The Lord Came at Twilight

by Daniel Mills

  The blade bit through the bedclothes and into the mattress itself, loosing a cloud of dust that shimmered in the gloom. Mary shouted in surprise and attempted to pry the blade from the bed. I crawled on hands and knees toward the doorway, only to meet Obadiah, who lifted his cane and dashed into the room at the sound of her cry. I leapt to my feet, wearing only my nightshirt, and threw myself hard to the right in order to escape the old man, who dropped his cane to lunge for me with both hands. From the hall I heard other voices, belonging to men and women alike, perhaps half-a-dozen in all.

  Behind me, Mary freed the blade and came at me from behind.

  “Hold him, Obadiah!” she shouted. “Hold him fast!”

  “I got ye,” the old man snarled and nearly succeeded in trapping me against the bureau. Somehow I managed to squirm free and fumbled on the floor for the nearest object. My fingers closed on the long shaft of Obadiah’s cane and I brought it up hard, knocking the old man’s knees out from under him. He crashed heavily to the floor, and I hurtled out into the hall, where I was confronted by a handful of men and women young and old, all of whom bore the marks of blindness: the dull and staring face, the black and burned-out eyes.

  Terrified, I lifted the cane once more and swung it like a sword before me, striking indiscriminately at man and woman. They shouted, panicked, and parted before me, for I believe it was the very last thing they had expected. They had taken me to be an easy target, which in fact I was—being too weary and lonely to realize my danger, I had even dared to gaze upon the naked goddess, an offense for which Tiresias lost his sight.

  I was not brave—you must think no such thing—as it was only desperation that gave me what some might call courage. I pushed through the assembled villagers and made in the direction of the backdoor whose location I had deduced before supper. My nightshirt tore as they grabbed at me, but I flailed wildly with fist and cane and soon broke from the crowd and sprinted toward the backdoor.

  Wheezing, breathing hard, I fled outside into the light of the moon, which shone brightly amid the riotous stars. My heart raced, and I thought only of escape. I intended to find my horse and ride hard for Rutland. With a little luck, I could make it by daybreak.

  I cast my eyes about me, hoping to discern the outline of the shed where my pony should have been stabled. There was no such structure, of course, and I was less than ten yards from the house when I tripped over what appeared to be a miniature hillock and went careening into the muck. Obadiah’s cane broke my fall, snapping in two beneath my weight.

  I stumbled to my feet. The villagers were not far away. When I looked back to the house, I saw them coming for me, naked Mary leading the others through the back door, each man or woman running despite their blindness, hunting me by sound or scent.

  I glanced down at my feet. The moonlight clearly illumined the object over which I had tripped. It was the corpse of my poor horse. His throat had been slashed with a jagged blade. His eyes were open and very round.

  Sick with horror, I forced myself to keep running, turning right to cross over weedy lawns and ruined gardens, tracing a course roughly parallel to the road that led me, in time, to the ruined church. I pushed at the side door that opened onto the sanctuary and prayed it would give way. It did—for all of my sins that night, I was not yet abandoned—and I entered the moonlit building some fifty paces ahead of my pursuers.

  Immediately I set about securing the door. I found some broken timbers lying nearby and wedged them into place beneath the knob. Knowing these would not hold the villagers for long, I ran to the back of the church in search of rubble and loose materials.

  There I found that the stone pulpit had been pried from its place and laid horizontally across the floor to form a kind of altar. In the faint light, I noted that the stones were pitted and stained, charred by fire. I ran my fingertips along the rough surface only to have them come away black and sticky. With a chill I remembered the pile of bones that abutted the church building—all sacrificed on this altar—and recalled Mary’s cryptic remarks concerning Paul and Damascus, the books she saved for the day her sight was restored.

  I understood everything: the mysterious “path to sanctity” into which I too had been initiated as well as the shocking duplicity of the German, who had manipulated the town for no better reason than that he could: because they were weak and he was strong. I had fallen victim to Mary, it was true, but she was herself a victim, as were they all. Had the German caused their blindness as well? I thought of his blackened spectacles—his books on optics—and shivered.

