At last, knees aching, she stood up and smoothed down her skirt. Before her, just beyond the window, lay the garden, always wilder-looking at this level, a cool and silent world enclosed in glass and brick, the young trees swaying somewhere overhead in an unheard breeze; and wilder still at this hour of the afternoon, when surrounding buildings blocked the sunlight. It was like looking into the darkness of the woods; you could almost forget where you were.
And then, with a momentary chill, she remembered the small black shapes she had seen from the floor above. Rising on tiptoe, she leaned over the tops of the shelves and peered outside.
Yes, there they were, near the wall below the window, deep in shadow and half-covered by earth. There was something familiar about the things. She squinted into the darkness, then gasped at what she'd recognized: the charred remains of some small animal.
A hand touched her shoulder. 'I thought I sent you upstairs,' said Miss Elms, the assistant supervisor, standing beside her.
'I had to return a book down here, and Mrs Tait said I might as well see that these magazines-'
She paused. Her eye had been caught by a reflection in the windowpane. For an instant she thought she'd glimpsed a little pink face peering at her from the dim light of the hallway across the room. Could it be Rosie? Had the little man come back for her? She turned. The outer doors went swish-swish and the hallway was empty.
'Well, don't stand around here all day,' said Miss Elms. 'You seem to have this set put away, and there's a dozen other things you could be doing.'
'I was just trying to get a look at what's out there,' said Carol. She pointed toward the garden. 'See? Below the thornbush?'
The woman adjusted her spectacles and glared suspiciously through the window. 'Damned kids!' She shook her head. 'How the hell did they get back there, anyway? That gate's supposed to be locked.' She let the glasses fall around her neck. 'Looks like someone's had themself a chicken dinner.'
'Chicken?' The relief showed in Carol's face.
'Hell, yes,' said Miss Elms. 'There's a barbecue place over on Eighth Avenue. You know the one I mean.' She checked her watch. 'Now how about giving a hand up front? They'll be lining up with their books in a minute or two.'
Carol followed her toward the desk. Behind them, unheard, the wind in the courtyard grew, tossing the vines and scattering leaves from the young trees. Something white danced past the window, blown from beneath the bush where it had lain: a clump of delicate white feathers stained red at the tip.
The sky is red and gold above the water, the water glows a darker red, and in each swims the pale shape of a half-moon.
Strolling southward along the river, the battered leather briefcase tucked tight beneath his arm and time like a toy in his hands, the Old One pauses just long enough to appreciate the symmetry: a half-moon in the early evening sky, its counterpart reflected in the ripples on the water – two halves of a shattered eggshell with no chance it will ever be restored.
Here, indeed, is a sign, a token of the Moghu'vool. Soon the egg will be broken, the beast awake.
White shapes plunge and scream in the air above him; up and down the waterfront, soot-blackened rooftops echo with the sound. He turns and continues southward, smiling, heedless of the mournful cries. His legs are short and his progress slow, but he is in no hurry.
Shadows are advancing on the city to the left, and tiny lamplit windows are beginning to stand out on the dark shapes of the buildings. Higher windows still catch the reflected light. To the right the river glistens where golden columns of sunbeams pierce a band of cloud. Unseen in the distance, yet so palpably close he hears every breath, the community of farmers out beyond the low hills is now assembling for the planting, dutifully observing the customs of the clan, reciting their silly prayers, muttering hosannas to their silly god. Closer still, within his sight, silhouettes of oil tanks and factories rise along the farther shore, while above them the moon hovers just out of reach, alien, serene, and growing brighter with each passing minute.
A pair of lovers catches the Old One's eye, clasped obscenely on a slab of concrete above the water; then the ungainly figure of a jogger, and a small white dog that capers on the grass. He would like to lure it out onto the highway… But now, he knows, is not the time. He has a more important task ahead, and a destination waiting: imperative that he be hidden in the shadows when the man and the woman emerge from what will be their second meeting.
The woman – what a find she is, the greedy little bitch! It has been painstaking work, opening that library job to her and easing her into the slot, but it has been worth the effort. She is perfect. Perhaps (he smiles) he should send a contribution to the Convent of St Agnes!
Of course, that man-crazy roommate may prove a problem… But that is no great matter, in view of what he has accomplished today. Initial contact has been made, and the interview has gone according to plan. The players have been chosen, the great wheels set in motion.
Swinging his briefcase there on the sidewalk, with the Friday-night traffic rushing past him in a blur, he laughs aloud, an old man's high-pitched cackle. 'Eeny meeny miny mo' indeed! How easy it has been!
Freirs looked for the fifth or sixth time at his watch and at last yielded to a bitterness he could no longer argue away. A quarter after eight, and the thin redhead from the library hadn't shown up. Probably she'd only been humoring him… But damn it all, she'd really seemed to like him; and her interest had been all the more exciting because she'd clearly been at pains to disguise it -unlike the young women in his classes, whose seductive manner made him feel so old, even when their ages were the same as his. The girl's very thinness had been alluring, as if by some magic it could compensate for his own excessive bulk. Tonight's final screening had seemed like the perfect way to meet her again. Yet apparently he'd misjudged her, she hadn't shown after all, and the brightly lit double-size classroom was almost filled. Few of the faces out there meant much to him. He was going to be in a bad mood tonight.
Midway across the room one of the more ass-kissing students was standing officiously by the light switches near the door, waiting like a little soldier for his signal. Farther back, beside the pair of sixteen-millimeter projectors, the T-shirted projectionist was eyeing him impatiently. Well, there was nothing he could do about it now; he couldn't hold things up any longer. There'd always be a few latecomers, of course, slipping in noisily and unapologetically half an hour or more into the film – fully half the class were art students from Parsons with no sense of time – but if he waited any longer the punctual ones, the ones who wrote the long, carefully typed papers and raised their hands in class and got themselves in a sweat over grades, would rightly begin getting irritated. Already the students were beginning to forget where they were, the conversation around him growing in volume. Looking to the boy by the light switches, he gave a short nod.
The room vanished in darkness pierced only by a cone of white light whose base was the screen. Dust motes and cigarette smoke, formerly invisible, drifted through it like ectoplasm from the spirit world. Freirs turned and was feeling his way toward the nearest wall, preparing to stand for the first part of the film, then maybe slip out in the middle and read some journals he'd brought in his bag, when a soft, husky voice whispered urgently, 'Mr Freirs!' Donna, several rows to the right, curly-haired and full-breasted, her wide, heavily made-up eyes discernible even in the darkness, was gesturing at him and pointing to a seat next to her. One of the silver gypsylike earrings she always wore caught the projector light. There were one or two like her in every class: easy, aggressive, ultimately more possessive than one might have thought. He seldom let it get that far.