“What are those goals?”
“To destroy the power of God, the power of heaven, the force of order in the world . . . the force that made life appear on earth. And evil’s power is in direct proportion to the status of the human soul.”
Will shook his head. It’s all too much, he thought.
“You can look around at our world and see that God is losing.”
Yeah, thought Will. And I’m losing it.
“Here. Let me make it simple. The soul, the human spirit, can affect external events. Say you get discouraged. Down on yourself. And, presto, suddenly you start having a bad day. Very simple, but that’s the process. Hopelessness and hatred feed off each other, growing around us. Weakening the power of God.” James cleared his throat. “While the Adversary of existence grows stronger.”
“The Adversary? Who’s the Adversary?”
James answered him by handing him the chalkboard.
“That’s what we have to find out.”
James sat back and waited a second before beginning his ever-more-incredible explanation.
“Automatic writing, Will. We’ll try it. We’ll see if you know more than you think you do.”
Will grinned. “You’re losing me. I was just trying to get some help, some advice —”
James looked affronted. “You came to me? Correct? I didn’t come to you. You came to me. And I believe in the power of God. And the power of evil. You came to me. If you don’t have even the beginnings of some belief, then why in the world did you come to see me?”
Will shrugged. He looked at the chalkboard. He remembered something about automatic writing. A phony psychic’s trick. It’s in the same class with a Ouija board, a crystal ball.
James saw him looking down uncomfortably at the small chalkboard.
“If I called this psychometry, would that make you feel better?”
Will knew that term from his psych courses, years before.
Psychometry was the unconscious reading of objects and events. It was the Jungian idea — later adopted by spiritualists — that objects would carry fingerprints of their past.
Will held the chalkboard. “I don’t know. This seems —” He wanted to act polite.
Through the stained-glass windows, Will saw the light fading. The dismal afternoon was giving way to the early black shadows of a fall night.
The doors opened again. And Will turned to see a young woman walk in. She dipped her hand in the holy water fountain and then sat in the last row.
The cheap seats, Will’s father used to call them.
He turned back to James. James held out the chalk. Will shook his head. But he took the chalk.
“Close your eyes, Will. Close them and relax and listen to me.” .
Will made a face. But he followed James’s directions. “Now just listen to my voice, Will. Think about nothing else, nothing but what I say. I want you to write whatever words come to your mind as I talk to you, and nod if you understand.”
Will made his head go up and down.
Ridiculous, he thought.
What did I get myself into here?
“Any words. I want you to picture all your friends from that night. Each of them, and — as you do — I want you to write their names . . . and any other words that occur to you.”
Will made the chalk move on the board. It screeched, the horrible sound echoing in the nearly empty church.
James went on talking, quietly. “Good. Think about that night, what you remember, what you see, as if you were there, Will, right there, on the rocks, drawing on the rocks, saying the words.”
As Will wrote, he felt James lean over and erase the board, clearing it for more words, and —
Will felt his hand moving. Just jiggling up and down. Like the needle on a seismograph, shooting up and down. He laughed nervously, almost opened his eyes.
“Don’t open your eyes!” James commanded, his voice loud, surely scaring the woman in the last pew.
Will nodded.
“Remember it all,” James commanded.
And Will did.
The salty wind. Standing in the circle, in the points of a star. The words, silly, making them laugh. All of them drunk with the booze, all of them wobbling on the star points, waiting for something to happen.
But nothing happened. Nothing at all. Except —
Something did.
(I never remembered this. How could I forget this?)
There was a hole.
A monstrous, black hole at the center of his memory. He couldn’t imagine the circle, the star anymore. There was just this hole. And the five of them standing around.
No one was smiling.
I don’t remember this.
Yet it was there.
He went on writing.
Words upon words upon words.
James erased, hardly able to keep up with the flailing movements of Will’s hand.
Something glistened from within the hole.
I see something, Will thought.
There — where the circle, the star should be. Lumbering out of the hole.
We all watch.
We all see it.
It didn’t happen.
But why do I remember it? Why do I see this?
