Why was he trembling so again? The poem, at least, was perfectly confident: Christ had banished the dragon, the ancient evil kingdom had been overthrown… But still, something told him, still it waits – waits, like that other poet had said, for the cycle to come round again; waits for another Christmas, maybe thousands of years hence, when it will find release once more.
He closed the book and sat there bolt upright, the planks creaking beneath him as he rocked back and forth. But as fast as he rocked and as hard as he tried, he couldn't shake off the feeling, the terrible conviction that had suddenly seized him. God's Lord now, he said to himself, but the Other waits below. And sooner or later, his turn will come.
She came to him that night, long after the moon had gone down and the fireflies had vanished from the fields. He awoke to find her crouching over him like a succubus, gazing urgently into his face.
Blinking up at her groggily, trying to understand, he began to form a question, but she pressed a hand over his mouth and shook her head. Her eyes burned into his as she sat herself beside him on the bed. She was in her nightgown, her nipples prominent beneath the cloth. Instinctively he embraced her; he was naked and already aroused, the aftermath of a dream now forgotten, as he pushed the sheets away with his foot and drew her down beside him. She wriggled like a cat as he ran his hand down her body, slipping the nightgown up over her hips. He felt her own hands on his penis, guiding him into her as she lay beside him. She was bone-dry; he could not go in. He slipped his hand down to touch the thick patch of hair that, yesterday, had been dripping from the bath, and found it dry as brambles.
'Wait,' she hissed, pushing his hand away, 'let me.' She brought her fingers to her mouth. 'Damn it to hell, I haven't any spit!'
'No need for hurry-'
She hushed him by cupping her hand over his mouth, but kept it there.
'Wet me with your tongue.'
Obediently he licked her hand, then felt it withdrawn, leaving a smear of saliva on his chin. She stared into her hand with what seemed, at first, a grimace of distaste, but then he saw her mouth working fiercely, cheeks sucking inward, and with a harsh little sound she spat into her palm. Once more he felt her hands on his penis, moistening it. He raised himself on one elbow, preparing to mount her from above, but she shook her head and pushed his shoulder flat against the bed. Straddling him, she slipped him inside her. She was dry inside as well, he could feel it, but she spread herself wider and settled farther down, her nightgown slipping back below her waist, concealing the place where the two of them were joined. Tensing her leg muscles, she slowly moved herself up and down. He felt himself gripped as by a fist; there was a roughness in her, something that abraded. God, he thought, she's so dry.
'Don't rush it,' he whispered, drawing her mouth down to his and covering it with his lips. Her own lips remained clamped shut, and moments later he felt her resist. He held her tightly. Without warning her mouth opened under his, but barely, and she got out the name 'Sarr' before his tongue had found its way between her lips.
The name jolted him back to his senses. He felt a twinge of guilt, felt himself shrink and withdraw from her; but it hadn't just been the name, he'd felt something, too, with the tip of his tongue: a roughness at the back of her mouth, a lump of flesh he'd never felt before.
He was out of her now; she had swung herself off him and was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothing down her nightgown.
'I've got to leave,' she whispered, getting to her feet.
'Couldn't you just-'
She shook her head. 'There isn't time. Not now. I'll come back to you tomorrow night.'
Tomorrow, he wanted to say, Carol will be here, she may be in this bed with me…
But with a final fierce look she had slipped out the door and was hurrying ghostlike across the moonless lawn.
And in the city, silent in the darkness of his apartment, staring straight ahead at nothing, the Old One contemplates tomorrow's trip – and the past he'll be returning to.
He will be coming home at last, for the first time in over a century. He has been near the place more recently – as recently as 1939 – but he hasn't seen the farm itself since when he was a boy. It will probably not be much different now, though. Things do not change much in those parts.
He will also be returning to Maquineanok, where the two previous women met their peculiar deaths. Now the moon has called for the third and final woman, the third and final death…
Of course, the place will be transformed. The tree will be gone now, swallowed up in the earth: the tree that had seen so much blood and sacrifice will not be there, replaced, though, by something far more wonderful and terrible, the great mound, before which he will stand and perform the final Ceremony.
He laughs his old man's high-pitched cackle. The poor little fools!
July Thirtieth
The woman on the bed groaned. Joram stroked his beard and stared worriedly at her swollen belly. None of her previous children, not even her first, had given her as much pain as this. He bit his lip, wishing that labor would start so that he could in good conscience summon Sister Nettie Stoudemire, the midwife.
Lotte's belly seemed so large. He'd been told that there were signs for twins or triplets, omens he could watch for, but he'd watched and prayed and called on God for advice, and nothing had suggested that his wife had anything more than a single child in her belly. He was frankly scared, and he craved an explanation. He could find only one: the fat, interfering stranger at the Poroths' who'd had the temerity to place his hand on his wife's belly during last Sunday's worship at their farm. If he was really a cursed being, as some of his neighbors were hinting, then couldn't his touch be in itself a curse, to blight the child within?
Joram stood awkwardly by the bedside, brooding about what he should do. He would simply have to wait – and pray, of course -pray that nothing went wrong when the birth came. He hoped it would not come tomorrow, on the Lammas Eve; he hoped, for Freirs' sake, that the birth proved a successful one.
At the farmhouse farther up the road, Adam Verdock gazed mournfully down at his wife on the bed. She had never regained consciousness; she was losing strength fast. Their daughter, Minna, had been wonderful, she'd been there to tend Lise day and night, but the woman had shown no signs of recovery, and this morning he'd been forced to tell old Brother Flinders the carpenter to set aside the pine boards for a coffin. Their prayers, all of them, had been in vain.
Poroth, too, was praying, kneeling as he faced the corner of his room, eyes tightly shut. He had been there all afternoon, unmindful of the heat, the Bible beside him turned to Judges 6 ('And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us?'). But nothing brought him peace today. The Lord was unforgiving. How empty the phrases of the Scriptures seemed, how barren the rituals of his religion. Whom was he calling upon, anyway? He felt as if he were kneeling here speaking only to himself. Was anyone listening?
'O Lord,' he prayed, 'let me know that we, thy children, still merit thy love. Vouchsafe me a sign of thy presence… '
He was chilled to hear, as if in answer, a low, malicious laugh. Opening his eyes, he gazed around the room in horror; the sound had seemed to come from just beside his ear. But now he heard voices and more laughter – a man's, a woman's – and realized they were coming from outside. He went to the window and looked out. Down in the yard a dusty white Chevrolet was parked near the house, and beside it stood Freirs, alternately embracing a red-haired young woman, whom Poroth recognized as Carol, and pumping the hand of a short white-haired old man who looked damnably familiar and who, as Poroth watched, threw back his head and laughed.
So they had arrived. He would slip away with Carol tonight, as promised, and report back to his mother.