Ransom grinned, his sparse teeth yellow in the weak lamplight. 'Rats as big around as your thigh.'
'I hate rats,' Mason said. 'I grew up with them. Sounded like cavalry behind the walls of my bedroom. What I hate the most is those beady eyes, like they're sizing you up.'
'Don't worry,' Ransom said. 'They get plenty to eat without having to gnaw on the guests.'
'Miss Mamie would probably scold them for having bad manners.'
Anna laughed. Maybe Mason wasn't so bad. At least he wasn't afraid to show weakness. Unlike her.
Mason stood and wiped his hands on his jeans. Something fluttered from the rafters and brushed Anna's face, and she wiped at it as if it were cobwebs.
'Jesus, don't tell me that was a bat,' Mason said, ducking. 'Bats are nothing but rats with wings.'
'That was a bluebird,' Ransom said. 'Lucky for you, young lady. If a bluebird flies in your path, it means you're going to be kissed.'
'Great,' she said. 'And I thought I earned my kisses by casting magic spells on unsuspecting men.'
'Believe what you want,' Ransom said. 'I reckon you see through the signs better than anybody. Now, I'd best get on with the chores.'
Mason wiped his hands on an old horse blanket hanging from the rafters. 'So, Ransom, do you have time to help me find an overgrown log that's just right for statue-making?'
'Why do you think we hitched up the wagon? Miss Mamie always gets her way with things.'
'So I'm starting to find out.'
'Let's get on before dark. Might have to go below Beechy Gap, where we had a big windfall a few winters back. Want to come along, young lady?'
'No, thanks. I've got some chores of my own.'
'I reckon some things got to be done alone,' he said.
Anna wasn't sure what to make of Ransom. He kept dropping hints but a deep fear was hidden behind his eyes. Maybe he had secrets of his own. She waited until Mason and Ransom climbed up onto the buck-board seat, then she passed Ransom the reins.
'See you later tonight?' Mason asked her.
Anna felt the half smile on her face, and wasn't sure which way she wanted the corners of her mouth to point. 'We'll see.'
Ransom flipped the reins and the team headed up the road, where the wide sandy ribbon threaded between the trees into the forest. She slid the barn doors closed, then looked up at the horseshoe.
It was points-down again.
Dead things come in.
She looked at the forest.
Under the fringe of shadowed underbrush, amid the laurel and locust and briars, the woman in white stood, the bouquet held out in challenge. The ghost stared at Anna like a mirror, then turned and drifted among the trees.
'All right, damn you,' Anna said. 'I'll play hide-and-seek with you.'
As she entered the forest, she wondered how you could ever catch up to your own ghost. And why it would hide from you in the first place. Ransom was right about one thing. A woman with secrets generally was bad news.
CHAPTER 14
And the night spread, seeping like warm oil over the hills, expanding, filling the valleys, and rising up the gray Appalachian slopes. The night became an ocean, an ink-stained bloodbath. The night became the sky. The night became a mouth that swallowed the night before, all the previous nights, all the nights to come, the night Spence rattled on, ringers pounding the slick keys. He was an automaton now. There was no world, no room, no smell of lantern smoke and sweat and sweet Bridget nearby, only the glowing battlefield of the half-empty page. No outer night lurked beyond the window, only the night that came to life through words, the night that swelled and surged through his veins, that pumped darkness through his extremities, that burned in the ebony furnace of his heart.
He was dimly aware of the strand of drool running down one side of his cheek. He grinned, and the drool leaked onto his cotton shirt. The saliva was from another plane, a reality so flat and dull and senseless compared to the magical land unfolding beneath his keystrokes. His wrists ached and his fingers were stiff, eyes watering from strain, but those problems were of the flesh, and this work was of the Word.
The master, the paper, urged him on. Commanded him forward. Trumpeted reveille with a Joshua horn. Ordained him a god, albeit a lesser god.
Because he was a servant to the great god Word, the one true god. Word who giveth and taketh away, Word who gave his only begotten suffix so that Spence shall not perish but have everlasting metaphor, Word who spewed forth from burning bush and graven tablet and mighty cloud. In Word we trust.
A hand dropped on his shoulder, an intrusion from somewhere on that dreary plane of soil and substance. Ah, that must be the Muse, who was also slave to Word, made Word from dust and bit of bone, Muse who offered the fruit, Muse who served as adjective to his improper noun.
'Jeff,' she sang, and lovely was her music. He wanted to weep, but the tears would blur the glorious page. His page. And Spence's moment of vanity broke the spell, angering the god who was Word.
He stopped typing and glanced around, blinking.
'Come to bed, honey,' Muse said. 'You haven't slept in thirty-six hours.'
A thick ream of manuscript was piled on his desk. His eyes burned and he forced his dry eyelids to close. Muse was drawing him away from the world of Word, down from the soft high temple. Perhaps Muse was no friend after all, but an enemy. 'What do you want?'
She was no longer Muse, only Bridget, a Georgia sophomore shivering in a sheer nightgown, her nipples hard from the chill in the air.
'I'm worried about you.' She leaned over him from behind and wrapped her arms around his chest. Spence let the swivel chair sag backward. Now that the spell of Word was broken, anxiety sluiced through his limbs. One corner of his eye twitched.
Bridget kissed him on the neck, just below the line of his newly grown stubble. 'You're working so hard. Why don't you come to bed?'
'I can't work if I'm in bed.' His irritability returned now that the letters had stopped flowing.
'I'm lonely for you, honey.'
She had forgiven him for the previous day's mistreatment. Or had that been last night? A hundred years ago? Time lost all meaning at Korban Manor.
'Dear, dear, dear,' he said, letting each word dangle in the air like a noose. 'What is your loneliness compared to the great loss the world would suffer should my work go unfinished?'
'I know it's important. I'm not like you, though. I need a little companionship now and then.'
'Surely you can turn your not inconsiderable charms toward procuring yourself a bedmate. You can play your illusory games of love elsewhere, with my blessing.'
Bridget pulled her arms from his chest. Spence swiveled the chair so he could admire his latest bauble. Her comely curves undulated beneath the clinging fabric of her gown. A treasure. A pretty, useless thing.
'Jeff, I don't want anybody else. I love you.'
This distraction was getting interesting. Perhaps Word would forgive him a moment's idleness. Surely even Ephram Korban played emotional games in his day.
'Love,' he said, and the word flowed as if spoken by Sir Laurence Olivier himself, the liquid of the phonic dripping off Spence's tongue. A classic oratory was coming on, rising from his bones to his chest, through his lungs and throat, air made wisdom. The only thing that ever changed was the audience.
'Love, the ultimate vanity,' he said. 'All love is self-love. Motherly, brotherly, sexual, puppy, religious, sacrificial. All love is masturbation. And so, I give you permission to love yourself, since that seems to be what you require of me.'
