under the shade of some magnolias, and between tipping back their broad-brimmed hats and hooking thumbs into their belts, they came to an agreement. After a nighttime visit, the labor organizer disappeared and was not seen again. "If he'd stayed around, somebody'd surely have killed him," she said. "We did him a favor." The servants shook their heads knowingly, glad they had not bought into the man's dangerous talk, and went about their duties. But Bunny had seen the future, and when the Farm Bureau officer came by with brochures about machines that could pick cotton, she was one of the first to invest.

By that time Mr. Bread had gone on to his reward. Years of heavy summers had taken a toll on his pallid constitution, until he finally insisted on installing the air conditioners. Every large room received one, so he would be cool everywhere he went, and he even left on the red and blue plastic streamers so he could watch the air blowing. But it did him no good, for that very year he dropped dead of a sudden heart attack. With no children nor business to carry on, the window units remained as his only legacy, and thinking it enough, Bunny cast off his name and reclaimed MacDuff.

The riding mower had coughed to a standstill, and the man stood staring at it, knocking his hat slightly askew as he scratched his head.

"What's wrong?" Mrs. MacDuff called.

"Out of gas, I think."

"Well, go to the shed and get some more!"

The man nodded placidly and slowly made his way to the shed out back. "These simple people have to be told everything," she murmured. "They want to be told. They don't want to have to think, or take responsibility. I have the responsibility for this whole place."

She'd learned much about simple folk, since the day Mr. Bread's death left no one in doubt as to who was in charge. The gossip from her house servants taught her much about the underlying life within their shantytown. The maids would laugh and squeal about how ol' Leddie, or ol' Fannie, whoever, had busted a toe up against a chair leg chasing a cat out of the milk pail, and how all the women cried and prayed that it wasn't broken, hiding their smiles – though they seemed to speak in code, Bunny knew then exactly how they talked about her, and the lack of respect her orders received behind her back. She learned to listen to the singing in the cotton to judge the disposition of her field hands. Mrs. MacDuff came to develop a serene hatred for their spirituals, for though they told her the mood was high and contented, the simplistic faith and expectation they promoted gnawed at her.

"It's all 'Lordy, Lordy' with them," she groused. " 'Lordy' this, and 'Lordy' that. They need to take their heads out of the clouds and focus on that cotton. That's the only thing that will help them." Bunny had no great hostility toward religion, but no real use for it either. She liked the heroes of the faith – Constantine, the crusaders, a children's biography version of George S. Patton – but not so much the beatings and beheadings. She thought anyone running a religion should be more capable. Worship filled up a Sunday morning just fine, as long as everyone sang well and it was left within the sanctuary walls. But afterwards she wanted the church clamped down like Pandora's Box, to keep things from escaping that would only confuse the real world.

The witless fumbling of her field hands left her convinced they could never drive that first cotton picker, so she hired a white foreman, a drawn figure under his overalls with a sullen way about him. Though she told him exactly what to do, he drove the picker through her fields in his own haphazard way, Colored workers trailing behind, gleaning by hand. "Something about machinery makes a man impudent," she said. She stewed and steamed watching his disobedience from underneath her sun hat, standing upon a pickup bed, and noticed one stout man named Rayford paying particular interest to the picker. "You do as I say, or I'll replace you. Your position here is not guaranteed," she warned the foreman, but he just cast his hangdog look past her shoulder and drew upon his cigarette. You have to lead a Colored man by the hand, she thought, but you can't lead a white man at all.

The following season, then, Mrs. MacDuff set Rayford at the controls of the machine, and she found him deferential and competent. He showed a steady hand at the wheel, and drove slowly in order to spindle as much lint as possible. And he didn't sing – he kept his mind to the work and let the others petition Jesus. He showed some gumption, and what he might have lacked in common sense he made up with obedience.

"What in the ever-loving world are you doing?" came a cackling yell.

"More gas," Pepe said, pointing to the inert mower.

"Let that motor cool down, you fool! Do you want the whole place to burn down? Let that mower cool before you spill gasoline all over it!"

"Yes, Meez Bunny. Dios mio!"

She looked out past the side lawn, where roofs of houses rose over the rail. In her mind she saw the picker still, working its slow line down the field, then back again, followed by a small army of men and women. Even children joined at picking time, let out of school for the occasion. With the mechanical harvester, fewer hands were needed to follow up, and Mrs. MacDuff determined to let go of half. Many of the families had been on The Swyre of Natchez for generations, but she could see the times changing. Coloreds were being allowed in at colleges and lunch counters alike, and they could sit anywhere they wanted on the bus in Jackson. She couldn't take care of all the weak on Earth – let them find their own way in their new world.

"Rayford, I need you to tell some of your people they won't be working the fields this year."

"Miz Bunny?"

"The Coopers, that whole family, and the Holmes, the Robinsons, the Lafloras and Thomases, and their girl with all her bastard children. Won't need them anymore."

"Miz Bunny, this is they only work – all they know."

"I can't afford them anymore, Rayford, the payments on the harvester are too high. They'll just have to find work at another plantation."

"But Miz Bunny, ever' plantation got its own hands – "

"That's all, Rayford. You tell them, and no back talk. They can stay the winter in their cabins, but come spring they must move out and find new places. They can always cook or clean. The responsibility for these grounds falls upon me, and that's my decision."

"Yes'm, Miz Bunny."

But spring came and went, and all the families remained in their shacks. The more Mrs. MacDuff ordered Rayford to evict them, the more he agreed, and still they stayed. The battle of wits versus practiced ignorance every year drove her to new furies. Government checks allowed the people to sustain themselves on her property, atrophied in her cabins, and no amount of nagging could inspire Rayford to end his designed density. He rotated new field hands into the little parade that followed the cotton picker, so that she became confused as to who belonged and who did not. She was at a loss for what to do until the day she saw Rayford tuck a jar underneath his jacket. She'd always had a keen interest in what happened on her property.

"Have you ever been in jail, Rayford?" she asked.

"Miz Bunny?"

"You know it's not easy on a Colored man in jail. You know it's different."

"Yes'm."

"I know about your still, Rayford," she smiled. "Off in the timber land. You've got a still right here on The Swyre of Natchez," she looked in the direction of the woods.

"No'm."

"Now, don't lie to me Rayford."

"No'm."

"A still on the Swyre doesn't reflect well on me, does it, Rayford? Now, I won't make you admit it, but I am going to make you do this – you clear out half that shantytown, or I'll report your still to the sheriff. Do you hear me?"

"Yes'm."

"Don't think you can lie your way out of it, either. The sheriff will believe me, won't he, Rayford?"

"Yes'm."

"I expect those families will be cleared out tomorrow, won't they, Rayford?"

"Yes'm."

The people were cleared out, with not much more than Rayford's extended family left. Then Mrs. MacDuff fired him. "Imagine if he'd fallen drunk off that cotton picker. What a mess that would make of him. I imagine I've saved his life."

She peered at the pure white fence, framing Pepe as he trimmed around the posts. A handful of grackles strutted through the new-mown grass, searching for exposed insects. "I've survived ninety-seven years here, and not by suffering any fools," she said to her great-grand-nephew. "If one of my servants puts this house in danger, then I'll know about it. I've learned to see it coming."

She had won her struggle with Rayford, but slowly she recognized something had changed within the rest of the help. The older generation began to die off, and new opportunity led many of their children out of menial labor. Wage demands rose, as did the cost of everything else, until Mrs. MacDuff despaired of keeping The Swyre out of debt. What few Coloreds she still had working the fields no longer followed directions, but allowed that they knew the business better than her. Their attitude bordered on insolence, and her days and nights filled up with slights real and imagined. The house suffered as well from this mean treatment.

"How many times have I told you not to use that terrine?" she berated her cook.

"You didn't ever tell me, Ma'am."

"That came over from Scotland. It's not for use."

"But I always put the soup in this terrine," the cook said.

"Don't you think I know my own belongings?" Mrs. MacDuff blustered. "I guess I know what's been in my family for generations."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Don't give me that tone of voice. I'll stop you from ruining my belongings." The cook was gone the next day, and in like fashion the maid and others followed. "The older I get, the closer eye I have to keep on what goes on here," she would say. "If you can't follow simple orders, I'll just get new servants."

With no one left to cultivate the fields, the land went to fallow, and income fluttered away like the dusty, dry leaves. The family line seemed to follow the same path, with no direct descendants prepared to take possession of the property. A great-grand-nephew to Mrs. MacDuff came into the world, a child destined to be the only MacDuff of his generation. Sporadic visits to the Swyre gave him little love for its grand old ways, and no interest in its financial future. Bunny finally turned desperate, and what with the lure of soaring land values, she saw no alternative and began to sell the grounds off to developers, who built smart little subdivisions of two-story houses with tiny lawns. The booming construction drew crews of cheap labor, mostly Mexican, and Mrs. MacDuff knew she'd never need her Colored help again.

"Peep! You rake up those trimmings when you're finished! Don't leave that trash in the front yard!"

"Sí, yes Señora."

"There's nothing worse than looking out at a fresh-cut lawn and seeing dried-out stragglers lying around."

"No, Señora."

"My life is hard enough without looking out from my porch and seeing ugliness."

"Ah, qué Dios te bendiga."

"What's that?"

"Nada, Señora."

"I've seen a lot on these grounds, Peep. I've seen all the ugliness I want. You just do what I tell you, and everything will be fine."

He had been first, so impressed by the house and grounds that Mrs. MacDuff couldn't keep from bragging about its history. Once Pepe heard about the number of servants she used to employ, suddenly little brown faces seemed to appear out of the woodwork. Literally – one day as she had strolled onto the porch, a mop of black hair with a tiny pair of deep brown eyes peered at her from between the floor and the foot rail. Every morning what seemed to her a multitude of hands would show up looking for work, and every evening they would disappear. Overall she found them inoffensive, though at times her eye would catch sight of a dangling Crucifix, or a Virgin of Guadalupe medal, and she would feel her back stiffen. But she could see what lay ahead.

So Mrs. MacDuff again decided she should clear out the last of the Colored families living in her shantytown. Now no more than squatters, they did nothing for the land but use its water and air. She owned the cabins outright and had every right to make them leave; her new workers. Her Mexicans were more polite and obedient, even though she understood their talk even less, and better deserved to live upon the land. As well, if she could make these people more dependent upon her, perhaps she could forestall another uprising: She knew exactly what had happened before and how to see it boiling up again. And after all, the strong must take care of the weak. So she sent Pepe down to evict the families, but he achieved even less success than Rayford once had, though for different reasons.

As she sold more land, clearing out the shacks became imperative. The tidy middle-class neighborhood that would arise could not tolerate a ghetto next door, so the decrepit community had to go. She again sent Pepe, to no avail, and even went to confront the tenants herself. Standing in the middle of the dirt road, wiping her hands nervously on her apron, she was so intimidated at the Coloreds' rude indifference that she left silently and called the sheriff.

"Nothing I can do, Miz MacDuff," the young man drawled. "Some of those folks have lived there for generations. The law says I can't throw them off. I doubt if a judge would even rule that I could."

"It's my land, my property. I want them off!"

"I know it don't seem fair, but they've got rights under the law. Times have changed, ma'am – landlord can't just evict someone on a whim."

"What's right hasn't changed! But here's one thing that sure has – there was a time when a MacDuff could count on the sheriff's cooperation!"

"Well, I serve my whole constituency, ma'am. Tell you the truth, I can't see why anyone would want to stay in one of your shacks, but that's just me. As long as they want to stay, I can't touch them, unless they're breaking a law."

"They're trespassing!"

"Not if you let them on the land in the first place. They've got your permission."

"This is outrageous! If you won't help me, I'll find someone who will! The name MacDuff still means something around here!"

"Yes, ma'am, it sure does."

Again she turned to Pepe, and handed him a sealed letter. On the envelope a cross inside a circle was drawn. "Take this down to that crowd in Hogwallow. Tell them Forrest MacDuff's only daughter sent you. They'll know that name. You just hand one of the men this letter, then skee-daddle out of there. It's nothing but trouble there."

One night a few days after that the shantytown burst into flames with the jingling crash of glass. As families spilled out into the road, licking tongues of fire erupted from each and every cabin. Charred flakes from paltry possessions danced in the heated air as people who had nothing lost it all. No fire department arrived, and no help from the main house appeared. The families bundled up their crying children and set off upon the road. That parcel of land was the next sold. "Now some of those very families own the nicest little homes there," she once said. "Don't tell me I didn't do them a good turn."

She peered into the setting sun. "Did you trim that stretch along the driveway?"

"Yes, Señora,"

"It doesn't look like it. It looks ragged."

"I do it again."

"I want you to go over it again. You do as I tell you, you hear?"

"He already said he would," her great-grand-nephew broke in.

"I have to tell him what to do," she corrected. "I'm in charge of him. I've been the boss here since before your parents were born."

"Not after you fired all the servants. Then you were boss of nobody."

"I have new servants now. They do as I tell them. They know they'd better, if they don't want to get sent back to their own country."

Even as the responsibilities upon The Swyre of Natchez diminished, Mrs. MacDuff's ability to meet them diminished more so. Her distant relatives wore themselves out with worry, and not being strong enough to wrestle her off the homestead, instead they sent a caretaker, the great-grand-nephew, now a student whose fondest dream was to chuck his familiar world and live in Paris. Zedekiah MacDuff came knocking, ostensibly to take charge of things, but also to get out on his own while taking classes at the junior college. He and the old house had a history: He didn't know the plantation in its working days as a young child, but he did come to love the remaining servants. A particular connection with the maid called Flora had developed as he spent happy afternoons upon her roly-poly lap, listening to stories about the olden times.

"Where's Florie?" he yelled on one visit after his pounding feet had made a quick and complete route through the house. "She off?"

"No, Flora had to go," Mrs. MacDuff said.

"Why? Will she come back?" his face turned tearful.

"I decided she'd best work someplace else," she replied without meeting his eyes.

"You fired her?"

"I decided I could get along without her help. She didn't make the beds the way I like, anyway, and it wasn't worth the aggravation."

"Where'd she go?"

Mrs. MacDuff knew better than to tell Flora's whereabouts to a child who could easily outrun her. "I don't know. I'm sure she's fine."

"I want to see her."

"Never you mind. You were getting way too attached to her – just look at you! Sniffling like a baby! It's a good thing I cut this off before it went too far. It was high time to stop her filling your head full of her silly stories."

"They're not silly!"

"I'll tell you everything you need to know about The Swyre of Natchez! Then at least you'll get the right version."

"I like her stories. It's not fair!"

"Someday you'll understand." But he did not understand, and he decided to never understand. He sulked through the rest of that visit, and through all those that followed as well. "I knew it," she thought, "I could see it coming." Instead of deftly averting an entanglement, Mrs. MacDuff had planted a seed of resentment. So here he was back, with no more motivation than to give his mother regular reports on the estate, and to do his great-grand-aunt's bidding.

Nobody was left to take his mind off his aunt, nobody who could speak English well enough to talk to. A lanky boy with prominent Adam's apple, Zedekiah fancied himself an artist and planned a future of painting and suffering on the sidewalks of the Left Bank. The tortured isolation of the old house, the denial of his fondness for Flora, helped him cultivate an attitude of victimhood. His Bohemian ways already showed in his cynical detente with Great Aunt Bunny, who in turn applied to him the sweet venom of the South. And so he practiced to make a tragic end one day.

She wasn't sure what had happened to her bloodline as it veered into him.

"How do you live like this?" he'd groused after first scouting his bedroom. "Only one outlet in every room, and one socket's already taken by the air conditioner! How am I supposed to charge up my devices?"

"You'll find a way, I'm sure, Zed."

"They don't even take grounding plugs! And there's no Internet here, either, and no TV but that fuzzy station out of Tupelo. I'm completely cut off from the world."

"Bless your heart."

"I can't do my homework here, either. I'll have to spend most of my time at school."

"Very well. I've gotten along fine by myself for years, and I can spare you. If I need help with anything, Peep will be here."

"His name is Pepe. Can't you even call him by his real name?"

"It's easier for me to say Peep."

"It's insulting. The man deserves a little respect."

"As long as I pay him, he's got no reason to complain. Besides, I have to keep a constant eye on him. He'll earn my respect when he can work without supervision."

"Whatever. I've got to go." Zed slung his computer bag onto his shoulder.

"Take the garbage out to the barrel as you leave and burn it, won't you?"

So her waning years matched the flat tedium of the porch she sat upon. Each day she dedicated to buttressing the history of the house, the grandeur of its past. The generations of the MacDuffs passed through her fading memory as she tried to sort history from memory, the stories to cherish from those to cast off. On most days, a firm hold on the present was the best she could muster as she imposed her will upon Pepe, the other servants, and Zed. The vast empty rooms stretched before her like the oceans, the ceilings vaulted high overhead like the skies, and she watched over her own ways like a self-existent Gaelic faerie. The feel of the handrail, the texture of the wallpaper, the creak of the aging floors underfoot, all flowed through her being like the pulse of her own bloodstream. Her life was as entwined with The Swyre of Natchez as the honeysuckle was with the disjointed latticework.

"Hasn't he finished with that yet?" Zed grumbled. "The sun's starting to set."

"I told him to wipe down the fence. The mower raised so much dust, it looks dingy."

"I wish you would hire somebody here who could speak English."

"He knows enough to do what I tell him, and not enough to get into trouble."

"You mean he knows enough to speak only Spanish around you. I guarantee you, what he says behind your back you don't want to know."

"I do know. I know exactly what goes on here. I don't need you to tell me."

"Well, it's driving me crazy here, with no one to have a decent conversation with. It's sure getting hot out here. Can't you tell the sun is glaring right down on the porch? Don't you want to go inside?"

"I prefer it out here. I'm not hot at all, and I can keep an eye on things."

"Well, I am. I'm leaving – I've got to go to the library anyway."

"I hope you find someone there who will talk to you."

"By the way, I've got my phone charging in my room, so you won't be able to call me. I plugged in some cord-splitters so I can use more of my stuff."

"Clever boy!"

"Yeah, I'm also charging my music player, so please don't bother it. I've got enough outlets now for my computer and clock, too, and the TV, if only it could pick up something worth watching. I hooked up a couple of lamps so I can finally get some light in there. I can get some splitters for you, too, if you want."

"That's good for you, but I've got all the electricity I need."

"Fine," he said, and with that he manfully strode to his car, spun out of the drive and spewed a new layer of dust from the gravel road onto Pepe's clean fence.

As soon as he'd disappeared around a turn, she stood stiffly from her chair, aiming to abandon the porch for the cool inside. One last look over her shoulder revealed Pepe again applying his rag to the fence rails. "You wipe those down again!" she ordered. She carefully negotiated the low step into the house and studiously went from room to room turning on the air conditioning units, glaring unkindly at the collection of wires and gizmos in Zed's bedroom. The house would soon be chilled as an icebox downstairs, and she would take dinner in comfort. Then she would repair to the porch again, enjoying the gloaming until the darkening sky was illuminated only by celestial bodies and fireflies. A chorus of cicadas would serenade her meandering thoughts as she watched the night flight of killdeer and bats. The drowsy sights and sounds and smells of the past ninety-seven years would again soothe her senses, and she would bathe in their soft comforts. Already the sharp smell of dead leaves filled her nostrils, and suddenly her light-headedness was no longer just a mental reverie.

