Lovecraft Country

by Matt Ruff

  “You here to take me upstairs?” Atticus asked him, keeping his voice low.

  “No.” Braithwhite stood just inside the doorway, at ease but seemingly reluctant to intrude. “The ritual won’t be for another few hours yet. My father and the other members are still debating exactly when to hold it.”

  “The timing matters?”

  “My father doesn’t think so, but Pendergast and some of the others have conflicting astronomical theories that they feel very strongly about. So they’re hashing it out over breakfast. Assuming they don’t kill each other, I’d expect them to come for you around noon.”

  “Them?” Atticus said. “You aren’t going to be there?”

  “No. I’ve been ordered off the premises until the ritual is complete.”

  “Is that to preserve the family bloodline, if things go wrong? Or do the grown-ups just not want you underfoot?”

  “A little of both,” Caleb Braithwhite said. “I came to say goodbye—and to apologize.” He nodded at Montrose’s sleeping figure. “I really am sorry about this.”

  “Yeah, I saw how unhappy you looked pulling the trigger last night.”

  “I did what I had to do. I told you—”

  “Save your breath on that,” Atticus said. “You want to do something right? Take Letitia with you. George too, if you can.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You know there’s no need to keep them here. I’m not going to make more trouble, not with Pop like this.”

  “You’re probably not going to make more trouble,” Braithwhite allowed. “But I’m certain that Letitia would, if I tried to take her out of here without you. And my father’s orders are explicit: I leave. No one else.”

  “Then we’ve got nothing more to say to each other.”

  “All right.” Nodding. “I’ll go, then.” But he hesitated, hand on the doorknob. “I’ll have breakfast sent up.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “No, trust me, you want to eat something,” Caleb Braithwhite said. “You want to keep your strength up, for the ritual. And you never know when a meal will be your last . . . None of us do.”

  Atticus was ready when they came for him. He’d shined his shoes, put on fresh trousers and a clean white shirt, and rolled up his sleeves as if preparing for hard labor.

  William, who unlocked the door, smiled as if he’d come to escort Atticus to lunch. The servants in the hall behind him—a couple of them sported bruises from the night before—were less congenial.

  Atticus took a last look at his father, and at George and Letitia standing beside the bed. “You all take care of each other,” he said. “Pray for me.”

  The room where the ritual was to take place was a large rectangular space at the center of the third floor. Though windowless, it had a skylight, as well as half a dozen wall sconces fitted with bright bulbs. From scuff marks on the floor and various other signs Atticus surmised the room was a workshop that would ordinarily have been crammed with heavy furniture and equipment. But today it had been emptied of everything not crucial to the business at hand.

  A freestanding door had been erected at the east end of the room. The timbers that made up the frame had been carved with letters from a strange alphabet, spelling out what Atticus assumed were words of power. The door itself was a glossy black, with silver hinges and a silver knob.

  White chalk flecked with silver had been used to draw a circle on the floor around the door. Parallel lines extended from a gap in the circle’s west arc, forming a foot-wide path that connected to another circle at the far end of the room. This second circle contained a curious device: a silver cylinder, waist-high, capped with a hunk of clear crystal.

  Midway along the path between the door and the cylinder, directly beneath the skylight, was a third circle. More of the strange letters were inscribed around its circumference and at its center was a large symbol resembling a broken, five-pointed star formed from curved lines, as though, Atticus thought, an ordinary pentagram had been distorted by a magnetic field. The thought of magnetism wasn’t random—the series of circles reminded him of a circuit diagram, and he could guess how the ritual was supposed to work. The door would open to admit some force or energy from Elsewhere. The cylinder, which must be a capacitor of some kind, would capture it. To complete the circuit, a conductor was needed: to coax the energy forth, to direct it where it was meant to go . . . and to blow, like a fuse, if it proved too powerful to contain.

  “You want me to stand there,” Atticus said.

