Black Light

The immense figure swept its head from side to side, and I could hear its antlers slicing through the air. I was terrified it would catch my scent, but instead the creature turned. I saw it clearly against that elysian sky, its speckled eyes ravenous as an owl’s. Then it stepped away, moving in an odd, stilted manner. I caught a glimpse of its torso, arms smoothly solid, legs and chest and buttocks well-shaped as any man’s. Save only between its thighs, where its phallus mounted, grotesquely large and rigid as though hewn from wood. Once, Ali and I had found an image like this in one of Hillary’s books—an ithyphallic carving from ancient Greece, its face worn away to nothing save the faint indentations of eyes and lipless mouth; armless, legless, only its ludicrous member intact.

“Ooh, Daddy, buy me one of those!” Ali had squealed. But seeing this creature now I felt only horror, and panic lest it turn and catch sight of me.

It did not. Its long legs swung stiffly through the underbrush, its antlered head swung back and forth as slowly it receded from view. For one last instant I glimpsed its silhouette fading into the trees, and could almost have believed I imagined it: a strange manlike pattern formed by leaves and shadows and darting birds. But then I recalled its eyes, at once empty and devouring. I took a deep breath, as though struggling to wake from a dream, and stepped forward.

Around me the evening air shivered. I could feel it sliding like cool water across my face, and once more smelled fallen leaves, damp earth. In the distance an owl hooted. Something struck my upper leg and I looked down to see a cricket tumbling into the shadows at my feet.

“Lit! Move your ass!”

All was as it had been. In the tall grass Ali hopped up and down and waved impatiently. Beside her Hillary made faces, moving his arms semaphore-wise, and Jamie Casson stood atop a pile of stones with his shoulders hunched against the chill. I stared at them, frowning. My eyes ached the way they did after I’d fallen asleep in the sun, and I wondered if I had somehow fallen asleep, or experienced some kind of acid flashback.

But whether I had or not, I knew I was stuck with it. Whatever I had glimpsed—a man with leaves in his eyes and the terrible slow gait of an avalanche destroying a hillside—was etched upon my mind’s eye as clearly as my father’s face, or my own.

“Lit!”

“Hold on, I’m coming—” I began to wade toward them, getting soaked by wet goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace. “Did you—did you—”

I paused, feeling sick to my stomach. Did you see the world turn to water? Did you see a man with horns?

“You looked like you were trancing out there, Lit.” Hillary grabbed my shoulder. “You okay?”

“I—I think so. I guess I just sort of spaced or something.”

“Like, wow. Played Black Sabbath at 78 and saw God, right?” Ali leaned against Jamie, and he dropped his arm companionably around her. “Let’s go before you totally wig out…”

“I’m fine.”

Hillary continued to stare at me, finally shrugged. “If you say so.”

We walked across the field. Overhead the sky deepened from gray to violet. A few stars appeared. I forced myself to stare at them, and to count the seconds between a cricket’s song: anything to make the night seem mundane. I still felt shaky, and clung more closely to Hillary than usual. It felt weird to be here with his arm around me and the night wind biting into my neck; weirder still to look over and see Ali and Jamie the same way, as though they’d known each other for years instead of just an hour.

And it was strange to find myself this close to Bolerium again. I knew kids who used to come to the abandoned guest house, to get high or fuck in the empty bedrooms, but I hadn’t been here since I was seven or eight. Back then it was all neatly mown grass and stone walls, with hollyhocks and delphinium shading the cottage.

Now the guest house wasn’t abandoned anymore. At the edge of the overgrown field rose the stands of oak and hemlock and beech that comprised the old-growth forest covering Muscanth Mountain, one of the only virgin tracts left in the Northeast. Within their shadow stood the house, looking even smaller than I had remembered. Another one of Kamensic’s fey architectural artifacts, like the Mies van der Rohe mansion that had a tennis court on its roof, or the sixteenth century Austrian longhouse that had been reconstructed on Peter Nearing’s estate.

This was nowhere near as grand as either of those. It was someone’s idea of a French country cottage, built in the 1920s when the first wave of silent film stars settled in Kamensic. I remembered my parents talking about it during a visit to Bolerium. One of Axel Kern’s mistresses had lived here, before she had a nervous breakdown. It was an awful story—my parents absolutely refused to tell me what happened, but over the years I’d combed together most of the details. Drugs, and a murdered infant, or perhaps it was stillborn; the mistress found in the woods, a struggling fawn in her lap and her breasts bloody where the frenzied animal had bitten her. Her family hauled her off to Silvermire for electroshock and primal scream therapy. It was later rumored that she became a Jesus freak, before starting her own business selling real estate in Chappaqua.

The cottage had been unoccupied since then, and still looked it. Two gnarled lilac trees clawed at its walls, their branches shedding leaves like withered hearts. Layers of paint had been badly stripped from the front door, which was half-open so that you could hear opera blaring from inside. Beside the lilacs leaned a pair of rusted bicycles, and a huge and incredibly fake-looking sort of effigy.

“What the hell is that?”

I walked over and poked it—a gigantic green head, twice my height and made of molded plastic. Somehow it made the memory of the horned man less dreadful, more like the residue of a bad dream or bad drugs. It had round staring eyes and a grinning mouth filled with peg-like plastic teeth. Wormy green rubber spirals drooped from its head. A long red plastic tongue protruded from between its gaping mouth, flapping in the breeze like flypaper. On top there was an empty beer can and a wooden sign, with letters picked out in bottlecaps.

VILLA OF THE MYSTERIES

“That’s the gorgon,” Jamie replied, as though addressing an idiot. “Didn’t you see Hercules in the Underworld?”

“Uh, no.” I scrunched down to peer into its mouth. Water had pooled behind its grimace and become a trap for yellow jackets and daddy longlegs. “How disgusting. What’s it doing in front of your house?”

“My father designed it. He also did the monster bees in Empire of the Anguished. Also Sirena the Ageless in Blood Surf and the talking rocks in Satan’s Hammer. Ever see those?”

“No. Sorry.”

“No one did.” Jamie looked tragic. “That’s how come we’re living in this dump.”

He edged past me, shoving the half-opened screen door so that we could follow him inside. “Watch your step,” he said and stooped to pick up an electric drill. Ali and Hillary wandered past him, kicking aside a newspaper. “This place is a fucking bear-trap—”

“You’re not kidding,” said Hillary.

Inside smelled of mildew and marijuana smoke, the hot reek of carpenter’s glue and solder. The low ceiling was traversed by heavy beams hung with bundles of rope, a hacksaw, wire mesh. There was hardly any furniture—an old horsehair sofa and two unsprung armchairs. Sheets of plywood leaned against one wall; two- by-fours were stacked alongside another, and there were mason jars everywhere, filled with nails, screws, nuts and bolts, metal hinges. India-print bedspreads were pinned over some of the windows; in others you could clearly see the great webs made by golden orb weavers, and the spiders themselves poised in the center, like flaws in the glass. A big old wooden hi-fi console stood beside a crumbling fireplace, opera blasting from its torn speaker.

“Welcome to Hodge Podge Lodge,” said Jamie.

“I thought it was the Villa of The Mysteries,” said Ali.

“Uh-uh. That was from Medusa Enslaved.” Jamie crossed to the stereo, scowling. He turned off the opera and began flipping through a stack of records, finally found something and put it on. There was the crackle of dust on the needle, and then music, the same few notes picked out on a piano. “You guys hungry?”