She crumpled to the floor, a haze swirling in the agitated air. Instead of the promised cool, she felt the house take on a unwelcome warmth, disturbing, intense. Confusion filled her mind as her hips and elbows dug into the unforgiving floorboards, and the air choked her – her home had turned against her. A strong, ghostly presence exchanged the pain for tenderness. Her arms swung wildly as she felt herself lifted from the ground, though she floated gently as in a dream, and her head bobbed in unintentional agreement. A crisp breath set her lungs into spasms, and cogent thoughts began to roll like thunder far over the horizon. She reclined upon a silky, sheltered bed underneath her, like lying upon a purring kitten. Her eyes sought something to focus their sight, but her head wobbled as though drunk with libations. A bright light beckoned her like a moth.

A sea of flames glimmered through the glass of the windows, shimmering like still waters. Smoke began to sift through weak spots along the roofline, disappearing into the increasing night. The dry structure groaned and popped, waking from its ancient sleep to a horrifying reality. Electrical explosions launched like fireworks inside, sending a shower of sparks flying upward, and the gaping porch seemed to open up into a scream that would not come. Roiling flares appeared behind the third-story windows, glaring out like eyes aflame with indignation. A deafening roar filled the darkness as the fire climbed ever higher through the grand old house, hungrily feeding on its decrepit victim.

Like a blast furnace, the inferno burst through the cupolas, Bunny MacDuff's old seat of sovereignty. They served as chimneys, directing the pillars of flame skyward, like the legs of a colossus descending from Heaven to stand upon Earth. The screaming columns of destruction pulsed and moved like living flesh, filling the sky with their angry presence, the holy, burning purification of judgment. The house became the flames, giving itself up to the voracious verdict. Superheated air twisted the blaze into two writhing towers, making appeal before God of the suffering it had been made to witness, a liturgical dance of repentance arrived late and the purging mercy. The fire railed against the world, rent at the loveless stewardship it had endured, accused all that had gone before. Finally the middle of the roof collapsed, bringing the two cupolas together like a sultan clapping to end a victim's pleading, and the house fell in upon itself, and the fall of the house was great.

Above her, through a drifting haze, she made out a kind face, with brown eyes deep but penetrating, Long black hair framed the olive skin, and its whiskers were dark and spare. A silver light wavered before her eyes; it appeared to glow from the figure's chest. The thickish lips moved, though she could not tell what they said. But the salve of the voice anointed her ears through the confusion, soothing and welcome.

"Lordy," she whispered.

"Meez Bunny?" said Pepe.

By the time the fire department appeared, the embers of The Swyre of Natchez had settled within its cornerstones. Bright shocks from the overloaded wiring turned the dry frame to ashes and reduced the disintegrating plaster to dust. Zedekiah arrived home to the smoldering remains, and shuttled Mrs. MacDuff away from the naked foundation. Within a week she had compliantly moved into the four walls of assisted living, where she was told when to eat, when to bathe, when to sleep. Then Mexican construction crews built a smart new subdivision upon the grounds, two-story houses with tiny lawns, neat headstones for the Swyre of Natchez.

Pinned in Peniel

Eric Erb fidgeted in his chair, which had no arms for him to brace himself. Spotlights swept across the domed ceiling, while a sea of others who had also arrived early milled about. Eric had known which seat he wanted, and he'd gone directly to it and sat decisively. Now he feared maybe someone would tell him to move. But the tickets didn't have seat numbers, and he was ready to defend his ground, his hands gripping both sides of the chair, his legs tucked underneath. The chair was practically in a figure-four leg-lock.

This outing wasn't his first to the wrestling matches at the Mid-South Coliseum, but never before had he bought a ringside seat. Usually peering down from the upper tier, Eric had spent many a Monday night shouting obscenities at grapplers and passing judgment upon the peculiar fans. He was there the night that Crack Pot – a man smooth and round as a basketball, who pled insanity but may have been on drugs – shaved half of Austin St. Stevens' head. He had witnessed Tattooine, covered from head to toe with body art, throw The Mighty Mufasa over the top rope and onto the announcers' table, ending the match when Mufasa's head rang the bell. Eric screamed in protest, along with everyone else, the night Madonnald, a glamour boy who posed as a businessman in dominatrix gear, broke his briefcase on Capt. Buzz Cutt's face. Outrage turned to delight as hundreds of dollar bills flew out of the case – Madonnald, scrambling upon his hands and knees to retrieve his riches, never saw Cutt's signature Army Boot Buster coming. Erb even saw with his own eyes the one and only defeat of the man everyone loved to hate, Domingo el Inquisitor, at the hands of the dashing Alexander the Great. Yeah, he'd been there before, many times; but not until he saw Domingo el Inquisitor throw fire at Alexander on television did he know the time had come to get in the face of the action.

Over the years, he'd found the fans just as entertaining as the bouts, sometimes more so. Eric had learned the regulars within the teeming crowds, observing them from his mezzanine perch. A violent storm always surrounded the husky man who lurched his whole body with every wrestling move, simultaneously apologizing each time he nearly knocked his neighbors out of their seats. One young man had grown up before his eyes, from a kid dropped off by his parents to a teenager with a different disenchanted date every Monday. An elderly man under a jet-black toupee became a familiar sight; as the years passed he seemed to shrink, increasingly enveloped by the wig. Erb literally looked down his nose at all of them, grotesque little beings oblivious to the eccentric entertainment they offered, ignorant masses manipulated by bread and circuses. But not so the little old lady who appeared every week in the same ringside seat – she existed above the outrageous melee. She always brought along her knitting in a giant cloth bag, and worked away with huge needles throughout the evening's matches, her cackling voice railing upon wrestlers in and outside the ring. Nothing fascinated Eric Erb more than what she held hidden in that bag, and what in the world she was thinking.

He knew her habitual seat – third from the end on the western side, treated by other fans like a throne – and he anxiously awaited her arrival from his perch in the next chair over. He was a tow-headed youth well past twenty, still wiry enough to wear his high school wardrobe, which he did. Leaning forward, feverishly bouncing upon restless legs, he counted down the minutes and watched people file in. His eyes never appeared more open than slits. A tangle of fans stood before the concession stands, and occasionally one staggered away, laden with drinks and popcorn. As the rows of chairs gradually filled, no one dared sit next to Eric, honoring years of blue-haired tradition. Nobody challenged his right to sit by the ancient matriarch, either, so Erb gradually calmed down as he anticipated his encounter. Gladiatorial music arose as searchlights crisscrossed the arena, and 8 p.m. drew dangerously close. Eric stretched and squirmed, and spoke lowly to himself, worried that she might have fallen ill or come across a mugger in the parking lot. With great relief then he finally caught sight of the venerable icon, mincing her way carefully down the aisle. He felt a rush, as though a great sage of the mythic spectacle had come to complete the holy rite. The woman scowled at the referee policing the ring as she dropped her monstrous bag to the floor and pulled out her knitting.

"Get your pencil neck ready, you blind lunkhead," she yelled in not much more than a hoarse whisper.

She adjusted her frayed cardigan over her slumped shoulders before settling in; underneath she wore a simple, drab frock and sensible shoes. Her hands grasped two metal objects that looked to Eric Erb like javelins, and a long rectangle of red and gray, with strands of yarn trailing into the canvas tote. As the ring lights came up, he got a better look at her face: She looked like a rutted road well traveled. He tried to sneak a peek deep into the bag, but it held only a Gordian tangle of wool inside. She sat with her arms bent comfortably before her chest, just the right level to see her work through bifocals and keep an eye on the mortal struggle. A mechanical pattern of looping and pulling began, done almost unconsciously, synchronized with the voice of the Coliseum announcer. The undercard had begun.

A couple of grapplers Eric Erb had never heard of climbed into the ring, one from Jonesboro, Ark., and the other from parts unknown. Up close, he could see them struggle with the ropes, and they didn't look to be any bigger than him. They clumsily exchanged holds while the crowd murmured, and Erb daydreamed about what the two might do during the day – hotel clerks, maybe, or garbage men. A cry of, "You stink! Stop stinkin' up the place!" pierced his ear, and drew his attention back to the matron beside him. She busily worked her knitting needles without looking.

"This is my first time ringside," he offered.

"You couldn't rassle a chicken!" she yelled. "They should make you buy a ticket!"

"I bought a ticket," Eric Erb tried again. "I seen you here every Monday. Always right there in that seat."

"Been comin' since Sputnik Monroe," she replied without looking at him, but she winked as if she knew something. She lifted up the end of the gray drape she knitted, and in red yarn Eric could see the name "Sputnik Monroe." Below it he noticed names of others who had once but no longer wrestled in the area. For a wrestling fan, the record read like the FBI most wanted list. With steady rapidity she clicked her needles, a Madame Defarge sealing the fates of her enemies in yarn. "What's your day job? Raising pansies? Get back to the pansy farm!"

"You gonna add his name?" he asked of the wrestler now begging the ref to break his opponent's leg-lock.

"Who knows his name?" she cackled. "You got to work to get on my list, Sonny."

"My name's Eric Erb."

"Good for you. Oh, come on, Ref! He's pullin' hair!"

"What's yours?"

"You young'uns shouldn't be callin' your elders by their given names. You just call me Mrs. Jonakin."

"Okay." Eric tried to pay attention to the match, but he couldn't get interested. "What else you got in the bag?"

"None of your business, pipsqueak," the wattles under her jaw trembled. "One! Two! Three!" she counted along with the referee. The arena sort of groaned while the winner posed triumphantly, before slinking away behind the loser. "Go wipe your nose, babyface!"

A new brace of wrestlers entered the ring, and Eric Erb recognized them from television. The fans stomped and cheered for the bleached blond in short tights, Sexy Saxon, and booed The Broker in his mask, whose manager Wally Street stalked the ring apron and waved his arms wildly back at the crowd. The men put on an acrobatic show, obviously much more practiced than the flabby amateurs from the first match. But Mrs. Jonakin cut them no slack.

"Get a haircut, you little girl! Peroxide pansy!"

"Don't you like Saxon?" he asked.

"I can see through him like a glass window. He's a has-been before bein' a ever-was, Sonny."

"It's Eric," he replied sourly. "My name's Eric Erb."

"You gotta learn how to hide if you're gonna rassle," Mrs. Jonakin lectured. "I been around long enough to see who can hide and who can't. He's pullin' hair, Ref! Dumb pencil neck. Anyone can see that!"

"How long've you been coming to the matches?"

"I told you, since Sputnik, at least. Since the carnivals. Cheater! You low-down rat, your mama's ashamed of you!"

The knitting needles waggled in circles as she added new rows to the fabric of her will. Eric Erb desperately wanted to look into her bag, but she had it tucked securely under her chair, behind her feet. He desperately wanted to know why her hands dispassionately toiled away as a world of struggle flashed before her. But he had no way of seeing either.

"Here it comes! Here it comes!" she screamed.

Eric turned his attention to the ring, and saw Wally Street walking passively with a folded chair. The Saxon stood on a bottom rope, beating The Broker unmercifully with a forearm. The Broker hitched his tights higher, and his knees buckled. The Saxon held up a fist for the crowd to see and shook his mane of yellow hair, and the Coliseum erupted in assent. Then without warning, The Broker kicked Saxon in an unfortunate place, and his mind cleared momentarily, just long enough for him to fling Saxon across the ring and propel his head into the chair prepared by Street. A quick three-count enraged the witnesses.

"You could see it comin'," Mrs. Jonakin shook her head. "Couple of boneheads! You bumpkins, go back to the farm! Go back to finishing school, ladies!"

"I like Saxon. I think he's pretty good," Eric said, as the wrestler struggled to his feet and staggered about the ring like he didn't know the match had ended.

"He just fell off the turnip truck," she sneered. "And he looks like it backed over him, too." Saxon suddenly remembered where he was and screamed invective in the direction of the dressing room. "He ain't no Wally Street." She leaned slightly toward Erb and winked.

"What?! I hate him! He's rotten, all the way down to the bone!" He was offended by both her opinion and sudden coziness.

"See what I mean? He knows what he's doing, how to play the fans. He better teach something to that mutton head he's got now."

"Sexy Saxon is way better than him, and The Broker!"

Mrs. Jonakin, for the first time, turned her attention fully to Eric Erb. "Aww, little babyface!" she cooed. "You're a little babyface, too, aren't you?" She tried to pinch his cheek.

Erb screwed his mug into a hateful scowl. "Stop that! Just leave me alone! You old bat – keep your hands off me!"

"You know my seat. You sat by me – I could care less about you." She turned back toward the action in the ring.

"If you can't talk to me, just leave me alone. Just shut up!"

"You're a very unpleasant young man! You should learn some manners, Squirt."

Eric Erb decided to make the rest of Mrs. Jonakin's evening as miserable as possible. He noticed a thin haze of smoke wafting before the house lights, so he lit up a cigarette himself and blew his exhaust in her direction.

"My husband used to smoke, till he died of cancer," she said.

"Yeah, well, I hope you like it, 'cause I burn about three packs a day," Eric retorted, though it wasn't true.

"I miss the smell of it. Get a job, you dirty bum!"

At every move and hold, Erb made a point of jumping wildly to his feet, like a cheerleader. He whistled through his fingers as loudly as he could, until his lips went limp with fatigue. Whenever the opportunity arose, he would stand and cut loose with some ripe wind. He bought a box of popcorn and tried to accidentally spill it into Mrs. Jonakin's bag. But she could not be distracted from her industrious knitting, nor her running commentary.

"Were you born in a barn, boy? Foreign object! He's got a chain! Ref, you're blind as a bat with sunglasses! Whew! Sit down and be still, you imbecile!"

"It's a free country! I'll do what I like!" Fweeee! he whistled. "Yeah! Pile driver! Pile driver!"

"You fool – that's illegal. That'd just get him disqualified."

"I know that. You can't tell me nothing."

"Throw him out!" Mrs. Jonakin croaked. "You stink! Throw that jive turkey out! Send him to the showers!"

"You don't know anything I don't know," Eric Erb said.

"Hey, dogbreath! You couldn't pin a kitten! You stupid hillbilly, get out of here! This here's the big city!"

Matches were won, lost and called off for bad behavior. Finally the first bout of the double main event arrived: Alexander the Great facing off against Leonardo DiCapitate to win a shot at the championship belt. The thumping power of the Imperial March blasted through the Coliseum as Alexander flipped himself over the top rope and into the squared circle. Decked out in a shining Corinthian helmet – complete with flowing horsehair crest – a skirt of leather straps over his tights, and sandals that laced up around his calves, he looked every bit the ancient warrior. His pecs twitched with anticipation, and he flexed his arms and shoulders, stalking the ring like a leopard. Glaring at Leonardo in his long Florentine cape, he pulled off the helmet to giddy screams from teen-age girls. The combatants towered over Eric Erb, sitting in his little chair, stunned into silence. Introduced as coming from Sparta, Alexander attacked his Italian opponent like a meat grinder making sausage.

"I saw Alexander the Great beat Domingo el Inquisitor," Eric bragged. "Only man to ever beat him."

"Pshaw!" Mrs. Jonakin replied. "Big deal! I was sittin' right here! Saw the Hanging Gardens dangling right in front of me!"

Domingo el Inquisitor had dominated the wrestling scene for years, easily manhandling every victim who dared oppose him. He stood tall and grand, like an inverted pyramid, a sculpted specimen with no trace of fat. A single strap arose from his solid crimson tights, and long black hair emerged from the back of his crimson mask with the thin golden ring around the crown. Each time he entered the arena, a brilliant white drape of satin wrapped him, from his magnificent shoulders all the way to the floor. Silently he went about his work, never giving interviews, never voicing belligerence nor protest. He seemed able to draw powers from nowhere, whether a chain, or a roll of coins, or explosions of fire blazing from his fingertips. The strappado, his signature move, ended the night for many of his foes, screaming in submission. No trusty ally of the heels, he would interfere in any match, scuttling the business of anyone, good or bad. Domingo el Inquisitor made sure his presence loomed over every match, and his spirit terrorized every athlete and enraged every fan. But he himself seldom wrestled a match; he had faced off with Alexander the Great but once.

In their only official meeting, Alexander the Great looked like a boy next to the Colossus. Without raising a sweat, Domingo el Inquisitor had him off his feet and dragged him around the ring by an ankle. He would put Alexander back upright just long enough to bust him upside the head and drop him to the mat again. Finally draping Alexander's upper body over the ropes, Domingo el Inquisitor crossed the squared circle and climbed to the top rope. Balancing perfectly for a delicious moment, he doubled both fists and catapulted across to deliver the coup de gras. Not a second too early nor late, Alexander slipped to his knees, grabbing the top rope to brace himself, and also producing a gap between it and the second rope. Domingo el Inquisitor's arms slipped into the space and tangled within the ropes as he flipped over the top, his arms stretched to either side. He dangled helplessly on the outside of the ring, and the Coliseum erupted into mayhem. Alexander strutted about, and ill-advised interventions by Tattooine and Madonnald left them tied up in the ropes as well, one to each side of Domingo el Inquisitor. Ever since, Alexander had referred to the event as the "Hanging Gardens." Much to the audience's delight, he used a chair to beat Domingo el Inquisitor senseless, then dropped him to the arena floor to be counted out for leaving the ring.

"The Hanging Gardens! Domingo el Inquisitor's been running scared ever since," Eric Erb laughed with glee. "He's lucky that wasn't a title match!"

"Lucky, nothin'. They had that all planned out," Mrs. Jonakin wheezed. "An' they got you completely fooled. He's not afraid, he just knows what he's doin'."

"Maybe it is planned," Eric retorted. "Maybe some of it. If it was all fake, why doesn't he wrestle Alexander, instead of just screwing with him? He's stupid not to."

"It ain't stupid, Donkey Boy. If it's planned, why would they rassle?"

"What? That doesn't make sense, you crazy bat. Either he beats him or he doesn't."

"Look, li'l fella, it's not that you fake it, it's how you fake it that counts. There's stuff going on here you can't seem to get into your thick skull."

"Ah, you can't tell me anything," Erb growled. "He'd wrestle Alexander if he wasn't afraid of getting beat again!"

"You keep tellin' yourself that, Sonny," she grinned with a wink, as if she knew something. "And you keep buyin' tickets."

Eric Erb was right about one thing: Since the Hanging Gardens, Domingo el Inquisitor had made Alexander's life a living hell, but he never allowed a rematch. Now Alexander faced Leonardo DiCapitate for the right to challenge for the Southern Heavyweight belt. After beginning with a flying suplex, Alexander victimized the hapless Leonardo all around the mat. The crowd stomped, and clapped, and chanted "Greek! Greek!" as he out-maneuvered and out-battled Leonardo at every move. Swelling excitement roiled the fans as they saw Alexander set up for his killer blow, the Imperial Head Snap, flinging his opponent into the elastic counteraction of the ropes. But as the seemingly half-conscious Leonardo stumbled across the ring, he reached a hand into Alexander's flowing locks, and jerked the hero's forehead to the floor. As stunned as the audience, Alexander sat limply as Leonardo pulled a chain out of his tights and pounded away with his fist.