  The villagers were at the door. They threw themselves against it, causing the timbers to shudder. In a matter of seconds, they would break through and fall upon me. Desperately, my gaze veered from the door to the rafters and then to the broken windows.

  The base of the nearest window was situated five feet above the floor. The empty frame was just wide enough for me to slip through. I could make it, I realized, but I needed more time. I recalled the nightshirt I was wearing, the way Obadiah’s nostrils had flared upon seeing me that afternoon. It was my only chance. Stripping off the muddied garment, I left it bunched up on the altar and sprinted in the direction of the broken window. I vaulted myself up and wriggled through the frame just as the door gave way and the villagers poured into the church.

  “The altar!” Mary shouted. “Quick!”

  Summoning what remained of my strength, I began to run. Naked and muddy, I dashed past Obadiah’s house and from there down the mountain, the soggy earth pounding beneath my bare feet: running, running, never once looking back. My terror gave me strength, and I did not stop sprinting until well after daybreak when I collapsed in a heap on the Rutland road and a kindly farmer found me, clothed me, and brought me back to town.

  *

  For some days afterward I existed in a state of profound mental confusion. I lived solely on charity, and my nerves were such that I could not even speak to tell my story.

  Eventually the stationmaster took pity on me and made arrangements with the railroad for me to travel back to Boston. And so it was that I arrived at Mr. Whistler’s office without money or suit or the precious deed of sale with which I had been entrusted. All had been left behind in that desolate mountain village.

  A lesser man would have been furious with me—and justifiably so—but my employer was a better man than any I have known. He did not ask me what had transpired, nor did I feel that I could tell him. He even allowed me a period of convalescence with my sisters before I returned to work. When I did so, many months later, I was a changed man: my hair was gray and thinning, and I no longer yearned for the sunlit acropolis or the mountain of the muses.

  The poet Callimachus writes that the great sage Tiresias went up onto Helicon and there saw Athena at her bath. He was struck blind by the sight, but gained in exchange the art of prophecy. When I descended from my own Helicon, I did so with my vision intact, but my loneliness redoubled and my hopes in ruin. And though I did not recognize it at the time, that night in the mountains signified the true end of my youth, for it marked the final consummation of my soul’s longing: afterward, only dreams were left to me.

  In time I came to replace Mr. Whistler as chief of the department. I invested my salary in the railroad and grew to be wealthy. I left Boston and retired to the country as had my father before me. However, I never replaced the books I sold at auction, nor have I returned to Vermont.

  Five years ago, a friend of mine traveled there on business. He mentioned that he would be passing through Rutland and I asked him to make inquiries after the village in which I had spent that strange and terrible night in the summer of my twenty-fourth year.

  I did not explain the reason for my interest. I did not confess to him, as I will to you now, that she has haunted my dreams throughout these many decades, and that these dreams were not all nightmares. I merely said that I had spent a night there long ago and wished to ascertain the fate of its inhabitants. I described the location to him as
best I could and sent him on his way.

  He had been gone but a single week when a package arrived from the Rutland post office. The package included a crudely printed pamphlet in addition to a letter detailing my friend’s attempts to locate the village. Upon his arrival in Rutland, he had sought out the library and paid a visit to the map room, where he discovered that a newly created reservoir to the north of the city covered many of the old townships. If the village were located where I remembered, then it was surely now underwater and all of its horrors buried with it.

  At the end of his letter, my friend directed my attention to the enclosed pamphlet, which was produced locally and included many local folktales and legends. “All hogwash, of course,” he commented in his letter. “But knowing your fascination with the strange and ghoulish, I think you may find it of interest.” I have the pamphlet with me now and would like to read to you from one passage in particular.

