Ceremonies

22. OBJECT OF GAME.

… In each round the player acting as Dhol must attempt to gain power points in the prescribed manner. When sufficient points have been obtained, players may proceed to next round.

Play continues until Final Round, when, of course, the object changes and the rule no longer applies.

Instructions to the Dynnod

July Seventeenth

Had a bad night last night. Even though I was tired I had trouble getting to sleep because my goddamned nose was so clogged. And no sooner had I finally drifted off than I was awakened again by a noise.

It sounded like something in the woods just outside this room. Smaller than a man but, from the sound of it, on two legs… It was shuffling through the dead leaves, kicking them around as if it didn't care who heard it. There was the snapping of branches amp; every so often a silence amp; then a bump, as if it were hopping over fallen logs. I stood in the dark listening to it, then crept to the window amp; looked out. Thought I saw some bushes moving, back there in the undergrowth, but it may have been the wind.

The sound moved farther away. I could hear, very faintly, the sucking sounds of feet slogging through the mud. Whatever it was must have been walking directly out into the deepest part of the woods, where the ground gets soft amp; swampy.

I stood by the window for almost an hour, amp; finally all was quiet except for the usual frogs. Had no intention of going out there with my flashlight in search of the intruder – that's strictly B-movie stuff, I'm much too sensible for that – though I wondered if I should call Sarr. By this time, though, the noise had stopped amp; whatever it was had obviously moved on. Besides, I tend to think Sarr'd have been angry if I'd awakened him amp; Deborah just because some stray dog had wandered past the farm.

Went to the windows on the other side of the room amp; listened for a while. Out in the yard everything was peaceful. It was extremely dark, amp; I could barely make out the shapes of the smokehouse amp; the barn, but I could hear those pie-plate scarecrows off in the cornfield, clanking whenever the breeze stirred them.

I stood at the window a long time; my nose probably looked cross-hatched from pressing against the screen. Then I lay in bed but couldn't fall asleep. Just as I was getting relaxed the sounds started again, much farther off now: a faint, monotonous hooting which may have been an owl, though somehow it didn't sound like an owl, or any other kind of animal, for that matter. And then, as if in answer, came another sound – high-pitched wails amp; caterwauls, from deep within the woods. Can't say whether the noise was human or animal. There were no actual words, of that I'm certain, but nevertheless there was the impression of singing. In a crazy, tuneless kind of way the sound seemed to carry the same solemn rhythms as the Poroths' prayers earlier that night.

The noise only lasted a minute or two, but I lay awake till the sky began to get lighter. Probably should have gotten through a little reading but was reluctant to turn on the lamp.

Must have been around noon when I got up. Took my towel amp; went up to the farmhouse for a bath. Didn't see Sarr amp; Deborah anywhere around amp; expected to find them in the kitchen eating lunch. But the house was empty, except for a few cats on the back porch, and the farm seemed very lonely.

Only then did I realize it was Sunday, amp; that the Poroths were off somewhere at worship. I'd been sure it was Saturday…

Interesting, how you can lose track of time out here. I suppose in some ways that's healthy, getting away from the pressures that were on me in New York, but it's also a little disorienting. At certain moments I feel positively adrift. I've been so used to living by the calendar amp; the clock.

Sat soaking in the tub till I heard the Poroths walking up the road; they'd been over at some farm near the Geisels' amp; had worked up a good appetite. So had I, even though I'd done nothing all morning but sleep. Over lunch (eggs with thick slabs of bacon, home fries, amp; blueberry pie) we talked about the wildlife around here, amp; I mentioned the noise last night. Sarr suggested that the shuffling sounds weren't necessarily related to the wailing. The former may have been those of a dog, he said; there are dozens in the area, amp; they love to prowl around at night. As for the wailing… well, he wasn't so sure. He thought it might have been an owl or – more likely, he said – a whippoorwill. Apparently whippoorwills can make some very weird sounds, amp; they tend to do so at night. (Lovecraft had them waiting by the window of a dying man amp; singing gleefully as they made off with his soul.)

I wonder, though, if the wailing might not have come from the same stray dog that shuffled past my window. I've heard recordings of wolf howls, amp; I've heard hounds baying at the moon, amp; both have the same element of worship in them that these sounds did.

