The room smelled of perspiration and roses. Lying on the bed with her hand over her eyes, oblivious to the night sounds outside her window, Mrs Poroth breathed deeply and let her mind drift, skimming lightly over sleep as if upon the surface of a pool. Around her on the coarsely woven sheets lay nearly a dozen of the Pictures, their lumpish figures glowing in the lamplight like paintings on the rough walls of a cave. The others lay scattered where they'd fallen, on the floor beside the bed.
Gradually her breathing slowed and her face softened, the harsh angular lines at each side of her mouth smoothing slightly as she left familiar thoughts behind and let herself fall into darkness, deeper now, where other presences, indistinct but real, hovered expectantly around her as if summoned. The rose scent was here too, but at the center of it she heard the click of teeth; she felt the brush of earth against her cheek, and something moist, and fur; there was a slow, distant heartbeat, vast and heavy as a continent, and the stir of giant leaves, and the sound of something wormlike, probing for her in the darkness as if seeking to enter her skull…
A tiny doubt touched her, and still with eyes shut she awakened, struck suddenly by a fear she'd thought long buried, the fear that she was alien in this world, even in this stony little room she had known for the long years of her widowhood. What was she doing here, after all? What was her real purpose, and why was she so sure that God had chosen her to be the instrument of His will?
The thought of God brought a hardness back to her face, and a resolve. Fear was a weapon of the devil. There was something, she knew, that would have to be destroyed, and soon. It was only a matter of finding where it lay hidden – that would not be hard – and of fending off a possible attack. All she needed was the strength.
Again the doubt assailed her, the futility of it all. This is wrong, she thought, if s foolish. I'm not a young woman; I shouldn't have to carry such a burden by myself.
But even as she gave the ±ought words, she rejected it. She knew there was no one who could help her, no one else as capable as she.
Calmer now, she felt a new claim on her attention, drawn like a compass needle by something just beyond the bed. Opening her eyes, she sat up and scanned the room. On the floor where her gaze came to rest, she saw it staring from the Picture – the crude jagged lines of the tree, a scribble of waxy green crayon with a hint of eyes amid the lower boughs. She stared back at it a moment, then suddenly looked down at her right hand. The fingertips lay lightly upon another of the Pictures, one she recognized dimly from her dream. It was a dark, humped shape, swelling in the centre of the paper like a mound of earth.
July Eighteenth
Morning. Despite the heat, he switches off the air conditioner by his bed and raises the window overlooking the river. A warm breeze bathes his face and brings the scent of roses. The air is clear at this hour; he can see figures moving in the glass and brick apartments on the opposite shore, and, farther west, the wavering green line of low hills.
Out there, beyond the Jersey hills, the thing is thriving. All this past week it has performed the special Ceremonies of its own: the required rites and, at certain times, the necessary sacrifices. Gradually, as the week spiraled toward its conclusion, it has honed its skill and gathered its murderous strength.
Its moment is approaching – and so is his own. There are special preparations he must make. Concentration is essential; the darkness and the heat will not bother him, but the room must be silent. Shutting the window and pulling down the shades, he lies back naked on the bed, intones the Sixth Name, and prepares himself.
Tonight, when it is time to act, he will be ready.
Thanks, no doubt, to my recent decision – No More Asking For Seconds At Dinner – woke up feeling half starved this morning, after a crazy dream in which I was eating everything amp; everyone in sight: Carol, the Poroths, the cats, the cornfield, whole continents… As I recall, it ended with my swallowing my own foot. Jeremy Freirs, the human Uroboros.
Carol – God, it's been at least a week since I've written to her. Better do so before she loses interest in me. Must get around to it before tomorrow's mail.
Squeezed in a second helping of corn bread this morning, telling myself it was to make up for the lack of eggs. We won't be seeing many omelets around here anymore till Sarr amp; Deborah get around to buying a couple of new hens. That one poor bird that's left doesn't look like she's going to be much good for anything for a while.
