Suddenly, in the midst of the green, something small and black caught her eye. It lay almost directly below the library window and half in the shadow of a thornbush, down among the ground vines and weeds. She leaned forward to peer more closely, pressing her forehead against the glass, but from this distance it was impossible to say just what it was, only what it appeared to be: an arrangement of small black sticks protruding from a shallow hole in the earth, forming a vague pattern, a circle bisected by a line extending slightly on both sides.
Carol sighed. So someone had been back there after all. Whether the objects had been dropped or buried, they were certainly a sign of human intrusion. Whatever their origin – some broken fragments of a plant, perhaps, a bit of machinery, or merely Utter-it came to only one thing: her garden had been violated.
She was still bent dejectedly over the window, a little surprised at the strength of her reaction, when, from the hallway behind her, she heard the measured tread of footsteps coming up the stairs.
'I'm not a young man anymore,' he was saying. 'The doctors tell me not to make any long-range plans.' He smiled wistfully and blinked his mild eyes. 'But before I die I'd like to finish a little book I've been working on. A book about children.'
They stood talking softly by the window, barely disturbing the stillness of the room. The little man's words didn't carry far, and they had a gentle, lisping quality which she found strangely soothing. His voice was high and quavery as a flute.
Though at first she'd half resented him for interrupting her reverie – why didn't he bother Mrs Schumann if he had a problem, why had he come straight to her? – Carol had to admit that there was something rather touching about the man. For all his paunch and double chin he looked surprisingly frail up close, and a good deal older than she'd at first supposed, perhaps well along in his seventies. He was no taller than she was, with plump little hands, plump little lips, and soft pink skin with little trace of hair. He reminded her of a freshly powdered baby.
'This will be a book about your own children?' she asked, preparing herself for an onslaught of reminiscence.
He shook his head. 'No, nothing like that. I've never been blessed with children.' Again the wistful smile, all the more affecting in so droll a figure. 'I do enjoy watching them, though. Like those two over there.' He gestured toward the bookshelves in the rear. 'Can you see what they're doing? My eyes aren't what they used to be.'
Carol glanced over her shoulder. Behind the central desk, two small girls darted silently through the aisles of books. 'Oh, them!' she said. She wondered if she should tell Mrs Schumann, but the librarian was leafing through a pile of catalogues. 'I'm afraid they're being rather naughty. They seem to be playing tag.'
The little man nodded. 'A game that predates history. Once upon a time the loser would have paid with her life.'
From behind the shelves came a screech of laughter.
'That's the subject of my book,' he went on. 'The origin of games. And nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and the like. Some of them go back – oh, even farther than I do!' He cocked his head and smiled. 'What I mean is, there's a bit of the savage behind even the most innocent-looking creations. Do you follow me?'
'I'm not sure I do.' She felt a flicker of impatience; he still hadn't said exactly what he wanted.
He pursed his lips. 'Well, take today, for instance, the twenty-fourth of June – traditionally a very special day. Magic spells are twice as strong right now. People fall in love. Dreams come true. Did you have any dreams last night?'
'I can't remember.'
'Most likely you did. Young girls always dream on Midsummer Eve. The night just seems to call for it.'
'But surely we're a long way from midsummer,' said Carol. 'The season's just begun.'
He shook his head. 'The ancients saw things a bit differently. To them the year was like a turning wheel, one half winter, one half summer, each with a festival in the middle. Winter had the Yule feast, summer what we're celebrating now – Midsummer Day. For us, of course, the year's been flattened to death on a calendar, and Yule is just another word for Christmas, but originally it had nothing to do with Christ. The only birth it marked was the birth of the sun.'
'Wait, you mean… another Son?'
He laughed, a little louder than necessary. 'No, no. Oh, my, no! I was referring to that big fellow out there.' He nodded toward the window. 'You see, Yuletide celebrates the winter solstice. Afterward, the days start getting longer. As of last night, though, we've come to the other end of the wheel. The days are growing shorter now. The sun's begun to die.'
Carol found herself watching the sunlight as it streamed obliviously through the window, its radiance undiminished. How odd, with all the hot days still ahead – how odd to think of it cooling, dying, growing dark…
'Long ago,' he was saying, 'Midsummer was a time of portents. Rivers overflowed their banks or suddenly dried up. Certain plants were said to turn to poison. Madmen had to be confined, witches held their sabbats. In China dragons left their caves and flew about the sky like flaming meteors. In Britain they were known as drakes, serpents, "worms," and Midsummer was the time for them to breed. They say the whole countryside shook with the sound, and that farmers lit bonfires – in those days that meant fires of bones – in an effort to drive them away. There were other fires, too: fires, dancing, midnight chants to commemorate the passing of the sun. Even today there are places in Europe where children celebrate Midsummer Eve by dancing round a bonfire. At the end of the dance,' one by one, they leap across the flames. It seems harmless enough, of course – at worst a burnt bottom or two! – but trace it back to the beginning and… well, I think you can guess what you'll find.'
'More than just a burnt bottom, I suppose.'
He laughed. 'A lot more! A ritual sacrifice! Or take a more familiar example: an innocent little counting rhyme like "Eeny meeny miny mo.
'Catch a beggar by the toe?'
'That's it. Except that twenty years ago, before they cleaned up the language, you would have said "Catch a nigger by the toe." And two centuries ago you'd have repeated a string of nonsense words: "Bascalora hora do," something like that. There are hundreds of variations. The one you grew up with, incidentally, puts you – hmm, let me see… ' He scratched his head. 'Oh, I'd say somewhere around Ohio. Am I right?'
'Hey, that's really incredible! I'm from Pennsylvania, right across the border.'
He nodded, not at all surprised. 'A very pretty area. I know it well.' Turning, he gazed dreamily out the window, sunshine playing on the little pink baby skull, the wisps of hair that glowed white with a touch of yellow.
Carol watched him in silence as he stood before her, blinking in the light. There'd been something in his tremulous old-man's voice which hinted at considerable experience, but till now she hadn't been inclined to take him seriously. Maybe it was his size, or his funny little lisp; he was far too small to be threatening. No doubt his reference to Ohio had been a lucky guess; still, she found herself oddly impressed.
Presently he turned. 'I'll tell you what's even more remarkable,' he said. 'You can trace that little rhyme of yours all the way back to the Druids.' He smiled at her look of disbelief. 'Oh, I assure you, it's quite true. Once upon a time, when Britain was occupied by the Romans, it was a sacrificial chant. The Druids had a rather nasty habit, you know – they liked to burn people in wicker cages! – and they used the "Bascalora" method to choose a victim. "Basca" means basket, and "lora"-'