  “Yes,” said Samuel Braithwhite. Dressed in ceremonial robes, he still looked more mundane than wizardly, like a Harvard professor who’d misplaced his mortarboard. The other Sons of Adam, similarly garbed, were gathered back behind the circle containing the cylinder, which also happened to be the part of the room closest to the exit. William and the servants had been dismissed and told to wait downstairs; Atticus wondered if any of them had the sense to run for the hills.

  “We’ll also need you to recite an invocation,” Braithwhite said. He signaled to one of the more nervous-looking Antenauts; the man came forward holding a rolled-up parchment which he unfurled and showed to Atticus.

  “I can’t read that,” Atticus said. “I don’t even know what language that is.”

  “It’s the language of Adam,” said Braithwhite. “Everyone can read it. You just need to remember how.”

  “If you say so . . . What comes through that door?”

  “Light. The first light of creation.”

  “The first light of creation,” Atticus repeated. “And what’s that do to me?”

  Preston banged his cane on the floor. “Time!” he called.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” Braithwhite said to Atticus. “Now get in.”

  Galled by Braithwhite’s tone, Atticus once more contemplated hauling off and decking the man. But his fists, he knew now, would not obey him if he tried that. And there was his father to consider, and George and Letitia too; their only chance was for him to go through with this.

  So he stepped into the circle.

  “Face the door,” Braithwhite commanded, “and hold out your hands.”

  Atticus cupped his hands in front of him. Braithwhite produced a knife from within his robes and cut across both palms, the blade so sharp that blood was welling up before Atticus felt any pain.

  “Time!” Preston called again, and one of the other Antenauts blew into a horn, a long buzzing note that rattled the base of Atticus’s spine. Blood dripped from his hands onto the floor, the droplets skittering like blobs of mercury to the curved lines of the pentagram, which absorbed them. The noon sun’s light shone down and the pentagram seemed to absorb that too. It began to glow.

  Braithwhite, now holding a piece of silvered chalk, squatted beside the circle. He made a single stroke across one of the letters, changing it to another, and Atticus felt the paralysis grip his legs again. Braithwhite nodded to his assistant, who offered Atticus the parchment. Atticus took it but found he still could not make sense of the invocation.

  Then Braithwhite stood up and walked quickly around behind the door and back to the other side of the circle that held Atticus. As the horn sounded a second time, he stooped and changed another letter. Understanding came over Atticus in a flood. Now he could read the words on the parchment and hear them in his head. But when he tried to utter them aloud his tongue was stopped; a weight like an invisible finger pressed against his lips.

  “Time!” Preston called. “Time!” The horn sounded again and Braithwhite made a third stroke with the chalk. Atticus opened his mouth.

  When he began speaking he was aware of Braithwhite and his assistant, scurrying back to join the other Antenauts. But as Atticus went on reciting the words of power the room around him seemed to fade, until all that remained was the door in front of him and the shining pattern on the floor.

  Light appeared around the edges of the doorway, light in a hue Atticus could not recall having seen before and which he co
uld not have described, but which at the same time seemed intimately familiar. As the light grew brighter, Atticus found his own comprehension growing with it. Oh, he thought, as the doorknob began to jiggle and twitch. Oh, I see now.

  Not long after he’d deployed to Korea, Atticus had attended a Sunday service in camp. The unit’s regular chaplain was in the stockade, having been accused, along with several other Negroes, of instigating a brawl with some white soldiers who’d refused to share their mess tent. The substitute chaplain took it upon himself to lecture the black enlisted men of the 24th Infantry about the importance of racial tolerance. They should strive to live on earth as they would in heaven, he told them. In the Lord’s house they would surrender their mortal bodies; there would be no more races, no men and women either, only pure souls, united in God.

  The obvious complaint about this sermon was that it was being preached to the wrong congregation. It wasn’t the Negro soldiers who had defied President Truman’s integration order—and they hadn’t started the fight over the mess tent either, whatever the MPs claimed. But some of Atticus’s comrades took issue with the chaplain’s theology as well: “No men and women in heaven?” he heard a soldier behind him grumble. “If I ain’t a man anymore, how’s that different from just being dead?”

