Black Light, page 10
Finally he reached the end of the east wing. He walked down the servants’ stairway to the kitchen. There he found a reassuringly utilitarian demesne, and hot coffee in the old electric percolator. His cup and saucer were set reproachfully beside it, along with a plate of Kirsten’s ginger cookies and another note—
Tolle moras!
semper nocuit differe paratus!
—K
Don’t delay! Even when prepared it is dangerous to postpone what must be done! He laughed. “Very well, Kirsten. I won’t delay…”
He poured his coffee, feeling the profound melancholy that always assailed him at the thought of the pharmakos, and looked up. High above one of the gleaming institutional stoves a plaque was suspended. Its legend swirled in gothic lettering, blue and gold and emerald green:
OMNIA BONA BONIS
All things are Good with Good Men. The motto of the Benandanti, “the Good Walkers,” “Those Who Do Well.”
Though sometimes—this was one of them—Balthazar felt more like an unwilling gaoler than a good man. For several minutes he stood, sipping his coffee and watching the twilight deepen. At last he crossed to the kitchen door and stared outside. A short distance away there was a small declivity in the lawn, four or five feet across, and just beyond the shadow of the encroaching woods. In the middle of the hollow stood a pillar, man-high, thrusting up from the tangle of grass and weeds like an overgrown grave marker.
But it was no grave marker. It was a herm, a granite stone that was thousands of years old, filigreed with lichen and bird droppings. Its base was just wide enough that Balthazar could have wrapped his arms around it, and it narrowed very slightly toward the top. Words were carved up and down the column, some in ancient Greek characters, others in Latin, and the most recent—going back only a few centuries—in English.
WITHIN A GREATER GNOMON ALL THE NIGHT
The herm was crowned with a carven man’s face. Time had softened it, so that the features were blurred, the cheeks pocked and bearded with moss. One side of the nose had been chipped away. But you could still make out the deep-set, almond-shaped eyes and thin curve of its mouth, and see quite clearly the outlines of ivy twining through its hair and around the broken stubs of two small horns poking from its head. Once upon a time, and very far away, the herm had been venerated. More recently, like others of its kind, it had been thrown down by an angry mob of Puritans. The Benandanti had salvaged it and brought it here, where students on retreat thought it one of the Lodge’s myriad oddities, like the winged homunculi in Brother Vaughan’s study, or the housekeeper’s narwal tusk. Those impertinent enough to question Kirsten about the herm were told brusquely that it was a sundial.
But it was not a sundial. It was an oubliette, a prison; and Balthazar Warnick was its keeper. Now he stared out at the somber pillar and once again sighed, recalling Giulietta’s face and putting off his duty for one more minute.
“Ah, me…”
It had been warm enough that Kirsten had left open the door leading out onto the veranda. Moths fluttered against the screen, and he could smell damp earth where she had watered the rows of fuchsias in their hanging baskets. On its shelf an arm’s-length away, the kitchen Timex glowed faintly.
Crack.
Without warning the sound ripped through the kitchen. Echoes trailed after it throughout the Lodge like gunshots. Balthazar jumped, then raced onto the veranda, the screen door banging behind him.
Above the western mountains the clouds had darkened to black and violet. But directly overhead the sky was a strange flat silvery-gray that gleamed like falling rain. As Balthazar stared down onto the lawn he winced and shaded his eyes—the silvery light hurt, as though he gazed into an unshaded incandescent bulb. At the same time there was a weird murkiness to the light: it cast no shadows, so that when he tried to focus on individual objects below—a clump of hostas, the stone birdbath that Kirsten religiously filled each morning—he found them shadowed as by heavy fog.
But a fog that coruscated and gave off threads of metallic brilliance, and made a shrill sound as it did so; a fog that hummed. Sweat stung Balthazar’s eyes as he fought to see something in the deathly haze. The humming grew louder, but no matter how he struggled to find its source he could not. It seemed to come from everywhere, a horrible resonate note that made the air shiver, so that he imagined he could see individual atoms dancing like beads of water upon a red-hot stone.
