[Today I had one of those odd coincidences that sometimes crop up to delight the reader. I am currently reading (3rd attempt) T.E.D. Klein's 1984 novel The Ceremonies. It takes place in the wilds of Hunterdon County, NJ. When I came into the living room this morning, MSNBC had a Covid-19 report from Flemington, a town in Hunterdon County mentioned in the novel.]
I am now nearing the end of Book Three: The Call. Carol has arrived for an overnight visit at Poroth Farm, but circumstances thwart the intimacy she and Jeremy anticipated. Over dinner, Sarr recounts his hair-raising visit to New York at age seventeen.
After dinner, Sarr and Deborah pray, then retire to bed. Carol repairs to their spare room, intended someday as a nursery.
And Jeremy retires to his outbuilding with a Machen volume forwarded to him via Carol by Mr. Rosebottom.
....All was silent now, except for the crickets.
Unfortunately, he wasn't very tired. In fact, he was still restless and on edge. The sick feeling left by the wine had finally worn off.
Maybe a dip into someone else's mind would do the trick. He undressed and got into his bathrobe. Glancing around for a book to read, his eye fell on the faded yellow covers of the one Carol had brought him. Seating himself at his desk, he ran through what he knew of its author. Machen had been a Welsh minister's son who went to London and lived alone for many years, nearly starving, haunted by fantasies of weird pagan rites and longing for the green hills he'd left behind. Lovecraft, in a survey of the field, had praised him highly.
Freirs flipped through the yellowed pages, searching for the story the old man had recommended, 'The White People.' It was near the center; the book fell open easily to it. Someone - perhaps old Rosie himself, hadn't he been scribbling something that day? - had written in pencil just above the tide, Only effective if read by moonlight.
Too bad the moon was blocked by clouds tonight; it might almost have been worth a try. Just for fun, of course. By way of experiment he snapped off the desk lamp. Surprisingly, moonlight was now streaming into the room, falling onto the bed and a strip of the floor with a radiance far brighter than he'd imagined, though the table he was using as his desk was still in shadow. Peering out the window, he saw that the clouds had begun to part; the moon was shining down now unimpeded.
Leaving his chair, he seated himself on the edge of the bed and laid the book on the windowsill. He discovered that, by squinting, he could just make out the words. It might be amusing, he decided, to try and absorb the story this way. Maybe it would ease him into a dream.
Holding the book open by the moonlight, he began to read.
His eyes were moving faster. They felt as if they were darting back and forth as rapidly as insects, yet his vision seemed glazed, as if he were no longer reading the words but was instead being read by them, carried along like the beetle he'd seen kicking in the swiftly flowing stream, borne by the current . . . toward what rapids?
The story's prologue, a framing device, had confused him, with all its high-flown talk about the human soul and the Meaning of Sin, and he wasn't even sure exactly where the tale was set - somewhere in the countryside, that's all he could be certain of, with a big house near a forest, and secret places, hills and pools and glades.
But the main portion of the story, the extract from a young girl's notebook, was staggering, overwhelming. It was as if it spoke to him aloud.
'I looked before me into the secret darkness of the valley, and behind me was the great high wall of grass, and all around me were the hanging woods that made the valley such a secret place . . .'
He couldn't read it rapidly enough: the air of pagan ecstasy, the rites one doesn't dare describe, the malevolent little faces peering from the shadows and the leaves. It was, he felt certain, the most persuasive story ever written. He found himself whispering the lines as he read them, the words coming faster and faster -
'I knew there was nobody here at all besides myself, and thai no one could see me . . .Sol said the other words, and made the signs'
- and by the time he'd finished he was half convinced he heard another voice, one softer and more ancient than his own, whispering an even stranger story in his head, a story in a language he seemed dimly to remember.
He had no idea how much time had elapsed. It might have been days. His head was still spinning from the rush of words, or maybe it was only from the effort of reading in so faint a light. A pair of flies, trapped in the darkened room, were crashing into the window screens around him; the crickets droned their song; frogs piped madly by the brook, but he no longer heard them. Still in the story's spell, he felt himself slip off the robe and walk slowly across the room, opening the door to the lawn outside and stepping into the darkness.
But it wasn't dark. It was a different night he stepped into, one almost as bright as a stage. Every rock was visible, every blade of grass; every object cast a shadow. The clouds had rolled back, the sky had opened up, and the full moon now shone forth onto the yard with all its power. Pale light seemed to pour from the sky, revealing things not meant to be seen, the secret night side of the planet. He felt the wet grass beneath his feet, and small wet things that moved, and things both hard and sharp, but he didn't pull away. He felt himself drawn like a dancer across the lawn, past the back of the farmhouse and the line of dark rosebushes standing like sentries along one side, the house itself sleeping in the moonlight, its windows dark. And still he was drawn back, toward where the bubbling stream made sucking noises at him, back toward the massive shape of the barn, the moonlight so strong now he could see his own shadow floating over the grass, floating toward the gnarled old willow that grew against the barn. And his own shadow yearned toward the shadow of the tree, and he watched it and felt himself follow, past the corner of the barn, moving inexorably toward the dark branches. And at last his shadow touched the other, merged with it, was absorbed in it; and still, not knowing what he did, he followed.