  On the seventh of August in the year 18__ our region experienced a rare eclipse of the sun that saw the state plunged into total darkness. This fantastical event was preceded by signs and rumors of the direst portent. In Hartford, a pack of wolves descended on the town in broad daylight and killed a dozen ewes before being driven away. Outside Montpelier, cattle collapsed and could not stand. The Winooski ran dry and the riverbed was found to be black and slick with oily corruption. Fear and trembling were general: never before had the Kingdom felt so near at hand. From every pulpit, holy men preached repentance. In one remote hamlet, men and women donned white robes and scaled a mountain to hear the trumpets sound. It is said they went gaily, barefoot and singing, pilgrims to the blackened star. No account survives of what transpired there. To this day, the location of the village remains unknown.

  That is all, gentlemen. There is nothing more to tell.

  THE LORD CAME AT TWILIGHT

  After Thomas Ligotti

  From the Chronicle of Brother Johannes Kohl, O.S.B.

  And so it was that the Appointed Day came to Muelenberg, arriving in our city like a thief in the night—and then, having robbed us of all hope and contentment, did not linger, and in departing left no sign of itself, so that I cannot now recall when it began.

  I remember only a shout from the garden and the sensation of sudden wakefulness. Through the window of my cell, I glimpsed first the stars, glimmering in the east, and then the Cathedral spire like God’s shadow on the sky. A light snow had fallen, and the cold wind howled through my room, slashing through the fabric of my robes.

  The cry came again from the garden below. I recognized the voice of Brother Friedrich, our cantor, with whom I had been a novice and whom I counted as my dearest friend. He knelt weeping before Saint Martin’s Oak with his face in his hands. The source of his distress was obvious. For that venerable tree—planted long before by the departed Abbott Martin, first of our Order to settle in Muelenberg—had been burned to a standing cinder. The stench of char was layered thickly on the air, and smoke stood in plumes at the end of each branch.

  I donned my heavy cloak and dashed to the stair, passing cells from which the occasional head protruded—brothers roused, like myself, by Friedrich’s cry. Downstairs, I emerged into the courtyard, where the oak swayed and crumbled, shedding ash in clouds. I dropped to the ground beside Friedrich and gathered him into my arms. The bell sounded from the Cathedral, tolling the hour, and I was surprised to learn that it was not yet Vespers.

  Afterward, when he had recovered his faculties, Friedrich could say nothing of what had transpired. He thought that he had fallen asleep in his cell and that perhaps he had sleep-walked to the garden. The first thing he remembered of that evening was the rush of wind over his ears and the feeling of stiffness in his joints, as though he had knelt for hours with the smoking shell of the tree before him.

  But Friedrich was not the only brother among us to have experienced this queer somnambulance. The Abbot himself was helpless to explain how he had come to be in the Scriptorium with a lit candle suspended mere inches above a pile of our oldest manuscripts.

  Likewise the earth beneath the oak was found to be soaked in pitch and tar, even as the Prior discovered the complete absence of such flammables from the Abbey stores—a fact for which no one could account.

  Confusion fell, mingled with suspicion. When word of his discovery reached the refectory, where the brothers had gathered, Friedrich loosed a strangled cry, so hoarse and ragged I feared he would never sing again. The Almoner bowed his head and prayed, feverishly, for understanding. The Abbott, upon whose strength and wisdom we relied, offered us no reassurance, but merely gazed down at his hands on the table.

  Beyond the Abbey walls, Muelenberg had become a dream city. Townsfolk wandered the streets by day and night, proceeding slowly, cautiously—uncertain of the stones beneath their feet and yet unwilling to admit, even to each other, the terror they shared. Rumors spread of Saint Martin’s Oak, causing no small wail to go up from the faithful, who saw in its destruction a sign of God’s displeasure.

  The city is cursed, said many. Their faith deserted them, and they sought instead distractions of the basest sort: drunkenness, avarice, and sins of the flesh. Even the Count, long reclusive in his leprous affliction, withdrew his patronage from the Church, so that the Cathedral was nearly empty on the Sabbath, excepting the Bishop and his priests.