  Atticus knew the answer now, and the answer to his question to Samuel Braithwhite. An experienced natural philosopher might hope to survive exposure to the unfiltered light of creation, but Atticus would be annihilated by it. Stripped of identity, of everything that made him Atticus: not just unmanned, but un-named. It would be like dying, but a positive oblivion rather than a negative one. A return to the infinite possibility of the primordial state.

  Positive oblivion. The prospect frightened him less than he would have expected, and he could see how, to a certain type of person, it wouldn’t have been frightening at all, but rather a fate worth seeking.

  To a certain type of person. Not Atticus, though. He liked who and what he was. He always had. It was God’s other creatures he occasionally had problems with.

  And so, because he did not seek oblivion, and because he wasn’t ready to die, either, he reached into the rolled-up cuff of his left sleeve and pulled out the slip of paper that was hidden there. The unsigned note that had been delivered along with his breakfast.

  “For Atticus,” it said. “A twist in the tale. When you can read this, do so:” and then three words in the language of Adam.

  Time, Atticus thought.

  He spoke the words aloud, and the glowing pattern on the floor transformed. The circle around the door was broken and the connecting path melted away. The circle around Atticus closed up, and not a moment too soon: The door was opening.

  A veil of protective darkness dropped over Atticus’s eyes, shielding him from the light that otherwise would have burned him where he stood. His mind, seeing that the darkness was good, decided to drift off into it.

  As he fell unconscious, he heard the Sons of Adam screaming.

  When the darkness lifted he was curled up on the floor. The wounds on his hands had closed, leaving only faint scars, and he was otherwise unharmed.

  The same could not be said for the rest of the room. The floorboards outside the protective circle were blackened and scorched, as were the walls and the ceiling. The magic doorway and the capacitor were burnt and melted wrecks, and the skylight had become an open hole in the roof.

  As for the Sons of Adam, they were more Sons of Pompeii, now: ashen figures, caught in poses of terror. Then Atticus stood up and the vibration of his footfalls triggered a final dissolution. Surrendering to entropy, the Antenauts crumbled into piles of white dust.

  Atticus tried not to get any on his shoes as he walked out.

  He found George and Letitia and his father all waiting down in the foyer. With their bags beside them, they looked like unhappy tourists at checkout, clearly regretting their choice of accommodations but otherwise none the worse for wear.

  “Pop!” exclaimed Atticus. “You OK?” To which Montrose responded with a sullen shrug.

  “William called the room a few minutes ago and told us we were free to leave,” George explained. “By the time the servants came to unlock the door, Montrose was up and about.”

  “What about Mr. Braithwhite and the Order?” Letitia asked. “Are they—”

  “Gone,” said Atticus. “All of them.” He looked at his father. “Braithwhite junior staged a coup.”

  “Told you,” Montrose said nodding.

  “So where does that leave us?” George wondered.

  They heard a car out front and went to look. It was William, bringing George’s Packard from the garage. The broken windows had been replaced and the entire vehicle had been buffed and polished until it looked practically brand-new.

  “Mr. Turner!” William said brightly as he got out of the car. “I’m so glad you survived your ordeal intact!”

  “Yeah, me too,” Atticus said. “Nice job on the repairs.”

  “Mr. Braithwhite’s doing,” William said. “He saw to it personally this morning before he left. He asked me to tell you that he’s sorry he can’t be here to see you off in person, and he apologizes, again, for all that you’ve been put through. He hopes you’ll accept a few tokens of his sincere regret: some boxes of books for you and your uncle, and for you, Mr. Turner”—he looked at Montrose—“a copy of all the genealogical data Mr. Braithwhite managed to collect about your late wife’s family. Miss Dandridge, I’ve taken the liberty of repacking your dresses. Also, Mr. Berry, in addition to repairing your car, Mr. Braithwhite made a small modification to it that he believes you’ll find agreeable.”

  “What sort of modification?” George said.