After breakfast, sat on the porch reading some Shirley Jackson stories, but got so turned off at her view of humanity (everyone callous amp; vicious except for her put-upon middle-aged heroines, with whom she obviously identifies) that I switched to old Aleister Crowley when I came out here to my room. His Confessions look too long to read all the way through amp; are obviously untrustworthy as hell, but at least he keeps a sunny disposition.
Inspired by Crowley's jovial satanism, took another walk in the woods, hearing for the first time since I've been out here the distant barking of dogs amp; thinking about hounds of the Baskervilles, Tindalos, Zaroff, amp; the rest. Didn't Lovecraft have a hound as well? Weather so inviting, despite the mosquitoes, that I walked all the way back to the pool at the edge of the marsh, where the brook bends. But the pool was covered by a layer of greenish scum, with something dead floating in the middle of it. I turned around amp; ran back to the farm.
Maybe these things are normal out here, as we move toward the height of the summer.
Sarr was working his way along the border of the cornfield, clearing off bunches of weed with a stubby little sickle. 'Little,' he agreed, 'but razor sharp. You want to try it?'
I'd had such bad experiences with his other tools that I wasn't too keen on taking up a new one; but then I figured what the hell, with any luck this'll probably be the only time in my life I ever get the chance to play with one of these things, amp; I may as well make the most of it. I took the sickle from him amp; hefted it in my hand – hard to believe the Russians actually put this thing on their flag; it's like making a coat of arms out of a meat hook or an ice pick – then I took a few tentative swings, amp; to my surprise it sliced right through the thickest stalks amp; branches, pretty as you please. It's a lot smaller than the scythe amp; a lot less unwieldy; you hold it in just one hand.' And unlike the axe, it was easy to lift.
'Very good, Jeremy,' said Sarr, 'I think you've found your talent at last.'
The dogs were proving difficult to walk with. She had three of them to deal with, two easily distracted young males and a female not yet come into her first heat. True to their shiftless master, they had never known an ounce of proper training and were used to roaming at will. They were friendly enough, but as free-spirited as wild things. Mrs Poroth felt the daylight wane; shadows were crossing the forest floor, darkness creeping steadily up the trees. She realized that she still had far to go.
She herself had gotten an early enough start, up, as usual, by five, just before dawn, to tend her bees and complete whatever weeding her garden required, but the Fenchels, where she'd stopped hours later to pick up the dogs, were accustomed to staying up most of the night hunting what game they could, whether or not in season, drinking whatever was available, and no doubt scavenging what they thought they could get away-with from their neighbors' land. None of them but young Orin ever rose before ten. The elder Fenchel, Shem, was the one she'd had to talk to, and as luck would have it he'd been sleeping off a bender until well past noon.
Not that she'd expected any problem borrowing the three dogs. Shem Fenchel was obliged to her for too many kindnesses – the boils she'd lanced on Orin's neck, the painful shingles on his own hand she'd ministered to, the birth she'd attended when Sister Nettie Stoudemire had been called away – to begrudge her the use of his hounds for the afternoon, or even to ask her the reason. He assumed that she was using them for tracking.
He was wrong. But as she'd set off with the dogs that day, leaving behind the Fenchel clan's collection of shanties at the fork in the road and disappearing into the forest, the animals jerking eagerly at their lead ropes and pulling her in every direction, she looked as if she were on the track of game.
In fact, though, she was not relying on the dogs to lead her. She knew quite well where she was going, and the fastest way to get there. The dogs were simply for protection, weapons of defense. She herself was sharp-eyed and wise, but she was getting old as well; alone, she would be no match for the teeth and claws and catlike stealth of the Dhol in its present form, especially if it caught her unawares with the source of its power so near.
That source would be somewhere by McKinney's Neck, of that much she was sure. But she was making slower progress than she'd counted on, the dogs tugging at her arm and baying excitedly at every scent they passed, stirring up birds and insects and small scuttling things that fled their path as the three dogs bounded noisily through the underbrush. The Neck was still miles away, and the light was growing dimmer. She prayed she'd reach the place before sundown, even though she would not perform her work till after dark. There would be only the thinnest sliver of moon tonight, but it would be sufficient.
