by T E. D Klein
Maybe it would be best to humor him. Besides, it was so dark no one would be able to see her.
'Oh, all right, why not? I'll pretend I'm a – what did you call it?-a dryad.'
She stepped forward into the circle and waited silently, trying to recall the steps from last night. There were just nine of them, she knew, repeated over and over in a complicated sequence: a step here, a back-step, a spin…
He was already raising the flute to his lips, and now he began to play – a slow, measured series of low notes, not exactly a melody, but the notes seemed to belong together, flowing into one another like the music a snake charmer played. Concentrating on the rhythm, she began to dance, slowly at first, in time with the music, but then faster as the music picked up speed. She had started out feeling somewhat self-conscious, even after her practice it was hard to think of where to put her feet, but gradually, as she let the music take her, she began not to think about the steps, they began to be second nature, maybe it was the wine; she simply let her feet and hands and head move the way they wanted to and felt wonderfully free and not afraid at all.
The song ended. She found herself standing in the center of the circle, thoroughly winded but, like last night, eager for more. She took a few deep breaths; her head was spinning.
'That was wonderful!' said Rosie. He walked out toward her. 'It was like watching the music come alive.'
'Oh, really, I was awful.' She shook her head but was pleased. 'It's a wonder you could even see me. There's practically no light here.'
He smiled. 'I could see that necklace of yours whirling in the dark.'
'You mean my little plastic halo!' She could feel it encircling her sweaty throat. Her hand went to it. 'I'll have to remember to dance with it again some time.'
He checked his watch. 'As a matter of fact, we have more time right now. Ic isn't very late, and there's something I'd rather like to try. Something special.'
'A different dance?'
'No, just a different song.'
She shrugged. 'All right. Sure. It might be fun to try out a new song.'
'Actually,' he said, 'it isn't new at all. In fact, it's very very old. But I think you might enjoy dancing to it.' He didn't give her time to reply. Laying out the blanket, he sat down and crossed his legs. 'Ready?'
'No, wait.' She ran a hand through her hair and loosed the top button of her dress. 'Ready.'
The new song was even more beautiful than the first – more exotic, yet she almost felt she'd heard parts of it before, and wondered where. No matter, she was busy now, concentrating on the steps: The backstep, the spin, the lift of the arm, the faster spin…
The rhythm was different this time, it took her a while to get accustomed to it, but then she saw that, in fact, it was far more suited to the dance than the first song had been.
The lift of the arm, the faster spin, the special signs the hands made with the next spin… And then the step, the spin, the spin. ..
And suddenly she was into it; the music was inside her now and the stars were whirling overhead. It felt lovely, she had never known dancing could be like this… And the steps were suddenly easy, they came to her so naturally that she didn't even have to think about them, she could watch the trees surrounding her like guards, their arms entwined, all black and green in the starlight.
The spin, the spin…
And the night was heating up around her, and the grass was soft, and the tune he was playing was indescribably beautiful; she let it move her as it willed, stepping when it called for her to step, and spinning when it called for her to spin, and her body grew warm as she whirled round and round in her silky green dress with her flame-colored hair forming the center of a great green flower and her head spinning and her hands making the signs…
The special signs the hands made with the next spin, the step, the spin, the spin…
And her body was hot now, her feet were on fire, she paused to kick her shoes off beneath one of the trees and then whirled back into the circle, barefoot now, the music lifting her again, whirling her round and round until her head was spinning faster than the stars and the green dress was swirling round her legs and her necklace was twirling in the dark and her body was burning, burning… And she knew what to do; while Rosie played and didn't see, she spun behind a tree and slipped off her underwear, leaving it a little splotch of white on the dark grass, and then she spun back into the circle, Rosie would never know, she whirled and danced for him and felt the music lift her as before, the grass alive and hot beneath her feet, her dress swirling around her waist now, her legs and body bare against the night, the night air on her body as she spun.
