She swept the room and tidied the table, rolled the rushmats and dusted the rocking-chair, stoked the embers and filled the pot with water and roots, and began to prepare food for two. There were only the two of them, solid as a rock, immutable as the room, Dolores O’Toole and Virgil Jones, Virgil O’Toole and Dolores Jones, Virgil Dolores and Jones O’Toole, Virgil O’Dolores and Dolores O’Virgil. Like the two queers: William Fitzhenry and Henry Fitzwilliam. She cackled as she worked.
She did not see the ghost at first. It stood, tallish and fairish in the doorway looking worried, trying to decide how to express its problems to her. Eventually, since she continued to ignore it, it coughed.
She turned to the doorway, the word Virgil! forming on her lips, and froze. Her mouth opened and worked noiselessly, a scream without a sound. She backed slowly away from it until she stumbled against the trunk.
– Mrs O’Toole, it said. Are you ill? You look like death.
Terror entered her. She hauled open the lid of the trunk and jumped in. Rummaging feverishly, she found what she was looking for. She held it up: a small crucifix, carved in wood, crumbling with the work of maggots.
She said: -Apage me, Satanas.
– Dolores, said the ghost. It’s all right. Dolores.
– Go away, said Dolores O’Toole. You aren’t there. We live alone. Virgil Jones and Dolores O’Toole. There is no-one else. Look: there are only two mats. I am cooking for two. There are only two of us. That doesn’t change.
– Do you recognize me? said the ghost, slowly. Do you know who I am?
– Go away, said Mrs O’Toole, cowering behind the edge of the trunk. Don’t come closer. Go back where you came from. Go back where you belong. Go back to Grimus. Spectre of the Stone Rose, begone! I don’t believe in you.
– The Stone Rose, repeated the ghost. Grimus. What…
– Apage me! shrieked Dolores O’Toole and pulled the lid of the trunk shut over her head.
The ghost stood in the centre of the room, wondering what to do. Finally, since he wished to speak to Dolores in private, he decided against summoning Virgil Jones just yet. He approached the trunk.
– God protect me, came from within as he lifted the lid.
– Mrs O’Toole… Dolores… said the ghost, I’ve a proposition for you.
– No, no, said Dolores. You’re not here.
– I know you’d rather I left, said the ghost; I know you’re worried I’ll try and persuade Virgil to come with me. But what I’m suggesting is this: would you come, too? Would you?
– You cannot tempt me up the mountain, said Dolores, her eyes gleaming. Up there is the past. We left it behind. The past cannot be re-entered. Nothing changes. The past is fixed. Go away.
The ghost sighed.
– Then I must be your enemy, it said. Dear Mrs O’Toole, I am sorry, believe me; especially since I see you are ill. I’ll go and get Virgil… Mr Jones.
– Leave him alone! cried Dolores. Go away and leave him alone!
The ghost left her.
Flapping Eagle, running to find Virgil Jones, remembered overhearing, when he was still young, two women of the Axona talking.
One of them had said: -We must be careful with Born-From-Dead.
And the second woman, the older of the two, had replied, -Yes. To be born thus is to have death sitting always behind the eyes.
And Livia Cramm had said the same.
And Virgil Jones had named him Destroyer.
And yet he had wanted none of it.
So who did?
And who or what was Grimus?
And the Stone Rose?
And would Virgil Jones agree to accompany him? Or would Mrs O’Toole’s illness be the deciding factor?
He ran, panting, to the hollow by the well.
XVI Snap
IT WAS THE well that finally helped Virgil Jones to decide; but before he reached that point, he had snapped almost every twig he could find. When he broke them, he threw the pieces into the well.
This is how he persuaded himself:
Nicholas Deggle could not have known that Flapping Eagle would meet old Virgil.
Snap.
Ergo, he could have sent the Axona to Calf Mountain purely as an experiment, to see if the Gate he had built would hold.
Snap.
Which meant he intended to follow.
Snap.
If Nicholas Deggle returned, life would be insupportable anyway. After Grimus, Virgil Jones must rank as his main enemy. Ever since he was expelled from the island.
Snap.
If he did not return, life would scarcely be better. The effect was spreading. Dolores had made experimental forays a little way up the slopes and she had felt it. Once it reached their little hovel, it would be no better than K. For Dolores, at any rate.
Snap.
But Nicholas Deggle must have known (Flapping Eagle must not know, not yet) what Flapping Eagle, wanting what he wanted, being what he was, would do to the island. What he would in all probability do.
Snap.
Still, there was little merit left in staying put.
Snap.
Except for Dolores, of course: she would never climb the mountain again. But then, it was possible to argue that should he agree to guide Flapping Eagle-the irrevocable choice-he would be doing so for Dolores’ sake.
Snap.
Then again, what if Deggle arrived once he had left? Could Dolores cope? He thought about that for a moment; then he concluded that, if he did go, he would have to assume that she could.
Snap.
A crucial question: would he be any use as a guide, damaged as he was by past experience of the dimensions? Again, a bleak answer: he would have to hope for the best.
Snap.
Another crucial question: Could he influence Flapping Eagle sufficiently to make the whole plan work? Yet again, uncertainty: it all depended on how Flapping Eagle reacted to what he encountered on the mountain.
Snap.
And yet, was there an alternative? What with the growth of the effect, and the increased frequency of the admittedly minor earth-tremors, the island was deteriorating, and not at all slowly.
Snap.
It was at this point that the well helped. He threw the broken twig into it and reflected upon the similarity between the well and the island. An idea that didn’t work. Did one abandon it, set oneself apart from it as he had done from the life of the island? Did one attempt to save it? Or did one agree to destroy it, in the same way as one would fill up a dry well…?