Often married couples shared a single stone, but a number of others were in pairs, one for the husband, one for the wife, as if, in life, they'd slept apart and now saw no reason to change. Here lay the van Meers, Rachel and Jan, their gravestones side by side like bedboards. On hers, 1845 to 1912:
Such as I am,
Thus shall thou be.
Just a cheery little reminder. And hubby, 1826 to 1906:
Let this to thee a Warning be:
Quickly thou must follow me.
Not something he felt like thinking about right now. Later, maybe. He moved farther down the row, wiping sweat from the back of his neck. Maybe it was the sun that made him tired.
Butterflies flitted between the tombstones; bees poked among the tall grasses along the bottom of the hill. He looked once more toward the store across the street. The door was still shut; no one had returned.
Near the end of the row he stopped to puzzle out another inscription; the stone was of slate, and chipped almost beyond reading. Getting up again required too much effort. Dropping his jacket and envelope, he sat himself on the grass and stretched his legs, his feet merging with the shadow of the adjoining monument. It was the largest object in the row, a dark four-sided column whose top was jagged and oblique, yet obviously sculpted that way, as if to suggest that the shaft had been broken off. He craned his head back to read the words. The thing appeared to commemorate an entire family; a way of saving money, perhaps. You left a little space after the names, and, one by one, as the people dropped off, you added the years they died.
Isaiah Troet
1839 – 1877
Hanna Troet
1845-1877
They had died the same year. Well, sometimes grief did that to people. Was it happier that way, or even sadder?
His eyes felt heavy. He lay back in the sunlight, cradling his head in the grass, and squinted up at the rest of the names.
THEIR CHILDREN
Ruth 1863-1877
Tabitha 1865-1877
Amos 1866-1877
Absolom 1868 Tamar 1871-1877
Leah 1873-1877
Tobias 1876-1877
Odd. They all had died that year. Some sort of disaster, maybe. Plague, flood, famine in the land.
His eyes closed. Sunlight beat against the lids, while blades of grass brushed his cheek. For a moment he had a vision of long-lost souls with funnily spelled names.
Just as sleep claimed him, he recalled something else that had been odd: they had left out the death year for the one called Absolom. Idly, in a final thought, he wondered what it meant.
Maybe Absolom had simply died the same year he was born. Poor kid, he thought, and slept.
Wind sweeps in gusts across the Hudson, carrying the scent of oil from the Jersey shore: oil, and a burning, and the strange sweet far-off scent of roses.
No one has noticed – no one but the plump little figure perched unobtrusively at the end of the bench, a battered old umbrella by his side. No one else is watching; no one would understand. No one sees the patterns in the water, or smells the corruption beneath the flower scent, or hears the secret sound the grass makes when the wind dies.
Once more the air grows still. Small green moths flit among the weeds; hornets buzz thirstily around a barrel of refuse. No one could guess what is happening. The river rolls past the park, unobserved; the planet rolls through space, unsuspecting; the Old One's squat black shadow lengthens on the bench.
In the shadow, shielded from the afternoon sun, a baby sleeps peacefully, its tiny olive face protruding from a tight cocoon of blanket. A woman, presumably its mother, sits slumped beside it, head fallen forward, eyes sunken and shut tight, skeletal arms hanging like dead things at her sides. On the ground beneath her lies a crumpled paper bag from which the neck of a bottle emerges; the cap has long since rolled into the grass.
Except for the three figures on the bench, this area of the park is almost deserted. The only movement comes from near the trash barrel, where a pair of glossy yellowjackets rise and dip in ceaseless search for food. His face impassive, the Old One watches as one of the insects slips from sight behind the rim and falls greedily upon some rotting thing within. The other circles round the spot in ever-widening arcs until, having flown as far as the bench, it pauses above the paper bag, tiger stripes thrashing furiously beneath a blur of wings. Settling atop the bottle, it disappears inside.
Suddenly the air changes; he can feel it. Whispering the Second of Seven Names, the Old One turns his gaze toward the river, the farther shore, and the shadowy hills beyond. Strange clouds have appeared on the horizon; part two of the sequence is almost complete. He sits poised, ready, rigid with anticipation. In a moment- In a moment A small green moth flutters past his face and comes to rest on the back of his hand. Feebly its wings open and close, open… close. .. then at last fall open and lie still. All movement ceases.
At the far end of the bench the woman's head falls back as if, in a dream, she has offered her throat to the knife. A small bubble of saliva grows and bursts at her lips. Her mouth opens like a rose.
High overhead a white bird wheels erratically in its flight and falls screaming toward the Hudson.
The signs are all about him now. It is time. The Old One sings the Death Song to himself and shivers with exultation. He has been waiting more than a lifetime for this – waiting, and planning, and readying himself for what he has to do. Now the moment is at hand, and he knows that the years of preparation have not been in vain.
Above the park the sky remains a blinding blue; the sun glares mercilessly down. With a metallic gleam the second yellowjacket lifts from its feast and comes spiraling toward the woman on the bench, to hover inches from her gaping mouth. From the empty bottle the other insect rises buzzing toward the baby's face. Mother and child sleep on.
The Old One regards them silently, watching the slow rise and fall of the woman's chest, the hollow cheeks and ravaged flesh, the infant in its mindless sleep. Here it lies, in all its glory: humanity.
He has plans for it.
And now, after a century's contemplation, he is free to act; the future is clear at last. He has heard the strange, piercing cries of the white birds circling overhead. He has read the ancient words chipped into the city's blackened brick. He has seen the foulness at the edge of a young leaf, and the dark shapes that lie in wait behind the clouds. Last night as he marked the birth of May, standing in solemn observance upon the rooftop of his home, he has seen the horned moon with a star between the tips. There is nothing left to learn.
Flicking the moth from his hand, he reaches for his umbrella, stands up from the bench, and grinds the tiny body into the earth. No longer shielded from the afternoon sunlight, the baby stirs, squints, and opens its eyes. A yellowjacket settles lightly onto its cheek; the other buzzes with interest round a frantically twitching eyelid.
Bound within the blanket, the infant struggles helplessly to free its arms. The little mouth opens in a scream. Oblivious, the woman sleeps on.
The Old One stands watching for a time. Then, with a wintry smile, he turns his footsteps toward the city.
The world had darkened. A deep voice was intoning his name. Freirs jerked awake, grumpy and scared, to find his head in shadow; for a moment he didn't know where he was. A figure was standing over him, blocking out the sun.
'Jeremy Freirs?'
He managed a grunt of assent.
'I'm Sarr Poroth. My truck's down there by the road.'
The man looked as tall as the monument beside him. The sunlight at his back made him hard to see.
Still dazed, Freirs got to his feet and brushed himself off, then picked up his jacket and papers. Yawning, he