I didn't broach the subject of the Poroths' coming in my room while I was gone, the misfiled book, etc. Just didn't quite know how to bring it up. Deborah's fairly easygoing, but you never know when Sarr's going to take offense at something.

After lunch he got up to start work, while I, as usual, lingered in the kitchen with Deborah. A minute or two later we heard him calling us from the yard, to come quick and see 'the sign from heaven.' Through the window we saw him pointing at the sky.

We hurried outside amp; looked up. There, way up in the clouds, a thin green line, like a living thread, was streaming across the sky. We watched as it passed slowly over the farm. Hard to tell how long it was; at one point it seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon.

'What is it?' Deborah asked.

'A sign from God,' said Sarr. But he had to have it both ways: 'and also a migration.'

He was right, the second time at least, because just then a few flecks of green drifted down toward us, carried on the breeze, amp; we saw that they were tiny moths the color of leaves. Above us the line was passing onward, snaking away into the distance, moving west. Eventually it was lost from sight.

Sarr was exultant – 'the Lord has vouchsafed us a vision, a promise of good harvests,' etc., etc. – but I found the sight oddly disturbing. Came back here to the room amp; looked it up in my Field Guide to the Insects. Apparently some butterflies – the monarchs, for one – actually do migrate, even across whole continents; but there was nothing in the book about these little green ones, amp; I couldn't even find out what they were.

Deborah finished stacking the dishes and wiped the crumbs from the table. Lifting the old pewter milk pitcher, she carried it into the hall, where she lit the little oil lamp that hung from a hook beside the stairway. With the pitcher in one hand and the lamp in the other, she started down the narrow steps.

The cellar was the most primitive area of the house, with a floor of hard-packed earth and stone walls lined with crude wooden shelves. The ceiling was low, like the roof of the cave – too low for Sarr to stand upright – and the air, redolent of vinegar and spices, was noticeably cooler than anywhere else in the house. Raising the pitcher, Deborah poured the leftover milk back into a large metal canister near the foot of the stairs and refitted the lid. On a shelf against the nearby wall – above a row of empty pickle jars which she hoped, by summer's end, to fill – lay a cardboard egg carton. Down here, in the cool darkness of the cellar, hens' eggs remained fresh for weeks; each day she'd add new ones to the carton and take the older ones for meals. Today, she noticed, there were only three eggs left on. the shelf; she had used the rest for lunch. But with the hens laying as well as they had been, she knew she could count on four more by dinnertime.

Back upstairs, taking the little basket that hung on the porch where the cats played, she headed toward the barn, Zillah and Cookie trotting at her heels. Sarr, sleeves rolled up, was bent over a thick growth of weed at the margin of the cornfield, slicing at it with a sickle. Freirs was back in his room, seated at his writing table; she could see him dimly through the screens. It was a shame, she reflected, that someone as smart as he was spent so much time on spook books and showed so little interest in religion; in all the weeks he'd been living here he'd never once asked them how services had gone. Well, next week he'd be able to see for himself, because they were going to be held here at the farm, right outside his door.

This morning's worship had been a satisfying one. True, they'd had to hold it in the hot sun; Ham Stoudemire's trees were lately so infested with tent caterpillars that anyone standing in the shade risked getting one down his neck. (She would have to make sure San-checked all their own trees this week, as well as the eaves of the barn.) And a few of the Brethren had made some rather odd remarks about 'the stranger' they were harboring here – how silly! (Just as well, probably, that she and Sarr hadn't told the others he was a Jew.) And too, there'd been the memorial prayer for old Hannah Kraft – that, of course, had been a sad note; poor Minna Buckhalter had been so upset…

But Deborah had been pleased to see that stuck-up Lotte Sturtevant looking so red-faced and puffy; she wouldn't look that way when she was with child. (And why had the woman insisted on coming at all? Perhaps that awful Joram had made her.) She had also enjoyed the singing; the morning's heat had brought out the spirit in everyone.