The spin, the spin…
The trees danced round and round her and her body was on fire, and she knew she would have to dance faster till the burning went away, and dimly she knew, as she danced even faster, that her dancing was forming a pattern within the circle of trees, tracing a picture so monstrous and huge that no one in a million years could ever possibly imagine what it was… And the stars were a part of the dance now, whirling with her as she moved about the circle, and dark green things were stirring in the grass, rising from the earth and fluttering around her, tiny green butterflies with wings like leaves, or maybe they were leaves that moved like butterflies, creatures from a deck of magic cards, and even the trees were moving to the song, and things in the trees, the faces in the leaves and the branches and the air, and she danced and danced until she felt so hot that she thought she would burn up, and she knew she was the native girl who'd dance until she died, and her body was on fire, and the fire was all around her, and she collapsed in a heap in the middle of the circle just as the song ended.
She could hardly remember how she got home. She had dim memories of Rosie pulling her after him into a cab, and of riding up in the elevator with him, her feet still bare, the floor painful beneath them, painful and dirty and cold… And then he was gripping her hand tightly and saying goodbye at her door, just as if he were a proper young gentleman and she his date.
And the next thing she knew it was Sunday morning, she was still in her green dress, the cloth all damp and sticky now and wrinkled from the bed, and her hair was matted and greasy and there was a silly white piece of plastic around her neck.
She was stiff and aching all over, but her feet hurt the worst. They were raw and blistered, as if instead of dancing last night on some grass in the park, she had been walking through a desert.
It was then she realized she'd forgotten the shoes. She'd left them, and the panties too, somewhere beneath those trees. They were probably still there.
There was no way out of it. She would simply have to go back uptown and get them. After all, they were Rochelle's shoes, not hers; Rochelle had probably paid forty or fifty dollars for them, and she wouldn't want to come back and find them gone.
The park was filled with joggers and radios and dogs that day, and angry voices arguing in Spanish. Blacks in headbands and earrings were playing conga drums by the fountain which, last night, had echoed to Stravinsky. She noticed Utter everywhere; she didn't remember its being there last night, but perhaps it had been too dark to see.
It took her almost an hour to find the clearing where she'd danced, and by then her legs were aching so much she wished she'd never come.
The clearing, seen in daylight, was a terrible shock. She'd remembered it as being like something in a dream, a vivid dream of green leaves and cool air and music beneath the stars, but by day the place appeared completely different. The trees were burnt and blackened along the inside of the ring, and the grass where she'd been dancing was lifeless, charred quite black in spots. The very air that had smelled so sweet last night now reeked of burning. What a shame, she said to herself as she looked around, there's just no place for nature in a city like New York. She looked at the trunk of the nearest tree; it was completely scorched, right up to the leaves. These trees are all going to die, she realized. It's those awful Puerto Ricans with their campfires.
She walked around the ring of trees several times and combed the blackened earth, but she never found the panties or the shoes.
Book Seven: The Altar
22. OBJECT OF GAME.
… In each round the player acting as Dhol must attempt to gain power points in the prescribed manner. When sufficient points have been obtained, players may proceed to next round.
Play continues until Final Round, when, of course, the object changes and the rule no longer applies.
Instructions to the Dynnod
July Seventeenth
Had a bad night last night. Even though I was tired I had trouble getting to sleep because my goddamned nose was so clogged. And no sooner had I finally drifted off than I was awakened again by a noise.
It sounded like something in the woods just outside this room. Smaller than a man but, from the sound of it, on two legs… It was shuffling through the dead leaves, kicking them around as if it didn't care who heard it. There was the snapping of branches amp; every so often a silence amp; then a bump, as if it were hopping over fallen logs. I stood in the dark listening to it, then crept to the window amp; looked out. Thought I saw some bushes moving, back there in the undergrowth, but it may have been the wind.
The sound moved farther away. I could hear, very faintly, the sucking sounds of feet slogging through the mud. Whatever it was must have been walking directly out into the deepest part of the woods, where the ground gets soft amp; swampy.
