Ceremonies

through the little window. As we sped along, he told me about some scene in the old King Kong in which the gorilla sticks his head up through an elevated track and derails an entire train. I never saw the movie, you know I hardly ever had a chance to see anything before I came to New York, but I tried to imagine what the scene must be like and pictured a huge snarling head filling the subway tunnel. And then Rosie said, Okay, but what if it wasn't a head, what if it was just a hand big enough to stop the train? (That's one of the games he plays, the What If game, also called the Riya Mogu or something like that. Whatever the other person says, no matter how outrageous, you have to force yourself to really totally believe in it with all your heart.) I could picture a huge clawed hand sticking up in the middle to the tunnel. And then he said, What if it was just a single finger big enough to fill the tunnel? And I said, How about the claw of such a finger? The tip of the claw? A thing so big it filled the whole tunnel?… Rosie laughed and said, Yes, that's the idea.

But maybe I have too vivid an imagination, because somehow I managed to make myself sick that way, picturing those huge things in front of us; or maybe it was the heat on the train after all that ice cream, and the crowd, and the roaring. I started feeling very weak, all of a sudden, and someone nice got up for me so I could sit down. And just then the train came screeching horribly to a stop, right in the middle of the tunnel, all the lights went out and the air got hot and stopped moving, and I got a sudden icy feeling up and down my spine, so bad I thought I'd throw up. Someone said, Don't you hear it, there's something blocking us, and Rosie went up and tried to see if there was another train up ahead, but he couldn't see through the crowd; he'd been standing next to me and we'd lost our place by the window.

A few moments later the lights came on and the train began creeping forward. Then suddenly it stopped again, and again the lights went out. This jerking, starting, and stopping made me feel even worse. It happened several more times, and each time we ground to a stop I felt my stomach heave like I was going to be sick, even though Rosie was right there beside me with his hand on my shoulder.

The train kept rocking and jerking all the way downtown; it was really nightmarish. I know it was the movement that was making me sick, though the odd thing was that each time I seemed to get this wave of nausea just before we stopped, as if it was the train that was somehow affected by what was happening inside me, rather than the other way around. I told Rosie I was afraid I was going to be sick, and he said, Try to keep it down, we'll be there in a minute or two; and I managed to control myself all the way, fighting down the nausea while the whole world seemed to twist and heave inside me. Keep it down, Rosie kept saying, and it seemed to work; and just as he was helping me off the train he turned to me, smiling, and gripped my hand, and said, Congratulations, Carol, you've passed the test…

Book Nine: McKinney's Neck

There were black terrible woods hanging from the hill all round; it was like seeing a large room hung with black curtains, and the shape of the trees seemed quite different from any I had ever seen before.

Machen, The White People

July Twenty-fourth

Sunday dawned grey and gloomy, mammoth clouds rising on all sides like the smoke from distant fires. Freirs got up early, awakened by voices up at the farmhouse, followed by the slamming of the screen door. Sleepily he remembered: this was Sunday, the morning that the Poroths were to play host to the assembled Brethren. He sat up in bed and looked out. A shiny navy blue station wagon was already parked beside the house. He reached for his eyeglasses, then took his wristwatch from the night table. Seven fifteen – an ungodly hour to be thinking about God. He wondered if plans were being changed in light of Deborah's injury, but probably it was too late for that now.

Slipping on shorts and a T-shirt, he left his building and crossed the damp grass to the house. As he climbed the steps to the back porch, he could hear a gruff voice saying, in a slightly defensive tone, 'We'd planned on walkin' here, but with Lotte's condition- '

As Freirs opened the screen door, the man who'd been speaking fell silent. He was seated at the kitchen table with Sarr Poroth and a slim grey hard-faced woman whom Freirs recognized as Poroth's mother. The two men had mugs of coffee before them. All turned as he came in. Freirs felt like a child who'd blundered into a party where he didn't belong; only Poroth's face showed friendliness.

'Ah,' he said, getting to his feet, 'you've risen early this morning!' He turned to the other man, who was also standing now. 'Brother Joram, this is our guest, Jeremy Freirs. Jeremy, this is Joram Sturtevant.'

