“Excellent,” said Silenus. “Then I must thank you, my lady, for all the help you have given us.” Once more, he bowed. “I trust you know that this will be the last time that I trouble you.”
“I would think so, player,” said the lady. “Should we see each other again, it may not be nearly as amicable as this has been.”
Silenus glanced up at the lady. Like all fairies, she was nearly inscrutable behind her white mask. Then he bowed once more and led them down the path.
George was not sure when the black wood receded. He never saw it dwindle away, nor did he notice the path beneath his feet change.
What alerted him was the change in the air: in the wood around the Founding it had smelled of damp and moldering leaves, and everything had been still and close, yet as they walked he began to smell pine and moisture. After a while they all looked around themselves and saw they were now in an isolated glen in a pine forest, and they saw no stone path behind them, or dark wood, or Queen Anne home or bonfires.
“Thank God that’s fucking over,” said Silenus. “Those people give me the fucking creeps. I can’t stand not knowing if they’re looking at me or not.”
“Where are we?” asked George.
“Northern New York, west of Lake Champlain, on the south side of Logehrin.” Silenus looked up at the sky. “Now. Where do we need to go?”
Stanley took out a small compass and consulted it, then pointed ahead.
“All right,” said Silenus. “Let’s hurry now. Stanley and I will collect this one bit of the song, and then we’ll hightail it to Plattsburgh and catch a train to the next. Should be quick and simple. All right?”
No one answered as they charged through the forest. Soon they saw the lake ahead, wide and flat and sparkling with moonlight, except the west side ended not in a shore but in a long, smooth arc of gray. It was the dam, George guessed. To the east the river rose into the high hills, and to the west, on the other side of the dam, the landscape descended into a rolling valley. Evidently the valley had once been filled with water, but due to the dam the river was but a trickle down below. Down the southern shore at the base of the dam there was a shining string of railroad track, but it looked abandoned. And there ahead of them on the edge of this artificial lake was a small black spot, just a tiny scrap of island that carried the burden of three huge pines that stretched up into the sky.
Then George heard something, and he froze: there was a moan on the wind, terribly deep and resonant. He had seen the First Song’s performance so many times that he knew it by heart, and while this seemed similar— a note the mind could hardly recognize, and no instrument or voice could ever mimic—it was something he’d never heard before. He realized that what he was hearing was a part of the song that must have lain undiscovered for years and years, singing of a part of the world that had long been lost.
He stared at the island. He was not sure how he knew it, but he immediately sensed a heaviness there, as if there was an additional hidden burden that little island was carrying.
“There it is,” said Silenus hoarsely. “I can almost see it. Jesus Christ, we’re so close.” There was a desperation in his voice that George had heard only once before, in the graveyard when his confessions had come trickling out. But Stanley did not seem anything so pleased. He rubbed the side of his head as he stared at the island, and gave a deep, uncertain sigh.
Silenus turned and glanced along the shore. He found a particularly large, flat boulder and stood before it. He turned around and walked back and forth in front of it several times, apparently completing some dance with his back to the stone. Then he stopped in the middle of one step, turned around, and put his hand on the knob of the door in the stone.
The rest of the troupe blinked. There in the boulder was the huge black door they saw so frequently in their hotels. Like every time before, it had appeared without anyone noticing.
“I didn’t know it could show up out here,” said Colette as she watched Silenus enter.
Stanley wrote: IT GOES WHERE IT IS NEEDED. IF THE NEED IS GREAT ENOUGH.
Silenus came out of his office dragging the big black steamer trunk. “Hurry!” he cried to Stanley, and Stanley sprinted over to help.
George, Franny, and Colette watched as Silenus and Stanley waded out into the cold waters of the lake and trudged up the muddy shores of the little island. They stooped down low and soon were indistinct from the rest of its terrain.
“There they go,” said Franny. “The cowards.”
“Cowards?” said Colette. “What do you mean?”
“I mean they are cowards, the both of them,” she said.
“How?”
“How could they be anything else?” said Franny. “They’ve spent their whole lives with what is most dear to them hanging just before their faces, and yet they can’t allow themselves to embrace it. Neither man can allow themselves to be happy for a moment, not with all that darkness hanging below. What silly creatures they are.”
“I’ve never heard you talk this way,” said Colette.
“I expect you’ll soon be hearing a lot of things you haven’t before,” she said.
George felt a sudden pulse in the air. The moan shivered through the sky again, and he quavered a bit, knees almost buckling. He had never been this close to the song when it was harvested, excepting the one time he’d accidentally taken it on himself. He realized he was hearing voices everywhere, and seeing patterns in everything: the stars and the trees and the rocks on the ground all seemed to be spelling something out, or aligning to form strata that all swirled around that little black island.
“They’re close to it,” he gasped. “I think … I think they’ve almost got it.”
“Goody for them,” said Franny sourly. “Now will they be happy? Now will they rest? I think not.”
“What is wrong with you?” asked Colette.
“Who are you to be so impertinent, girl?” said Franny. “Do you know how long I’ve traveled with them? How much I’ve seen? If you knew what I knew, and what a torture the very sight of you is to me, you’d hold your tongue.”