At that moment, fans began to realize Domingo el Inquisitor had emerged from beneath the ring; he had been waiting there throughout the night's card. He distracted the referee from the action as he stalked around the ring apron, where he found Alexander's helmet. Eric's heart fell, knowing now all was lost and Alexander would not gain his rematch, and he screamed his outrage. Domingo el Inquisitor climbed through the ropes, and Leonardo gave him a disinterested glance before going back to work on Alexander. After preening for a moment in his jeweled championship belt, Domingo el Inquisitor wound up with the helmet and knocked Leonardo cold. The Coliseum hushed as the referee immediately disqualified Alexander for outside interference, and lifted Leonardo's lifeless arm. Domingo el Inquisitor kicked Leonardo out of the way and transformed the helmet into a power hammer, tenderizing Alexander's head and turning the object into no more than a wad of useless metal.

"No! No! No!" Erb lamented.

"Damn you! Damn you!" Mrs. Jonakin squawked, and busily knitted.

"I can't believe it! I can't believe it!" Eric Erb stood there like he was lost in the woods.

"You better believe it, Fancy Pants, it just happened," she laughed.

"What's wrong with you?!" he yelled in her wrinkled face. "You old crone, you sit there like a queen, but you don't care what's right! You pass judgment, but it's fine with you that Alexander's a bloody mess!

"I call 'em as I see 'em," she said calmly. "You gotta admit, el Inquisitor knows what he's doin'!"

"You cold-blooded coot, you don't care that he cheated! You can't see how unfair this is to Alexander! You don't even care about the rematch!"

"Why would they rassle again?" she winked.

Eric flung himself back into his chair, his face twisted and arms crossed. "Some day that guy's gonna pay. It's all gonna come back on him some day."

"Oh, some day he'll pay!" Mrs. Jonakin smiled. "Maybe today."

"No, he's not gonna lose today," Erb scoffed. "Not against this guy. No way!"

"Maybe today," she repeated. "Maybe not."

Domingo el Inquisitor had never left the ring – he was the featured attraction in the second half of the twin main event. He would defend his title against Atlas Rockit, a newcomer who had quickly gained the fans' favor. Tall and solid, he had manhandled his opponents, using his height and agility to attack from above and below. His meteoric rise had reflected that of many pretenders to the throne, racking up a number of impressive victories before hitting a brick wall and heading out of town. The fans remained ever hopeful. Domingo el Inquisitor had relinquished the demolished helmet and put on his shining white cape, tied around the throat, and propped it open with his elbows, fists upon his hips, to reveal the prize championship belt.

A cascade of boos and jeers fell upon him from the arena. Eric Erb felt like he was gazing up the side of a mountain. Mrs. Jonakin turned her attention to the aisle, and let loose as Rockit made his entrance.

"You cheap piece of crap! You yellow-belly sapsucker! You gutless wonder!" her voice screaked.

"I thought you were for him," Eric said.

"Never said that. He's as good a man as any. Good enough to get his head bashed in."

Atlas Rockit kept a nervous eye on the champion as he paced his corner. Still he could not fend off Domingo el Inquisitor's onslaught as he rushed across the ring before the introductions. He was twice as big around as Rockit, and taller as well; none of the challenger's moves made any progress against him. A hacking elbow to the nape of his neck drove Rockit to his knees. Careening off the ropes and running into a beefy forearm left him sitting half-conscious on the mat, head bowed limply. Every attempted counter-attack seemed to end in Rockit spilled out onto the Coliseum's concrete floor. Finally, Domingo el Inquisitor's spinning heel kick caught Rockit on the back of the head, and deposited him face-down upon the mat, his arms splayed out, prepared for the strappado.

Domingo el Inquisitor pulled Rockit's hands together behind him, at waist level, and held both wrists together. Slowly he pulled his victim's arms back and higher, lifting Rockit's chest off the mat and putting excruciating pressure on his shoulder joints. The agony shocked Rockit back to reality, and he screamed hoarsely. The referee checked for submission, and the torture continued. The crowd yelled hysterical abuse down on the ring, but a buzz arose in one section. Only those fans could see the small ripple of movement down one aisle, until suddenly Alexander the Great appeared at ringside, his head wrapped like a mummy in bloody bandages, as though he were back from the dead. He mounted the nearest turnbuckle, to Domingo el Inquisitor's back, and took a dramatic moment to show the fans the broken bottle in his hand, receiving thunderous acclaim.

Alexander flew off the ropes at his target, and the crowd broke into a delirious frenzy. Domingo el Inquisitor, without looking, lifted one foot behind him, upwards at a 45-degree angle, and caught Alexander's face in flight. The hero fell back to the mat inert, and the crowd's lusty cheers turned to an unnerved, collective "Oooo." A hushed arena witnessed Atlas Rockit give up and exit upon a stretcher, keeping the championship safe for another week.

"Damn you! Damn you!" Mrs. Jonakin screeched. "You lucky bastard!"

"I told you he wouldn't lose! I told you so!" Erb reminded her. "Nobody can beat him!"

"Go wipe your butt, you little sapling! I been here since before you were in diapers! I know what's goin' on!"

"You dried up old hag! You've been ridin' me all night! Just shut your trap!"

"You make me, Sonny Boy! Every bit of that was planned! Don't you get it, Junior?"

"I know it! I know it! It was me that told you he wouldn't lose!"

"Someone knows when he'll lose! Somebody always knows! That somebody just ain't you, Sugar Britches!"

"Well, it ain't you, either."

"Don't be so sure," Mrs. Jonakin winked, as if she knew something.

"Oh, yeah? Who then? Who's gonna beat him?"

"Only I can beat him," she said, and at that moment her knitting spread out on her lap, and Eric Erb saw in crimson the name "Domingo el Inquisitor" added to her list.

The rollicking mayhem had died down, and the audience prepared to head for home, but just then the announcer unexpectedly appeared in the middle of the ring. He patted and blew into the microphone a few times, then belted out as manly as he could, "Laaaaaadieeeeeees and gentlemennnnnnn! Tonight only, we present an unprecedented event!"

Eric turned his attention away from Mrs. Jonakin's unholy register, and fixed his eyes on the man, framed on every side by the tremendous physique of Domingo el Inquisitor behind him. "The Southern Heavyweight Champion, Domingo el Inquisitor, tonight only, will take all comers! Last three minutes inside the ring with the Southern Heavyweight title holder, and win one thousand dollars! All comers! Just stay in the ring for three minutes straight with Domingo el Inquisitor, and you will be declared winner!"

Erb's ears tingled. This would shut up that old witch. All he had to do was run for three minutes, and he himself would defeat Domingo el Inquisitor. "I'm goin' up there!" he announced.

"He'll twirl you on one finger, then snap you in two!" Mrs. Jonakin laughed.

"Shut up, you foul devil. You just watch."

"Anyone? Anyone?" the announcer continued. "Won't any of you strong young men take Domingo el Inquisitor's challenge?"

Eric Erb's arm shot up straight, and Mrs. Jonakin's hilarity cackled. He ran up the stairs to the ring apron but struggled to get through the ropes, to the fans' delight. He found the air to be crisp and clear up there, and suddenly realized how musky and hard to breathe it had been among the sea of people. He hadn't really heard the noise before, either, the metallic clamor of a million voices raised in meaningless emotion. The announcer placed the two facing each other – before Domingo el Inquisitor, Eric Erb realized his insignificance. "I just have to duck and run," he told himself. "All I've got to do is keep away."

"Laaaaaaaadieeeeeeees and gentlemennnnnnn! Welcome to tonight's bonus match! In this corner, from right here in Memphis, Tennessee, at five-ten, weighing in at one hundred sixty pounds, the challenger, Mighty Eric Erb! And in the opposite corner, the Southern Heavyweight Champion, from parts unknown, weight unknown, height unknown, Domingo el Inquisitor! Three-minute time limit match! Let's get it on!"

"This guy's not so tough," Eric thought, and swallowed hard. "I can squirm away from him, easy. He's not so great. Probably just some bumpkin from Tupelo."

"Take me while I am gentle," Domingo el Inquisitor whispered in a regal Basque accent. "You do not want me when I am fierce."

Eric Erb wandered to his corner, and stood as if in a dream. From there the crowd looked to him like a single writhing body, like waves upon the ocean. The sudden sound of the bell focused his mind. He ran along the ropes and dodged around the wrestler in a wide circle, knowing he had to avoid being cornered. Domingo el Inquisitor made a couple of quick snatches at him, but Erb deftly ducked underneath and ran away. The crowd approved and began to chant his name.

"I will pin you easily. Seek mercy," Domingo el Inquisitor said softly.

Eric Erb took to running from one rope to another. As long as he stayed out of the champion's reach, he could get away. He looked for Mrs. Jonakin, to see if she was watching, but she was busy pulling a rolled piece of knitting out of her bag. She tilted it up to her mouth for a long moment before tucking it away.

The ring seemed to be shrinking on him, and the people became impatient with his strategy. Eric Erb didn't care, he was only thinking of survival. Domingo el Inquisitor tired of the novelty himself, and stood gesturing with a finger, inviting Eric to draw closer.

"Come to me. My gentleness will make you great."

Eric shook his head and realized there was no clock in the building. He didn't know how long he'd been in the ring, or how long he had left, or if anyone was keeping track. "What's the time?" he yelled at the officials at the ringside table, and they smiled back. Mrs. Jonakin sat with her knitting needles clacking, her voice cackling. The referee seemed to be boxing him in, and finally Domingo el Inquisitor grabbed Eric Erb under one arm and around his shoulder, wrapped within his fingers like a pencil. Erb felt the solid strength of the man's flesh flow through him, an irresistible motion of power and determination. He flailed with his hands and somehow caught the strap of Domingo el Inquisitor's tights, and inside felt a little pocket. Eric Erb pulled out a small fold of paper with a string hanging out of it.

"Why do you resist? With that, you choose your end!" Domingo el Inquisitor whispered seductively, and lifted Eric Erb up like a barbell. Kicking wildly, Eric saw the overhead lights arc past him, constellations against the black ceiling, and his arms flailed for balance. The string twisted around one finger, and pulling away from the paper, created a small pop and then a flash of fire. Domingo el Inquisitor cocked his body to throw.

"Jesus! Oh no!" Eric Erb squawked.

Domingo el Inquisitor flung him into the air, flying high over the ropes and into the stands like a flaming meteor. Eric Erb came down across the body of Mrs. Jonakin – sitting and knitting, zealously pursuing her fixation – impaled upon the long spears of her handiwork. A surprised look froze upon her face as the impact slammed her favorite chair backwards to the floor. The knitting needles pinned them together, and crimson soaked into the long list of her life's work.

Domingo el Inquisitor wrapped his dazzling white cape about his shoulders, and stood magnificently in the middle of the ring, arms again cocked defiantly. The stunned fans burst into angry jeers, raining down drink cups and wadded hotdog wrappers from their seats. Standing at the brink of his kingdom, Domingo el Inquisitor scanned the crowd from within his scarlet mask. "You do not seek me when I am gentle," he said. "You will have me when I am fierce."

Balaam

I can't say whether you've ever seen a lake flush with bald cypress or not. If you have, you know their knees rise out of the water like ghosts. Still little beings, standing there gazing at you, all summer long until the fall rains come, and then they slip under the surface again, still eying you though you can't see them. Like fingers sticking up, middle fingers, or pointing fingers saying, "You!" They point in accusation, as if you know something, as if they know you know.

Reelfoot Lake is full of them, a pool of blood sitting in Earth's wound open some two hundred years now, rent by an earthquake. A freak of nature, filled as the whole damn Mississippi River flowed backwards. Father of Waters! A biblical plague like unto the bloody Nile. The cabin faces that lake, and that army of God, those sentries would stare it down till I couldn't take it any more. So I moved into the barn, where Father had made his church, back in the day – I moved in there and made it my own. Growing up, I would only go there with a grudge, but now it's mine.

He was a little, wiry man, and he called me after himself. "You'd better take to the water," he'd screech in that reedy voice, " 'cause He's coming who'll baptize with fire!" He'd dip his little congregation one by one into the lake, and each one'd come up like a finger too, dripping wet and smiling and pointing. He dipped me – a few times – but I never came up clean. My father, he hung a sign on our barn and called it a church, and about a dozen people believed him, all told. Not so much me. He'd catch me lying, and wail the tar outa me; catch me stealing, and wail the tar outa me again. I was raised under all the privileges and benefits of the law.

"You think I'm harsh, boy?" he'd ask. "You better take ahold of Jesus, 'cause there's one coming who makes me look like a piker." And I'd want to obey, and he'd dip me again and stand me up in front of the church as a repentant sinner. Look, folks, what the blood of the Lamb can do. They'd lift their hands and fall to the ground, every single time. But it wasn't any use – I had no idea what Father meant. I knew exactly what he wanted, but had no clue what it meant. Cackling voices seemed to echo in praise long after the worshipers had vacated that place, and in my mind I could still see them jutting up straight from the rough benches, straight like cypress knees, even when they weren't there. Each week the barn delivered the congregation safely to their destiny, like the ark, dumb animals going two by two. As much as I hated the cabin, I hated the barn more. I couldn't help it: There was nothing left for me to do but smear the stink of perdition onto the place.

I started by sneaking beers out of friends' refrigerators, knocking them back stretched out on a pew. Soon I found a local moonshiner blessed with either low morals or a keen business sense, and introduced the altar to the hard stuff. Grape juice only on Sundays. Sometimes I could barely keep from busting out in a laugh – if those confessors only knew what their kneeling bench had witnessed the day before. Before long I had a little crop of weed out back, and sucked on its teats all bogarted up in front of the hanging cross, handmade of weathered fence rails. When he found it, Father wailed me again, then he dipped me again and stood me up. That lasted a couple weeks. Then I moved my little garden patch out further, hidden within a copse of myrtle.

Then early one spring, when breath still hung in the air, I found him at his table saw, Friday, I think. It was an old monster, older than him, maybe older than the cabin, and as a kid I'd idly run my fingers over its rusty teeth. He'd told me he meant to build a garden frame; must have thought I had some interest in agriculture. He was cutting those same old fence rails. The cold made me shudder – he wore his jacket, big bulky sleeves hanging loose. One caught in the blade as he guided the wood, the teeth gripped it tight and pulled him up into its screaming edge, and the saw ripped him clean in two. Not so much clean maybe, but in two. I found him. Blood still dripped as he embraced the machine, no longer pulsing out, but leaking like an oil can, soaking into the ground. I see his eyes, surprised and staring. They bulged like boils, yellowed with jaundice – I'd never before seen how yellow. I left him, I let him hang there till his congregation came around that Sunday. "Church is out," I said. "Amen."

Only Jacob continued to come. His eyes gleam, large and dusky, and his black hair is thick. I've known him forever, and he's always into everything. Jacob's a hymn-singer. He got saved one day, right there in the barn, the whole crowd whooping around him. And he really meant it. But that didn't calm down his curiosity any – like I say, he's always into everything, and he must have wondered why I was always smiling. He'd come around when it wasn't Sunday, and I showed him how to keep the rotgut down, and then later how to use a roach clip. He didn't mind, except for the following Sunday, he'd always have a sour look on his face, and I'd still be smiling. He must've wondered about it, 'cause one day or other there he'd be, coming back around again. Always swinging back and forth. Even after Father laid out on that saw, Jacob kept coming around, and I was happy to see him.

So I tore all the church stuff out and threw it in the lake. None of it sank; the rutted benches, the cross – even the little altar he'd made – it all floated away on the high spring water, as if it had business elsewhere. Then the heat rose and the lake went down, and those damn fingers came out pointing again. I got so I couldn't go out on the porch, facing those fingers, and finally I gave up the cabin altogether. I moved into the barn, and made it my own church. I slept in the straw like the swaddled Child, and cooked all sorts of stuff on a little hotplate, and to look in you'd never know anyone lived there. That's the way I wanted it, in case someone came along. But nobody ever did come by, except Jacob. He had reason. Jacob kept coming, he attended my church, the First Church of the Meth Lab. The crystal cathedral.

The thing about big, rambling barns is, they attract animals – you may notice the noises only on the long nights when you're alone. Little things, like mice and birds, little beggars come in looking for seeds, to get out of the weather and what not. And mice and birds attract cats, the kind of cat that people shoo away with a broom or shotgun. Barn cats. Nothing more insolent or ungrateful than a barn cat. Thin as smoke and quick, they won't give you more than one hateful look before they disappear. There's not even time to chunk a brick at one. I hate them. Just out of sight they skitter about like gremlins, till you think you're hearing things, or that you're haunted. And then I came to know that I really was haunted, at the pleasure of one of those damned creatures.

The night he came, the wind moaned through the walls' gaps. Long, filmy clouds like feathers veiled the moonlight, with a thunderhead stalking along the horizon. Kerosene lamps threw a dim light through the barn, popping and hissing. The windows looked out onto solid black, as big and deep as Jacob's pupils. His chest heaved with breathing and one hand clutched the front of his shirt, even as he grinned stupidly and chattered about kicking somebody's ass. Crank can do that. It was his first hit – the first one was a gift, to remember me by. He was bouncing nervously with the high, begging for another, but I kept it to myself for the time being. Behind him a window loomed, and as his head bobbed in and out of focus, I caught the stare of the beast. Pure white, except with a twitching tail of solid gray, it sat on the windowsill, framed like a painting on velvet. One slitted, golden eye glared back at me, the other an empty black scar.

I took up the item nearest my hand, a discarded candlestick, and threw it past Jacob's head at the preening cat. Jacob squawked as he dove out of the way, and lay wasted, making love to the floor. The cat never took its one eye off me as it judiciously licked its chops, then dodged expertly as the missile flew through where it had sat and exploded the window into a million glass shards. The brute disappeared like a swirling fog, and the incoming gale buffeted the lamps with a mournful wail. Jacob rolled onto his back, both hands holding his head steady, and groaned, "Oh, man."

"You're whipped, buddy," I said. "Get off the ground."

"Gimme another hit," he whined.

"I know you want it. You know what's good for you. But before you get another, you gotta pay up," I said, looking beyond him, still trying to spy out where the cat had hidden.

"I don't have any money."

"You better find yourself some then. Next time you come, bring some presidents – war heroes. Get you some Gen. Jacksons, or Grants."

"Come on, just one more hit," his voice grated at me.

"Forget it. I'm not in this for charity."

"You got anything to eat, then?"

"Yeah, here, have some chips," and I heaved a bag at him.

"My head is killing me," he said. I hadn't hit him with the candlestick, but I didn't have to. He crammed the chips into his mouth. "I gotta get outa here. I'm about to drop."

"Don't be a stranger," I said. "Remember to bring your friends."

