Freirs smiled. 'Sure,' he said, 'I'll fit 'em out with little sneakers.' He turned to Deborah. 'But I hope they're not going to keep it up all summer. It's going to make it hard to get to sleep.'
Sarr was regarding him somberly. 'Just make sure you don't sleep on your back. And if you do, make sure you don't snore.'
'Why's that?'
'So if one of them gnaws through the ceiling, he won't fall in your mouth.'
Freirs laughed, until he saw that the other wasn't smiling. 'I think that'd be a lot worse for the mouse. than for me.'
'Don't be too sure,' said Sarr. 'I once read about a man who was killed by a mouse that ran right up his arm and jumped into his mouth. Somehow it got wedged in the man's throat and almost bit its way right through.'
From the sink came an exasperated 'Honey!'
'What happened?' asked Freirs.
'Both of them suffocated, man and mouse.' Sarr saw the expression of disbelief on Freirs' face. 'It's a true story,' he said. 'There was even a picture. I'll never forget it.' He could still see, in the crude Victorian illustration, the terrified face of the man's wife, and the man's wide-open mouth and staring eyes as the small dark thing leaped toward him.
'I think it served him right,' said Deborah, returning to the table with a bowl of fresh fruit. 'He was probably trying to kill the mouse, when he could have just turned it out of doors.' She nudged Freirs with her elbow. 'Bet you didn't know he was such a one for tall tales, did you?'
'Say what you like,' said Sarr. 'You believe me, don't you, Jeremy?'
Freirs laughed. 'Well, frankly, no. But just the same, I think I'll sleep with my mouth shut tonight.'
There's one of the little bastards right now!
Lying here in bed, listening to sounds above my head. A moment ago it was one of my little friends in the attic; just before that was an airplane, the first I've heard all week. It seemed to pass directly over the farm; I can still hear the roar of its engines receding in the distance. Such a familiar sound, once upon a time – amp; now it seems like something from another world!
Sounds in the, woods, too. The trees really come close to my windows on one side, amp; there's always some kind of stirring coming from the underbrush, below the everpresent tapping on the screens.
A million creatures out there, probably. Most of them insects amp; spiders, I guess, plus a colony of frogs in the swampy part of the woods, amp; maybe even skunks and raccoons. Depending on your mood, you can either ignore the sounds amp; just go to sleep or – as I'm doing now – remain awake listening to them.
When I he here thinking about what's out there, amp; how easily I can be seen, I feel vulnerable, unprotected, like I'm in a display case. So guess I'll put away this writing amp; turn off the light.
Darkness fills the apartment – darkness and the weary droning of an air conditioner, as if the two were coterminous, the droning the sound of the darkness itself as it settles like a veil over floors and furniture, stretching across doorways, masking books on shelves and pictures on the wall. The droning muffles other sounds; the apartment is an isolated cavern, cut off from the world and beyond the reach of time.
Outside, twelve floors down, the weekend has begun. Friday night has reached its zenith, dawn is still five hours away, and the streets are filled with noise: music, voices, distant sirens. The planet rolls serenely into blackness, the stars hidden by haze. Overhead a yellow gibbous moon, one day wide of half, glares down upon the city like a cat's eye.
Within the apartment an occasional band of light reflected from the headlights of some passing car sweeps the high ceiling and slides down a wall, picking out a small framed picture, crude as a child's, done on yellowed paper cracked with age – the picture of a naked girl standing side by side with some tiny black animal. Below it an older hand has written simply, Marriage.
Otherwise the darkness is unbroken, save for a single cone of yellow light, a candle flame within it, falling from the gooseneck lamp upon the table where the old man sits working.
He sits crouched forward, staring intently at the instruments before him on the table: the straw mat, the bone needle, the pliers, the little bowl of amber fluid, the guttering candle in its brass candlestick, the shard of metal. His own face is painted like a savage's, streaks of color emanating from his eyes and mouth and a heavy black line down the center of his forehead where he's rubbed the holy powder. He looks like a lion, a sunburst, a flower as big as a man. Around his neck, on a knotted leather thong, he wears some- thing resembling a pendant, something curved and yellowing and hard: an index finger-human, female-that, one short week before, pressed the buttons of an elevator downtown.
He picks up the metal shard in the pliers and holds it in the flame. His old-man's breath is audible as he waits for the metal to grow hot, smoke, turn red… When it is glowing he places it upon the straw mat before him and, with the bone needle, scratches the first sign into its surface. Picking the shard up once more with the pliers, he dips it in the bowl of amber liquid. The liquid bubbles and hisses; a little puff of foul-smelling steam rises up the cone of light. The old man croons a certain word and smiles.
He smiles because the sign has taken; the ceremony will not be in vain. Counting to himself, he turns toward the window beside him in time to see a single star glimmer in the night sky. He watches it floating just beyond the window, centered in the topmost pane. Then, as the count is repeated, it dims and disappears behind a wave of mist. The old man expels his breath and turns back to his work.
The visitor is out there now, somewhere in the Jersey hills – he can feel it. All week long he has seen the evidence of its arrival, felt the changes, read the signs. Now he can be sure. It has come.
Once more he holds the metal shard within the cat's-eye of flame that sputters atop the candle; once more the shard grows smoky, blackened, and turns red. He lays it on the straw and scratches another sign.
Another step. There are always steps to follow, rules to be observed. Funny, that he of all people should have to play by the rules. The visitor must find it funny too. The Old One has not seen the visitor, not for more than a century, but he knows what must be happening: somewhere in the Jersey hills the process has begun. It will continue now, advancing ever more quickly, ravenous as a flame.
The flame spreads outward and licks against the metal. He holds it forth again. The signs he's scratched so far are intricate and tiny – tiny like the visitor, seemingly insignificant, easy to overlook.
But tomorrow at this time, once he's gotten the woman to perform the Ghavoola, the White Ceremony – why, then the thing will be free to advance a step up the ladder…
He places the metal shard back on the mat, whispering another word as he scratches the third and final sign. It is hard to repress a smile. Even though he knows how it all must end, he feels a certain excitement at what is to happen now. Already the woman has performed a useful service; she has played the proper messenger. But now it it time for her to garb herself in white, step forward, and assume her rightful role.
The metal is still hot, still glowing. Smiling, the pain streaks curving on his cheeks, he picks it up with the pliers and touches it to the tip of the severed finger hanging around his neck.
The finger twitches, as if recoiling from the heat.
He pulls the metal away and examines it, turning it over and over before him. The shapes scratched on its surface gleam evilly in the lamplight.
He whispers the Fifth Name. The blade is ready.
July Ninth
He arrived at seven that evening, exactly when he'd said he would. More than an hour of daylight still remained, but the sun was hidden behind a row of buildings and the avenue was dark beneath their shadows. 'I'll wait for you down here,' he shouted into the intercom. 'I've got the car tonight.'