Colette looked to George, scandalized by this abuse, but George could not pay attention: the piece of the song within him sensed the connection taking place mere yards ahead, and it ached to join. For the first time, George began to realize just how much of the song Silenus and Stanley carried with them. The sense of momentum emanating from that island, of gravity and sheer pull, was so overwhelming he could barely stand.
The water rippled, and everything grew cold. It felt as though the stars halted in the sky and the wind died. Somewhere countless voices were moaning, and then they rose up to an awesome and terrible pitch, and George was as small and lost among those voices as a reed among the waves of the stormy ocean …
Then it stopped, just as abruptly as it’d started. A horrible, strangled cry rose from the island, but it was quickly cut off.
“What was that?” asked Colette. “Are they all right?”
Even Franny stayed quiet, so George guessed she did not know either. “I believe,” she said softly, “that I will sit down now.” She walked away and sat below a tree on the edge of the shore.
For a long while there was nothing from the island. Then George saw movement. At first he thought it was only one person, yet then there was a splashing and he saw both men were there, Silenus leading the way with one hand on the trunk, and Stanley behind holding up the other end. Yet Stanley could hardly stand: he was bent over, and he sometimes had to use his free hand to support himself.
They dragged themselves up to the shore and set the trunk down. Stanley almost collapsed immediately, but stopped himself and sat on the ground with his back against the trunk. Silenus sat on the trunk itself, took several deep breaths, and took out a cigar and lit it.
“What happened out there?” asked Colette. “Are you hurt?”
Silenus cleared his throat. “We are fine,” he said, but Stanley shook slightly and put his face in his ha
nds.
“You don’t look fine,” said George.
“That’s because our research was correct,” Silenus said. “It was … an extremely large piece of the song.”
George stared at the trunk. What could be in there? he thought. The trunk looked no different, nor did it appear special in any way. Could they have even more of the First Song in there? And how did they get it in and out? After all this time, he still was not sure.
“Where is Franny?” asked Silenus.
“She’s over there,” said Colette, and she gestured. “She’s acting very strange. I’ve never heard her talk that way.”
“Talk what way?” said Silenus.
“Well … she said some very nasty things about you both, and me. But more than that, she sounded more alert than I’d ever heard her.”
Silenus frowned and began to walk over to her. “Franny!” he called. “Come on down here. We need to get moving.”
Franny did not answer. George could hardly see her in the shadow of the tree.
“Franny!” said Silenus. “Are you all right? Are you hurt, my dear?”
“Yes,” said Franny’s voice. “Yes. I am hurt.”
“You are? What happened?”
All at once there was the sound of laughter from the wood. It did not seem to come from one place, but rather from all around them, as if the forest were full of laughing people. Everyone jumped up and looked about, even Stanley.
“What the hell is going on?” said Colette.
“I don’t know,” said Silenus.
Then one by one they begin to appear: pale white faces, hanging in the darkness of the forest, perfect and blank and eyeless. They hovered in the gaps between the trees, blinking into existence like lamps. And one appeared very nearby, but it was much taller than all the others, and at the corners of its eyes were twin streams of perfect blue tears.
“What is this?” said Silenus.
Stanley rose and walked behind Colette and George, and put a hand on either one’s shoulder. He pulled them back, wary, ready to jump in front if need be.
The fairies began to emerge from the wood, and George immediately felt a terrible fear at the very sight of them. They were such tall, foreign creatures, not nearly as graceful as they’d seemed back at the Founding. The last to emerge was the one nearby, and when it did they saw it was the lady, still dressed in blood red, but now she seemed taller and more spindly than ever, and as she walked she swayed back and forth.
“Ofelia?” said Silenus. “What are you doing here? I thought our agreement was done.”
“It was,” said the lady, laughing. “It is.”
“Then what are you doing here? The host never leaves the Founding anymore.”
“There are exceptions to every rule,” said the lady. She towered over Silenus, staring down at him. “And I would make one in this case. I would be a poor daughter, would I not, if I did not come to see justice meted out on my mother’s killer?”
Silenus stared at her, shocked. “But you can’t. We had an agreement.”
“Yes, that’s true,” said the lady. “We did. I agreed I would never harm you out of hate for what you did to my mother. But there is another whose harm you have to answer for.”
“Whose?” he asked.
“Mine,” said a faint voice.
They all turned, though George turned more slowly than the rest. Franny stood up underneath the tree, a little lumpy doll dragging itself to its feet.
“Franny?” said Silenus. “You? Why would you do this?”
“No,” she said. She began to walk forward.
“What? No? What do you mean? It’s not you?”
“Not no to that,” said Franny. She began walking down to him. “No to that name. You know that is not who I am. That is not my name.”
Silenus was quiet. Then a great horror began to creep into his face. “No. No, it can’t be …”
“Yes,” said Franny. “You know me, Bill. Of course you know me.”
To George’s shock, Silenus fell to his knees. And then Silenus, who had always been so distant and controlling, nearly began to weep. “My God,” he said. “My God, is it really you?”