'Good morning,' said Freirs.

The man nodded stiffly. 'A good morning to you.' So this was the leader of the sect; Freirs had heard much about him. He was bearded like Poroth, with eyes as dark and piercing, but his face looked older and even more severe. The formal-looking black jacket he wore lent him an air of authority. Freirs waited to see if he would extend his hand, but the man made no further sign of greeting. In the silence Freirs heard voices coming from the living room – children's voices and a woman's. The guests were here early.

'And I know you two have met,' Poroth was saying, with a nod to his mother.

'Yes indeed,' said Freirs. 'Under rather unpleasant conditions.' He turned to the woman, who sat regarding him silently, with no trace of recognition. There were still a pair of thin red lines across her cheek. 'You look as if you're healing nicely.'

She arched her brows. 'If that's God's will.'

Poroth heaved a sigh as he sat down. 'Ah, well, 'tis all in the past now, thank the Lord.'

'The past?' The woman gave a skeptical shrug. 'That's hardly for the likes of us to say.'

Sturtevant cleared his throat. 'With the Lord's help we'll put the wickedness behind us this very morning.' He shifted his gaze to Freirs. 'I'm told the accursed creature had a special… interest in you.'

'Yes,' said Freirs, still standing in the doorway; no one had invited him to sit down. 'I'm not sure why, but it seemed to bear me a particular hatred.'

'And yet for all that, you were never actually harmed by the beast.'

Sturtevant's eyes were subtly accusing; Freirs decided to end the conversation. 'I guess even us infidels have someone watching over us.' He turned to Sarr. 'How's Deborah this morning?'

'Healing well,' said Sarr. 'She's upstairs taking her rest now, but she'll be down. Why don't you have yourself some breakfast while we three move into the living room and wait for the others?'

There was a sliding of chairs, and they filed out of the kitchen. Freirs could see a boy around nine or ten already in the living room, and a large, flushed young woman, obviously very pregnant, who sat slumped in the rocker as if exhausted.

Heating some coffee, he took from one of the cabinets a box of cold cereal he'd bought on his first trip to town. The milk pitcher on the table was almost empty. Picking it up, he took the lantern that hung by the top of the steps and went down to the cellar in search of more.

There was still an inch or two of milk at the base of the metal storage container, but it had gone decidedly sour. The smell pervaded the entire cellar – or was that, perhaps, another smell, the odor of decay? Could the smell of Bwada's body have lingered so long? Passing the farthest shelf as he headed back upstairs, he looked in vain for eggs. The egg rack was empty; the hens still weren't laying. What the hell is this place coming to? he thought. Everything's falling apart.

Upstairs more people were beginning to arrive, some of them pulling up in cars or pickup trucks, others who lived closer arriving on foot. The later arrivals headed directly for the back lawn; those who'd been seated in the living room moved outside to join them, leaving the house to Freirs. He watched black-garbed families congregate outside as he attempted, stomach growling, to make a breakfast for himself out of burnt toast and coffee. He recognized some of the faces that passed beneath the window and noticed family resemblances in others. Matthew Geisel had arrived with a beaming grey-haired woman Freirs guessed to be his wife, and now he recognized Geisel's brother Werner from their long-ago meeting at the Co-op. He saw Bert and Amelia Steegler, the store's managers, and Rupert Lindt, whom he recalled disliking, flanked by a wife and two daughters. One of them, the younger, looked familiar; he stared at her a long time, increasingly convinced that she'd been the girl in the truck that had tried to run him down. Mustn't jump to conclusions, he told himself. With all the inbreeding around here, everyone looks a little bit alike.

In fact, the people assembling on the lawn were hard to tell apart; they were dressed and groomed alike, as well. He felt, more than ever now, like an outsider. He didn't belong here. Better to be back on Bank Street, with the radio playing and the traffic outside. Briefly he considered retreating to the privacy of his outbuilding, but in his incongruously bright clothing he knew he'd feel even more conspicuous crossing the lawn; and then, too, he'd be