Ceremonies

by T E. D Klein

  A rather quiet day, after the weekend's excitement. No visitors, no accidents, no noise or movements in the earth. Read some de la Mare in the morning – horrifying story of a little boy who sees a crouching demon each time he turns his eyes to the left – but his writing's so tentative amp; subtle amp; the day was so quiet amp; muggy that I somehow couldn't keep reading. Sarr was scattering some sort of white powder in the cornfield that's supposed to keep cutworms away, but he was also making sure to keep an eye on Deborah. She in turn sat watching him from a rocking chair on the back porch, rocking slowly back amp; forth but not otherwise moving, like a silent old woman more dead than alive.

  Seeing Sarr's labors, I felt I ought to get some physical activity myself; but the thought of starting my exercises again after being out of practice so long seemed just too unpleasant. I took a walk down the road a little way, up to the first bend where the house is lost from sight. Perhaps I was hoping that the driver from the gas company would happen by again amp; offer me a lift… Somehow, though, I didn't want to get out of sight of the house, as if it might not be the same – or there at all – when I got back. Like the way Sarr keeps one eye on Deborah… I was bored, amp; walking to town sounded temping, but Gilead had so little to offer amp; just seemed too far away.

  Was going to cut the ivy away from my windows when I got back, as it's become a haven for all sorts of bugs, but decided the place looks more artistic covered in vines.

  Deborah made dinner tonight – meat loaf, string beans, amp; potatoes – but I found it a bit disappointing, probably because I'd been looking forward to it all day. The meat was underdone, somehow, amp; the beans were cold. Though she still seems tired amp; stiff, she seems otherwise normal now, amp; at least was able to talk over dinner-more than Sarr, in fact, who said almost nothing, except that he'd been unable to find out anything about the McKinneys (if in fact there are any). Deborah's voice is still hoarse, though, amp; she ate very little, as she has trouble swallowing. I persuaded her to let me do the dishes again. I've been doing them a lot lately.

  I didn't have much interest in reading tonight amp; would have preferred sitting around their living room, like we used to do in the past, listening to the radio – Deborah, I'm sure, would have been up for it – but Sarr's gotten into one of his religious kicks lately amp; began mumbling prayers to himself immediately after dinner. Guess he's still worked up after the services here yesterday. Absorbed in his chanting, he made me uncomfortable -1 didn't like his face – amp; so after doing the dishes I left, borrowing the radio for the night.

  Walked back here with some rock music playing. It sounded pretty obscene, here in this rural quiet beneath the stars, but somehow once I got inside it seemed to keep the night at bay. Listened to the ads between each song – plugs for car stereos amp; acne cream amp; roadside disco lounges. It all sounded terribly alien out here; what must people like the Brethren make of such stuff? Next I listened to a bit of the news (no mention, alas, of our pathetic little earthquake). Lots of heavy international power politics, crime amp; corruption in New York, blacks amp; Libyans demanding this amp; that, bus drivers threatening a walkout… No wonder the people here despise the outside world; judging from the picture of it you get on the radio, it's as wicked as Sarr claims.

  Have been listening to the radio for the past hour or so. Recall the days, not so long ago, when I'd have gotten uptight at having wasted an hour, but out here I'm slowing down, more amp; more, the longer I remain.

  … Can't find that goddamned new can of bug spray. I usually keep it right by this table, close at hand, and play Search amp; Destroy each night before turning in. Annoying to think that one of the Poroths took it amp; didn't return it; don't like the idea of their entering my room. The other can's almost empty, but by judiciously using it amp; an old rolled-up Sight amp; Sound (whose cover I'll now have to throw away) I managed to give the place a good going over. Now the room smells of spray amp; I'm exhausted.

  Just shut the radio off. I'd be tempted to leave it on all night as I go to sleep, but then you can't hear what's happening outside, and I don't like to be at that sort of disadvantage.

  Now that it's quiet, I can hear Sarr praying amp; singing hymns. Odd to think of him doing so alone. I imagine that Deborah must be up there with him, mouthing the words.

