The Pumpkin Man

Meredith Perenais’s Journal

October 23, 1984

There is a pause in the air.

“Make sense, Meredith,” you say. “Speak clearly, not in drama.” But I can say to you again, there is a pause in the air.

It’s unlike any wind I’ve felt before in any other place. Maybe it’s the influence of this house, or maybe just this hill. The movement of the sea against the rocks must brook a special power here, where the freshwater flows into the salt, where the earth rises from beneath both seeking the clouds. The moments after dark are pregnant seconds, each clock tick an interruption of some thing driven by land and sea and air. If you walk out onto the grassy hills after nightfall, if you only still your own noise enough to take it in, you can feel it. You can feel how the earth has fallen silent, how the breath of the day has drawn in.

Yes, there is a pause in the air here as the earth awaits the next movement, the next chance to give and take life, like a tide of animation. The brackish water is just an illusion before the maelstrom, for the power of that earthen pause may be the key to the magic hidden here. The pause in the air is a conductor, a promise and a threat.

That pause, I believe, is worth the silence of a thousand souls.