“Yes,” she said. She stood between him and the lady. “It’s always been me. A very small part of me has always been trapped down here, buried under all this waking death. Buried by you, Bill. But I’ve always been here. Watching.”
Tears started flowing down Silenus’s cheeks. “Oh, my God,” he whispered. “Annie? Annie, can it really be you?”
Though it was but a whisper, to George the name was like a scream. It blared and echoed in his ears, and his mouth dropped open and he almost fell to the ground.
“What’s she talking about?” said Colette. “What is wrong with her?”
“Jesus,” said George faintly. “Jesus Christ, that’s who she is. She’s his wife. Franny is his wife.”
CHAPTER 29
Anne Marie Sillenes
“What?” said Colette. “What the hell are you talking about, George?”
“He’s right,” said Franny. “Anne … Anne Sillenes. It’s so strange to say that name. I had almost forgotten it. It died with me, so long ago. Franny Beatty was a name you chose for me, Bill, picked at random out of the paper. But my real one’s always remained, echoing in the many empty places in my skull.”
“But how can this be?” Silenus said. “I haven’t spoken to you for half a century, my dear … I thought you were lost. How can you have come back to me now?”
“I haven’t come back to you, Bill,” said Franny, or perhaps it should have been Anne. “I was just reminded. This all started when you took me to the fairies, don’t you remember? It was an arrangement we made, when we first learned about the cancer. About the thing eating me up, behind my eyes.”
“It was the first of three visits,” said Ofelia. “You carried her to my mother after she’d passed, still streaked with grave dirt. You, a bereaved husband, with this poor, pale little thing with the pretty red hair in your arms. You sobbed like a child when you brought her, did you not? And my mother took pity on you, and told you of a way, of symbols and etchings that can bring animation to the body.”
“Yes,” said Anne. She raised one hand and grasped her sleeve and pulled it back, displaying the countless black markings that wrapped around her arm like second skin. “You brought me back, Bill. Just like we’d discussed.”
“My God, my dear,” said Silenus. “I … I can’t believe it! I thought it hadn’t worked! When you came back, at first you were the same but … but then you changed.”
“That was because it didn’t work,” she said. “I was not back! The sleep took me, that waking death. I was so tired … Every second was an hour, every year a lifetime. My memories faded, and I could hardly remember who I was. Yet some part of me stayed alive, trapped behind miles of thick glass, watching the years slip before me. And when you brought me back to that house, it was like all the years were sloughed off my back, and I remembered … I remembered everything. Do you know what that was like, Bill? Can you have any idea what it feels like, to fall outside of time and shamble on, no more than a dazed, empty vessel?”
“No,” said Harry. “No, no, I couldn’t know what it was like for you.”
“You knew,” said Anne. “You knew what it would be like. And yet you let me live on.”
“I had to!” said Silenus. “I had no choice, I couldn’t bear to lose you! You were my darling, Annie, my everything! With you beside me everything made sense, and when you were gone …”
“When I was gone, you cursed me with this,” said Anne. “With this waking hell. You should have let me go! You should have killed me when you saw it hadn’t worked!”
“Don’t you think I tried?” cried Silenus. “But I’d lost you once, and then I had this … this puppet of a person, and while it wasn’t you it looked and sounded and smelled exactly like you. I couldn’t kill it! Could anyone?”
“Oh, Jesus …” whispered Co
lette.
“You would have if you loved me,” said Anne. “You should have let me rest, Bill. You should have let me go.”
“I couldn’t,” he said. “Not again. I wasn’t strong enough.”
“And instead you had what?” she asked. “You would keep some horrible memento of me staggering on behind you, while you lived your life and led the troupe on, and forgot about me?”
“Never,” said Silenus. “I never forgot about you.”
“Then explain them!” said Anne, and she pointed at George and Colette. “One you fathered upon some poor farm girl, and the other, hardly more than a child, you’ve enjoyed as you once did me!”
Colette’s hands flew to her face in shock, and she hid her eyes. Stanley shook his head and his grip grew tighter on George’s shoulder.
“It isn’t true,” said Silenus.
“Have you become a liar now?” shouted Anne. “I’ve seen the way you talk to her, the way you touch one another. You did it right in front of me, Bill! As if I weren’t even there!”
“But to me, you weren’t …” said Silenus. “It was like you were a stranger. As the years went by, you became someone else.”
“So you admit it. You did move on to other loves, and forgot me, left me watching. It is true?”
Silenus looked back at the three of them. His glance moved from face to face, and he seemed to come to a decision about something. He lowered his head and nodded. “It is.”
“Yes,” she hissed. “You left me to rot in the prison of my own body.”
“No!” he said. “That wasn’t it! You don’t know what I’ve done for you, Annie! When you died, I changed the very nature of the troupe! I started to put all of our efforts into finding the remains of the song! I thought if I did that, I could … I could figure out why such a thing could be allowed to happen, or even call the Creator back. Don’t you understand what an enormous victory that would be? That was why I kept you on. It could fix you, fix me, fix everything! And I still can, Annie!” he said. “I can make it come back, and ask it to fix all of this!”
The Troupe Page 37
