Chapter 31
They fell down, and there was none to help (Psalm 107)
The sorrows of death compassed me (Psalm 18)
Pert stood still on the little beach, looking up. As he watched, two figures appeared in the void above. One was small and pale. It plummeted down, seemed to brush the rock face once and then tumble over and over as it fell, and vanished.
The other was black and square, and he knew without thinking that it was Urethra Grubb. She fell, and then the wind in her voluminous clothing appeared to buoy her up, and she stretched out her arms, and tilted and poised. She seemed to glide out from the cliff, flying in a great circle, scarcely losing height. She raised her head and he could hear, floating down from the air, a harsh croak of triumph. She flashed past the cliff face and out again, soaring on the gale, arms and legs outstretched, clothes billowing, and began another great circle.
Then some wayward gust of wind caught her, or she miscalculated her control or a piece of clothing gave way, because she wobbled, and flapped for a moment, dashed straight into the cliff face, then began to fall. Headfirst she came, growing larger and larger, her clothes roaring and flapping as she fell, and hit on a flat rock nearer the mouth of the Stonefield with a popping sound like an egg breaking. She stood there on her head, wider than she was tall, silhouetted against the foaming waves with her great boots in the air, and then a wave broke over the rock, there was a flash of pink foam and she was gone.
The Black Joke Page 32