And then he could no longer hear the note, but only feel it, a vibration that made his very bones tremble. The pressure in his ears became a spike driven through his temples. Around him the silvery air wheeled and sang, as though it were a pool that had been stirred by some great ship’s passing. There was a stifling smell; when he breathed he tasted burning leaves.
“What is it?” Balthazar screamed into the shining vortex; but could not hear his own voice. “What is it?”
And then an answer came to him. The roaring did not diminish, but it began to focus, so that he could track its source: a point some twenty yards down the sloping lawn. The whorl of silver light thinned like mist before the sun. The humming faded into silence. Balthazar took a deep breath and gazed out upon the lawn.
The last streamers of uncanny light were lifting. Overhead the night sky was a calm sweep of indigo strung with stars. Yet at the same time a faint glimmer still hung about the grass, so that he could see the shadows of tiny cloverheads, the serrated edge of a fern. The charred odor faded. A sweetly vegetative fragrance filled the air, a scent that made Balthazar think of fruit ripening and then rotting in the heat. When he swallowed, pollen rasped the back of his throat, and he coughed.
In answer, low laughter sounded from somewhere below. Balthazar looked but could see nothing but the tops of ferns moving as though stirred by the wind. Suddenly he cried out.
“No!”
He ran from the porch. Fingerlings of light flashed around him, and again he heard that soft mocking laughter.
“No,” Balthazar repeated, and stopped.
The herm had been destroyed. It lay upon the grass in two pieces, severed through the middle as though someone had taken an ax to it. A black streak ran across the granite’s coarse veining. Balthazar stooped to touch it. When he withdrew his finger, it was greasy as with soot. He sniffed, grimacing at the reek of sulphur, then stood and walked slowly around the fallen pillar.
The head had been driven a good six inches into the ground. Upturned earth surrounded it like black foam. In the lingering twilight it seemed to glow, so that Balthazar could see every detail of the carven visage: its oblique slanted eyes, the mouth upturned into a faint smile, hair curled tightly as bunches of grapes atop its head. Beneath its face the legend could still be clearly read:
WITHIN A GREATER GNOMON ALL THE NIGHT
Somewhere above him laughter rang out once more. Balthazar’s hands tightened into fists. He took a step closer to the pillar, rage roiling in his chest; but even as he drew his foot back to kick it, the herm’s features began to fade. Carven curls and etched mouth, ivy tendrils and stubs of horn all melted into the granite, as though they had been traced there in ice; as though they had never been at all.
Except for the eyes. Instead of fading, these grew more distinct, iris and pupil and long black lashes darkening, thickening, until Balthazar was staring into a gaze as keenly alert as his own.
“No!”
With a cry he recoiled. The eyes blinked, once; then tracked back and forth as though searching for something—until, finally, they focused on him.
Balthazar could not move. He felt blind horror, as though he stared into the lidless orbs of a great shark: the same raw hunger, without the faintest shading of human thought. The laughter came again, louder now; and suddenly the ravening eyes squeezed shut. A dark tear appeared at the corner of each one, twin arabesques that swelled until they were as large as Balthazar’s clenched fists. The air shivered as with rain. Like mouth and nose and face before them, the eyes melted into the granite and were gone.
Yet for just an instant longer the tears remained, shining upon the dark granite. Then, soundlessly, they burst and streamed down the sides of the fallen pillar. One last time the laughter rang out and died away, and Balthazar thought he heard the echo of his own name.
About him the night was still. From the woods a whippoorwill hooted. Inside the Orphic Lodge a clock softly chimed. Very slowly, as though settling into sleep, Balthazar crouched beside the broken herm.
Wind rustled the trees and sent the first autumn leaves flying. A cricket leaped onto the fallen stone. At the edge of the lawn something moved in the high grass; something that made a guttural sound. There was a smell of the sea, and roasting flesh. Balthazar extended his hand to where dark liquid pooled in the hollow of an ivy leaf that had blown against the pillar. Tentatively he dipped his finger into it, then brought it to his tongue.