'Saved by the blood of the Crucified One,

Ransomed from sin and a new work begun… '

Swinging the basket in time, she rounded the corner of the barn and walked inside. Sunlight slanted on the pitted metal surface of the truck parked just within the doorway. A pair of fat bluebottles with heads like gemstones buzzed in the light. Along one wall the line of antiquated farm implements rusted on the hay, their spiked wheels and jagged iron jaws giving them the look of medieval instruments of torture.

'Sing praise to the Father and praise to the Son,

Saved by the blood of the Crucified One.'

The hens were quiet today. Usually when she entered all four of them glared impatiently down at her from the high chicken-wire coop, squawking for their food bucket, but today only one of them peeped through the wire. She could see the dark red rooster pacing agitatedly behind it.

Climbing the heavy wooden ladder up to the platform where the coops lay, she reached above her to unfasten the latch at the side.

She froze; it was already unfastened. Around her head the bluebottles buzzed crazily.

Lifting herself to the platform, she saw, in an instant, the reason for the quiet: amid a small mound of feathers at the back of the coop, their yellow legs thrust at odd angles in the air, lay the plump and headless bodies of three hens.

Deborah maintains that Bwada did it. As she points out, the cat was known to be adept at turning handles, latches, etc., amp; just because she's run off, there's no certainty she's dead. 'Remember,' Deborah said, 'she's used to eating what she catches in the woods.'

That's where her argument breaks down – because the hens had not been eaten. They would certainly have made Bwada a succulent meal, yet their bodies had scarcely been touched. Only the heads had been taken.

Sarr claims he's heard of weasels doing this amp; came up with a dozen stories to prove it. While only a few days ago he was ready to believe that Satan had entered the cat, now he refuses to believe that his beloved old Bwada could have done such a thing. 'She may have fought with the other cats,' he said, 'but that was out of jealousy. She'd never stoop to this.'

I'm willing to suspect anything right now. Having just read some

Frederick 'White Wolf Marryat this afternoon, I'm not even so sure I'd rule out wolves, were- and otherwise, as a possibility. My Field Guide to North American Mammals lists both red amp; grey foxes amp; even coyotes as surviving here in New Jersey. No wolves left, the guidebook says. But of course it may be wrong.

Why would any animal – Bwada, wolf, or weasel – make off with heads like that? Simply out of sheer meanness? It just doesn't seem natural.

As if she were out to convince me just how nasty she really is, Mother Nature had one more shock in store for me. When I came back here to this building tonight, after talking long into the evening with Sarr amp; Deborah, I reached out in the darkness, closed my hand over the doorknob – amp; crushed three fat green caterpillars. They left a foul-smelling whitish liquid on my hand.

'Guess what I have in my hand,' Rosie, grinning, held something concealed behind his back. Across the room the air conditioner fought a noisy war against the summer night.

'Is it for me?'

His grin widened. 'Now I ask you, have I ever come here empty-handed?'

'Is it something to wear?'

He shook his head. 'Uh-uh, no more clothes, young lady! You're better off choosing your own.'

'Is it something to read?'

'In a way. But don't be misled, it's not a book.' He paused. 'Give up? Here. Something to play with.'

He drew forth an object wrapped in brown paper. Tearing that off, Carol saw that it contained a small cardboard box and recognized the green and gold design on the front. Dynnod, the letters said, in swirls of acanthus leaves and roses.

'Oh, of course. They're the same cards I took out for Jeremy. Gee, thanks, Rosie. They're beautiful!'

Actually, she was rather let down; she'd been hoping he'd brought her jewelry. And she seemed to recall that there'd been something a little unpleasant about these particular cards.

'You never explained how these work,' she said, slipping the cards from the box and once again looking in vain for some instructions. 'They're for telling fortunes, right?'

Rosie nodded. 'Only you tell them through a kind of game,* he said, 'and the winner gets his or her wish. Here, sit down. I'll show you how to play.'

The rules were confusing. There were only twenty-two cards, but in order to win the game it was necessary to memorize them all, since the object was to guess which cards were held by one's opponent. Carol found her gaze returning again and again to the smiling man and woman on the card marked The Lovers, and though she tried her best to concentrate, her thoughts kept straying to Jeremy.