  With this gloom upon us, and winter drawing in, the Abbott fell into an impenetrable melancholy. Things appeared less real to him, he admitted, and he felt keenly the absence of the Paraclete. All was flesh, he said. He could give no reason for these doubts but believed they had their origin in that autumn evening when the oak had burned.

  Soon discontent spread throughout the Abbey, manifesting itself in lazy illumination work and gossip at the refectory table. The Prior took to carrying a rusty ladle at mealtimes with which he might strike any offending rumormongers. Matins was sparsely attended of a morning, as many slept through the tolling bell, dreaming so deeply that even the threat of the Prior’s wrath could not rouse them from slumber.

  But most terrible of all was the change that came over Brother Friedrich. In the days after the fire, my friend retreated into silence and would not raise his voice to pray or sing. Removed from his position as cantor, he demonstrated little enthusiasm for his other duties, shirking them to wander the garden by twilight, returning to the oak tree again and again.

  His discontent was plain to me, but he would not confide his troubles, save to admit that the tree often appeared to him at night in the moment before sleep. Indeed, he said, it seemed to him the embodiment of all that we could never know.

  At the time, I pretended to confusion, but in hindsight, I believe I understood his meaning, though I lacked the courage to utter such thoughts aloud. But Friedrich was always braver than I: the first to swear the Vows and the first of our Order to renounce them. He did so in silence, slipping from the cloister through the east gate, never to return to those hallowed corridors.

  His departure wore hard upon me and was followed by the loss of many others. By November of that year, we were reduced to half our original number. My own life in Christ seemed more hesitant than before, less certain. Prayer times came to resemble a duty, a mere chore, bereft as they were of Friedrich’s voice. My faith had been emptied of all beauty, all substance, like a wine-jug that has been overturned but from which one longs to drink.

  And yet, for a time, this thirst was enough. Though empty, it sustained me through the chill of the subsequent winter, giving warmth by the desire it enkindled, the aching to be filled with something more: the substance of things half-glimpsed, or dreamt of.

  In the spring, the Count initiated the construction of a wooden amphitheater outside the city walls. The builder, a Florentine of some renown, modeled its architecture on that of the Roman Colosseum, albeit wrought in timbers rather than in stone, so that we feared the Count intended a return to the barbarisms of the past.

  The Bishop, too, was dearly aggrieved by the lavis
hness of the planned structure, as the Cathedral was in need of repairs and the church coffers nearly empty; but the Count would not hear his petition. Since autumn, the Count had abandoned all public appearances, to which he had once worn a silver mask, and it was rumored that his disfigurements had worsened in recent months, though these tales remained unconfirmed.

  Work on the amphitheater continued without abatement through Lent and the Easter season. During that time, the townsfolk spoke of little else. It was said that the city’s populace would fit within its walls, though to what purpose we knew not. The builders were from the south, and spoke a foreign tongue, while the two young boys who stole inside were returned in chains to the castle and never heard from again.

  In April, the amphitheater was finished, and on the first of May, the doors were opened. Criers throughout the city announced the performance of a morality play to be held that very evening. The Prior forbade us from going—the Abbot being indisposed, and the Order dependent on the good will of the Bishop—but we later learned from the madwoman Anna, an almswoman who lived off the fruit of our gardens, of that first night’s performance.

  The amphitheater, she said, was a thing of rare and marvelous beauty, with a flagstone stage ringed by half-a-dozen terraces supported by wooden joints and tresses. On that evening, the whole of the city crammed inside eagerly, laughing and whispering to each other in the hush of that new season.

  The best view was reserved, naturally, for the Count, who possessed a box overlooking the stage, with a heavy curtain drawn round it on three sides. A tunnel was said to lead directly to the box from the building’s exterior so that none might see him as he arrived.

  Much time passed. The Cathedral bell tolled not once but twice before the actors emerged onto the stage from the undercroft below. At first, Anna assumed the subject of the play was to be the torments of hell, for it dwelt heavily on the sins of its three principal characters, depicting their transgressions in vivid, near-loving detail.