And tasted wine, a fire that seared his mouth and made his eyes water even as he thirsted for more: wine and earth and the coppery taint of blood.
7. Dancing Days Are Here Again
HILLARY’S PARENTS WERE STILL out of town, taping an episode of The Love Boat, so after we left Jamie Casson’s house he came over for dinner. I was relieved. I felt exhausted and a little sick from drinking, and was glad to let Hillary chatter with my mother about industry gossip—whose agent was screwing whom, which characters were going to be killed off next season when the cast of Perilous Lives boarded an airplane that would crash into the Bermuda Triangle.
My father seemed to have caught my mood. He sat brooding at the head of the table, picking at his spaghetti carbonara. He watched me so closely that my stoned paranoia went into overdrive. I decided to feign illness and flee to my room.
“Umm, you know, I sort of don’t feel so hot—” I cleared my throat, fidgeting in my seat, when Hillary turned to my father.
“So, Unk—did you hear Kern’s back in town?”
My father hesitated. “Yes. I’d heard,” he finally said.
“Is he? That’s nice.” My mother tore off a tiny piece of Italian bread and nibbled it, gazing at tomorrow’s script beside her plate. “Who’s he married to now?”
“I didn’t ask—”
“You should have. I was so embarrassed that time with Marlena Harlin, you really should think to—”
“He’s mounting an opera,” my father went on. “I think he said Die Fledermaus—”
Hillary shook his head. “Ariadne auf Naxos.”
Unk glowered, the same look he gave recalcitrant customers—usually zombies—at the Bar Sinister. “Would somebody let me finish? Whatever the hell it is, he’s gotten backers for it and he wants to rehearse it here—”
“Where, dear?” My mother poured herself more Chianti. “I mean, here in Kamensic, but where?”
My father sighed, defeated, and reached for his coffee. “The Miniver Amphitheater.”
“Oh, I have been longing for someone to restore that place! At the last town meeting I—”
“So there’s a party there tomorrow, or something?” Hillary asked, all innocence. My mother stiffened. After a moment she shot my father a look.
“Oh, surely not. I mean, he hasn’t been back in years, Bolerium must be an absolute shambles—”
“It’s time,” said my father. “You knew he was coming…”
My mother’s lips tightened. She shook her head emphatically and stared back down at her script. My father turned to Hillary, his voice as archly guileless as Hillary’s had been a minute before. “So. Where’d you hear about the party?”
“Uh—this new guy at school. Jamie Casson. His father told us. I gave him a lift home—”
My father’s voice rose sharply. “Ralph Casson?”
“No—his son, Jamie. He’s in my—”
“Ralph Casson? He’s here? You met him?”
Hillary fell silent and glanced at me for help. Thanks a lot, I thought; then said, “Yeah. They’re staying in the caretaker’s cottage. Ralph Casson’s designing the sets for the opera.”
“No, he’s not.” My father’s voice was fierce, almost angry; but for some reason that only made me want to argue with him.
“Yes he is. He told us he was doing the sets.”
“He may be building them. He’s not designing them. He’s a goddam handyman—”
“He’s a master carpenter,” my mother broke in gently. “And he’s very good—he studied ancient architecture at university, before going into the theater.” She turned to Hillary and explained, “This is just another example of masculine rivalry that goes back long before you children were even born…”
“Oooh la la,” said Hillary.
“Not that kind. And it doesn’t even involve us, really—” She gave my father a warning glare. “It’s between Axel and Ralph and—some friends. And it goes back a very long time. Unk sided with Axel—”
“And Ralph went independent,” finished Hillary. He looked very pleased with himself, but when I watched my parents I saw something complicated, almost disturbing, pass between them. My stomach lurched: all I could think of was that snowy morning when Hillary had whispered that Ali’s parents were getting divorced.