'You're not paying attention, Carol,' Rosie said for the third time. 'You have to study all the cards. Now this tree's the da'fae because green is daeh, and we call the fire tein'eth because teine means red… '

'I'm trying,' she said, already tiring of the game. There didn't really seem to be much point to it: it was difficult to score because each card held a different value which also had to be memorized, and so far as she could understand there was no clear way to tell when the game ended and who had won.

'The cards,' he kept saying. 'You have to keep looking at the cards.'

At the end of an hour Rosie simply laid down his hand, announced, 'It appears you've beaten me, young lady,' and proceeded to read Carol's fortune in the cards that she held. As fortunes went, it seemed, in part, too bland – prophecies of friendship, hard work, a second visit to the country – and, in pan, too silly: 'There's a test in your future,' he said, studying the card marked The Mound.

'A test of what?'

He tapped the card and looked up, grinning. 'A test of will. Can you move mountains?'

No, Carol decided, she just couldn't see the point of it all. It wasn't the sort of game she'd care to play again.

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.

She said another prayer, as well: that the place would not be guarded.

But it might be, she told herself. It was, after all, a key part of the plan, enabling the demon to plot and learn and grow. Destroying it would not destroy the evil, but it would buy time.

She tightened her grip on the ropes and let the plunging dogs drag her onward. Already she was wondering if the altar she sought would be as small as she imagined, and as easy to obliterate. She didn't know exactly what it would look like, but that part didn't worry her. She would know it when she saw it.

Unseen by human eyes, it lay in the woods north of the stream, just beyond the marshlands and the swamp, between the clawlike roots of a lightning-blasted cottonwood whose fall had left a clearing in the trees – a clearing through which one might view, unobstructed, the sky, the stars; the moon.

Even from a few feet away the thing looked scarcely different from a rather large molehill: a low mound of mud and sticks and foliage, a bit too regular for a product of nature, perhaps, but by no means conspicuous enough to excite attention. If not for the ring of small standing stones that surrounded the thing like a row of miniature menhirs, a Stonehenge built to child's scale, no one would have suspected that it was, in fact, an altar – an altar which, though scarcely one week old, had already seen much use.

Only from up close would one have noticed the intricate patterns scratched in the surface of the mud, the circles within circles within circles. And even then, unless one happened to observe the polished shards of white and yellow protruding here and there, one would have missed the most interesting structural detail of all: the carefully packed layers of tiny skulls that formed a pyramid just beneath the mud.

All the skulls were empty now, picked clean of flesh by paws not fitted for such delicate work – and by teeth and a tongue that were. There were mouse skulls at the bottom and the middle, with curved yellow incisors, giant eye sockets, little room for brain; and there were three new acquisitions at the top: larger, more primitive, and beaked.

A quiet night. We made some popcorn after dinner amp; sat around the living room with the radio on, watching the antics of the cats amp; listening to some crazy station out of Pennsylvania that plays a mixture of country-western amp; Bible-belt gospel. Neither kind of music has ever been high on my list, but it seemed sort of appropriate tonight. It's like the Gothics I've been reading, I guess – either you like that sort of thing or you don't, simple as that.

Quiet out here now, thank God. I'm sick of playing front-row audience to every bit of local fauna that decides to march past my window. Sat up reading – or trying to – 'The Jolly Corner.' James seems so goddamned labored. (M.R. James of Cambridge, now he had the touch. Why so little fuss about him?)

Normally that son of reading would have put me right to sleep, but my damned nose is so clogged again that it's hard to breathe when I lie back. Usually it clears right up as soon as I leave the farmhouse amp; come out here. I've used my little plastic spray bottle a dozen times in the past hour, but after a few minutes I start sneezing amp; have to use it again. Tried to read some more James so that I could get him out of the way, or at least fall asleep, but found my eyes too irritated, watery.

Maybe it's the mildew. The stuff continues to grow higher on my walls in a dark greenish band. Tomorrow I really ought to take a damp rag amp; give this place a cleaning… amp; also trim the ivy that's been spreading over the outside of this building. It's already begun to block the light. If I wait too long, I may not be able to get out the front door.