Jacob balanced his head upon his neck and stumbled to the door. He'd opened it just a crack before the wind caught it and slung it violently out of his hands. Spirits slammed it against the wall, jolting a blast of dust from the boards. He disappeared into the darkness, and I lurched to my feet, cursing as I struggled to pull the door shut after him. The tempest whorled, rose in complaint then fell again as if preparing to spring, the bitching cry roiling around me and around my head and finally into my ears, a voice, and I heard it say, "Why do you abuse me?" I looked around the door and over my shoulder, thinking I'd see Jacob, but he was nowhere about. I stood there clinging to the door as the storm wrestled against me, and again I heard, "Why do you abuse me?" With sudden strength, I wrenched the door shut and latched the bluster outside, and the wind complained against its defeat, and against me.

"Why do you persecute the innocent?" Low and rasping it spoke, crackling like from lack of use. My eyes shot about, seeking the voice's source, still expecting Jacob's face. I lit up another hit for myself, but euphoria could not quiet the accuser. "You seek to corrupt what is clean. The wicked desire conflict where there is peace. You will neither live nor die in peace." The moaning floated through the broken glass, so I set about to board up the window. There again sat the white cat, staring with its one eye, twitching its tail. I heard my croaking voice scream, and I swung wildly with the lumber I carried, long and clumsy. My hands stung with the impact, and the space the beast had occupied emptied into a taunting void.

The next morning arose still and cold. A mist rose off the lake like hovering souls. The voice seemed like a distant dream, and half the time I believed and the other half not so much. I decided to take a window from the cabin to replace the glass I had broken – something about tearing the cabin down piece by piece appealed to me. The cypress knees stood there like idiots, watching me. I cursed them as I struggled with the repair, and forced the window to fit despite their evil eye. That night I waited, lying there in the straw and meth smoke, alert for the voice, but I heard only silence.

I lost track of time. That happens, especially in here. The next time Jacob came was a couple weeks later, I guess, maybe more. He showed up though, all right, with that big-eyed, sullen expression. He was repenting, I could tell, but I had other things on my mind.

"Hey, what do you mean by hanging around here?"

"What are you talking about?" he said; I'd given him no chance even to say hello.

"Last time. You hung around outside and babbled like an damn ass."

"Who, me?"

"Of course you, who do you think? I know it was you sneaking around! What's the idea, moaning like you was Bing Crosby? You think you're funny?"

"No – what? What are you talking about?"

"Look, I don't need you messing with my mind. You keep lurking around in the shadows, and I'm likely to pop a cap in you and not look first."

"You're crazy! I don't know what you're talking about!"

"You think I'm stupid or something? I'm warning you – the only warning you're gonna get! J'you bring some money with you or what?"

"No," Jacob's voice warbled. "That stuff is messed up. I don't want any more to do with it."

"Sure you do. I've got just what you want right here – don't try to fight it. Where's the cash?"

"I tell you, I'm through with it. I only came around to tell you so. I'm not coming back here."

"Oh, you always come back," I glared into his eyes and nearly fell into their depth. I found nothing I recognized.

"Well, not any more. I'm steering clear. You used to always draw me back here, even against my will. You had a spirit about you – even with a mischievous spirit, it was like you could draw favor to yourself. You've always pushed the limits of that spirit, but with this stuff you've gone too far. Now it's got ahold of you – I'm not going to let that happen to me."

"C'mon, take another hit – it'll change your mind. Just show me a twenty, and it's yours." I held out my hand, and noticed my fingers shaking.

Jacob waived his arms broadly and shook his head. "Look, I'll see you around, maybe around town. But you won't be anywhere near here. I'm gone."

He talked like a crazy man. I had no idea what he was saying.

But with that, Jacob walked away. I saw him walk away.

"Why do you despise your blessing?" that ratcheting voice started up again. I jumped right there inside my skin. Immediately my anger boiled up again at Jacob, but there his shoulders and head still bobbed, still in sight through the gap in the woods, far in the distance. He was gone, long gone, and as much as my hatred rose against him, I couldn't deny it – it was not him who haunted me. A chill ran through my bones, and my eyes darted from corner to corner inside that damn barn. At that moment I believed I might be crazy, and I staggered to my stash of crystal for a quick hit. As I fumbled with my lighter, the spectral visitation spoke again.

"Why do you pursue that of no value, when already everything is yours? You lust after gain, but you do not even know what is precious. You will be robbed. You will lose everything, both what you love and what you despise."

My zeal spared no shelter nor shadow as I desperately sought that godforsaken ghost, while it droned on and on. It grated at me in its disdain, seeming to come from everywhere. I tore through the accumulated trash and tossed everything loose out into the floor. Nothing, nothing under the sparse furniture, nobody hidden within the towering piles of junk. No shorting radio, no horror-movie doll left over from some tortured childhood. No pews needed to hide beneath, nor altar to secret itself away. It lectured me from the ether, and then I caught sight again of the white cat, sitting in its window. Its one eye burned a hole through me.

"You beg for judgment," it said, licking its chops. I swear it.

I don't know what I said. Curses I'd never heard before poured out of my mouth, curses I don't even know what they meant. My hand found a rickety chair, and I flung it toward my tormentor. The cat calmly watched the frail bit of wood crash into pieces upon the wall next to it, then returned its baleful stare toward me. Its tail waved gently, curved like a fishhook. Desperate for a buzz, I stumbled into my lab, tucked behind a false wall. The familiar voice nagged at me, and I tried to shake it clear from my head. A musky haze sucked in my brain like an eddy, pulling images and memories into oblivion. I'm not sure what remained real at that moment, or afterward. I fell to the ground, my head landing without resistance, like a melon. Over me hovered the cat, laying out its questions, making its accusation, tempting me to lunacy. My only defense was to laugh, to laugh that specter to derision. Heartily I roared, there on the dusty floor, as if volume would make clear all the vanity of this nightmare, and the cat became a mockery to me, a buffoon. I took to calling it Balaam.

I told Jacob he'd be back, and each day it seemed I could hear him crackling through the brush. I believed he'd return, and every evening I settled down into my rough straw pallet cursing him, but knowing tomorrow would be the day. Through the trees, his head might appear to be looming over the horizon, but always his image faded into random branches or leaves dancing in the wind. Disappointed again – but when I turned my eyes to the lake, a hundred of him materialized, hovering at the water's surface. He stood like sentinels, quietly waiting for something promised, watching but never drawing any closer. How I screamed at him, to quit his mute scrutiny and come back into my comforts, but there he remained, all of him, perched upon the flood where I could not go. I did not believe he would stay distant.

Nor did I believe that one companion left to me. The cat occupied its post in the window as each grueling day passed, no longer speaking but continuing to fire its gaze through me. Its silence led me to think I had invented the voice's blathering, and left me still laughing at its absurdity. Like a gargoyle it stared, tail twitching with vexation, and I scoffed at my irrational imagination from nights before. I did not believe what Jacob had said, nor what the cat said, or what I had supposed it said out of my sickness or whatever derangement it was that led me. Clearly they had conspired to drag me through this anguish. I defied the cat to speak, howling taunts into the night with lunatic gaiety, knowing it would never dare answer my challenge. One word would have thrown me into complete slavery, but it would not prove itself.

So the two agreed against me in their silence, always watching, as if provoking me. What, are you waiting on me? Tell me what you want – tell me something. You can't make me, I'll choose my own way. Stop it, stop looking through me, turn off that damned eye! "See you in town, maybe" – I'll see you all right. I determined within myself to hunt down Jacob, to bring him down. I burned a quick pipe of crank for myself, then threw a load into a flimsy plastic bag, gripping it with a choke hold. My free fist found my father's old hand axe, the handle standing straight up from the floor like a salt pillar, like one of those damn cypress knees. Mine is the vengeance. Jacob wasn't so clean, and he'd take what I wanted for him, one way or another. He'd take whatever bad medicine I crammed down his throat, or I'd cut him off at the knees.

"I do not lie to you," that wretched voice came at me again. My eyes shot around to the window, and there sat the white beast, my fanatic pursuer. "Test the words of a prophet!"

"You!" I croaked, no more staggered by the sound as by the presence of its absence before.

"You seek to stain what has been washed!" it screamed. "You despise the gift!"

"I deny it!" I roared, and I felt my hands clinch. "Jacob's not so innocent! It's good enough for him! You don't know what's really inside him!"

"You do not even believe what comes from your mouth! You can not see past your eyes, though I speak what plays out before you. Do you go out into the earth? Or do you venture onto the water with your axe? Indeed, if you do not embrace the water to die, you will never arise alive out of the ground!"

That voice pitched and strained higher until at last it touched that familiar point in my brain – my father's voice, once again shrilling his diatribe. The cat had stolen his voice. Or perhaps my father's spirit had infected the prowling vermin, still swelling over and about me to manipulate my ways. My teeth felt like they might crack, my whole being convulsed at this unwelcome return, regret and rage roiled within me, and my arm recoiled with the axe. I heaved the weapon in the cat's direction; my aim was off, but so was his. The axe hit the wall somewhere between the window and floor, the very spot where the animal leapt in its escape, meeting like a confluence of events. A divine appointment. A sound like a woman singing, almost like ecstasy, issued from the cat as the massive blade cleaved into it. The axe caught it at the chest, slicing it in two. Not so much clean, but in two.

Carefully I inspected the limp mess, but found no sign of my father. Nor did I detect him as I stretched out its entrails before me, not in its veined heart nor its pink liver. Nor his blood on my hands. I didn't see anything.

But even as he eludes me, he engulfs me like a rolling mist. With both hands I grasp at him like the whole of the lake, and they come out empty but wet. Even in this place I can't escape it. The yellow eye follows me, stares into me constantly. The cat's empty socket, futile as death, opens before me a gaping cavity, a black pit bottomless as a question. And the bright red eye yet glows, glimmering in the dark like a conspicuous star rising. It illumines with the fluxing light of an aurora. It burns its accusation from the end of my cigarette, glaring up at me from its place deep in my thigh.

London After Midnight

A dripping of moisture, gathered from the ever-present mist that cloaks the city's dark workings. Tell-tale clottering upon cobblestones betrays the passage of a distant hansom. Big Ben strikes, and strikes, and strikes, until at last it says midnight has passed. Skulking out of the reach of gas streetlights, a dark form streaming mourning weeds fades into the night's veil.

"You'll not be rid of me as easy as that!" a growl erupts.

Down the dank alley creep the deepest shadows. Brownstone walls glisten, the sparse light tickling their dampness. A dim glow does no better than to light each careful step, as he glides in his crouched posture, avoiding the drainage collecting in the middle. More dripping added from laundry still hanging overhead, forgotten and ruined. Pushcarts of the plebeian costermongers line the buildings: Dr. Prevention Peppermint, Freshest Herring, Lucifer Black Shoeshine.

"You reckon on your secret knowledge, eh," he mutters. "Within this cloak hides my own secret, you'll see."

Crossing underneath the brick arch, he tests the edge of the murk. Well do his eyes see, round and gaping. A glance to each side, peering, studying, and quietly he slinks onto the open street. Streamlets run from his battered topper, soaking his bent back. But soon awnings provide sporadic cover, and in and out of shadow he skulks. A stagnant miasma hangs over sewer grates. Swiftly past windows and doors, he finds the building he seeks.

"Yes, I know. I know where you are at practice this hour. Up top, and up top will work just fine," he sneers.

An unlikely acrobat, he grasps the awning's edge and flips himself onto the heavy canvas. A loop of rough rope appears from under his cape, and he pulls himself up by each new ledge. Clambering up the brick facade, checking carefully each toe-hold, like a spider the writhing black splotch works higher and higher, from window to quoin to window again. Up all five stories, finally to the cornice, he again dangles like a circus freak before swinging one foot onto the roof. Squinting about for his prey, as well as he could, the city belongs to him now. Soot floats like a gossamer shroud from smokestacks across the Thames. Silhouettes of night creatures disappear against the gloom. An unseen cranny emits a quiet scratching.

"Rosicrucians, appear to me," a raspy voice intones. "Oh adepts, appear to me. Oh Baphomet, appear to me."

The specter hugs the protection of each chimney as he draws nearer. Both arms spread, hands caressing the brick, a fleeting beam of light glints off a sharp edge. Walking a tightrope of his own imagining, he chooses his steps delicately, advancing toward the incantation.

"Oh light of special knowledge, appear to me. Oh Baphomet, appear —"

The scraping of light footsteps cuts off the voice.

"What is it? Who's there?" A single candle reveals a face's surprise.

"You have your secret light," comes a snarl. "Well, the darkness is my light, the darkness you plunged me into. Clear do I see you." The jagged smile flashes fully into the glimmering.

"You! You fool! Kneel to your master!"

"Master? Master?! Your master take you!"

The robes of night envelop its evil – hidden from man's eyes, from judgment. A curtain drawn to conceal the stage, the play ends to no audience. Moanings arise into empty air, a sky dripping with apathy, no moon nor stars to bear witness. Shadow melts into shadow, and muffled scuffling betrays a struggle desperate in its silence, though the glaring alley cats observe undisturbed. The hungry blade draws slowly, deeply across the throat, spilling its brackish flow; a heavy thump leaves all quiet. The looming figure hovers overhead, not straight but like a vulture, hands still poised to grasp, evaluating its work. A look about – left, then right – though there is nothing to see but rooftops. He scans the scene for moments on end, as if expecting an intruder, daring an intervention. Finally taking up his dim lantern and slinking to the parapet, he slides over easily and disappears. Big Ben strikes once.

Creighton poked gingerly at the dying embers. The English summer had succumbed completely to shorter days, and his flat embraced the chilled air. Even the empty coal scuttle offered only cold comforts.

"Mrs. Hildie! Bring up some coal, please!" he called to his housekeeper. Her proper name was Mrs. Hildegard, but he was too lazy to pronounce it.

"Right, Guv'nuh," she responded from the lower floor. "I'm just a bit with your tea as well. One moment." Her dialect betrayed her poorer birth; though Creighton had no great breeding himself, he took solace from his superiority over his cleaning lady, and the modest charity he showed a middle-aged widow.

"There you be, Mr. Creighton," as she set down the tray. "Now to the coal. I'll be right up quick as spit, don't you fret. You look like you've got the morbs."

Settled into his worn Queen Anne, he eschewed the cup and instead took up the teapot, wrapping his frigid fingers about its radiant heat. The heavy curtains and dusty tapestries that hung about the room gave it a pretense of warmth without delivering any. Bizarre mementos and artifacts from around the world speckled the walls, testifying not to Creighton's worldliness, but only the modest prosperity that allowed him to visit antique shops, and to a calculatedly eclectic sense of taste. The books – from floor to ceiling, spanning the area from the front window clear to the door – offered the same insight, a passage into his curiosity that had become something of an obsession. Every new idea found a happy home in his brain, and he gleefully investigated any strange notion that arrested his attention.

Herein lay his problem. Foreseeing the gloomy evenings to come, Creighton longed for some new diversion. Finally thawed enough to pour the tea, he picked up that afternoon's edition of the Evening Telegraph and idly looked through its classifieds, seeking any notice that might prove interesting. With a pencil he checked off poetry readings, madrigal recitals, and family theater.

Mrs. Hildie rattled about with the coal.

"What do you know about spiritualism, Mrs. Hildie?"

"Dear me, not a thing, Mr. Creighton. Séances and such? No, I doubt the Vicar would much approve of that!"

"Indeed. But have you never been curious?"

"No, Guv'nuh, though I do understand Mr. Doyle attends such things. I do dote on 'is stories in the Strand. Me own dear great-granddad helped lay the cobblestones on Baker Street, right where Mr. 'Olmes lives, so I guess that's why I fancy 'im."

"Doyle, eh?" Creighton patronized. "I must admit, I'd like to see if there's anything to it. I see a notice here in the Telegraph – some group called the Day Star. What a pretense! There's a meeting this evening on Eel Pie Island, in the hotel. Discussion of theurgy or some such thing." He rose from his chair and headed toward the pedestal where his OED perched.

"Will you be going out this evening, then?" Mrs. Hildie wiped her hands of black dust left from the newly enlivened fire.

"Yes, I think I will. Theurgy –" he muttered as he flipped pages.

"Well, then," she sighed, gazing at the flame. "I'll get your mack out. Messy night it is, Guv'nuh."

The boat to the island slid silently over the Thames. The grand Eel Pie Island Hotel stood proudly at the top of the short climb from the slip – all which Creighton was quite acquainted with. He had passed many fine evenings in its banquet halls, and the venue itself gave a air of credibility to the gathering he sought this night. The doorman swung wide the entry into the foyer, a knowing gaze over his outstretched hand. Creighton halted to scan the room, but found no hint of the Day Star meeting. Event signs at the entrances to smaller rooms along the lobby's perimeter revealed nothing. Referring back to his newspaper, he scratched his chin and proceeded to the concierge.

"Yes, Sir, what can I do for you?"

"Can you direct me to the, uh, Order of the Day Star? I believe they are meeting here tonight?"

"Not so much of a meeting, Sir, but a public presentation."

"Yes, whatever it is, will be at the hotel, no?"

"Yes, Sir, that room is one floor down in the back."

"Really?" Creighton was genuinely nonplussed. "Isn't that rather tucked out of the way?"

"It's by arrangement with management – so no patrons without real interest will stumble in without asking after it."

"I see."

"Down that staircase, to your left," the concierge indicated with his hand.

Indeed, that is how Creighton found the room, without a placard at the door. Within sat a small group of proper English men and women, turned out in their finery. He chose a seat decidedly not behind any ladies, whose voluminous hats would certainly block his view. The attendees chatted quietly as they waited, and Creighton idly picked out the occasional "quite so" or "indubitably" within the conversation. He checked his pocket watch and wondered if this evening would turn out a waste.

Eventually a thin man rose to address the gathering. His high collar gave him a ministerial look, and his reedy voice matched. But the words that flowed, the warm milk of his gracious persuasion, left each hearer convinced that he alone received the smooth soliloquy. With his lavish welcome and flattery simply for showing up, the man stroked each ego and greased all skepticism about his sincerity. Only a few can accept what he would say, he told them, only a select class can understand the secret wisdom.

"I am Mr. Charles," he said, "and I have great confidence in all of you."

His velvet message continued into the night, rising with the heat and fumes of the room's gaslights, making heads swoon. Ancient symbols newly appreciated, pagan epiphany adapted to modern knowledge, renewed connections between the spiritual and the material. The beguilement rambled on as the attendees' attention slumped in their chairs. Creighton felt himself falling into a spell, but he awoke at the pronouncement of a single thought; he both awoke and slipped into seduction.

"And we have to thank for all this Mr. Westcott, who revealed to us the Cipher Manuscripts through Fraulein Sprengel."

Through all of Mr. Charles' talk that Creighton couldn't sort out, the idea of a cipher sparked his interest. Here lay something that could be studied and dissected for its meaning, a pursuit with a beginning and an end, not slap-dash jumping across a multitude of subjects as his life had been.

