Ceremonies

Hmmm, never thought I'd find myself sticking up for the Papists. Must be Carol's influence.

Afterward, wished I'd taken some notes on that story 'The White People,' which Carol took back with her. Already seem to have forgotten most of it, and what I do remember seems oddly confusing amp; repetitive. I did locate, in one anthology, another Machen piece, about a London clerk named Darnell who has mystical visions of an ancient town amp; woods amp; hills.

Our stupid ancestors taught us that we could become wise by studying books on 'science,' by meddling with test-tubes, geological specimens, microscopic preparations, and the like; but they who have cast off these follies know that the soul is made wise by the contemplation of mystic ceremonies and elaborate and curious rites. In such things Darnell found a wonderful mystery language, which spoke at once more secretly and more directly than the formal creeds; and he saw that, in a sense, the whole world is but a great ceremony.

The writing was beautiful, with a real magic to it – yet somehow my mind began wandering. When I was halfway through I looked down amp; saw something squatting sticklike on my pillow, just beneath my nose, something like a cross between a cricket amp; a spider amp; a frog, amp; as I watched the thing began to chatter; it pranced amp; chirped amp; shrieked at me amp; shook its tiny fist, amp; then I woke up. The story was still where I'd left it, amp; a huge white moth, horned like the devil, was tapping at my window.

Must be midnight now, amp; the coldest night so far. Strange, really: it was hot all day, but with evening comes a chill. The dampness of this place must magnify the temperature. Carol complained that it gave her bad dreams last night, but she wouldn't talk about them.

Yes, past midnight; I just checked. Thirty years behind me now, another birthday gone. Where do the damned things go?

July Fourth

You'd never have known it was a holiday. The morning hung damp and overcast when Freirs staggered from his bed and began his morning ritual of exercises. He had skipped them yesterday, and somehow they didn't come easy; instead of doing one more pushup than the time before, he could barely do one less.

He spent most of the morning on Melmoth, but by noon he'd had his fill of corpses and his head was spinning from the novel's convoluted plot, stories within stories within stories – perfect for class assignments, he decided, but exhausting en masse. He was glad to put it aside and break for lunch. Deborah was working in the garden, accompanied by several of the younger cats, but she'd left a meal for him; he sat eating egg salad, gingerbread, and a tall glass of milk while leafing through the seed ads in the Home News.

When he left the kitchen, he saw that the sky had cleared and that a strong sun was beating down, drying the morning's dampness. The temperature had climbed. Absently he searched his room for a distraction. The vase of roses caught his eye, the dark red blossoms vivid as a flame against the pale green of his walls.

Blossoms… It seemed as good an idea as any. Putting on his sneakers, he picked up his Field Guide to the Wildflowers and went for a walk.

He decided, as he turned his steps down the slope of the back yard, to follow the little brook and see where it led; he recalled that, after the water wound north through the abandoned field, it seemed to disappear into the woods, making it a good point for exploration. At the water's edge he saw dozens of little silver fish, several dead ones floating upside down or washed up in the mud. As for the frogs he heard each night, he still could not find one. No doubt they slept all day – a habit he hoped he'd never fall into himself.

At the brook's first bend he heard the sound of thrashing. There in the distance stood Poroth, tall against the sun, head thrust forward, jaw set, swinging a scythe as he cleared the field of scrub. He reminded Freirs of some extra from an Eisenstein film. Or maybe the Grim Reaper, Freirs decided.

He looked up as Freirs approached. 'Hello there,' he said. 'And where might you be off to?'

'Just going for a walk.'

Poroth grinned. 'You sure you don't want to try your hand at this?' He held the scythe out in either invitation or challenge.

Freirs sighed. 'Oh, why not?' he said. 'Might as well see what I've been missing.' Making his way through the tall grass, he took the tool from Poroth's hand.

'You hold it like this,' said Poroth, twisting the blade around so that it was poised to cut, 'and you swing it like' – he demonstrated with his hands – 'this.'

Feeling as if he were gripping a bicycle, Freirs aimed for a clump of weeds and swung. The long curved blade, gleaming in the sunlight, swished harmlessly past them and almost caught him in the leg.

'You're trying too hard,' said Poroth, concealing whatever amusement he may have felt. 'Don't twist your body so.'

Freirs tried again; the tool still felt awkward in his grasp, but the blade caught the bottom of the weeds and whipped right through.

'You keep this thing pretty sharp,' said Freirs, staring at the blade with new respect.

Poroth reached into his back pocket and drew forth a thin grey rectangle of stone. 'Sharp as a razor,' he said. 'I whet the edge a dozen times a day. But mind you keep the blade up there, or you're going to strike against a rock, and 'twill be of no blessed use to me then. I've yet to clear this part of the field.'

Freirs brought the blade higher, but it was a more difficult position to maintain, putting more strain upon his shoulders. By the time he took a few more swipes, his shoulders ached.

'God!' he said, his pleasure draining away, 'they ought to make this thing smaller, with a lighter blade. I don't like the way this one's designed. You can't swing it without whirling yourself around.'

Poroth smiled. 'My friend, they've been using that design for a thousand years or more without a change. What you want's a sickle. It's a smaller tool, for a single hand to use. I've got one back at the house.'

'Fine,' said Freirs, rather dubious. 'That can be my next lesson.' He handed the scythe back to Poroth. 'Now I've had enough of playing farmer for the day. I think I'll play explorer.' He waved and began moving off.

Poroth watched him go. 'Mind you watch out for copperheads. They say the woods are thick with 'em this year. Brother Matt says he saw a pair last week, around three miles downstream. Don't go sticking your foot in any holes or clumps of brush, and don't go turning over rocks.'

Freirs stopped and looked suspiciously at the ground. 'What happens if I get bitten?'

Poroth shrugged and brought the scythe back up into position. 'You won't die,' he said. 'But you won't like it.' He began swinging the blade in a determined rhythm.

Freirs headed downstream with considerably less enthusiasm. He was aware that Poroth took pleasure in doomsaying, perhaps even in unnerving a visitor from the city, but the lure of exploration had diminished.

The worst thing, he discovered, was the mosquitoes. They hadn't been so bad up by the house, but down along the brook the air was thick with them, and he found he was continually fanning them away with every step. There were caterpillars, too, fat green ones that burst if you stepped on them, and little yellow ones that hung from every tree on invisible filaments of silk. Several times he found himself forced to take off his glasses when bugs and bits of leaf got caught between the lenses and his eyes.

For a hundred yards or so it was hard to tell where the fields left off and the woods began. He had to stick close to the brook, following an indistinct little trail that ran along beside it, for elsewhere the undergrowth made walking difficult. He was glad, at first, that he'd brought the field guide with him; here and there he stopped to look up various flowers – at least the ones he hadn't already squashed underfoot.

Crouching down, he identified the buds of a swamp rose mallow, which he remembered from Forbidden Games, and something called a great St-John's-wort, which the book rather unnecessarily warned him not to eat. A lot of things, it seemed, were poisonous in these woods. He was careful to memorize the three-leafed shape of poison ivy. At one point, noticing a large, exotic-looking flower, he half wondered if he'd stumbled upon some rare black orchid out of Tim Tyler's Luck, but it turned out to be nothing more than skunk cabbage. Soon afterward he began encountering massive clumps of the stuff; there was a moral here somewhere, he decided.