I stood by the window for almost an hour, amp; finally all was quiet except for the usual frogs. Had no intention of going out there with my flashlight in search of the intruder – that's strictly B-movie stuff, I'm much too sensible for that – though I wondered if I should call Sarr. By this time, though, the noise had stopped amp; whatever it was had obviously moved on. Besides, I tend to think Sarr'd have been angry if I'd awakened him amp; Deborah just because some stray dog had wandered past the farm.
Went to the windows on the other side of the room amp; listened for a while. Out in the yard everything was peaceful. It was extremely dark, amp; I could barely make out the shapes of the smokehouse amp; the barn, but I could hear those pie-plate scarecrows off in the cornfield, clanking whenever the breeze stirred them.
I stood at the window a long time; my nose probably looked cross-hatched from pressing against the screen. Then I lay in bed but couldn't fall asleep. Just as I was getting relaxed the sounds started again, much farther off now: a faint, monotonous hooting which may have been an owl, though somehow it didn't sound like an owl, or any other kind of animal, for that matter. And then, as if in answer, came another sound – high-pitched wails amp; caterwauls, from deep within the woods. Can't say whether the noise was human or animal. There were no actual words, of that I'm certain, but nevertheless there was the impression of singing. In a crazy, tuneless kind of way the sound seemed to carry the same solemn rhythms as the Poroths' prayers earlier that night.
The noise only lasted a minute or two, but I lay awake till the sky began to get lighter. Probably should have gotten through a little reading but was reluctant to turn on the lamp.
Must have been around noon when I got up. Took my towel amp; went up to the farmhouse for a bath. Didn't see Sarr amp; Deborah anywhere around amp; expected to find them in the kitchen eating lunch. But the house was empty, except for a few cats on the back porch, and the farm seemed very lonely.
Only then did I realize it was Sunday, amp; that the Poroths were off somewhere at worship. I'd been sure it was Saturday…
Interesting, how you can lose track of time out here. I suppose in some ways that's healthy, getting away from the pressures that were on me in New York, but it's also a little disorienting. At certain moments I feel positively adrift. I've been so used to living by the calendar amp; the clock.
Sat soaking in the tub till I heard the Poroths walking up the road; they'd been over at some farm near the Geisels' amp; had worked up a good appetite. So had I, even though I'd done nothing all morning but sleep. Over lunch (eggs with thick slabs of bacon, home fries, amp; blueberry pie) we talked about the wildlife around here, amp; I mentioned the noise last night. Sarr suggested that the shuffling sounds weren't necessarily related to the wailing. The former may have been those of a dog, he said; there are dozens in the area, amp; they love to prowl around at night. As for the wailing… well, he wasn't so sure. He thought it might have been an owl or – more likely, he said – a whippoorwill. Apparently whippoorwills can make some very weird sounds, amp; they tend to do so at night. (Lovecraft had them waiting by the window of a dying man amp; singing gleefully as they made off with his soul.)
I wonder, though, if the wailing might not have come from the same stray dog that shuffled past my window. I've heard recordings of wolf howls, amp; I've heard hounds baying at the moon, amp; both have the same element of worship in them that these sounds did.
I didn't broach the subject of the Poroths' coming in my room while I was gone, the misfiled book, etc. Just didn't quite know how to bring it up. Deborah's fairly easygoing, but you never know when Sarr's going to take offense at something.
After lunch he got up to start work, while I, as usual, lingered in the kitchen with Deborah. A minute or two later we heard him calling us from the yard, to come quick and see 'the sign from heaven.' Through the window we saw him pointing at the sky.
We hurried outside amp; looked up. There, way up in the clouds, a thin green line, like a living thread, was streaming across the sky. We watched as it passed slowly over the farm. Hard to tell how long it was; at one point it seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon.
'What is it?' Deborah asked.
'A sign from God,' said Sarr. But he had to have it both ways: 'and also a migration.'