“Right,” my father said after a moment. “Ralph remained—independent.”
I knew by his tone that he was talking over our heads. Hillary didn’t even notice. He speared some spaghetti, wolfed it down and asked, “So this party’s tomorrow? What time?”
My mother’s delicate eyebrows rose. “Are the children invited?”
“Everyone’s invited.” My father sighed. For an instant I thought he was going to leave the table. He pushed his chair back and stared out the darkened window behind us. In the distance the ragged bulk of Muscanth Mountain blotted out the stars; but at its very tip I could see a faint glimmer of gold, as though bonfires burned there. My father stared at it for a long time. At last he said, “It’s not an invitation you can turn down.”
“Cool.” Hillary grinned. “Too bad my folks’re out of town.”
My mother shook her head, striking her best Livia Defending Her Young pose. “Darling, are you sure? After that trouble in—”
“Absolutely.” My father turned with such force that everything on the table bounced. “Axel hasn’t seen Lit for years. He’s her goddam godfather, Audrey—”
My mother set her mouth and glanced down at another page of script. “Do you have something nice to wear, Lit?” she asked calmly. “We’ll have to go to Lord and Taylor if you don’t.”
“I can always borrow something from Ali.”
“Fine.” She nodded without looking at me, and I almost pointed out that any dress that fit Ali would only come up to my crotch. But my mother had deliberately lost herself once more in Livia’s world, slitting her eyes as the wickedest woman in daytime television plotted her family’s downfall.
When we finished eating I walked Hillary next door, the two of us scuffling through piles of leaves and hunching our shoulders against the chill. “What the hell you think was going on at dinner?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I—Do you think they’re getting divorced?”
Hillary laughed. “You nuts? Your mom and Unk are, like, the only people in this whole town who would never get divorced! No way.” He grabbed me and rapped my head with his knuckles. “You idiot. Is that what you’re worrying about?”
“I guess. I don’t know. They were just acting so weird.”
“What, somebody in Kamensic is acting weird? Wow, alert the media.” He shook his head, clambering atop the tumbledown stone wall that was the dividing line between our property and his. “Everyone here is always acting weird. No, this is something about Ralph Casson. He’s bizarre, man. Jamie hates him. I mean, he really hates him.”
“How come? He seems okay to me.”
“I don’t know.” I followed him to his front door. Hillary stood there for a minute, staring at the terra-cotta mask hung on the knocker. The porch light spilled too brightly onto its blank face, two small holes for eyes, its mouth a black slit. “It is weird,” he said, almost to himself. “We never think about it, but Jamie said you never see stuff like this in the city. Or anywhere else, probably.”
Suddenly he gave the mask a tug, yanking the hempen cord from the door. “What the hell does it mean, Lit?” he asked in a low voice, and held up the ugly grinning face. “What does it mean?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think it means anything,” I said, but that wasn’t true. As I stared at the tiny mask between Hillary’s fingers I felt revulsion and something very close to fear. Again I saw that terrible figure moving slowly through the trees, and heard the rustle of its antlers as they tugged at the leaves. “Hillary…”
Hillary’s eyes remained fixed on the mask. His expression grew dark. Before I could say anything more, he tossed the mask into the drift of leaves beside the porch.
“I just want to get out of here,” he said softly. “I just want to get to New Haven and never see this town again.”
He opened the door and slipped inside. For a moment he hesitated and I saw him framed in shadow, the porch light igniting his face so that he resembled the mask, his mouth a livid gash and his eyes blackly staring. He dipped his head in farewell.
“’ Night, Lit. See you.”
“Yeah…”
He shut the door. I waited, half-expecting him to come back, to ask me in, to act like Hillary again. But he didn’t. After a minute or so I turned and started back to my own house, glancing at the pile of leaves where the mask had landed. There was no sign of it, and even when I kicked through the heap, sending a spray of gold and brown and scarlet up into the night, the mask remained hidden.
