On the seventh day, it killed him.
Afterward, it gave him back his life – but twisted now. Corrupted. Irrevocably altered. The boy fell prostrate to the mud and worshiped it.
He came to it each night throughout the spring and summer, to gaze and chant and sacrifice.
The last time that he came to it, it spoke to him.
It opened its fleshless black jaws and, just before it died, it told him, in great detail, exactly what it wanted him to do.
Book One: Portents
It has long been my conviction that, were an absolute and unremitting Evil to find embodiment in human form, it would manifest itself not as some hideous ogre or black-caped apparition with glowing eyes, but rather as an ordinary-looking mortal of harmless, even kindly mien – a middle-aged matron, perhaps, or a schoolboy… or a little old man.
Nicholas Keize, Beneath the Moss
May First
The city lies throbbing in the sunlight. From its heart a thin black thread of smoke coils lazily toward the sky. April is almost thirteen hours dead; already the world has changed.
In a park above the Hudson the Old One waits, blinking his mild eyes at the sun. Insects plunge and dart around the refuse by the water's edge and buzz amid the grass beside the bench. But for their hum, the lap of oily waters, and the swish of passing cars, the park is still, the air hushed and expectant.
A cry from overhead breaks the silence: three long, tremulous notes…
And then the bird is gone. Leaves rustle softly, one branch at a time. The Old One sits forward and holds his breath. Soon it will happen.
A sudden breeze sweeps up from the river; blood-red blossoms scatter at bis feet. The pages of an old newspaper shift and curl, revealing smudged bootprints, a naked leg, a jagged slash.
Above him trees hiss urgently in the wind. With a flash of green the leaves lift together and point toward the city. All the grass leans one way.
In the distance the coil of smoke whips back and forth, then twists in upon itself. Silently its black tip sways against the sky, splitting into a serpent's tongue.
The Old One licks his lips. It is beginning.
All the way from New York, as the bus sped through the grassy haze of the Lincoln Tunnel humming with Sunday-morning traffic, past the condos and diners and car lots that lined the highway, Jeremy Freirs had been thinking about the farm.
The ad had been enticingly vague: nothing but a three-by-five recipe card with a row of bright green vegetables printed along one side. It had been tacked to the bulletin board just above the table where he usually sat at the Voorhis Foundation Library on West Twenty-Third Street, as it left there for him alone. The handwriting had been neat and somehow girlish-looking: SUMMER RENTAL
Private guest house on N.J. farm.
Fully electrified. Quiet surroundings.
$90/week inc. meals. R.F.D. I, Box 63, Gilead.
At that price, if he could manage to sublet his apartment – a fourth-floor walk-up on Bank Street – he would actually make himself some money on the summer. And it seemed to him that 'quiet surroundings' were exactly what he needed right now. It would probably mean a couple of months of celibacy, of course, but that wasn't much different from what he'd been going through this spring. It also meant he'd be able to forget the fact that he'd be turning thirty; there'd be no need to suffer through the celebration his friends were so keen on having, the lavish dinner at someplace expensive, followed by booze and slaps on the back. Well, he would just have to celebrate out there on the farm, away from civilization, like Thoreau. Probably be good for him, concentrate his mind on more important things. There was also his thesis to think about, The Something Something Something of the Gothic Imagination; he would figure it out eventually. Focus on the Participant Observer, maybe, or The Interplay of Setting and Character. Or, even more promising, Setting as Character… He was sure it would come to him; these things usually did. Meanwhile he'd be reading up on the subject – the primary sources, Le Fanu, Lewis, and the rest – making notes for a course he'd be teaching next fall and, who could tell, perhaps for years to come. To spend a summer among books: it was an appealing prospect.
So was the notion of escaping from the city this year: from the three flights of echoing stairs that, even after twice that many summers, left him panting and sweaty by the time he'd reached the top; from his claustrophobic little bedroom, the secondhand air conditioner churning endlessly in the window, blocking the view of the street; and, maybe most important of all, escape from the inevitable memories of a certain Laura Rubinstein who had shared that bedroom with him for so much of last summer and whose moving out at the end of it had been responsible for, among other things, the abandonment of a planned trip to England, the loss of a lucrative teaching assignment at Queensborough Community College (because of Freirs' erratic attendance and, as the department head had noted, 'insufficient classroom preparation'), and the habit of stuffing himself with food as he sat up reading late into the night, alone in his apartment, resulting in a gain of twenty pounds by winter's end and the drastic alteration of Freirs' wardrobe.
He still missed Laura. For a while he'd actually believed she'd be his second wife, the one who'd prove that, whatever mistakes he had made in the past, this time around he'd get it right. There'd been a couple of other women since her, but no one he'd really cared about. Three weeks ago, on the day of Laura's marriage to an old boyfriend with a family house in Sag Harbor and tenure at NYU, Freirs had written to the box number in Gilead, asking for more information and suggesting today, the first of May, for a possible visit. He had already discovered that the town was too small for most maps of the state (except for one highly detailed Geological Survey map he'd found at Voorhis), but Hunterdon County Transport operated a twice-a-day bus service from the Port Authority which, upon request, made a detour to the town.
The reply had come less than a week later. It was written in the same girlish hand on lined yellow paper obviously drawn from a legal pad. Three photographs had also been enclosed.
Dear Mr Freirs,
My husband and I were pleased to get your letter, and we'll be happy to have you come out on May Day and see our place. The Sunday bus arrives in Gilead shortly after two and will let you off across the street from the Co- operative. That will be closed when you arrive, but there's a bench on the porch where you can wait, and my husband will be by in the truck to pick you up as soon as services are over. You shouldn't have to wait long, and we'll see that you get back to town in time for the return bus.
The guest house is one of our outbuildings. It is newly renovated and electrified and, though you can't see it in the photograph, we will be putting new screens on all the windows. The left half of the building is used as a storeroom, but you should find the right half more than ample for your needs. There is a brand new bed, a wardrobe, a set of shelves, and a spare table you can use as a writing desk. (Your work sounds very interesting! At one time my husband and I considered teaching as a career.)
We are not fancy people, but I can promise you three square meals a day, well prepared, just as we ourselves eat. Our farm is not yet a fully working one (we purchased it only in November), but by this summer we expect to be eating our own produce. We are lifelong members of the Brethren of the Redeemer, a religious order with adherents all over the world, though most of its membership is concentrated here in Gilead, with other settlements in
Pennsylvania and New York. Both my husband and I have attended college outside the community. We welcome the interest of those outside the faith and do not impose our beliefs on anyone.
We have no telephone, so if you cannot come to see us on May Day, please let us know in writing as soon as possible. If we don't hear from you, we'll assume you're coming, and Sarr will be there to pick you up – but I see I'm repeating myself! So in closing, I look forward to meeting you and hearing about life in New York.
Sincerely,
(Mrs) Deborah Poroth