Silently it watches, crouched on the wardrobe in the corner, muscles bunched like cables beneath the steel-grey fur. The eyes narrow, focusing intently, missing nothing, while the long hooked claws slide out like stilettos. Poised, ready, motionless except for the faint spasmodic twitching of its tail, it waits for the right moment and prepares to spring.

Below it, one short leap away, the man sits hunched over the table, absorbed in his writing, his breathing harsh in the quiet of the room. Near his head several gnats and a tiny green moth dart round and round the lamp. The man is soft, plump, and white, like the grubs it has sacrificed in the forest this morning. But when the claws rip through his flesh, the white will turn to red.

Kill him! he shrieks silently. Why doesn't it kill hint?

The apartment is stifling. The shades are drawn, the windows shut, the little room locked tight. Transfigured by the deepness of his trance, the Old One lies soaking and exhausted on his bed, wet with urine, perspiration, and an amber fluid oozing from his plump half-open lips. His eyes are wide, unblinking, seeing nothing, seeing all; his body twists and twitches on the stained and wrinkled sheets; his brain throbs with rage. The White Ceremony is complete; the Green, too, is behind him, performed precisely as it had to be, precisely as the Master dictated. The necessary words have been spoken; the required signs have been made; the forces have been released. The Son is awakening…

So why, why, won't the thing out there kill him?

The altar was an obscenity, and larger, incredibly larger, than she'd expected. Even the dogs avoided it, after sniffing avidly at the muddy skulls, and now they stood waiting beside her in the darkness, tied to one of the great tree's upthrust roots. She heard them shift tensely among themselves, making occasional low growling sounds deep in their throats.

Mrs Poroth gripped a heavy broken limb and squinted at the moon through the space in the trees. She was bone-weary, her arms stiff from the hours of trying to control the dogs, her palms and fingers blistered from the ropes. She dreaded the walk back in the darkness.

She willed herself to relax and watched the sky. She let her mind go free.

The moment came. The dogs fell silent. Raising the broken limb, she muttered a short prayer and brought it down against the swollen black shape before her. There was a crunching sound, as of breaking china, and she felt the limb sink into the crumbling mass. She brought it up again and smashed downward. Dimly she could see white shapes tumble toward her feet.

She worked for a few minutes more, knocking away the clods of earth and mud until only an irregular low mound of earth was left to mark the spot. Taking up the limb one last time, she scattered the remainder of the tiny skulls and pounded them to dust.

It watches without blinking, moving not a muscle. It senses that its waiting is almost at an end.

Abruptly, below it, the man pauses in his writing. He takes a white cloth from his pocket, blows his nose, curses softly. With a jarring scrape of metal he pushes back his chair and stands. Yawning, he switches off the lamp.

The thing on the wardrobe twitches, jerks forward a fraction of an inch. Now would be the best time: the man will be blinded by the darkness while it can see perfectly. It steels, tenses, arches itself to spring But suddenly it is confused. Something is holding it back. Something new. A hitherto unknown cautiousness – a sudden sense that, even now, it lacks the requisite strength, as if the very source of its power were now dim and uncertain. The man is soft, but he is also large; he is vulnerable, achingly vulnerable, but there is still a chance, a tiny chance, that if it tries to kill him tonight, it will fail. And even that tiny chance cannot be taken; too many things are hanging in the balance.

It watches as the man below stumbles into bed. In a few minutes he is asleep, his breath coming sonorous and slow.

Noiselessly it drops to the floor, leathery pads breaking the fall, four limbs yielding easily to absorb the shock. As it moves along the bedside, the man's face, stupid with sleep, is only inches from its fangs. It will be good, when the time comes, to tear that face.

But such pleasures must wait; there are suddenly new calculations to make and further rites to perform. It will have to grow still stronger, gather its speed, hone its murderous skill. Tonight, to bring itself one step closer to the necessary strength, it will add a new trophy to its altar in the woods.

Silently it pads across the room and pauses at the door. Slowly, with claws aching to become hands, it reaches toward the knob, grasps it, twists…

On the bed the man stirs, turns, and sleeps on. The door opens softly on the night, where the lawn lies shining beneath a sliver of moon. Something soft and grey slips outside. Slowly the door closes, clicks shut.

