This was no cripple; it looked as plump and agile as a child, though surely no child could be out at such an hour. Tugging at the cords along the end, she readjusted the blinds for a better view. The slats tilted open; parallel bands of street light flooded the room. She peered outside again, but it was too late: the moon had set, the street was still, the tree dark and unmoving against the sky. A trail of mist was rising in ghostly tentacles from the sidewalk. Both figures were gone.
June Twenty-fifth
A very special day indeed! Dawn has broken over the horizon like the lifting of a vast, immeasurable curtain, and the sky is rosy with promise. At ease upon the rooftop of his building, he settles back in the dusty canvas deck chair and blinks contentedly at the heavens, his face aglow with early morning sunlight. The air up here is temperate, with just a hint of blossoms beneath the street smells and the scent of roofing tar. Birds cry raucously overhead; breezes stir the pale wisps of his hair. Behind him lies the dark river, sweeping past hills still mottled by shadow. Before him, eastward, stretches the city, its towers like an endless line of tombstones, black against the brightening sky.
The Old One lies back, yawning, and allows himself a smile. He has had a full day of it, and a full night. There has been much to do: roles to play, rituals to perform, the theft of a minor belonging. He has spent the greater part of the night observing the man and the woman; later he narrowed his attentions to the man and stood watch in the street below his window – a squat, shabby little figure hovering just beyond the lamplight, patient and alone, standing huddled beneath the black umbrella, unmoved by the rain that broke the stillness, or the stillness that followed the rain.
At last the window had gone dark, like the woman's a mile away, and, noting the time with a satisfied nod, he'd begun his journey homeward. Even then he was busy, preparing lines of future conversation, reciting certain chants, whispering a word in a long-forgotten tongue. Years of calculations have waited to be verified within the compass of a single sunrise; there have been readings to be taken from the shadows it produced – from the winking red and yellow lights of an unknown vessel passing silently up the Hudson, from reflections of a fading star in the puddle at his feet. His figuring has had to be precise, his timing flawless. In this way, and no other, can the final sites be chosen for the Ceremonies.
Now he is tired, too weak to do more than turn his head from side to side and contemplate the clear, unclouded sky. Yet still he has not slept; nor will he, until the thing he's planned is done. Of human needs, food alone remains, and the occasional dose of sun to warm his bones. As for the absurd routine of sleep – the head mashed to the pillow, the face relaxed or clenched, the mind unmoored, eight hours adrift, lost among infantile fantasies – he has put all that behind him long ago, as easily as a serpent sheds its skin. As for dreams, they have not troubled him for more than half a century.
Not that he would sleep now, in any case. He is far too pleased with the progress he has made. In every act, her every word, no doubt her every thought, the woman has proven herself suitable – positively eager, in fact. She has come through her first day splendidly: after a certain delay, quite inconsequential and in no way her own fault, she has gone on to establish a really promising emotional relationship with the selected man. Final contact is complete.
The man himself is perfect, right down to the date and the hour of his birth nearly thirty years ago. Perfect, too, that he's a solitary soul, lonely and suggestible – the sort who'll pose no problems if correctly used. And used he will be, that much is certain. After all, what else are tools for?
The roommate is another story. Something is going to have to be done about her. 'Free spirit' indeed! Why, she's nothing but a common whore! He isn't going to have her tempting his little virgin. Not a chance!
Yes, something will definitely have to be done – and soon. He isn't sure what method he will use, but he has never lacked for ideas.
The ascendant sun is dazzling now, making rainbows in his eyes. The Old One blinks and looks away. Beside him, arrayed upon the low brick wall that runs along the edge of the roof, lies the simple apparatus that will occupy his day: the jelly jar, still empty, and the bag, quite full, and – resting on a musician's practice book to keep the pages from turning in the breeze – the shabby leather flute case with the black plastic handle. Common objects, all of them. There will be nothing strenuous for him today, but he will not be idle.
Taking the bag by its cloth straps, he hangs it on a nail projecting just inside the wall, where it dangles heavily, suspended a few inches above the surface of the roof. The leather case is next; from its velvet lining he withdraws a stubby white flageolet that shines like polished ivory. Before putting it to his lips, however, he lays the music book upon his lap, opened to Exercise Seven: Atonal Syncopations. He has, in fact, no interest in music and no intention of wasting time on such a composition, but the seventh exercise bears a vague resemblance to the complicated patterns he'll be playing, and any other tenant who chances upon the roof today will see only a harmless little man, lips puckered, lunch stowed on the wall beside him, laboring earnestly over an unmelodic series of minors, trills, and dissonances. It is good to be prepared.
Already the air has begun to grow warmer; the breeze is soothing at this height, with the occasional fragrance of early summer foliage from the park a dozen floors below. He breathes deeply. Holding the flute in both hands, he blows three notes, soft and low, that fade into silence. The air grows still. Eagerly he looks toward the bag.
Inside it, something stirs.
The touch of a smile crosses his face; he blows the notes once more. The bag stirs violently now, as if something inside it were struggling to be free. It gives a sudden jerk, almost dislodging the brick on which the jar rests.
Carefully placing the jar at his feet, he begins to play.
There is no rhythm to his playing, and no tune. The patterns are impossible to discern. To any listener, it would seem – but for a certain exotic quality in some of the phrases – little more than a succession of random tones, like a man punching typewriter keys in an unknown language. And yet the notes, in fact, form a song. The Death Song.
Which, curiously, is a song about birth.
The gleaming white tube sways erratically before his face; his fingers scuttle like spiders up and down its length. Above him the air trembles with the sound, and whirlwinds sweep invisibly toward the heavens.
It is a moment of awakening. The bag rocks back and forth. All nature is stirring now – the river, the trees, the dancing air – and something outside nature, deep beneath the earth, where rock grinds slowly against rock. He can hear it stirring, and is glad.
Raising his eyes from the now-blinding sun, he goes on playing, gazing into a sky so blue it looks as if it were ready to shatter into a million pieces, like the rending of an egg.
It is going to be a beautiful day.
All morning he plays softly upon the flageolet, his small pink head bobbing in elusive time, the flute sound competing with the cries of the birds. At intervals he pauses to watch the movement in the bag; the thing inside thrashes wildly, nearly tearing through the cloth. Whenever he sees this, he smiles.
Once the sun has wandered to the other side of the sky and is settling toward the western hills, he plays his last three notes. They are the first three he played, but in reverse order. Laying aside the instrument, he pronounces a certain word and pushes himself up from the chair. Five hours or less till midnight: his present work is all but done.