  July Twenty-sixth

  Writing this, breaking habit, in early morning. Was awakened around two or so last night by sounds coming from the woods. A wailing – deeper this time than anything I've heard before – followed by what sounded like a low, guttural monologue, except there seemed to be no words, at least none I could distinguish. Maybe it was another whippoorwill, or a large bullfrog, or even some local poacher on a nightly sortie through the swamp. If frogs could talk… For some reason I fell asleep again before the sounds ended, so I don't know what followed.

  This morning's paper had a brief piece about our 'earthquake.' Also had a letter from Carol today. She'll be coming out this weekend -unfortunately with that creepy old Rosie. Don't like the way he's cozied up to her; she practically lives for the guy. Still, it'll be great to see her again. Despite what they say about Lammas Eve, this weekend shouldn't be so unpleasant after all…

  From the Hunterdon County Home News, Tuesday, July 26: QUAKE CAUSE STILL UNDETERMINED

  Gilead, July 25. – Though this tiny fanning community is located less than ten miles from the Ramapo Fault believed to run from Somerset County to the Hudson, a research team of Princeton University geologists reports that the causes of Sunday afternoon's earth tremor here appear to have been 'independent of the fault.' According to the group's findings, released early today and based upon data collated with other seismographic laboratories in the region, the quake's epicenter was somewhere north of the town. Damage was slight, confined to broken windows and household articles, though farmers report some panicking of herds. The disturbance appears to have been highly localized, affecting only the town and its surroundings; neighboring communities were not aware of it.

  Contacted by telephone in Connecticut, vacationing department staffer Dr James Lewalski, director of laboratory facilities, noted that no place on the continent is totally free from such quakes; even New England, he noted, has had 'at least one recorded earth tremor of sizable proportions every year since the founding of the colonies.' Lewalski pooh-poohed the notion that the state might be entering a new earthquake phase not associated with the Ramapo Fault. 'There will always be a few freak quakes whose cause is difficult to pinpoint,' he said, 'but there is at this point no cause for alarm.'

  Deborah was able to walk around today amp; spent most of it in the woods picking berries. She came back amp; made us dinner, but it was nothing special. The four new chickens have begun to lay, but we've only had around half a dozen eggs from them since they were purchased; the old hen, after a week of laying soft eggs, has responded to her new high-calcium feed by not laying anything at all. Deborah made us a vegetable omelet using all six eggs, but it was surprisingly poor. Odd medicinal taste; Sarr didn't even finish his. Deborah herself barely ate, which also seemed to annoy Sarr. 'Eat something,' he kept saying. 'You don't even open your mouth.' He's been in a bad mood lately.

  Dessert not much good either: cheese amp; early apples which Sarr had bought in town last week. He'd been keeping them down in the root cellar; now most of them have gone bad. I took a few steps down to the cellar amp; could smell that the food down there had started to spoil.

  Probably it's just as well I ate so little tonight; I'm definitely getting heavier out here, despite all my good intentions. Or flabbier, if not heavier. Really ought to do my exercises. Maybe tomorrow. Looked in the bathroom mirror after dinner, before coming out here, amp; wasn't too pleased with the sight. Maybe I can try to get a better sun tan before Carol arrives, amp; I could also really use a haircut. Must shave, too.

  As I left the Poroths, they didn't seem to be getting along. Deborah, still hoarse, announced that she was tired amp; went upstairs alon
e. I left Sarr praying in the living room.

  While I was outside, just before entering this room, I chanced to turn around amp; look at the farmhouse. The lamp was burning in the Poroths' bedroom, amp; to my amazement I saw, in silhouette, Deborah slipping off her long black dress. She was right in front of the window. Then she turned amp; stood there a moment, looking out. Sarr must have come upstairs right after that, because I heard him call to her amp; she quickly moved away… But until she did I had the distinct feeling that, as she stood there, she knew she was being watched, amp; that she, in turn, was looking right at me.

  Later they would talk about it often. The good people of Gilead would talk and speculate and argue, gathered around Bert Steegler's cash register at the Go-operative, or sipping tea or lemonade on the van Meers' front porch, or on their way to Sunday worship: how, on the night of July twenty-sixth, just before the strange culmination of the events at Poroth Farm, Shem and Orin Fenchel saw the light dancing in the woods.