"Only through the cipher has the Day Star developed its hermeneutic, and only through the cipher do we enjoy our secret traditions," Mr. Charles droned on. "All symbols are one, if you only know, and all that is physical is mystical. The cross is the symbol of the brotherhood's dedication and mystical wisdom. The red in the cross is the symbol of the mystical blood. The blood is the symbol of divine alchemy. Only through the cipher do we know."

I want to know, Creighton thought as he gazed entranced at the speaker. I will find out more of this.

"Thank you all for coming out tonight," Mr. Charles closed in mallifluous tones. "Tonight you heard only a little public lecture. The Day Star gathers to practice its holy rituals monthly, on the new moon, at the Isis-Urania Temple. We would all love to see you, and welcome you into the wonderful hidden knowledge." With that he fell abruptly silent and turned away.

As others quietly organized possessions and spouses, wondering if the time to stand had indeed arrived, Creighton headed straight for the podium. He extended a gregarious hand, to which Mr. Charles responded tepidly. "So enjoyed your talk tonight," he gushed.

"Thank you, Sir."

"I'm particularly interested in the cipher you spoke of. Can you tell me about the origin of it, and what method was used to translate it?"

Suddenly Mr. Charles seemed to run out of words. He stared at some point in Creighton's vicinity and said, "Only through the cipher do we know."

"Yes, quite," Creighton said, trying to make contact beyond his eyes. "But how did it come to be translated into English?"

"It was given to an Englishman."

"Well, yes, but —"

"Come to the temple for the secret knowledge," Mr. Charles intoned. Releasing Creighton's hand, he left it suspended in air.

"Yes. Thank you, Sir," Creighton said blankly. I will, he thought, if that's how it must be. He reluctantly left the room and made his way back up the stairs and into the lobby.

"I hope you did not find the Day Star lecture disturbing, Sir," the concierge said as he passed.

Jerking out of contemplation, Creighton replied, "What? Disturbing? No, of course not. Why?"

"Good. Many of our guests rather resent seeing it here."

The days passed slowly for him as the new month entered infancy. Creighton spent hours in his favorite antique shops, seeking out disintegrating volumes on arcane spirits, but he found no information about the Day Star. Musty rites instructing necromancy, nonsensical symbols upon tarot cards, empty philosophies of Gnostics — all prattled on and on and left him cold. Certainly this new approach, a modern mysticism, had more to offer than Bronze Age man could imagine. Impatiently he watched the moon wane each evening until at last its light faded into the night sky.

From the outside, the temple looked no different than an emporium; Creighton double- and triple-checked the address. Tucked within mainstream London, the staid brownstone could have been any storefront, or perhaps just another fraternal lodge for upward-minded middle-class tradesmen. Lacking all the exotic embellishments he expected, the building gave him no reason for pause nor encouragement, as he hesitated underneath its canvas awning. After all his anticipation, he now cracked the door open gingerly so as to make a clean getaway if necessary.

Even in the dim light, he quickly spotted the cryptic hieroglyphs adorning the interior walls. Immediately they beckoned him in, rows upon rows of figures in familiar flat design. Men walked sideways and bent the knee to birds in profile, scarabs and ankhs dotted the script, and all-seeing eyes stared back at Creighton. The unmistakable Egyptian script gave him a sense of relief; this was no red herring after all. He made his way slowly, studying the wall's images without knowing where to start, while muddled sounds of chanting lured him down the dusky hallway toward a back room.

The congregation stretched out before him, their backs in silhouette against the front of the room. Candles flickered along the edges of the floor, and a stinging pungency hit Creighton's eyes and sinuses; he sidled toward a vacant straight-back chair and sat. The chanting went on uninterrupted, but he could not be sure of the words. At the front stood a number of officiates in gaudy attire, some looking like medieval knights, others as though they'd gotten lost from a marching band. In the middle stood a man in full pharaonic garb, a golden cobra encircling the crown of his headdress. His long robe obscured the altar where he served, but Creighton was able to see the haze of incense wafting from two burning pots, and the horns of some large animal extended across its span. The priest held his hands skyward, framing a sign on the wall reading "Do What You Will," and the chanting rose with the smoke.

When he at last turned around, he looked like nothing more than typical English gentry, a professor, perhaps, or a bank manager. Still somehow he held the people rapt in his eminence. His hands still raised, the congregation fell into a nervous silence. He paused for a moment and pronounced, "The Rosicrucians are among us. The adepts are among us."

Reflexively the group began a new murmuring chant, which again Creighton was not able to make out. The pharaoh brought his hands together in the shape of an acute angle, and above the droning voices continued, "Praise to the adepts, praise to the adepts. They will that you may will, they will that you may will. Lead us into the secret traditions, lead us into the secret knowledge.

"From the days of the masons we have known. From the days of the crusaders, we have known. From the days of the pyramids, we have known. The secret mystical knowledge comes only to us. The secret mystical knowledge comes only from the cipher. Apply thy talisman, apply thy tarot. Will the secret knowledge, will thy secret understanding. To will is to do, to will is to know, to will is to be. This is the only law."

As the ritual ran on into the evening, Creighton felt himself drifting. At times he was not sure if he was sleeping, if he had just awakened or if he'd been alert all along. The smoke began to take on shapes in the dancing candlelight, and Creighton struggled to remember his purpose there. Voices blurred into a mesmeric hum of no beginning nor end. Heaviness fell upon him in its undertow, and he imagined clinging to a buoy bobbing in a chilled dampness, then bumping overhead against a thick sound, the dire cry of a steam whistle or a scream, forcing him deeper, and then a force jostled him hard enough to nearly knock him out of the chair. His eyes snapped into focus. The service was finished.

"Pardon me," a man said.

Creighton looked at him, puzzled, and then urgently toward the front of the room, relieved to see the priest still at his post. As the crowd milled toward the exit, Creighton struggled against the tide to reach the altar. Keeping an eye on his goal, he did not see the figure suddenly looming into his path, one of the men decked out in a heraldic tunic.

"Hello," he imposed. "I'm Mr. Aleister."

"Oh, hello," Creighton said, straining to see over the tall man's shoulder. "I'm Mr. Creighton. I'd like to have a word with the priest."

"I'm sorry, Sir, but nobody can speak to Dracon Megalo. Not here."

"What is his name?"

"Perhaps you can speak to him some time elsewhere. To those outside his name is Mr. Samuel. I'm Mr. Aleister."

"Well," Creighton began, at the same time feeling both welcomed and strong-armed. "I'm here at the invitation of Mr. Charles. Is he here?"

"He was. What do you wish to say?"

"Well, I guess you'll do," he said, unintentionally rude in his resignation. "I'm terribly interested in this cipher of yours. I'd like to learn more about it."

"Oh, well, I'll be happy to help you. But this is such a formal setting for that kind of talk. I'd be happy to meet with you in a cozier place. Where do you live?"

"Middlesex."

"Oh, well then, how about The Eagle and Child? We can discuss it over pints."

"That will do fine," Creighton forced himself to warm to the man.

"So you will meet me there?"

"I will."

"To will is to be. That is the only law," Mr. Aleister smiled.

The agreed day approached, and Creighton's research continued to prove futile. He sought out works of Egyptologists and poured over ancient maps, but they made no mention of any Cipher Manuscripts, frustrating him intensely. This quest further deferred burned off the fog that had settled over him during the ritual. As he walked briskly to the pub at the appointed time, his mind once again came alive with impetuous curiosity.

"Well, then," Mr. Aleister began, "Mr. Charles told me a bit about you. Are you interested in becoming a Day Star initiate?"

"Oh, I don't know about that. I've only just begun to learn about your group. Right now I'm mostly just intrigued by the cipher."

"Yes, Mr. Charles informed me about that."

"I must say, your meeting the other night was rather puzzling. But your cipher fascinates me."

Mr. Aleister ticked his head to the side. "What is it about our cipher?"

"I've done a lot of reading over the years, learning about codes – you know, da Vinci, wartime codes, and so on. Capitol, that! So I undertook to find out more about your cipher." Mr. Aleister smiled at Creighton's palpable excitement as he talked.

"Unfortunately, I've hit up against a bit of a wall. I'm quite familiar with the city's antique shops, and been through every old book and manuscript I can find, but I've found no reference to your Cipher Manuscripts. Mr. Charles made mention of a Fraulein Sprengel, and I can find no reference to her. So, that is my main question to you. Can you tell me more about your secret cipher?"

"Well, it is secret, isn't it?" Mr. Aleister replied. "The understanding of the cipher is secret to all but those inside, but its source is also secret. We cannot reveal the secret power to those unable to safely know."

"I see. So you can't just tell me about it?"

"I could tell you, but the knowledge would not be revealed to you. That remains only for initiates. But I can say your instincts were correct, to seek out the ancient. But you would never find the cipher in so obvious a source as a book."

Creighton looked dumbfounded.

"Small things remain hidden well. Writing reveals knowledge, it does not conceal it, but those who know wisdom wrap it around themselves. I'll give you a hint – go back to your antique shops, seek out the small people. Look for the symbols there, and they will reveal themselves. Those with the secret knowledge have shown themselves to know."

"I see. All right," Creighton stammered, not sure what he understood.

"We're having a service for initiates next month. Let me know if you discover the cipher. If you really want to explore the wisdom, join us then. The wisdom will open up to you, if you will it. To will it is to join with us. Until then, good luck with your expedition! Remember, the small people wrap themselves in the secret wisdom. But for now, I must beg your pardon and withdraw – I have another appointment. Good day!"

Creighton stolidly watched the back of Mr. Aleister's long coat retreat through the door, his cane swinging jauntily. The pint across from him, barely touched, stared back. He had no interest in small people. Whatever a bunch of day-laborers might know could hardly be worth keeping secret. But still, some reason must lay behind what Mr. Aleister told him. He did not understand his instructions, but at least they included antique shops – that pleasantry at least was one saving grace. Creighton knew of one just down the lane, so he lurched to his feet and headed out.

Perusing the organized chaos of ancient junk, he strained for some kind of revelation. A dandy horse aged like driftwood leaned against the front wall, a temptation to those for whom a penny-farthing was still too modern. Creighton intently resisted the shelves of books, and inspected the tables laid out with precious objects as though he had cracked open a pyramid tomb. Delicate porcelain figures intermingled with heavy jugs and urns, decorated with brilliant blues and gold leaf. Ornately woven scarves hung from the second-story stair railing, and a couple of oriental rugs stood rolled-up in a corner. On the walls hung souvenir plates and Daguerreotypes, memorializing events and faces long forgotten. Cuckoo clocks ticked methodically, chiming only slightly out of sync. Creighton studied each odd novelty – a wooden shoe, a grotesque medical instrument – and wondered what he was looking for.

He worked his way toward the counter, peering into the most secret corners and nooks. Punch and Judy grimaced from their hooks. Christ hung resigned from a collection of Crucifixes. No dusty hints revealed themselves from the shadows. Creighton was not sure even what he would ask the proprietor.

"Nice to see you back, Sir," he said, disappointed that Creighton approached him empty-handed. "No book today?"

"No, I'm trying to find something."

"A gift, perhaps? How about a lovely watch?" He indicated a group of pocket watches on a stand behind him. "These are all right bang up to the elephant."

"No –" Creighton began, glancing at the watches. Any other day he might have given the collection some polite attention. Then his eye caught a similar black-velvet placard standing aside it. "What are those?"

"These, Sir? Miniatures – from all over Europe. Folks in a scrape bring them in when they've forgotten which relative it is. Some here go back to George III, when he wasn't mad as hops."

Tiny faces peered at Creighton from pocket-sized portraits, some less than two inches in diameter. The minute dots that were their eyes gazed with serene synergy. Delicate hands took hold of lapels or clasped shawls closely about the breast, putting him in mind of ancient saints' icons signaling with two fingers, fingertip touching to thumb. One particularly caught his attention, a quaint woman in a plain frock and bonnet, but wearing an exquisite tatting scarf about her shoulders. Her hand gently framed a brooch at her throat, as though presenting it for exhibit, decorated with a miniscule design. Even from his distance, Creighton could see something had been inscribed by the artist. Were these then the small people Mr. Aleister referred to? It was the only straw he had to grasp.

"That colonial woman – how much for her?"

"This one? The frame is sterling – £3 will do it."

"That's rather dear," Creighton wavered. "Could you throw in a loupe?"

"Throw it in for £3 seven bob, Sir. Usually a guinea outright."

"Well, all right." He stared at the placard, and each face stared back, each hand beckoned with mystery. "On second thought, how much for the lot of them?"

Hunched over his desk, Creighton looked like a penitent monk, three oil lamps casting a glow around his silhouette. He rigged mirrors behind two of them, hoping to direct a stream of light to the desktop. His thick fingers fumbled at the miniature. Through the magnifying glass the benign matron jumped into his eyes, her brooch tendering its secrets. The image could not have been produced by anything bigger than a needle's point. Leaning in so close that he found breathing difficult, Creighton scrutinized each mark and tried to reproduce the images in pencil upon a scrap of paper. His eyes burned at the abuse, and resisted his attempts to focus. Leaning backward in his creaking chair, he moaned pathetically as he massaged them with the heels of his hands.

"Your supper gettin' cold, Guv'nuh," Mrs. Hildegard offered, somewhat behind him with hands folded timidly.

"What? Oh, yes," he said.

"If I may be so bold, Sir," she continued. "You'll ruin your eyes, Sir. You've been at that glass for days now. Come on now, an' give your eyes a rest."

They stared back at her, the redness intensified by their gaping. "Yes, quite, Though actually, my back hurts more. But it's fascinating, fascinating."

The tiny image he had spied in the shop was no simple design at all, but in fact another portrait. Two young women inclining toward each other, it was ingeniously painted to appear from a distance like a skull. The precision was excruciating. With each new examination, Creighton discovered features that teased with more information. But the light failed, it could not reveal all he desired. His eyes ached, open wide like the moon itself, pocked and wounded. Each ruffle of lace, every fold of the ladies' dresses, tantalized him with prospective meaning, if only he could see well enough to understand. And each miniature he had bought contained its own arabesque of cryptic detail.

"Your eyes, Guv'nuh! You must rest them!"

The month passed before he knew it. His studious pursuit was broken only by excursions to other antique shops. Notes and drawings piled up as he poured over each new portrait, set upon decoding the knowledge of these small people. When the night of the initiation arrived, he jammed his papers into a satchel and grabbed his beaver hat. Creighton could not relax his eyes, and his back complained as he tried to stand straight. He slunk past Mrs. Hildegard in the kitchen and slipped out the door, determined to present his findings and to demand to know what they meant.

Not hesitating at the temple entrance, he charged into the hallway, scanning the walls this time for symbols he might match to the little pictures. Once more, nothing offered itself, but he did notice among the hieroglyphs a mix of simple triangles and wheels, and what appeared to be Hebrew letters. He cursed himself quietly, for not knowing to look for these things. Racking his memory of the miniatures, he quickly realized he must review and reinterpret his drawings. He cursed himself that he was not prepared, and made his way to the room in the back.

The service had not begun, but a crowd was already seated. Creighton chose a chair, and stowed his hat and satchel underneath. More detail from the arcane wall decorations leaped at him, which he tried to inscribe in his mind for later reference. Finally his eyes fell upon the sign in front, "Do What You Will," and rested there until he suddenly realized the hypnotic chanting had arisen around him.

A line of men underneath cowls like monks' robes processed down the middle aisle. Each carried a staff topped with a talisman – a skull or American Indian totem or a gem. One was simply a slender forked tree branch. The droning rose and fell with their slow progress. They filled the front two rows of seating, comprised of long benches, being followed by the various medieval knights and finally by Dracon Megalo, the pharaoh, lifting high a multi-colored cross, glowing red from the center.

The ritual unfolded as before, the swimming words and incense flowing through Creighton's senses. Dry and searing, his eyes begged for protection, but only by leaving them gawking could he see. The burning exhausted his attention, and he began to waver in his chair. The priest announced the arrival of the adepts, the presence of the Rosicrucians, and the voices' crescendo overflowed the room. Creighton struggled to keep alert within the foaming waves of suggestion, but it seemed that relaxed submission to the suspended seduction increased his attention more so than striving against it. Still, he nearly missed the call for initiates.

Perhaps a half dozen men and women filed to the front at the direction of the priests. Some dressed as frumpy middle class – though intellectually aspirant – others as natty upper class. Creighton shifted from foot to foot, bumping shoulders lightly, as each one introduced himself. The pharaoh faced them, lifted his arms and intoned instruction over the continuing incantation.

"Neophytes, you must promise allegiance to the sovereign, mysterious knowledge. You must pledge above all other things to protect its secrecy. Under penalty of a hostile current set upon you by the hermetic order, you must keep our most holy secrets. Do you so swear?"

The group murmured a "yes" or "I do."

"Then repeat after me: My soul, seeking for the light of occult knowledge, gives itself to ceremonial magic and all its gods. My mind, seeking for the light of occult knowledge, gives itself to ceremonial magic and all its gods. My heart, seeking for the light of occult knowledge, gives itself to ceremonial magic and all its gods. My being, seeking for the light of occult knowledge, gives itself to ceremonial magic and all its gods. All that I do and all that I will, I give to the Day Star and all its gods."

The mumbling responses became more intelligible as the initiates learned what to expect. The pharaoh passed his cross over them with each statement, creating a curl of incense smoke adrift over their heads. Creighton felt a twinge inside, a feeling of belonging, though he didn't know anybody there, but a feeling that he was among those who would understand him, or at least were interested in the same new thing. As the ceremony continued he focused deeply upon the pharaoh, who locked onto his gaping eyes, gazing deeply into the void.

"As adherents to the Day Star, you will rediscover the secret traditions of Christianity," the priest went on. "The ancient mysteries of Ptah, of Sophia, even of great Baphomet will open themselves to you. As you enter into co-inherence with the divine, you will know the secret of the Christ, the human and deity. You will become like God, you will become God – whatever you will, you will. Ceremonial magic now becomes thy great tool, the instrument for thy will. As you will, power awaits to come to you. Riches and fame will become thine, if you will. Romance and coupling will be drawn to you, like iron shavings to a magnet. Ceremonial magic will deliver all these things as long as you want them. Learn it, use it, it is thy master and thy great friend. As you use it, it will use you, and change you into its image. Then the satisfaction of the flesh will fall away, and you can become a true adept, able to love and develop your soul. Thy desire will turn to thy co-inherence. Thy new goal to become a true being of light will emerge, and draw thee into its completeness and nothingness. Ye will be swallowed up by thy god, by the being of light that precedes thee. Now receive the spirit of thy mystical evolution."

Now the pharaoh addressed each recruit separately. He made his way down the line, softly speaking instruction. To Creighton he said, "Be not small, satiate thy appetites. Ye are to follow after Marduk. Will to be his servant and master." He felt what seemed like a small disc pressed into his hand.

