XXV
In years to come, when Jacob relates his and his companions’ experiences that strange night to Lottie, that detail will remain her favorite part. No wonder at first, I suppose, but even after the romance has dimmed and their union settled into its predictable patterns, the image of Jacob trudging through the forest, those odd trees being joined by and then replaced by evergreens, the others far ahead of him, with only her face bright in his mind’s eye to keep him putting one foot in front of the other, will stir something deep within her.
During his trek to the door, Jacob looks behind him once. By this time, the trees have gathered thick and tall about him — actually, he isn’t that far from exiting this place — obscuring his view almost completely. Despite this, through the tops of the evergreens he can distinguish a vast, rounded edge — the great beast, the Fisherman’s catch, this segment of it risen to a height Jacob does not want to estimate. As he watches, it begins to shift, tipping with the slow gravity of very large things towards the dark ocean. In an instant, it’s gone, and Jacob can picture the enormous length of it smashing into the waves, thrusting a wall of black water up to the sky. He doesn’t wait for the titanic crash; he runs for the spot in front of him where he can see his companions.
They’re waiting for him; or, Rainer is forcing the others to wait for him. Rainer is holding open a heavy wooden door, which appears to be set within an especially dense cluster of trees. It shouldn’t surprise Jacob that the door Rainer is gripping by its thick edge is the same one that was sundered by the force of his earlier attack on it, but it does. Rainer is straining to keep the door from closing. As Jacob hurries near, Rainer nods, and first Italo, then Andrea, steps through the passageway. “Faster!” Rainer shouts at Jacob, who wants to shout back that he’s hurrying as fast as he can, but doesn’t have the breath to do so. Somewhere far behind him, noise is gathering itself, the roar of a mountain toppling into ruin. The weird light on Rainer’s face has dulled enough for Jacob to see the sweat trickling down his forehead. He brushes Rainer as he runs past him and over the threshold.
XXVI
Jacob emerges into night, and cool air. Rainer follows close on his heels, slamming the door shut after him and staggering back against it. The metal ring that serves as its knocker clinks on the wood. For what feels like a long time, Jacob stands where he is, as do Italo and Andrea, the three of them staring at the front door to the Dort house. They’re waiting — for exactly what, they can’t say. A sign, maybe, that their adventure has concluded. All they hear, however, are the songs of the various birds anticipating the dawn; all they see is the sky overhead lightening from black to dark blue. It’s Rainer who, pushing himself off the door, waves to either side of them and says, “Look.”
The men glance around them. Jacob notices immediately: the walls of water that bordered the last leg of their journey to the house are gone; nor does the grass where they stood appear damp with anything other than the dew. As Italo and Andrea understand what no longer encloses them, Italo says, “We have succeeded.” The expression on his face says it’s meant to be a statement, but the tone of his voice makes it more of a question.
“It appears we have,” Rainer says.
“What the hell does that mean?” Italo says.
“That apparently, we have been successful.”
“Why ‘apparently’?” Italo says.
“Because it is too soon to know for sure,” Rainer says.
“How long will that take?” Italo says.
“When each of us dies in his own bed,” Rainer says, “from whatever has been ordained to end his days on this earth, then he may say that his work tonight was a success. If, in however much time has passed, his family has gone unharmed by anything other than the typical calamities, then he may breathe his last breath with ease. Should he never again hear the under-speech — the speech of the Fisherman’s creatures — then he may close his eyes for the last time in peace.”
“And what if it’s our children who must answer for what we’ve done?” Italo says. “Or our grandchildren?”
“We will be dead,” Rainer says, “and beyond caring.” Before Italo can add an objection to the frown this answer provokes, Rainer starts up the front walk, on his way back to the camp. First Andrea, then Jacob, and finally Italo follow him.
XXVII
None of them returns to the Dort house; although Jacob, Rainer, and Italo, the three who remain at the camp, keep their ears open for any mention of it. This will come several more months — almost a year later, when the crews clearing the valley reach the Station. As far as what you might call the general public knows, the Dort house is still the possession of the figure popularly referred to as Cornelius’s Guest, or the Guest. No one can recall the last time the man was seen outside the house, or inside it, for the matter. No light has troubled any of the mansion’s windows for a good while, since about the last time anyone caught a glimpse of the Guest. This has not stopped a steady stream of official-looking men from bustling up to the house’s front door, sounding the knocker, waiting for a response, trying it again, waiting again, and tramping away. Sometimes, they’ve left official-looking envelopes on the doorstep. The more dedicated fellows have persisted in knocking on the door for approaching a half-hour, and one particularly enterprising young man circled the house, fighting his way through the vegetation that overgrew its yard, in search of some sign of life. For his troubles, he received a bad case of poison ivy and a pants leg full of thorns.
Each of these callers has been on a version of the same mission: to inform the Guest that his time in the house is at an end, that he has until this-and-such a date to depart the property and take with him whatever he doesn’t want destroyed. The visitors are empowered to write the Guest a not-inconsiderable check for the value of the land and buildings that are being taken from him. Were he resident at the majority of other dwellings in the valley, the Sheriff would have been called upon to evict him long ago. But something of old Cornelius Dort’s reputation adheres to his former estate, and when at last the Sheriff is summoned to clear the house of its inhabitant, it’s the last of a long line of attempts at removing him. A local boy, the Sheriff has grown up hearing the rumors attached to the Guest, which may explain why he doesn’t put in his appearance at the Dort house until the crews are a good portion of the way through their work on the Station proper. Nonetheless, he stands patiently awaiting an answer to his knock, and when it is clear that none is coming, orders the deputies he brought with him to break it open. This, they do, though not without some effort.
Inside, the house is a wreck. The sight that greets the Sheriff and his men is not the typical disorder of a dwelling-place abandoned, left for the traveler, the animal in search of a more secure dwelling. Every last piece of furniture in this house has been broken, shattered, as if flung against the walls. The Sheriff doesn’t need to walk very far over the threshold to ascertain the extent of the damage, because the interior walls have been knocked down, the ceiling collapsed, leaving the Dort house a great shell. Black mold furs the ruined furnishings, scales the stone walls. What appears to be the largest pile of wreckage is heaped against the wall to the right of the doorway. Protruding from near the bottom of the pile is a limb — the Sheriff registers it as a hand and forearm. He steps towards it before one of the deputies catches him and recommends a second look at what’s hanging in the air, there. Though he shakes off the deputy’s hold, the Sheriff takes the man’s advice. When he focuses on the hand dangling towards the floor, he sees the extra joint in the fingers, the webbing between them, their flattened tips, nails that curve into points.