  Neither father nor son was the kind to show up at Sunday worship, and the past Sunday, while their fellows were congregating at the Poroths', the younger, more enterprising Fenchel had been helping himself to a basketful of tomatoes from Hershel Reimer's garden (taking care to leave no tracks), and old Shem had been fast asleep and snoring. As to the events of the twenty-sixth, they would claim, later, that they'd been searching for a favorite hound that had wandered from the yard and lost itself in the swamp outside of town; but those who knew them best would suspect, always, that they'd been hunting out of season, the Fenchel larder being surprisingly well stocked with meat despite the annual failure of that family's crop.

  It was safe to say, too, that the pair had drained a bottle or two that night; as one of the town's rare jokes had it, the elder Fenchel had brought up young Orin on the words of Jeremiah 25:27 – 'Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink ye, and be drunken, and spue, and fall.'

  Their testimony, therefore, was not the most convincing, and there were those in Gilead who would deny that the two had seen anything at all. But there were others who, noting the son's wide-eyed amazement, the older man's obvious confusion, the discrepancies in their stories, and reflecting that the two had nothing to gain from lying – for indeed, the incident could only increase their notoriety in the town – would be inclined to believe all or much of what they said.

  The moon was gibbous that night, casting a cold, sluglike face at the trees and rivulets and fallen logs over which they'd been stumbling. They were nearing the marshy region along the northwest border of the old Baber place – Sarr Poroth had bought the property last fall, and Fenchel agreed with those in town who held that he'd been cheated – and walking had become difficult; their boots made a wet, sucking sound with each step, and to remain too long in one place gave them the feeling of sinking into the earth.

  The younger man was the first to hear it. Initially he took it for an animal caught, struggling, in some remote trap, but then he began to pick out what sounded like words – foreign words. The father heard it too, by now, and was thereafter to maintain that the language was Hebrew; his son, less dogmatic, would never venture to guess.

  It was shortly afterward that they saw, far in the distance, the dancing light. It was bobbing up and down out there in the swamp, over land so treacherous that neither man dared approach too closely. Sometimes it would dip below a shrub or rotting log and would be lost from sight: at other times it seemed to float above the surface of the ground-water, as if playing with its own reflection. Occasionally it winked, flickered, and dimmed; most often it burned with a small, steady flame. Both men would later agree that it had been moving ever deeper into the woods, away from Poroth Farm.

  But subsequently their reports would differ. Orin, who had the sharper eyes of the two, was to describe the light as that of a single candle. His father would deny this with a queer vehemence; though in his sorry life he'd been accused, by his more pious brethren, of every form of blasphemy, he would shudder, even months afterward, at the notion of a burning candle, as if at something unnatural and obscene. He would never explain his reasons, however, except to say that no candle could have cast so strong a glow; he'd claim that what they'd seen had, in fact, been a hand-held lantern, or even a flashlight.

  As to just what sort of hand held the lantern, it was still too far away to tell, and a low midsummer mist obscured their view. They stood awhile in uneasy silence, squinting at the light. It seemed, slowly, to be drawing closer. Occasionally the faint singsong voice would reach them from over the swamp. Shem, at this point, observed that whoever was carrying the lantern must be small indeed, because it appeared to be swinging only inches from the ground. Perhaps it was a child… The two peered into the darkness ahead, wondering how any being could make its way through that mud and looking in vain for a face they might recognize above the approaching light.

  In fact, they looked in vain for any face at all.

  It was here that Orin broke and ran. Later, when asked to account for his uncharacteristic faintheartedness, he would mutter something about that light's having been 'too damned close to the ground. No man could carry a candle that low,' he'd say, crossing himself. 'Leastwise not in his hand.'

  Shem Fenchel didn't remain there much beyond his son, but he lingered long enough to form an opinion – or, rather, several opinions – of what might have been out there. 'Some kinda animal,' he told his wife, when he woke her that night. 'A dog or monkey or' -his eye fell on young Lavinia's picture book – 'or a trained seal. Like in the circus. Carryin' the lantern in its teeth.'