He was right, the second time at least, because just then a few flecks of green drifted down toward us, carried on the breeze, amp; we saw that they were tiny moths the color of leaves. Above us the line was passing onward, snaking away into the distance, moving west. Eventually it was lost from sight.
Sarr was exultant – 'the Lord has vouchsafed us a vision, a promise of good harvests,' etc., etc. – but I found the sight oddly disturbing. Came back here to the room amp; looked it up in my Field Guide to the Insects. Apparently some butterflies – the monarchs, for one – actually do migrate, even across whole continents; but there was nothing in the book about these little green ones, amp; I couldn't even find out what they were.
Deborah finished stacking the dishes and wiped the crumbs from the table. Lifting the old pewter milk pitcher, she carried it into the hall, where she lit the little oil lamp that hung from a hook beside the stairway. With the pitcher in one hand and the lamp in the other, she started down the narrow steps.
The cellar was the most primitive area of the house, with a floor of hard-packed earth and stone walls lined with crude wooden shelves. The ceiling was low, like the roof of the cave – too low for Sarr to stand upright – and the air, redolent of vinegar and spices, was noticeably cooler than anywhere else in the house. Raising the pitcher, Deborah poured the leftover milk back into a large metal canister near the foot of the stairs and refitted the lid. On a shelf against the nearby wall – above a row of empty pickle jars which she hoped, by summer's end, to fill – lay a cardboard egg carton. Down here, in the cool darkness of the cellar, hens' eggs remained fresh for weeks; each day she'd add new ones to the carton and take the older ones for meals. Today, she noticed, there were only three eggs left on. the shelf; she had used the rest for lunch. But with the hens laying as well as they had been, she knew she could count on four more by dinnertime.
Back upstairs, taking the little basket that hung on the porch where the cats played, she headed toward the barn, Zillah and Cookie trotting at her heels. Sarr, sleeves rolled up, was bent over a thick growth of weed at the margin of the cornfield, slicing at it with a sickle. Freirs was back in his room, seated at his writing table; she could see him dimly through the screens. It was a shame, she re
flected, that someone as smart as he was spent so much time on spook books and showed so little interest in religion; in all the weeks he'd been living here he'd never once asked them how services had gone. Well, next week he'd be able to see for himself, because they were going to be held here at the farm, right outside his door.
This morning's worship had been a satisfying one. True, they'd had to hold it in the hot sun; Ham Stoudemire's trees were lately so infested with tent caterpillars that anyone standing in the shade risked getting one down his neck. (She would have to make sure San-checked all their own trees this week, as well as the eaves of the barn.) And a few of the Brethren had made some rather odd remarks about 'the stranger' they were harboring here – how silly! (Just as well, probably, that she and Sarr hadn't told the others he was a Jew.) And too, there'd been the memorial prayer for old Hannah Kraft – that, of course, had been a sad note; poor Minna Buckhalter had been so upset…
But Deborah had been pleased to see that stuck-up Lotte Sturtevant looking so red-faced and puffy; she wouldn't look that way when she was with child. (And why had the woman insisted on coming at all? Perhaps that awful Joram had made her.) She had also enjoyed the singing; the morning's heat had brought out the spirit in everyone.
'Saved by the blood of the Crucified One,
Ransomed from sin and a new work begun… '
Swinging the basket in time, she rounded the corner of the barn and walked inside. Sunlight slanted on the pitted metal surface of the truck parked just within the doorway. A pair of fat bluebottles with heads like gemstones buzzed in the light. Along one wall the line of antiquated farm implements rusted on the hay, their spiked wheels and jagged iron jaws giving them the look of medieval instruments of torture.
'Sing praise to the Father and praise to the Son,
Saved by the blood of the Crucified One.'
The hens were quiet today. Usually when she entered all four of them glared impatiently down at her from the high chicken-wire coop, squawking for their food bucket, but today only one of them peeped through the wire. She could see the dark red rooster pacing agitatedly behind it.