Without a signal the congregation stood up and fairly crowed its chanting. Beginning in unison, it gradually broke apart into a cacophony, and Creighton realized everyone had turned their adoration to their personal gods. He tried to think of Marduk, but he had no idea what to imagine; the confusion of a hundred voices didn't help him. Then just as suddenly the noise waned, and the pharaoh lowered his rooded staff. The congregants broke down into polite English small talk, and milled toward the door.

As unexpectedly as before, Dracon Megalo again disappeared. Jostled by the crowd, and short of stature, Creighton strained to catch site of the tell-tale headdress. The shoving increased until he realized someone was shaking his shoulder.

"I say, old chap, right here behind you," he heard Mr. Aleister's voice. "Quite an event, eh? Hard to take in so much enlightenment at once." His expression tried to hide an element of shock as their gaze met.

"Yes," stammered Creighton. "I'm quite unsure of what happened. I was hoping to see the priest."

"That time will come. You're still just a neophyte now – remember. We have many levels for you to climb. As you progress, with our direction, you will have a chance to meet the master."

"What's this?" Creighton lifted the object in his hand into the relative light.

"Your amulet. Give us a look at it – oh, Artemis! See the breasts? That's good for you, don't you think?"

Indeed the disc, the size and heft of a poker chip, held the image of a woman, multiple breasts covering her chest, on a yellow field. On the other side, colored orange, was a star of David and Hebrew letters. Creighton considered it carefully as Mr. Aleister continued.

"Remember what Dracon Megalo said about romance? It's yours. Your amulet is your device to seek co-inherence with your god. Our romantic theology teaches sex is a form of God's love. To reach the true being of light, one can use sex, if you will. This is what the master gave you. What else did he say?"

"To satiate myself."

"There you go. You're a bachelor, aren't you? Well, never mind that – old moralities fall before your entitlement. Sex is yours, your journey to the mystical knowledge. Pursue it. One side of the amulet is for drawing power to you; the other side is for projecting power."

"He also told me not to be small." His bulging eyes grasped at Mr. Aleister.

"Ah," Mr. Aleister said knowingly. "So you remembered what I told you."

"Yes, but I don't know if I'm doing it right."

"Tell me what you have done."

"Well, I found these tiny antique portraits – miniatures – I thought they may be the small people. Many of them have hidden images within, so I've been studying that."

"So, that's why I see the understanding in your eyes. You've done well. Take hold of whatever takes hold of you. With it you will grow in power like an avalanche plummeting down a mountainside."

"But I don't know what I've found. I don't understand anything."

"This is why the master told you not to be small. You're examining the small people, but you are to be great. The portraits are speaking to you, but you must expand beyond what they tell you. Will to become great. Remember the master's instructions."

"So I'm on the right track?"

"You are on track. Pursue what the master has told you. Whatever you will, do."

"Yes. All right."

"Keep attending our services. In coming months, we will talk more. We'll have you gaining new levels before you know it," Mr. Aleister smiled warmly, and grasped his forearm. "Before you even know it!"

Creighton dutifully resumed his minute investigation, determined to crack the increasing mystery. Gradually he lost focus on the cipher, and instead began to invent meaning for the images he found. Even the slightest brush stroke leapt at his consciousness, begging for profound interpretation. He seldom left his flat, except to hunt down more miniatures, and the antique dealers, now expectant of his visits, began to draw back at his deteriorating appearance. With his chimney pot hat pulled down low, seldom did his eyes offer more than a glance. To fuel his hours-long studies, he took to keeping a glass of Vin Mariani at hand, and the service of that cup became his only demand of Mrs. Hildegard. The coca wine kept his attention sharp until gradually it knifed into any other thought, and the words of Dracon Megalo steamed his brain's core. Within the swirling haze of dissection, analysis and the priest's haunting commands, a new demand upon Mrs. Hildegard dawned on him.

"Please take some food, Guv'nuh."

"No, I'm busy! Can't you see I'm busy? I'll get some broth later."

"But, Sir, you've had nothing for days. Let me warm you some belly timber."

Creighton drained his last gulp of wine. "Here, you can fill this."

"Yes, Guv'nuh." She reached for the bottle, which stood nearby. "You worry me, if I may say. It's been so long since you've taken up one of your books."

"They don't interest me anymore. You'd best not concern yourself with my habits." He turned his head from his loupe, hanging parallel to his desk, to peer at her sideways.

"Yes, Sir. Pardon me, Sir." She shuddered at his eyes, red and watery.

"Your position here is to serve my will." He returned to his toil. "Nothing more."

"Yes, Sir. Is there nothing you want me to do for you now? Perhaps trim your hair while you work – it's grown so ragged along your collar."

Creighton let out a sigh that was part growl. "So you are a barber? Isn't that a rather personal request to make?"

"I did not mean – "

"Oh, I'm quite sure of what you meant," the chair creaked as he reclined to contemplate Mrs. Hildegard, and he palmed his amulet. "Do you wish to be so involved in my grooming?"

"Please pardon me, Sir. I should leave."

"Oh, no! Quite the opposite, Mrs. Hildie! Please stay! Tell me, why do you have such concern for me personally? This all seems quite sudden."

"Mr. Creighton, I've always held you in high regard. But you've changed so these last few months, I've just become so anxious for you."

"Perhaps there's more to it than worry, Hildie, do you think? How long is it since Mr. Hildegard passed on? How do you feel at night when you're alone? It is especially hard on a woman, is it not. Or do you seek relief at the physician, hmm? I would guess not – not at your wages. You want me back in my books – well, I'm acquainted with hysterical paroxysm, from those very books. No need for you to go see the crow, not with these convenient little rooms, eh?"

"Mr. Creighton!"

He stood and tried to un-kink his hunched back. "Perhaps this is behind your sudden concern for me. Come, we can make you more comfortable than an examination table. How deep does this new hunger run? Are you itching for a brush?" A wicked sneer cracked his lips.

"Please, Sir, you shame me!"

"Oh, come now, keep the line. I see through your flimsy propriety. Come then, let us go at clicket! Isn't that what your people call it?" He chuckled and crept toward her like a bear on two legs, intimidating but unstable. Her breasts heaved under her frowzy bodice as she lost control of her breath, and she stumbled from the heat flush within her head. He took a firm hold on her skirt, pressing his amulet within the folds, "Come, do what you will. I take what I wish," and glared hypnotically with vacant orbs as cold as Pluto. With a squawk she broke away, the fabric ripping in his hand, and ran from the room. He stood watching the empty doorway, his head teetering off-kilter.

"Bah!" he turned back toward his desk. "Silly old bat! She'll come around yet."

But he never saw her again.

Now yet more isolated, Creighton fell into the winter of the soul, a depth of darkness enveloping his senses so thoroughly that he no longer recognized it as darkness. His only concern focused on the miniatures, now the object of affections driven by he knew not what. Trails of thought ran through his mind like a mole, running blind and finding nothing, tearing through flesh and reason with resolute disregard. The only remaining human contact he maintained was with the Order, and Mr. Aleister in particular.

"What has happened to Mr. Charles?"

"Who?"

"Mr. Charles. He spoke first to me about the Day Star. I haven't seen him at the temple."

"Oh, him. He's no longer with us. He has fallen away from the secret truth. We don't speak of him now."

Their meetings withdrew from public areas, and gravitated to dark corners: hidden carrels in libraries, dank opium dens, even rooftops. Never did Creighton get an answer about his findings, but always encouragement to continue. Streams of empty praise and nurture washed over him, flowing seamlessly into the tranquil chanting, floating him gently to his destiny as though he'd paid Charon his fee. Months passed as the narcotic haze of smoke intermingled with the incense of the rituals, until all was one and time disappeared. His attention scraped like a razor upon each present moment, neither anticipated nor remembered.

"We always knew you were a good prospect," Mr. Aleister told him. "We think you're ready for the Zelator."

"What is that?"

"Zelator, the earth. You're progressing. The four elements are essential to our alchemy – earth, wind, fire and water. We're convinced you're ready for the first level, for Zelator."

"Alchemy?"

"Yes, the purification and perfection of all things. And this will please you – it includes the use of the cipher. The elements are the root of the Kabbalah. The Kabbalah expounds upon ancient mystic writings through the use of the cipher."

"The cipher – yes. I remember."

"Quite. But we must begin at the bottom, do we not, old boy? The earth first, where you live now. Then you can mature into spiritual realms. Marduk will help you. Focus your attentions upon Marduk now, and he will empower your transmutation."

"Transmutation? To what?"

"If you persevere, to the elixir of immortality. Much depends on the level of obedience you achieve. Your transmutation can be to utter perfection, perfect knowledge of the secret wisdom. Esotericism calls for all things to come together. You can welcome them to come together within yourself, if you will it."

"What must I do?"

"Release yourself to Marduk. Will yourself to surrender your will. Let him satisfy your flesh, and he will satisfy your spirit. You are one, body and spirit. Feed your spirit through your flesh, and you will be transmuted to utter spirit, until you join the adepts. In the satisfaction of the body comes a disregard for the body, and you will complete purification."

"Yes, I understand," Creighton said mechanically.

"So I see. You have a heart for your advancement."

"Oh, I do so wish to advance!"

Mr. Aleister leaned back in his couch and scrutinized him casually for a moment. "Your transmutation need not be driven only spiritually. There are other things you can do toward that end. Physical things," he offered.

Creighton brightened some at the prospect of progress that could be seen. "What? What things?"

"Oh, different things. We must consider what suits you."

Creighton wasn't sure what they were talking about. He had never cared much about his appearance, and recently even that had gone to seed. If his looks were all that were at stake, he really didn't care. "I'm willing for anything. Whatever the adepts want."

"Oh, the temple chiefs can decide this. In fact, we've given some discussion to it already. There are some alterations you can make to further your perfection, and also to demonstrate your confidence in the power of alchemy. Integration with the adepts requires a separation from the stifling bourgeois culture."

"Yes?" Creighton's voice betrayed timidity beneath his eagerness.

"Do you trust us? You must will to trust your elders blindly."

"Yes."

"One of our adherents is a dentist," Mr. Aleister's voice drifted along in silky tones. "He does interesting work. Oh, there's no need to be anxious, my good man – he's quite skilled at the use of ether. And you might also like to know, he administers it along with opium."

The room sat at the back of the third floor, without windows. The hallway had all the earmarks of infrequent use. Creighton waved away a cobweb as he passed through the door. In the corner a figure stood at a small table, busy with clinking instruments.

"This is Dr. Selakhos," said Mr. Aleister. "He's recently arrived from Greece, but he is well known to us."

"Doctor – " Creighton held out his hand, but the dentist merely glared at it and returned to his work. "Sit," he said abruptly, gesturing toward the chair.

His equipment was outdated, but not in bad repair. Central in the room stood a reclining chair with a cast iron frame, claw feet grasping the floor, and stained leather fittings polished by use. On a tall pedestal to its side sat a large urn for water, rubber tubes gracefully draped to the floor and up again, and next to that a spittoon suspended from a metal framework. Near the chair's leg rest, the drill mechanism loomed like a vulture overhead, powered by a foot pedal.

"Do you remember what we talked about?" Mr. Aleister asked him.

Dr. Selakhos grunted his assent.

"You are in this country to do as you're told. Otherwise – "

"Not worry," the dentist replied flatly. He added a few drops of ether through the wire-mesh mask, wetting the loose cotton within. Creighton watched it close in on his face.

"Now, don't you worry," Mr. Aleister crooned, and patted his arm. "Your vow was chosen by Dracon Megalo himself."

"The priest?"

"None other. He has chosen well for you. The beginning of your transmutation will amaze everyone. You'll be a different man, you'll see."

Creighton watched the dim overhead light warp out of focus and fade into darkness. He thought Mr. Aleister's lips were still moving. At times he believed he was in a deep cavern, then a swarthy face appeared for a dreamy instant, only to vanish to nothing. A grinding sound rose and fell in the background, and he felt intermittently like he was chewing leather. Aching grew in his teeth, then to his jaws, and finally throughout his skull. The droning vibration kept him in unsettled sleep, the face swirling in and out of his consciousness, the anesthetic mask controlling him like the Red Death. Beneath it all the pain burned hotter, and though his agony exceeded endurance, he could neither cry nor scream nor struggle.

"I'll take him now."

"What about papers?"

"You keep quiet," Mr. Aleister hooked his arm under the slumping Creighton. "Mr. Samuel will take care of you in good time."

"Just get papers," said Selakhos, wiping his instruments.

Creighton dreamed he was dying of thirst. A dry soreness wrapped around his head, his tongue too swollen to swallow, his blood throbbing through him like a whipping, like Osiris' rhythmic scourge. A shroud of near-awareness hung gently upon drafts of thought within his sentience. He felt his lips curling back, pitifully shrinking away from glowing coals thrust at him with ethereal tongs. The gnawing pain drummed his head without mercy, as the fragrance of opium smoke lingered.

Slowly aware of drab colors surrounding him, Creighton sleepily thought of Mrs. Hildie and a crisp spot of tea, then seemed to be searching futilely among his books. The lettering along their spines switched and jumbled and faded until they were no more than a flat tan surface. At last he realized he was staring at a ceiling, with no features other than cracks in the plaster. His lips felt cracked, stretched to relieve irritation from within his mouth. Only the need for his chamber pot dragged him into awareness. His head drooped as he sat on the side of the bed, a spring frame with a dense cushion for a mattress. He could tell this room was not his. A groggy look around revealed the only other furniture, a spindly table with a wash basin and pitcher, standing before a mirror hung on the wall. Dingy wallpaper hung precariously from the walls, the pattern faded to utter vanity. A mighty struggle ensued as he stood and undertook pained steps toward the table, finally falling upon its support with both hands. Blessed water swirled in the pitcher, and he gathered himself enough to pour into the bowl. The splashing upon his face helped revive his senses, and he became more aware of the aching in his jaws. Slowly he heaved a sigh and lifted his head to the mirror. He heard a throaty scream as he confronted two rows of sharp fangs in the tarnished glass grimacing jaggedly back at him.

Collapsing to the floor, he let out a tremendous moan and grasped at his forehead. What had become of him? Was this a nightmare still pursuing him even in his waking? Pain thudded in his head, within and without. He became aware of loud clambering like feet upon stairs, and heard the door burst open. Removing his hands, he saw Mr. Aleister standing above him.

"What have you done to me?" he rasped, his voice sounding like a gush of saliva through teeth that no longer offered any resistance.

"You've recovered faster than we thought, old man," Mr. Aleister responded, apparently unaware of anything amiss. "You have a stronger constitution than what appears. We thought there was time yet to remove the mirror – our mistake. Sorry about that. But it's fortuitous as well."

"What – what have you done?" Creighton groaned upon the floor.

Mr Aleister helped him sit upright, and supported his limp body. "Did I not tell you Dracon Megalo had chosen a profound discipline for you? How striking! And since you have awakened ahead of schedule, he can present you at tonight's rituals!"

"No," Creighton moaned like a mourning dog.

"Oh, certainly. You are a new man within the Day Star now. Your rebirth has begun, and all the congregation will want to see your transmutation taking place. That is why Dracon Megalo himself will present you as a Zelator. The priest himself."

"The priest?"

"Himself! He's below preparing even now – this room is above the temple. We keep it for such events as this, or for guests. Anyone for whom it might prove useful. So when we're ready, you will have only to make a trip downstairs."

"Tonight?" Creighton felt himself grow drowsy again.

"Yes." Mr. Aleister pulled him to his feet and set him upon the edge of the bed. "You rest up some more – I can see you're still shaky. When it's time, we'll come fetch you. Don't you give it a moment's thought."

"The priest – can I speak – "

"Don't be silly," the phantasm said.

Creighton settled into a fever dream of quiet, his thoughts swinging from vague images of his past to anguished realization of his present. He awoke periodically, coerced by his tormented lips, finding comfort only by pulling them away from his teeth in a pained grin. A rolling thunder of sensation pulsed through his sleep, draining him of any rest his wracked brain might receive. He pulled at his leaden feet, mired in gripping mud. Faces peered at him from above, studying his countenance, and he strained to blink himself awake.

Catching his lurching head with a jerk, he found himself again on the edge of the bed. A collection of hands were at his arms and back. "Are you feeling quite bobbish again? The time has arrived," he heard Mr. Aleister's voice. He tried to concur, but in the act of speaking was distracted as his tongue encountered the sharp points of his teeth. His feet wobbled and rolled underneath him, and only the strength of many kept him upright. "Don't worry, chap, after the services, we'll see you back to your flat. We must make these quarters ready for another guest." Leaving the room, Mr. Aleister swung the door shut, and Creighton caught sight of a column of bolts lining the outside doorjamb.

Though his desire was to remain hidden, resistance was futile as he felt himself being led through what seemed a maze of hallways and stairs. Darkness already filled the temple, although few of the people had arrived, and his escorts sat Creighton in the front row. His head drooped as he struggled with his consciousness, wondering if his teeth would ever stop ringing. The rituals passed without any real recognition on his part, and the air hung heavy with incense, thick with a musky, flowery fragrance, like burning maple syrup. Before him the priest raised his voice and arms, lowered them again in solemn convention, and the droning congregation colluded in chorus. Creighton's thoughts swirled with no boundaries nor center. Suddenly he felt himself lifted from his chair, and through the dim light he faced the worshipers.

"Aaaahh!" he heard, a mix of admiration and shock.

"Behold, thy new Zelator!" proclaimed Dracon Megalo. "My good friend Mr. Creighton – behold his transmutation! The flesh goes before the spirit, and demonstrates what the spirit will be! The flesh transforms the spirit! Will to be transformed! Will to find what is hidden! Do what you will!"

The congregants raised their hands in veneration of the great wonder. Creighton looked out upon his adoring throng; they gazed back stupefied. Smoke filled his nostrils and pacified his brain. Chanting praise began from a low hum to unruly clamor before his face wracked in agony. Scanning the crowd with his bulging, desiccated eyes, Creighton was filled with consoling astonishment at their love for the grotesque. In his longing to hide away, he suddenly felt that the temple was the one place where he could be hidden. Here he could find safety, now that he needed it, sequestered among those of the same mind. And he knew that mind would be directed by the priest, the man – or perhaps more than a man – still extolling his virtues in the pursuit of the Adepti. He turned to look upon Dracon Megalo and smiled in reality, more so than just trying to protect his wretched lips.

"See his dedication to the order! Meditate upon the depths of devotion he has undertaken! Oh, how he desired this change, when he made his petition. Even to me, he came with such sincere beseeching, how could I refuse? And so you see, he takes on the visage of Marduk, his god. He has reached the level of Zelator, the earth, and now sets his ambition upon Theoricus, the air. Bow before him, you underlings! Bow before your new Zelator!"

All the congregants, bedecked in their finery, fell from sitting onto their knees. The chanting continued, though muffled by proximity to the floor, as some released their minds to lowing like cattle. Creighton's heart soared at the exaltation, purifying him like a crucible, like the severe hand of the dentist. His head pounded, his teeth cracked with the unrelenting pain, but at this moment he embraced it, he shouldered his cross, for the sake of his brethren's adulation. He lifted his hands over the kowtowing fellowship, his grimace glowing before the altar.

