might have fetched a good price in some Village boutique – but he wasn't very interested in such things. The books here were even worse: Aids to Believers. Handfuls of Help. Beneath the Moss. The Footsteps of the Master.
At the bottom of the pile, however, against the trunk's age-discolored lining, lay what appeared to be a stack of magazines. He lifted them out, hoping for a cache of old Munsey's or some ancient
Harper's Weeklies from the Civil War days, but they proved to be something more unusual: yearbooks. Spring Street Bible School, the covers said. Gilead, New Jersey.
There were almost two dozen in all, in no particular order, ranging from the early 1880s up to 1912. The covers were of paper, cracked and yellowing, with several separated from the bindings; the yearbooks themselves – mere pamphlets, actually – were only thirty pages long. Most of them bore names at the top, written in childish hands: Isaac Baber, Rachel Baber, Andrew Baber… This was the family, he recalled, that had previously owned the farm.
Picking up the most recent issue, he flipped through it back to front. Student essays filled the pages, essays with tides in old-fashioned gothic letters on such subjects as 'The Duty of a Christian' and 'Living in the Way of the Lord.' There was also a selection of song lyrics, not alma maters but hymns: 'Reapers of Life's Harvest' 'Blue Galilee,' 'There Is a Power in the Blood.'
To the work! to the work! there is labor for all;
For the Kingdom of Darkness and Error shall fall;
And the name of Jehovah exalted shall be,
And we'll shout with the ransomed, 'Salvation is free!'
In the front of the book were four group photos: male and female students, male and female faculty; obviously the sexes had been segregated. There appeared to have been fewer than sixty students in the entire school, and half a dozen teachers. They were a solemn-looking bunch, sitting stiff and unsmiling as they gazed up at him from that bygone day as if through a sepia mist. He scanned the captions; a welter of familiar names greeted him. P. Buckhalter, J. van Meer, several Lindts and Reids and Poroths. Most, he realized, would be dead by now. The name Baber had been carefully underlined wherever it appeared. In the first row, among the youngest boys, he was amused to notice a pale, earnest little face labeled M. Geisel.
Suddenly his eye was caught by the name V. Troet. There were an R. Troet and an S. among the girls, he noticed, and a B. among the female faculty. Deborah had said it was a large family.
What of the branch that had been wiped out in the fire, the branch that had lived right here? Were any of them represented? No, he checked again; the books only went back as far as 1881. They'd all be dead by then, dead and in their graves.
All but one…
He turned to the earliest book; the boy would have been around thirteen then.
Yes, there he was, in the middle row, crowded in with the rest: A. Troet.
He held the book up to the light, peering more closely at the tiny, blurred figure, that stared at him from the page. The figure was short, with a wide, honest-looking face, but beyond that it was indistinguishable from the rest. Perhaps – was it a trick of the light? – perhaps there was the tiniest hint of a smile at the corners of the lips, a lone smile among all those grave Utile faces…
No, it was just his imagination.
He looked ahead to the next book, 1882. There he was again. A Troet, still slightly shorter than the rest. He felt a tiny, inexplicable chill. This time there was no doubt at all. The figure was smiling.
There was no mention of him in the following year's book, or in any of the others. No doubt he'd dropped out of school and out of the world – until he'd struck again in 1890…
Well, his photo would make an amusingly ghoulish little pinup for the wall above Freirs' desk. Portrait of the Devil as a Young Man. Tucking the collection of yearbooks beneath his arm, he piled the other books back inside the trunk, laying the clothing on top. He hoped he hadn't piled them too high, and that the trunk would close. Reaching up, he pulled the lid down He jumped back. Bwada was crouching behind the trunk only inches from his face, eyes unblinking, burning into his. A hissing sound escaped her throat, and her body seemed to swell. Spreading her claws, she prepared to leap.
Suddenly, for no discernible reason, she appeared to think better of it. She settled down, licked her lips, and purred.
'Nice cat,' said Freirs, backing out of the room. 'Nice cat.' There'd been something about the way she licked her lips, something not quite right, but there was no time to worry about it now. 'You just sit there, and I'll be right back with your friends.'
Slamming the door, he ran for the farmhouse.
She walked home, musing, following the dusty road as it wound its contrary way through the forest and fields. She paid no mind to her torn cheek; there were nine ways of making pain go away, and she knew them all. Besides, she had more important matters to occupy her now.
The visitor had come. It was here among them. When she'd looked into the cat's eyes she had seen it glaring out at her, as if through the eye holes of a mask.
Lucky that she'd seen it while it was still so weak. Proof, no doubt, of divine Providence – for she knew how to fight the thing. Her boy, Sarr, was useless, but she knew what to do.
Yes, that was a possibility old Absolom hadn't counted on – that one of the Brethren would know and be prepared.
She had been prepared for more than twenty years. She had known that it would happen like this; it was just as her visions had shown her.
She set her jaw, thought of the struggle that lay ahead, and continued down the dirt road with a more determined stride. She felt vindicated. She'd been right after all. On her cheek the blood was dry, the wound already healing.
Rosie was waiting for her when she got off work at seven. He'd stationed himself at a table by the window of the shabby little coffee shop next door, biding his time with a chocolate malted and a slice of pound cake until she emerged. He knocked on the window as she walked past and waved her inside.
'Just let me pay the bill,' he said, making greedy little sounds with his straw as he sucked up the last of the malted. He stuffed the final crumbs of cake into his mouth. 'May I walk you home? I want to talk.'
Carol had talked with Rosie on the phone just last night, when she'd called to thank him for the new dress, but she was happy to see him again. Voorhis had been hard to bear today; Miss Elms, the assistant supervisor, had wounded Carol with a caustic remark, early in the afternoon, about her lack of enthusiasm – 'When you came to work here we all thought you were going to amount to something, but so far you haven't' – and there'd been hints from one of her superiors, oily Mr Brown in acquisitions, that he and Mrs Tait were considering reducing her hours still further during the summer lull. They aren't even paying me a living wage now, Carol had thought, but she'd been too cowed to say anything.
Rosie's smiling face made a welcome contrast to the librarians' sour ones, and strolling downtown with him, laughing at the excited way he'd peer into every store window they passed as if he just might buy whatever was inside, be it a baby toy, a side of beef, or a maid's uniform, was the perfect way to unwind.
'Have you looked at that book I sent over?' he asked, as they waited for the light to change at Twenty-first and Eighth. 'The one with all those country dances?'
'I've only had time to glance at it,' she said. 'Some of the steps certainly look complicated.'
'How'd you like to try one with me?'
Carol shrugged. 'Sure if you like. Any particular reason?'
He looked hurt. 'Don't you think it might just be fun?'
'Oh, of course, Rosie,' she said hastily. 'Of course it'll be fun. 1 only meant, did you send the book over as part of our research, or simply because you know I like dancing?'
He stuck his hands in his pockets and moved closer to her as they walked. 'As a matter of fact, young lady, that book is extremely germane to what the two of us are studying. The steps peasants once danced in tiny, isolated North Italian villages were the same ones children danced in Elizabethan England – and are still dancing in modern-day East Africa.'
'No, it can't be!'
'Oh, yes. And strictly entre nous, yours truly is the first to have discovered the connections. So you're going to be involved in some pretty important research, young lady – original research that ought to cause quite a stir.