Quietly, implacably, it moves across the lawn toward the farmhouse.

Sarr slept soundly, his right arm encircling Deborah's waist. The six cats shared the bed with them, curled by their feet or nestled in the space between their bodies. Outside the uncurtained windows, the crescent moon floated through the dark skies like a question mark.

From downstairs came the sound of the screen door opening, followed by the inner door. Sarr slept on, but Deborah stirred sleepily in his grasp. Vaguely it came to her that Freirs must be entering the house to use the bathroom; it was understood that he was free to do so. Odd, though: he'd always gone outside, so far as she knew…

She listened, half dreaming, for the fall of his footsteps in the kitchen below. Instead she heard a soft tapping noise – as if (and she was to remember this later) the hard plank floor down there were being touched, ever so lightly, by four tiny rakes.

A sound. Had that been a bump on the stairs? She stirred herself awake for a moment, then lapsed back into dream. Dimly she sensed Azariah, the older orange male, wriggle out of his accustomed place by her feet to investigate.

Silence. The dream reclaimed her. There was a warming fire encircling her, warm as Sarr's brawny right arm. But the fire grew louder, it hissed at her, and she knew that it was the breath of some great beast…

And then skinny old 'Riah came scurrying back up the stairs and buried himself beneath the bedclothes, trembling like a frightened child. She could feel him, and she wondered what could be wrong, how could anything tremble so when there was fire all around?

Now, from the stairs, came another sound – a low, insistent purring – and later she would remember thinking, as she listened to that sound, How could there be a purring from the stairs? Weren't all the cats in bed with her and Sarr?

The purrs continued, steady, almost seductive, reaching from the darkness of the hall. Suddenly, as if in response – as if, for cats, the sound held a note of beckoning – she felt two soft balls of fur dislodge themselves from somewhere near her legs, drop upon the rug at the foot of the bed, and pad into the hall.

There was an audible swish, like the sound a springy young sapling makes as it snaps back into one's face… A swish – followed by two bumps.

And then she and Sarr were waking, sitting up confused and frightened and horrorstruck, for they were hearing a sound coming from below, a sound they'd never heard before, the sound of cats screaming.

Before she knew what was happening, Sarr had leaped from the bed and was pounding downstairs. He reached the bottom in time to see Toby, Azariah's little orange double, give a final twitch of his limbs and, faintly in the moonlight, the slim black tail of Habakkuk disappear out the kitchen door.

Toby was dead by the time Deborah came downstairs. Neither of them ever saw Habakkuk again.

July Nineteenth

Dear Carol,

Sorry I haven't written in a while. It's easy to lose track of time out here, and I've really been pushing myself to get through that summer reading list. There's also been some trouble with one of the cats – that heavy grey female, you may remember her, the old one who originally belonged to Sarr. She's been acting very wild, and last week she ran off into the woods. We thought she was gone forever, but it seems that last night she came sneaking into the house and murdered two of the kittens, one of whose bodies she seems to have made off with.

Toby, the little orange one, was my favorite of the bunch. (Remember how he liked to have you pet him?) The other one, Cookie, was the smallest and, I suppose, probably the easiest to carry away.

The Poroths seem to be taking the two deaths like the deaths of children. Sarr woke me around half an hour ago, tapping on my screen and calling gently, 'Jeremy… Jeremy… ' He was carrying his axe like a sidearm and sounded very grim – almost shell-shocked, in fact: his voice was deep, subdued, filled with grief and confusion. He informed me, in all seriousness, that in a few minutes they're going to be holding a funeral service for the two cats and they'd like me to be there.

I tell you, Carol, this summer started off like Currier amp; Ives, but it's ending up like Edward Gorey. I don't know which is more bizarre: what that damned Bwada did last night, or the Poroths' sweetly crazy notion of holding a full-scale funeral for a couple of dead cats, or the fact that I, here just for the summer and relatively unaffected by all these goings on, am already wondering what I ought to wear to the goddamned thing.

Anyway, I don't want to be late and hurt their feelings, so will end this and try to get it in the day's mail. Do come out again – soon. I mean it. I want you here to help keep things sane.