Life back in his flat failed to match the veneration. There he saw not a fawning crowd, but a mirror. Perpetually faced with his sardonic countenance, perfidious mirth compelled by his cutting fangs, he withdrew from the light. He arranged for provisions to be delivered to his door; he resisted leaving his confines before nightfall; the only destination that drew him out often was the temple. Even then, he took to wrapping a flowing scarf below his glaring eyes, and threw a voluminous cape over his back. With his hunched posture, he was able to appear as no more than a dark apparition.

"I do not like this!" he hissed at Mr. Aleister.

"Come now, old man," he replied. "We can't all set our schedules to your preference. At least this pub has a back entrance for you to lurch through, eh?"

"You'll not get me out in the day again," Creighton muttered, his head sunk deep into his shoulders.

"That's not my concern. I have only to do with what serves the Day Star. And your first duty is to serve your master."

"To what end? I'm able only to hide within my flat. You've seen to that! The only place that can stand to look upon me is the temple."

"Is that not enough? I begin to wonder about your devotion after all."

"Certainly I'm devoted. Have I not given everything to the order? But I might expect some kindness from those who led me there."

"Kindness? What's kindness got to do with anything?"

Creighton had no answer. "The only place I want to be is in the temple. That is my only home. That and the night."

"Can't be helped, earwig."

"What about the room? Won't you let me stay in the room again?"

"I told you, we need it – it's occupied now. Why concern yourself with what outsiders think, anyway? Learn to despise the expectation of this parochial culture. Will to do it! The puny conventions of the mundane society are below us. Let them wallow in their weak beliefs, clinging to faith, of all things – there's no reason for you to fear them. The order has evolved far above their pitiful propriety, and you're on that path. Look here, old fellow, I called on you for that very reason, good news for you, not for these petty complaints. This should make you cock your leg and cry sugar – the priest wants to take you into the Theoricus already."

The word did indeed lift Creighton's spirit. "Truthfully?"

"On my honor. I don't recall any other congregant called to such quick ascent, from earth to air just like that. I can tell you, Dracon Megalo has great hopes for your usefulness. He foresees the gods working through you to produce the fruit we desire."

"He said that?"

"Indeed. And what's more –" here Mr. Aleister sidled closer over the table. "I've seen it myself. I see in you just what we need. But you must be molded."

"What must I do?"

"It's not so much what you can do, old man, it's what we can do for you," he settled back in his chair. "Some rituals you haven't witnessed yet. Once we expose you, and see how well you react, we can better tell what you're ready for."

"What are the rituals, may I ask?"

"Well, let's just say that first we must petition the gods for you. We must petition the adepts. Those who have gone on before us, they've attained a position to see your future. We will ask, and see what they say. I can't guarantee you anything, but we'll see what they say."

"A séance, then?"

"Well, we don't like to use that term. Too many gammoners about, giving it a bad name. Not that they're all fakes, but we must do what's necessary to set apart our true communication with the dead. But yes, we will contact spirits of all sorts on your behalf."

"Wonderful! Who would attend?"

"A small group, just enough for the table. The priest himself will officiate, and certain others of the leadership. I'll be there. Perhaps some you don't expect."

Creighton felt somewhat disappointed at this, having hoped a large gathering would again witness his elevation, so much had he come to need the affirmation of many. His face no longer was capable of showing such emotion, though, so Mr. Aleister went on unfazed. "We want to have you ready – if all turns out well – before our next worship service. The priest has scheduled the session for a fortnight hence. Is that acceptable to you?" He knew Creighton could not refuse.

"Of course."

This moment of assurance, this little time of uplift, he could not long sustain as the days passed. His routines turned more and more to the dusky hours. In the mornings the grocer took post of an envelope containing money and a list, boxed up the required supplies and left them at Creighton's flat; in the evenings the door opened just enough for the package to slide stealthily through. At the nearest public house, every night the barman announced last call, and reached for the bottle of Vin Mariani as the dark final patron entered. Before dawn each day, the early risers – the fishmongers, the wo balls – might hear scuffling footsteps at the rear of Creighton's building, but see nothing. A shroud crept over his mind, obscuring every thought but that of himself and the night to come.

Never had a man waited so tortuously for a promised event. Far from his first days of idle curiosity in the Day Star, his focus now had developed to a fine point. His isolation drove his perspective, and his former world faded into less than a memory, something akin to a dream that leaves only a tissue of recollection. Hours he spent slumped within his Queen Anne, staring at the opposite wall, listening to his seething respiration. The seconds trudged past, each one concentrated on the ritual still days away, each one concentrated on what would be endowed to him. Creighton's attention was completely arrested by the approaching events, by his acclaimed potential demonstrated in the high priest's confidence, by the fullness of his self.

Draped heavily by his cape, ducked low beneath his proletarian high hat, he skulked toward the temple. Once safe within its arcane confines, the halls seemed cavernous and empty. Loathe to call out, Creighton crept around the dark corners, seeking out at least one other. Finally he spied Mr. Aleister, his back to him, and slunk up behind him, taking hold of his elbow.

"Gaahh!" he screamed and whirled around. "By god, old man, did you give me a scare!"

Creighton snapped his hand back and cowed before him. "Where is everyone?" he croaked.

"Ready for you. I'm here to fetch you up. Tonight's ritual will not look like our regular services – it requires no material interference. The interference of the material restricts our ability to will the metamorphosis of the material. Don't worry if you don't understand – you'll grasp it better as you see it unfold. In necromancy, one must have as clear a channel to the realm of the dead as one can find. So tonight we'll be under no roof but the stars, the gods themselves. Tonight we'll be up top!"

He had led Creighton to the stark upper floor, then to a back wall supporting a plain iron ladder. At its top the ceiling opened to a small square passage, a trapdoor clearly propped open, a low curved covering leading out to the flat roof. The pair picked its way across scattered debris and through a maze of chimneys to a section dimly illuminated in London's murky night. The first thing Creighton saw was the table, simple and small, a single candle within a glass globe sitting in its center. Then the shadows moved into view.

"We've been waiting," said Dracon Megalo's voice, made raspy by the damp air, coming from deep within his throat. He suffered no formalities. "We can't risk any further delay."

"Yes," Mr. Aleister replied simply. He indicated one of the chairs to Creighton. "Sit there."

Creighton did so, too intimidated to speak even cursory greetings, and glad for the lack of light. Smoke arose from an incense burner directly in front of him, both pungent and sweet, and he sat contemplating its filmy trail. He recognized the outfits of Day Star officers, if not their faces, making up the small gathering. Each was draped in a heavy robe and had a tall ceremonial miter upon his head; even Mr. Aleister had managed to slip on a habit. They took their seats, and a drone rose into hearing so gradually that at first Creighton didn't detect it. All his senses conspired to lull him into drowsy dormancy. The priest entered into his chant.

"Oh precepts, appear to us. Oh adepts, appear to us. Honor us with thy presence this night. Oh Rosicrucians, appear to us. Oh Baphomet, appear to us. Give us a sign of thy presence. Give us a sign that you join us. Oh adepts, appear to us. Oh adepts, appear to us." The incantation continued, as Creighton's head began to feel woozy, and the smoke and fog combined into an acrid, swirling wave around him.

"Oh precepts, appear to us. Oh adepts, appear to us. We invite you among us. Oh Marduk, appear to us. Oh Rosicrucians, appear to us," the mesmeric voice continued. Creighton's attention drifted into the darkness of his mind, not sure of what he was hearing anymore. A rumbling pounded the back of his head, like a game of ten-pins, and he felt his tongue turn dry from his desperate breath.

"Oh Baphomet, you are welcome among us. Oh Marduk, you are welcome among us. All ye gods of the ancients, show us a sign of thy presence. Show us a sign of thy presence." Creighton jolted back to awareness as the candle, burnt down about an inch, sputtered loudly. He watched it dance violently within the glass, threatening to die and then to flash out from its chimney. "Oh ye gods of the ancients, we acknowledge thy presence. Oh adepts, we acknowledge thy presence among us."

Creighton again fell into the spell of the flame, the strange dance of light and shadow drawing him into its mystic schism. Even as the chanting and droning continued, immersing him in the proceedings, pictures arose within his mind. At first just visions of flowing shrouds, he began to imagine figures flying circles around him wracked with agony. Moans emanating from contorted mouths, no more than black holes, mixed with the human voices, unrelenting chants, from the table. The candle burned in his eyes, a contrasting image to what he saw only within his head. Its glow flared and billowed, now blazing like seething judgment, erupting in his sight until out from it crawled a hellish collection of grotesque beasts.

Appearing reptilian – some upright, others on all fours – the entwined throng squirmed toward him, struggling to extract their limbs and tails entwined together. Ranging from harlequin to glinting emerald to a mottled jade and forest green, their legs mechanically plugged away as they strove to escape their hot cocoon. Snapping in frustration at each other, they soon took to tearing strips of flesh from smaller beasts within the melee, whichever one that was within reach. Tongues lolled from within each red, dripping maw. The victims soon fell underfoot, as their betters satisfied their appetites. Blood pooled under their slipping claws, and they turned upon themselves. Even with bones exposed, the pulsing flow of creatures continued, each one advancing on another, thinking of nothing but its ravening hunger. Creighton saw before him one upright, left to nearly nothing but skeleton, staggering forward, barely keeping its balance, indifferent to each sniping fang, each hissing predator, unconscious to all but its own voracious desire. Too numb to be afraid, he simply understood himself to be in the midst of a chaotic swallowing mass.

Within the scrum arose a glow, something like what he had imagined when he once learned of the aurora borealis, like a visitor from a distant world. At the great trunk of its genesis the monsters screamed and writhed, lashing at it indignantly and scattering from its fury. Rising like gases over burning coals, a flow of deep burgundy transformed into the bright red of the fire brigade, then gradually to a maroon so dark it melted into the black night. From the zenith of its tall presence opened two eyes, pure white, sharply defined within its churning form. Pitiful beasts below twisted and cried out with futile complaint. The power of the form's essence swelled with its size, monumental in scope and yet thin as tissue. It devoured the raging creatures at its feet and swarmed over the little gathering of men.

"Azrael!" the raspy voice shrieked. "We welcome thy fearsome presence! We welcome you, our master! We welcome you, Beelzebub!" The priest's incantation collapsed into words beyond Creighton's recognition or understanding, chanting that resembled a dog barking.

The towering figure arched over the little table, its eyes glaring. Its piercing gaze searched each heart, silently demanding each soul's capitulation. Like roiling clouds, with even the sound of distant thunder, it wove its way between and through each man. Creighton sat like a fossil, inert in the face of this inexplicable force. A film drew over his eyes, his focus fading to hallucination and back again. He felt an energy displace his clinging mistrust – flowing, channeled, filling him and hardening – moving against everything his culture had taught him, until the thrumming dominance superseded humanity itself to become his very being. At that moment he cared not what goal or result lay before him, he craved only the thrill of embodying his passion now and exercising it till it lay out on the floor satiated and spent.

"Azrael!" the priest's English returned. "Angel of Death! We hear you and obey! We are thy slaves! Behold thy slave!"

Creighton suddenly became aware again of his surroundings. Every eye from around the table set upon him. Another figure had joined the group, timidly perched in a straight-back chair. Creighton's sight slowly focused, and he saw the slight man bound to his seat with stout ropes, a heavy gag stretching his mouth. The image shocked him, touched him with an inkling of empathy, if just for a moment. It was Mr. Charles.

The ghastly form hovered overhead and all around. A silvery flash snared Creighton's attention, and he turned to see the priest presenting him with a magnificent knife, immense and heavy, engraved with runes. "This is the instrument ye want. This is the instrument of thy will. We are thy slaves, oh Beelzebub. Do what ye will! We obey!"

Creighton gingerly grasped the knife's handle, looking to the priest with confusion. He was being torn from his stupor.

"This is the instrument of thy will! This is the instrument of Azrael, Angel of Death. Do his will! Do what ye will!"

Creighton took a firm hold of the weapon, but still didn't grasp its meaning. "But, what?" he stammered.

"The traitor must pay!" With a sudden gust of wind, the table flew out from in front of Creighton, and the incense and candle scattered sparks across the roof. The others stood in two lines, forming a lane leading to the bound man. "Do his will!" the chant grew to a tempest, and the forbidding specter twirled merrily over the worshipers. Sudden realization froze Creighton's heart. "The traitor must die!"

"But – it's Mr. Charles."

"The heretic must die! Do his will! Do thy will!"

A wash of red flooded overhead; the sickeningly sweet smoke still filled Creighton's senses. His head pounded like a passing locomotive, driving, relentless. Heaving spasms caught his breath, and the rotten tingling of sulfur filled his mouth. "Do his will! Do thy will! Now! Now!" he heard the priest. The swirling red throbbed upon his physical being, searching and probing, eager for entry. Again the persuasion of desire imposed itself, and the satisfying of self overwhelmed his heart and mind. Creighton felt his hand take a stranglehold upon the blade's handle. The helpless figure before him seemed no more than a reasonable means to an end, a tool for his hedonism. He felt a sudden chill as the glowing colors disappeared around him; he erupted into violent shaking as sweat formed beads upon his skin and an invading presence stretched the limits of his body; he realized then without doubt his seduction and rape. His brain blacked as the cacophony assaulting his senses swept his consciousness down into an irresistible undertow of depravity. Deep within he heard his mind whispering, "Do it."

The last thing he remembered was the muffled, reedy scream piercing the night, blending with a distant steam whistle signaling the graveyard shift.

He lay wasted upon his familiar bedclothes, surprised at the light filtering through the heavy drapes. He didn't recall how he'd arrived there, or indeed if he'd ever not been there, or what time had passed. As though reconstructing an elusive dream, Creighton tried to piece together the events of the night, not knowing what he'd forgotten and what he simply could not bear to remember; he was not sure of anything. Perhaps it simply had been a nightmare. Sitting on the edge of the bed, his head hung low, heavily bowed toward the floor. He stumbled toward the wash room.

Within the mirror he caught his desiccated eyes, round and soulless. They stared at him red and watering, anxious and full of terror, pleading for any kind of mercy. He took stock of his skin grown pale and drawn, the deep lines leading to his death's head smile, dry and cracked lips pulled back to expose his two rows of shark's teeth. Added now to the visage was hair shocked pure-white, ragged and hanging to his shoulders, bleached like bones in a desert. The true nightmare gawked at Creighton from the glass.

A glance to the floor confirmed everything. There lay the smeared knife, blood dried deep within the arcane symbols carved upon the blade.

The face's stoic expression froze, though Creighton felt a rush of outrage arise in his chest. Perhaps deep in the eyes a twinge of regret could be found, deep in the soot of a lamp long gone dark, but as Creighton stared he found only cold death. The realization of his crime felt like the numb blow of a hammer, a mundane reality no different from a heavy meal, impacting him without inspiring any reaction. He felt no compulsion to surrender to the law, nor to flee its retribution. Within his being he found no room for repentance, no change of mind to turn from the path of his past year, but instead a wild, vengeful, self-righteous anger began to grow.

He considered the motives of the Day Star, the smooth seduction of Mr. Aleister's words over the months, the aloof promise of the priest's attentions. Creighton suddenly understood their manipulation of his interest, from the very beginning, even from the pointless study of the miniatures. Surely they had let him choose his own entrapment. His elevation to new levels within the congregation, each a further step into their enticing pit – were all the congregants in on the scheme, or were they as well dupes at their masters' hands? His teeth, his aching jaws, mocked him as he took in the fullness of the Order's exploitation, and fully faced his foolishness as he relived its ruinous route.

The mystical images of the night before danced in the back of his memory, a vague wash of impressions and premonition. In his mind the creatures still slithered, the levitating vapors yet reeked of malevolent ethos. He shuddered – was this too an elaborate show, brought about by suggestion, or hypnosis? Night terrors visited upon a mind at the mercy of narcotics. Had the Day Star not led him into the opium dens – was this their purpose all along? He had no answers, and as he tried to sort the visions swirling in his head, he was persuaded of nothing but the knife. Not certain of the means, he at least was convinced of the end. The culmination of the grand fabrication – the eliminating of a courageous man, one able to see through the lie, willing to resist its grip – the taking of a noble life – came without troubling his conscience, but verified that he could do whatever was necessary.

Obscene fury arose within Creighton as he realized the ruse afflicted upon him, to make of him a pawn for their hatred, an instrument of the priest's retribution, the arm of reprisal for a self-appointed executioner. Swept up into arrogance, maneuvered by ubermenschen, he was nothing more than a tool of savagery obliged by elemental savages. And what was to become of him now? A life barely worth living, but now bent singularly upon survival, gaped at him from the mirror. Was he the next expendable cog? They had shown the atrocity they were capable of – if murder it was, then murder it would be. He knew what he would do.

The figure swings back to the sidewalk from the building's awning. The street is still, the night yet in its deepest recesses, the flickering gaslights reflecting off the damp pavement. "High priest!" he mutters. "Priest of death, rightly sacrificed." Back against the rough yellow wall, he stares along the avenue in both directions; he neither sees nor hears a soul. Carefully he creeps along the facade, determined to reach home, not knowing, not caring what might arise after that. But his feet do not respond – they lock into place, fixed in time, prisoners of an unyielding force. Shock fills his being.

Before him towers the red specter, dark but glowing, not blurred but sharp as a shadow cast at midday. Seeping from the sanctuary of an alley – no illusion this, but more real than any brick or blade. Again like a flow of gases elevating itself ever higher, it wafts over him and searches his spirit. Dank, mournful heaviness infiltrates the air. A voice arises, low but screeching, like metal upon metal, smooth yet hissing. "Where is your master?"

"I do not know," the diminutive figure replies.

"Well do you, for you not only have done away with your lord, but add to your obedience with a lie."

"I'm not lying. I do not know where my master is."

"You warm my heart. And indeed you do not yet know your master."

"I am my own master," the figure inflates in its hubris. "I do as I will."

"Just so. But what makes a master? Does he draw out your desires, or implant his own will upon them?"

"I cannot tell."

"You are wise in choosing ignorance. Does the doornail see the hammer coming? Would it dodge if it could, or would it give itself to its purpose? Of course you cannot tell, for you are blind, as you so choose, even after the hammer falls. So you live, and so you are dead – as such you make a useful tool."

"I will not be used any longer!" the figure protests.

"Well said! No one is so deceived as the one who lies to himself. But you are no different from the seas of mankind, dumb animals led by a bridle. You may have broken out of their fold, but not necessarily mine. Where is your master?"

"I have left him dead, slaughtered like a goat!"

"You have helped me greatly, for though I collected Dracon Megalo long ago, today I have gathered in you. And yet this transpires only for your own conviction."

"What do you mean?"

"Fool! Your heart has always been mine – I only had to show it to you, for my pleasure."

"No – they led me to this. And I joined the Order only a year ago."