  “A dash of immunity. From now on, you should find you’re much less likely to run into trouble on the road. Law enforcement officials, in particular, will tend to treat you as though you’re invisible to them.”

  “So George can speed and get away with it?” Montrose said. “That’s an option?”

  “Yes, sir. I confess I’m ignorant of the mechanism, but Mr. Braithwhite has it on all his own cars as well. It’s quite useful when he’s in a hurry—or when he can’t find legal parking.”

  “What about Sheriff Hunt?” Atticus asked. “Are we invisible to him too?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” William said. “My understanding is that the sheriff is preoccupied with hiring new deputies. He’s entirely forgotten his encounter with you the other night—and he’ll go on forgetting it, so long as you’re careful not to cross his path again. To that end, as you leave here, you’ll want to take the left-hand way whenever the road branches. After the third such branching, you’ll find yourself exiting the Wood—and Devon County—without having passed through Bideford.”

  “And that’s it?” Atticus said. “We just go home?”

  “Unless you’d prefer some other destination, Mr. Turner.” Looking past him, William raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Servants came out of the lodge, carrying the bags.

  “What about Mr. Braithwhite?” George said, after the luggage had been put in the car.

  “Mr. Braithwhite, sir? What about him?”

  “I think my uncle George is asking what Mr. Braithwhite’s plans are,” Atticus said. “Now that he’s lord of the manor.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, Mr. Turner,” William said. “As I told you when we first met, I keep Mr. Braithwhite’s house, not his business.”

  “And as I told you, I think you know a lot about his business. My ‘ordeal,’ for example—I wouldn’t have survived it, if you hadn’t passed me that note.”

  “That was entirely Mr. Braithwhite’s doing, Mr. Turner. I was simply following his instructions.” William paused to consider. “I suppose I could be credited with the wisdom of knowing which Mr. Braithwhite to follow . . . But the choice wasn’t difficult.” He smiled. “Well,” he concluded, “I have a bit of cleaning up to do, so you’ll have to excuse me. Do drive carefully.” An
d with that, and a final nod, he went quickly into the lodge, shutting the doors behind him.

  The four of them stood in the afternoon sunlight, thinking: Dismissed.

  “It never fails,” Montrose said. “No matter what they do to you, afterwards it’s like nothing happened. You’re supposed to just be grateful you’re still breathing.”

  “Well, I am grateful for that,” George admitted. He stepped up to the car and ran a hand along the wood trim. “Immunity. Huh.”

  “We’ll have to give that a try on the way back to Marvin’s,” Letitia said. “I’d be happy to drive, if you want.”

  George laughed. “Not a chance,” he said. “I got first dibs.”

  Letitia and Montrose rode up front with him. Atticus squeezed himself in between the luggage and Braithwhite’s going-away presents, so he could look out the back as they drove.

  He watched the lodge for as long as he could see it. When they’d crossed the bridge and entered the Wood, he watched the road, alert for any flash of silver on the twists and turns behind them. He saw no sign of Braithwhite’s Daimler, but as they reached the third fork in the road, he glimpsed a big shadow moving back among the trees. Come to say goodbye? Atticus wondered. Or just farewell for now?

  Another mile on they passed a sign that said LEAVING DEVON COUNTY. “Praise Jesus,” said Letitia. George added his own “Hallelujah,” and Montrose muttered, “Good riddance.” Atticus said nothing, only faced forward, and tried to believe that the country into which they now traveled was different from the one they left behind.

  DREAMS OF THE WHICH HOUSE

  No part of said premises shall in any manner be used or occupied directly or indirectly by any negro or negroes, provided that this restriction shall not prevent the occupation, during the period of their employment, of janitors’ or chauffeurs’ quarters in the basement or in a barn or garage in the rear, or of servants’ quarters . . . No part of said premises shall be sold, given, conveyed or leased to any negro or negroes, and no permission or license to use or occupy any part thereof shall be given to any negro except house servants or janitors or chauffeurs employed thereon as aforesaid.