By this time he had lost interest in looking up any more names. The woods were getting thicker, with tall trees arching overhead, blotting out the sunlight. As he moved still deeper into them, attempting to follow the stream's path through branches that impeded his progress and snapped in his face, he discovered that he'd have to get his feet wet, for the trail had completely disappeared and the underbrush grew right down to the water's edge. Rolling up his pants, he hesitantly dipped one sneakered foot in, then the other. It was like stepping into an underground spring, and made him think of caves of ice deep beneath the earth. He gritted his teeth and walked on. Soon the cold seemed to go away; either he was getting used to it or his feet were numb. Ahead of him, like a bridge across the stream, rose a low archway of decaying boughs and vines. He ducked under it and continued forward, his sneakers sloshing in the water.
On the other side of the arch he saw that, as the stream curved west, it had formed a small circular pool with banks of wet sand surrounded by statuesque oaks, their roots thrust below the surface. Obviously a watering place, he decided; there were animal tracks in the sand – deer, no doubt, and what may have been a fox or perhaps some farmer's dog. He wished he'd brought his tracking manual with him; it was going to be difficult to check such things from memory.
The place, as he moved forward, seemed surprisingly familiar, but he wasn't sure just why. Had he dreamed of it?
He waded toward the center of the pool, the water rising past his ankles. Everything was silent but the birds, and they were few, calling to each other in the trees overhead. The air around him echoed with the sound.
Somehow he felt soiled here, impure, as if he himself were the impurity, the thing that made the birds cry out. He was suddenly conscious of his body: of the oily juices flowing from his pores, the noisy rush of air in and out of his nostrils, the foulness of the city that clung to his hair, the foulness of his flesh, the foulness deep within him. He had no business being in this place; his mind – a human mind, any mind at all – did not belong here. This pool was not for those who thought; thought defiled it. He felt the alien shoes upon his feet, the canvas, dye, and rubber, the filth of the city that had spawned him. And he looked down at himself, and saw the water lapping round his ankles, and his own reflection…
For an instant the two beings stared at each other, forest man and city man. And during that instant all sound, all movement, ceased. And he laid himself full length in the pool.
Afterward he stood, freezing water dripping from his shoulders and his hair. He heard the birds once more, singing with fury or joy, he couldn't tell which, and he saw the sunlight lancing down between the leaves in shimmering gold bars. A longing gripped him: he felt a strange pull to the west. And when, like the needle of a compass, he turned in that direction, looking westward from his fixed point in the center of the circle, it was as if the trees had opened. He could see the brook stretch endlessly ahead, shining into the heart of the forest like a thin silver line, pointing toward places only the birds and the animals knew. When he saw this he yearned to go farther, and dreaded to go farther, and was suddenly so tired that he turned and went running up out of the pool and lay exhausted in the sand.
As the afternoon drew on, the sky became overcast again. Rain hung like a promise in the air. He breathed deeply, found his feet, and took the homeward path, realizing, as he left it, where he'd seen the place before. It was in the Dynnod, on the card marked The Pool. The resemblance was uncanny.
The sky remained overcast all day, but the rain did not come. At night the sky was cloudy, and all the stars were hidden.
At dinner I was famished, thanks to the day's exertions, amp; found myself agreeing to a second helping of pie. So much for willpower! Wouldn't be surprised if I put on a few extra pounds before the summer's over.
Sarr and Deborah seemed a bit jumpy; I think we all felt Carol's absence. Or maybe it was the weather, that feeling of tension you get before a rain, a sense of something holding back. I certainly never saw them lose their temper at a cat before, as Deborah did tonight. For the past week she's been trying to convince Sarr to put bells around the cats' necks – she feels sorry for the mice and birds they kill – amp; so tonight, when Toby showed up at the door with feathers sticking out of his mouth amp; a tiny yellow leg among them, she almost had a fit; she snatched up the bread knife amp; chased him down the steps and halfway to the vegetable garden before she turned around and came back, looking very ashamed of herself. I thought for a second she would really run him through.
'Happy Fourth of July,' I said, but that didn't go over well. They regard the day as primarily a war holiday, a celebration of the military amp; an excuse for people to avoid work. You certainly get no feeling of the holiday out here; nothing to distinguish it from any other day, except for the saying Sarr quoted glumly, 'Fourth of July, corn knee-high.' Alas, since he planted so late the corn isn't even up to my ankle! No wonder he was in such a sour mood.
Managed to brighten things up a bit, I think, by telling them of my 'day's adventures,' i.e., my little outing. In fact, they seemed eager to hear all about it, like parents asking what I did in school. I'm sure they've both been down that exact same path dozens of times, since it cuts right through their property; but then, I always get a kick out of hearing visitors describe their first day in New York, amp; I suppose it was the same pleasure for them: familiar surroundings seen through unfamiliar eyes. So I tried my damnedest not to disappoint them: played up my hatred of the bugs, nervousness at being alone in the wilderness with snakes amp; wolves amp; quicksand pits, etc. May have overdone it a bit, but I think they were amused.
Or at least Deborah was. She told me that next time I go for a walk I should carry a sprig of pennyroyal behind my ear, as somehow this prevents the female mosquitoes from knowing I'm around. (The females are the ones that bite.) She said she'd clip me some; she grows it in her garden.
As for Sarr, I'm not so sure he realized when I was kidding about my day's exploits, amp; for all I know he may have felt secretly contemptuous – though I suspect his main feeling was one of concern. He told me, with great seriousness, that it's just as well I stopped where I did today, at the bend in the stream, since if I'd followed it a couple of miles deeper into the woods I'd have ended up where the stream empties into a marshy backwater amp; it's easy to get lost. Just beyond the marsh, he said, is a place where on certain nights you can actually see clouds of steam amp; swamp gas rising from the ground, amp; will-o'-the-wisps, and trees that, in these parts, you don't expect to find. It's the place the men were talking about in the store yesterday, where those two girls were killed – the place they call McKinney's Neck.
When I think about it now, the whole afternoon seems almost as unreal as a dream. Glad I'm back inside again, four walls keeping out the night, with bed amp; books amp; lamplight here beside me. At times like this the farm seems like a precious little island, amp; no one but a fool would venture out into the darkness where they don't belong.
Feel too stiff now, amp; a hell of a lot too sleepy, to sit up writing anymore. Time to put away this journal amp; turn in. Carol's probably going to bed now too, never knowing how lucky she is to be surrounded by all that concrete amp; brick, those noisy, well-lit streets