"You are indeed all dumb animals, led by a bridle. This year was merely your beautillion. How do you feel now, you debutant to infernal society? Are you still eaten away with vain curiosity? Do you still thrill at your exaltation? The image in your mirror is your true self – not to many is it given to truly see their own essence. This too is for your conviction, brought about by my stooges. Most men don't care to think about it; they are of no concern to me. You all seek darkness, for your secrets are dark and precious, but only a few are so arrogant as to call upon me. Utter fools! How truly pathetic are their conceits. The Day Star too will burn in the fire, so live for today, as do I! Where is your master?"

"I have no master."

"Ah, the most elementary of lies! By it you acknowledge me. With it you join in the foundation of my work. All that is good, I corrupt – this is my delight! I exploit passion to twist love into hatred. I despise devotion and wring it until zealous blood flows upon the ground. I drink from my bitter anger and feast upon those who adore me."

The figure feels the encounter coming to an end. "But everyone in the Order served you completely – why do you hate us so?"

"You? Me hate you? I reserve my hatred for the sons of the Most High. Men like you I chew up and spit out."

Big Ben strikes the dawn anew. Light begins to glow upon the early risers as the city wakes to life again. A rough rope sways and creaks from the arm of a gaslight. The sun reveals the Earth's nakedness as those simple predawn folk – the fishmongers, the wo balls – at last see that mysterious presence of their mornings, the dark figure hanging from the rope's length, mourning weeds waving in the gentle early breeze, a smiling grimace frozen in place. Shadows retreat into the hidden places, preparing to assert themselves yet again just a few hours hence.

From A to B

In that little pocket within Southern Illinois where rugged hillocks have not yet given way to wide prairie, tiny towns dot the land alongside resolute farms and mines rich with coal, just as the hardscrabble stock of German and Scandinavian blood mingles with solid, self-reliant Welsh and Ulster Scots heritage. Sturdy formations of sedimentary rock rise from the green countryside, and yet sturdier trees in turn emerge defiantly from cracks within the stone. Rolling streams hurriedly travel ageless paths and spill over precipices, making smooth jagged edges, as they wind their way to the Ohio River to one side, and the Mississippi to the other. The good country folk – not so far removed from their pioneer forebears in time or spirit – tamed and worked the land's resources to serve their communities. Into this world Walter was successfully born, because a maiden aunt attending the birth knew to remove the caul that veiled his ruddy face.

His childhood, begun at the dawn of modern prosperity, was filled mostly with events arising from poverty, as the Depression soon settled over the nation. An upbringing of grand boyish adventure unfolded before him. Along the way he somehow accumulated enough money to buy five gallons of root beer syrup; the resulting afternoon served to put him off root beer for several years. The great day came that a brother won a live turkey in the local movie house's raffle, and together they wrestled the bird home down their dirt lane, struggling past worn men – covered with coal dust or the tawdry soil born of honesty, but still beaming with good humor at their mighty endeavor. In this time his father managed to build a high school there in Crab Orchard, a church of learning within the town's saltbox homes, and the new generation faced a more hopeful future. Swimming in slag pools, climbing upon oil derricks frozen in time, picking up baseball games with no bases, no bats and very little ball – each day passed with its own measure of youthful wonder. Nobody had anything, and everyone was willing to share.

With only the usual amount of angst and insecurity, Walter's salad days passed into early manhood, and he entered the college down the highway with no real idea of what lay beyond. He thought of becoming a teacher, like his father, or perhaps pursuing a career in the sciences. Chemistry was his game, the knowledge of the ancients tested and expanded and proved within the laboratory. Under the spreading Gothic shadows of Altgeld's Castle and the library building, Walter strained to apply his budding education to the elusive direction his life was no doubt following. But only a little more than halfway through, swarms of Japanese planes from six aircraft carriers intervened.

In order to complete his degree – and to avoid the draft – Walter made a deal with what the attack on Pearl Harbor had left of the United States Navy. The fortunes of war began to play out as the government quickly got him a job making detonators, testing his chemistry chops. In return, he would be allowed to finish out his undergraduate studies on the further commitment that he would then enter officers' training school.

So the infamy of Dec. 7, 1941 transitioned into the anxiety of a new year and then the foreboding finality of 1942's autumn term. Walter's last year in college offered no great promise besides the end of his life as he'd foreseen it. What lay beyond remained steeped in mystery. Doolittle's Raid had lifted the retributive spirits of Americans suddenly at war, and the Battle of Midway had foreshadowed a hopeful result. The radio crackled with news from Britain, made newly desperate by the insane determination of the nation's enemies. Walter didn't know what he could do about it, but the days persisted and his life continued, an island of somewhat unreal normality.

Within this eye of the storm his friend Charles also abided.

"Hey, a bunch of us are going out with some girls tonight. Wanna come along?"

"I don't know," Walter demurred. "I've got studying to do."

"Come on," Charles insisted. "It's Friday – put the books down for awhile. The girls are freshmen, a whole new crop of tamatas not been picked over yet."

"Well, maybe," Walter hesitated. "What are you planning to do? I'm not loaded down with money, you know."

"Natch. We're heading down to Shawnee, just to see the sights. Maybe take some canoes out on the pond. Nice and cheap."

Walter sighed deeply. "I've sure got a lot of work I should be doing."

"Oh, that's just an excuse and you know it. You're a slave to your work – every day, all day long, I've been memorizing your back, slouched over that desk, hammering away at that pile of books like Paul Muni. I can describe in detail every nuance of your shirt collar. I'll personally thank you to change the view. Everyone will thank you. It's your patriotic duty."

Walter clapped his book shut for emphasis as he laughed. "Well, if you put it that way. You're a hard man, McGee."

"I do what I have to. And look, there aren't that many of us left stateside. We owe it to the girls of America."

"Let's go," Walter said.

The full moon hovered at the horizon as the small group bounced along in a flatbed truck. The men graciously offered handkerchiefs and jackets for the women to sit upon, against the chance that grease or grime soiled the tool chests and other seating arrangements. Introductions had left a tangle of unfamiliar names in the minds of all involved, but one petite brunette stuck in Walter's head – Rosemary Harris. Almost a full foot shorter than him, she tossed her head of curly hair gaily to look his way, and her quiet attention along the ride indicated a sharp intellect. There was little question that Walter would invite her to share a canoe with Charles and another girl.

For a long time no sound was heard but the gentle notes of paddles in water. Walter felt tongue-tied, the symptom of long-held doubts about his social acumen, and he gazed at her while pretending to look beyond into the canoe's path. "I can't get over the moon tonight," he finally half-whispered.

Facing backward, Rosemary turned about to look, and he drank in the back of her head. The moon hung low over the horizon, a blond ochre sister to the sun, shimmering upon the placid water. Its broad face smiled upon the tiny vessel, lifting its countenance in blessing, and ripples danced with joy. "Oh, it's so beautiful," she said.

"The color is because of the atmosphere," Walter offered helpfully. "Because it's low, its light is seen through more atmosphere than usual, and makes the color richer."

"That's so interesting," she said politely, turning back around to smile at him.

"I don't think I'll ever see a moon like that again," he said.

The canoe glided over the passage of time, back into the dock, into the night and into the routine of classes. The two shared a history in Southern Illinois, as Walter learned of Rosemary's farm life growing up not far from Thompsonville, just some 25 miles from Crab Orchard. She was studying music; he was a passable clarinet player – this offered itself for more conversation, but he could not muster the courage to play for her. Along with studies, his munitions work kept him busy, and he never knew how much he was allowed to talk about, so he didn't talk at all. What communication they managed focused upon the newspapers, an odd point of safety within their world of malt shops and black and white movies, and the small-town conservatism of closely guarded emotion. The end of the term came with no more resolution than a sheepskin, but not before an anonymous clarinet solo stole in through her dorm room window one evening.

The air smelled of the sea in Annapolis, Md., and at officers' training school Walter applied his math skills to navigation, gunnery and engineering. Lessons in command tested his confidence. He'd never been so far from home, but he was quite aware this was just a junket compared to what lay ahead. The regimen ground on for months, as the Navy and Marines inched closer to Japan – island by bloody island – and the grim British hung on by their teeth. Occasionally a letter from Rosemary would arrive, and he'd answer before tucking it carefully away in his foot locker.

Completion of training meant the rank of ensign and a trip back to Southern Illinois, to await his assignment. Walter's two older brothers already had seen action in the Army, and he felt an uncertain exhilaration at the thought of putting his preparation into practice. Family members did not share this eagerness, however, and held him close in community as long as they had him. He did not know where to focus his attentions; in the back of his mind Thompsonville rested uneasily.

At last the telegram came: He was to report to the USS Edison, a Gleaves-class destroyer docked in New York City to undergo overhaul, but now ready to weigh anchor for the invasion of southern France.

Just a little more than two months after D-Day, the battle engaged as a Navy flotilla, poised upon the lapping waves, softened the gentle slope of the beach with heavy artillery. Desperate German forces, their backs already exposed to Allied advances, endured merciless bombardment on the Hyeres Islands. Forced into a garrison, they poured shelling upon the convoy. The transports shifted to the rear of the group, and destroyers moved alongside battleships to provide cover from encroaching vessels. The long guns flamed with thunder, rattling every inch of nearby tonnage, each shot engraving dazzling detail into the black smoke that clogged the air.

Walter frantically operated his instruments, made his calculations and ordered gun elevations. Round after round recoiled the mid-range cannon, threatening every boat that appeared off the distant coast. Incoming shells fell frighteningly close, the concussions rocking the great vessel to its core, sending majestic flumes of water flaring into the air – the salt spray stung his face and defiled his cap that once was white, and all Heaven and Earth wailed at the battle that raged and rages. The screaming and pounding artillery continued through the night as the two sides exchanged destruction, until at last only one side continued, and in the morning a message came that the remaining German armies had given up. This is some education for a small-town boy, Walter thought.

In the sick bay, medical staff tended to the wounded. Though the Edison had received no direct hits, its own giant machinery had taken its toll on a few hands. Walter joined the ship's doctors to check out the casualties, asking about their injuries, learning a few interesting tidbits about their treatment. He reported the ringing in his ears.

Without protection coming from the islands, the mainland proved no great obstacle for the landing battalions. Two hours of aerial and battleship shelling left the beach undefended, with the exception of marine and landmines. Soon the troops disappeared deep into France and on toward Germany. The Edison and its crew spent the rest of the year patrolling the shore, sailing close in only to bombard shore batteries, railroads and troop concentrations into oblivion.

Eventually the action died down, and shore leave became possible in nearby Toulon, and even Marseille. Walter soon learned to stay aboard ship. Frenchmen humiliated at being overrun and dominated by Nazis – but too timid to join the Resistance – burned with bitter anger. Women who had starved rather than sell themselves out to provide for their children brimmed over with self-righteousness. Petty collaborators had nervous histories to cover, and so townsfolk all over France consolidated their judgment upon the easy target of prostitutes. Many of these women had for decades plied the trade, sanctioned by the government since the Revolution; others had been pressed into it by financial need or at gunpoint. Either way, the collaboration horizontale received no mercy. The women were shaved of their hair, swastikas scrawled upon their foreheads, and often were stripped and paraded naked as crowds threw insults and stones. Switching allegiance from one occupying army to the next, these women now solicited American GIs with their crippled beauty.

Every aspect of the scene sickened Walter. The victims just liberated from atrocity now turned their worst demons upon each other, and no redemption came from the appetites of soldiers and sailors. The cycle of cruelty preying upon weakness, steeped in predatory hedonism, clashed with his homespun principles; still, he was not naïve about the prospect that the professionals offered protection to maidens who were less willing. The layers of misery before him could not be divided. He turned sadly to the countryside, only to be confronted by the expansive cemeteries laid out for those killed in action. Soon he'd had his fill and simply remained shipboard.

In time the patrols ended and the Edison headed back to New York for overhaul. In the dead of winter, Walter hunched over within his long wool coat as the train made its way back to the rolling hills of Crab Orchard. He learned of the deaths of friends, the lingering of his father since his stroke, and that one brother had contracted tuberculosis. The polite community spoke of the war only in terms of news reports, sanitized for the public, raising hopes that no serviceman nor woman would miss another Christmas. Nazi Germany was crumbling quickly in January of 1945, and the ship was to make only one more trip to Europe, to escort a convoy to Le Havre. Then it sailed back to New York, then on to Pearl Harbor via the Panama Canal. Walter hung over the side of the vessel in wonder of the giant locks, and the fact that they lay right before his eyes.

In Hawaii, in the midst of new training for the upcoming Japanese invasion, prayers were answered. The news of a secret weapon, a couple of bombs of inconceivable power, reached the base, and then two weeks later Japan finally capitulated. The rejoicing could not be restrained nor described. For years the tortuous struggle for each next tiny rock within the Pacific had been a grueling ordeal, American boys scattered lifeless on the beaches and in the jungles, and the thought of invading the main island was sickening. It all was just gratifyingly over.

But only in one manner. New orders cut short the Edison crew's instruction, and they set out to join the occupation. They were bound for the Philippines, a place Walter had never considered stepping foot upon. The joyful welcome from the devastated people overwhelmed him, though the islands had been liberated since October. Children danced while playing odd gourd-shaped flutes, and men and women dressed in bright linen clapped and sang. The exotic simplicity of the culture warmed Walter, and the people's happy perseverance even as extensive rebuilding and healing lay before them gave him hope. Then it was on to occupied Japan.

The Edison steamed through the South China Sea and into the ports of Nagasaki, and Walter came face-to-face with the enemy.

This was a broken nation. On the streets men did not make eye contact, they did not even raise their heads, wishing to stay hidden. The stark devastation, the crushing surrender, the years of propaganda about what to expect from American forces – all combined to make ghosts of those who did venture into the light. Walter's guttural anger toward them and their society melted into pity, and he saw only sad resignation in them. Within the remaining city, pagodas stood next to Western-style buildings; beautiful iron works flowing with simple lines and hung with electric lamps bridged the streets; and trolley cars stood inert, still clinging to dead electric lines. The mix of utterly alien culture with hasty modernization left his head spinning, slightly humorous while still impressive. Though the same sexual accommodation existed as in Europe – the Special Comfort Facility Association – women did not parade defaced in the streets as in France. Eventually even that trade was shut down. Somehow Walter felt more at home, though he was hours of sunlight away from Crab Orchard.

Medical care dominated the occupation forces' work there, and Walter saw the horrors of flash burns and chronic radiation sickness. Practically nothing could be done for these victims, as supplies of blood and penicillin languished. A black market of diluted antibiotics made the hopeless situation even worse. He saw their symptoms treated and studied, as they were made as comfortable as lab rats could be. A handful of translators wandered from bed to bed, spread thin across time and space, the language barrier then adding to the terror of the patients. Walter could read it in their eyes. He realized then that a ministry of mercy was part of health care, and somewhere along the line decided to go into medicine.

The adjustment from a wartime footing ground along slowly, but finally the Edison was sent back to New York, and Walter was decommissioned and flopped down upon his mother's couch. He had arrived just in time for his father's funeral, and the world he had known seemed to have slipped away forever; he had no choice but to go forward. To show its gratitude, and to ease the inevitable unemployment of returning servicemen, the nation offered Walter further education, and he enrolled again at the University of Southern Illinois, pursuing an advanced degree in biology.

Nineteen forty six was on the downside, having turned brilliant reds and golds, and Rose had long since graduated. Every classmate he'd once known was long gone, now pursuing his own education or career in some far-flung place. He poured all his focus into his studies, and fulfilling a language requirement, he wrote his biology thesis in German – just to keep it interesting.

Good marks opened the door for Walter to the University of Illinois medical school in Chicago. The great city seemed a world away to him again, though only six hours by train separated it from the southern hillocks. A population of students many times the size of his little town milled about the huge campus, sitting right alongside the Loop. Walter happily wandered the community, soaking in the sights of Lake Michigan, the Chicago River, Grant Park, the Art Institute, and the vast collection of corporate skyscrapers. The "L" roared overhead, and he often ducked into Wimpy's for a hamburger and to escape the snow, knowing it would still crouch in corners in March. The class work was like nothing he'd ever experienced, and such outings were essential to his sanity. He had found a real interest in pulmonary medicine, with the curses of tuberculosis and black lung hanging low over his hometown, and the rigors of each progressing class tested him yet further. So, with great relief he anticipated Thanksgiving, giving him an opportunity to break away from campus life.

He stood in the train station, checking the timetable against his ticket, and climbed aboard the Illinois Central south to Du Quoin.

It was a late train, most travelers having already evacuated the city, and about half its seats remained empty. Walter walked through the car looking for a suitable place to sit – with nothing to base a decision on – and stumbled as the locomotive lurched into motion. As he gathered himself, he spotted far in the front a head of brunette hair, alone in an otherwise empty row. "It couldn't be," he thought.

"Rosemary?"

She looked up surprised. "Walter!"

"What a wonderful surprise! How are you?"

"I couldn't be better! It's so nice to see you!"

"May I sit down?" he asked.

"Please do," she insisted.

"What are you doing in Chicago?"

"I got a grant to study music education at Northwestern. The music school is one of the best in the country, you know. I couldn't pass it up."

"Well, actually, I didn't know. I'm so glad for you. I'm studying medicine at U of I."

"A doctor! So you found your calling."

"I guess so – and it wasn't clarinet. It's tough, though, and I'm sure ready for a break. I'm heading home for the holiday now – I guess you are too."

"Yes – and it's so funny. I had a ticket for an earlier train, but I missed it. I'm on this train only because I didn't pack fast enough."

"Well, I'll be." Walter truly couldn't think of anything else to say.

"And to think I was angry about it. Now I'm glad."

They fell silent for a moment.

"I'm so glad to see you," she said. "I had so many friends in the war. So many I lost touch with, and I would think of someone and just worry. I didn't know what happened to them. I might never know if they survived or – or not."

"I survived."

She smiled. "Yes. It was so horrible. Horrible everywhere."

"It's a new world. Time to move on."

"I couldn't help it. I just worry. There were so many friends, but not many I just couldn't get out of my mind. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this," she paused and looked at her hands, fidgety in her lap. "Back when we were writing each other, right after you graduated, I kept all your letters."

Walter thought about his foot locker, a small packet of letters neatly tucked into one corner, and wondered about the winding, rolling path a life takes, only to land upon one certain spot. And the train rumbled along.

Dream Shadows

"Hi," she said, and slipped into coma,

Lilting long gone elusive again;

Somewhere between dream and reality

She'd forgotten to not remember.

Somewhere in the shadows of waking,

She returned to float the Earth.

My ears catch the past,

Hands too clumsy to take hold,

But words light like delicate birds.

The fortnight serenely awaits,

Death checks its manifest.

For one fleeting moment recollection arose,

Defender of the lost cause,

Lazarus.

She was more pleasant ever I knew her

When she no longer knew me.

And I wondered where the lilting had fled

So many years before;

I wondered what had bullied the lilting aside

When life most desired to take its joyful hand.

When thoughts more heavy than serious

Imposed their worrisome burden.

Infant's sleep, grasping reach,

Awaiting, wanting she knows not what.

The wind calls for her.

The crooked finger beckons,

And this one thing she yet understands.

This summons she cannot resist,

Neither in mind nor body,

And slips through the portal of dream shadows.