Deborah caught her breath in wonder. Beside her, two of the cats looked up and regarded her curiously, then settled back to sleep.
She too had been asleep, but she'd been awakened by the shift in the clouds and the bright moonlight which had suddenly flooded the room. There were no curtains on the windows; their people didn't hold with them, feeling it correct to get up with the sun. Unable to go back to sleep, she had been sitting up in bed and gazing absently out the window, head still spinning from the wine and the pictures of the Dynnod, when suddenly Freirs' door had swung open, down there in the yard, and now Freirs himself emerged into the light, his body pale against the lawn.
Her eyes widened. He was naked.
His expression was strangely preoccupied as he stepped onto the grass. She felt excited, watching him pad farther from the building, like a child watching something she shouldn't. She hadn't seen a naked man, aside from her husband, in - she couldn't remember how long it had been. But here were Jeremy's smooth white buttocks, his thighs, his sex . . . She caught her breath.
Where was he going at this hour? He must be off to have himself a pee, she thought. But why's he heading clear across the lawn?
At no time did he glance up toward her window (not that he could have seen her in the darkness anyway, she told herself, and he without his glasses); and he couldn't have known, as late as this, that anyone was watching. She wasn't sure of the time - the only clock was downstairs, the big grandfather clock Sarr had inherited; she could hear its regular ticking - but she thought it must be close to midnight.
He was walking slowly, like a sleepwalker. Maybe he was sleepwalking, she thought; Jeremy wouldn't walk barefoot like that, he was far too squeamish about bugs! worms! night crawlers! Yet there he was, across the lawn and disappearing in the shadow of the barn.
Perhaps she should stop him. If he was sleepwalking, could there be any danger? She dismissed the thought as soon as it occurred. Why embarrass him? If he wandered off into the long grass or the forest - well, he wouldn't be hurt, the Lord watched over sleepers; and if he found himself on rough ground, why, he'd simply wake up. She thought of calling to him through the open window, but she was already too excited. She could feel herself breathe faster now and was suddenly aware of her hand beneath her unbuttoned nightgown, cradling and squeezing her breast.
With a little sigh she lay back, deliberately jarring the bed, hoping to awaken Sarr, his face pressed to the crumpled pillow. He stirred, clutched the pillow tighter, and slept on.
She shifted closer to him, so close that she could feel the warmth of his body. He, too, wore the traditional nightgown, but as her hand explored beneath the sheet, she could feel that it had worked its way above his waist. Her fingers caressed the familiar contours of his hips and slid into the soft, girlish hair. Gently yet urgently they closed over his penis.
He groaned softly, still asleep, and turned toward her, eyes closed. She tugged more insistently, and in reflex he twisted his hips to be nearer her, snaking his arms along her body, at last finding her breast. Carefully keeping her breath slow and silent, she rolled herself on top of him.
In the smaller room, Carol slept on, outlined in the moonlight, her arm thrown over her eyes. Her regular breathing grew faster; suddenly her hand clutched the edge of the sheet, her other hand formed a fist, and a tremble shook her body like a fever. Her leg straightened, then pulled back; her form seemed to grow heavier, pushing into the mattress, as if she were retreating, in her dream, from some unwanted approach. Soundlessly her mouth formed words. Above her, in the pale light, the cardboard nursery shapes stared indifferently down.
He felt the rough bark against the soles of his bare feet and sensed dimly that he was climbing the gnarled old black willow that grew beside the barn. The branches bent beneath his weight but did not snap. He felt himself climb upward, unerringly as a squirrel, as if he had done it many times before and knew exactly where to place his hands and feet.
Attaining the upper branches, he made his way out onto one of the thicker limbs, let go with both hands, and, precariously balanced, stepped lightly onto the barn roof just before the limb began to give way, the old wooden shingles curling wet beneath his toes. He continued climbing, bathed in moonlight now, the moon's face just above him, whispering him on.
At the apex of the roof he unbent and slowly stood upright, one leg on each sloping side, one foot planted east and one foot west, straddling the center line. The moon, gazing down at him, was close enough to touch. He raised his hands to it.
Deborah eased the sleeping Sarr onto his back, rose on her knees, and straddled him. Reaching down, she grasped him and put him inside her. He slid in easily.
Hands raised as if in supplication, Freirs felt himself make overtures to the moon, gestures and faces that no one could see, no one would ever see, no one had ever seen before. Perhaps some ancient force was in control, but there was no thought of explaining what he did, or why. Past and future did not exist. There was nothing real but his own movements. The shingles, he sensed idly, were rough against his feet. The ground seemed far away, but he had no fear of falling. From this height the land below him, the distant farmhouse with its little black windows like eyes, its outbuildings and its garden, seemed almost luminescent in the moonlight, with the trees a dark ocean around it....
Jay
12 July 2020
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