  It was only later, when in his cups at the roadhouse up near Lebanon, that he was heard to brag that what he'd really seen crawling through the swamp that night had been a naked woman.

  July Twenty-seventh

  Feeling tired amp; on edge today. I was up most of the night, thanks to the sounds outside – like distant thunder… And when I finally slept, woke up wishing I hadn't. If only there were some way of warding off these bad dreams. They're soon forgotten, of course, amp; seldom repeated; but while you're living through them they're all the reality you've got.

  How does that line from the Cabala go? Reality hangs by – a thread?

  Closing his journal, Freirs strolled outside and wandered toward the farmhouse. He felt grubby and was sure he needed a bath, but he'd forgotten to bring his towel and was too enervated to go back and get it. Heating the water for a bath was too complicated anyway.

  Deborah was nowhere around, but there was a hot fresh blueberry pie cooling by the window. He was still aroused, in memory, from the sight of her disrobing in her room last night and was eager to see her again. From Sarr's workroom in the attic of the barn came the sound of steady hammering, echoing through the yard. He found some lukewarm milk left in the pitcher on the counter, enough for a shallow bowl of cereal, but he felt like something more; lighting the lantern, he climbed down the narrow steps to the cellar. The entire room now smelled of spoiled food; had the weather really gotten so much hotter lately that the perishables had… perished? He stayed down there as short a time as he could: just long enough to assure himself that the milk in the container was sour and that there were no eggs on the shelf. He was glad to get back upstairs.

  Wandering out to the back porch, he heard Poroth in the barn give a yell of exultation. It was the first time in days that the farmer had shown such emotion; lately he had grown morose and moody. Freirs hurried to the barn to see what had produced the change.

  Poroth was crouching on the platform that supported the chicken coop, peering into the nest with the smile of a brand-new father looking through the glass of the maternity ward. Freirs climbed up the ladder to join him.

  'Look,' said Poroth, 'look what they've done.' He pointed to a pair of pristine-looking white eggs lying on the platform by his feet. 'I found them under two of the new birds.'

  'About time they got the hang of it.'

  'And look at this.' Leaning into the coop and dig
ging beneath the one surviving hen from the previous flock, who scattered, squawking, as he reached toward her, Poroth pulled out another egg.

  'See? The calcium's working! This one's back to normal.'

  Indeed, when held up to the light, the egg seemed plump and healthy and the shell hard.

  'A welcome sight,' said Freirs. 'I've missed my morning omelets.'

  'Yes,' said Poroth, 'I have too.' He was staring pensively at the egg.

  'Should we take them up to the house?'

  'Those two,' said Poroth, indicating the pair at his feet, 'but not this. It's already fertilized – I just felt it tremble in my hand. Here, feel.' Without warning he thrust it into Freirs' unwilling hand.

  Freirs hefted it gingerly, thinking of Lotte Sturtevant's stomach. The egg was wanner than he'd expected. Soft, impatient movements came from within it. Hurriedly he returned it to the other, who slipped it back into the eldest hen's nest.

  'We'll let her sit on it awhile,' said Poroth, 'and soon we'll have ourselves another bird.'

  Each with an egg, the two strolled toward the farmhouse, their spirits high. Nature, in the end, would not be denied; the sun was out, the corn was ripening, and the hens were laying again.

  For several minutes after the two figures had gone, the old bird continued to pace round and round in the dust and odor of the coop, at last settling herself back onto the remaining egg. The barn was still. Shafts of sunlight crept steadily across the wooden floor; a trio of bluebottles buzzed in contentment.

  Suddenly she jerked her head erect, her round eyes staring wide. With a flurry of feathers she hopped off the nest and scrambled to the far corner of the coop, where she stood quivering against the wire, claws raking the straw.

  Behind her, in the filthy down-lined nest, the egg twitched, rocked back and forth, and jerked to a series of invisible blows, looking more like a living thing than the container of one. A split appeared in the side. The four new hens and the rooster left their perches and gathered to watch, cocking their heads and twitching as a dark, jagged hole appeared in the side of the egg and a tiny pink arm slipped through. At last a head appeared, and as the squawking of the adult birds rose higher, the child hatched, scattering bits of shattered eggshell.