Out, until the black glistening skin revealed an iridescent rainbow of colors, moving swirls of magenta and purple, like a dark jovian planet filled with giant storms traveling along its surface.
We all look.
Then it’s there.
The smell fills his nostrils.
No one laughs. No one’s drunk.
It’s there. A shape with blackish eyes, or do we just imagine them? And a mouth, an opening. As if it would speak, as if it would talk to us.
It looks at each of us.
And I — and I —
Will cried out. He screamed.
“No! Oh, God, no!” He stood up, and the chalkboard slid to the floor.
Will looked at the altar.
The nun started back.
“No,” he muttered.
“Will.” James was up next to him, his arm around him, strong, gripping him. “You have to continue, Will. You can’t stop now.”
Will shook his head back and forth. “Yes, I can. I can stop now —”
James knelt down and picked up the chalkboard.
He grabbed Will’s hand and stuck the board in it, then the chalk. “No. Sit down. Finish it. You know you have to finish it now.”
Will turned to him.
He thought of Becca. Setting the table for dinner. The chatter of their two girls. He thought of his house. Please, he thought. I want to go there.
Joshua James is a madman. He’s going to make me lose it all.
But he knew that wasn’t true.
Because he was beginning to know what the truth was.
“You’ll continue?”
Will nodded.
He sat down. He heard the church doors open. The lady left.
Not a good night for quiet prayer.
“All right . . . close your eyes . . . continue …”
It turns and looks at each of us.
Each of us, fixing us with those eyes, sending messages, wonderful promises, with each amazing swirl of colors on its body.
Just a form, Will knew.
It can be anything. Anywhere. Anytime.
At any moment.
It looked at Will . . .
Will felt it then. Looking at him. Demanding.
Promising. Oh, the promises, the wonders, the power, the beauty . . .
Asking the question.
Will felt it.
And he felt his answer.
Will opened his eyes.
He was crying.
James cradled, held him close. Will sobbed, in a way that made him think he was five years old again, watching his mother leave home for the first time. Crying for her. Heaving, gasping at the incense air.
“Oh, God, oh, sweet God, I never —”
James pulled hi
m close. “Go ahead,” he whispered. “Call on His name.” James laughed. “It’s okay here . . . it’s all right . . .”
And Will was allowed to cry until the feeling was over.
Then James released him and said, “You have to continue now. You have to finish, Will.”
But Will knew that. Knew it.
Because he was beginning to know how all this would end . . .
It turned from him, and all that beauty and power, all the promises of worlds and life to come vanished. There was just the terrible stench and the cold and the crashing of the hungry sea.
It turned from him.
Will’s hand moved on the chalkboard slowly.
“Tell me,” James said. “Tell me who it is.”
It turned and Will watched it, saw it looking at the next person on the point of the star. It stretched something out, a hand from some part of its body, arm-like, reaching out.
And someone reached back.
Will stopped his writing.
He gave the chalkboard to James. His eyes were red, puffy from his tears.
The old nun was near the sacristy door, pointing at them. A young priest stood next to her.
James looked at the chalkboard.
“The Adversary,” James said. He turned to Will. “You did well. We have the name. And there’s power in names, Will.”
“It was like I was there,” Will said.
James nodded.
“Yes, you were.” He looked at Will and smiled sadly, as if he realized the strange, hopeless thoughts running through Will’s head. “I can tell you now about time, what it really is, but I needed you to do this” — he held up the chalkboard — “first.”
Will looked at it.
He saw letters, the words barely legible, scrawled across the board. Zar . . . Osirin . . .
“Its name,” James whispered.
And below it another word, something that Will knew already, just one word. The letters all crooked, jagged, spiky, fighting the pressure of his fingers.
Tim.
Will shook his head.
James patted his hand. “I won’t lie. You’re in danger, Will. Your family is in danger.”
Will turned and shot a look at him.
I’ll kill him, Will thought. I’ll kill the goddamn —
But he knew that wasn’t possible. It wouldn’t be that easy.
James made a small smile, trying to be reassuring. “But there’s time, Will. Always time. He can be stopped. If you do everything I tell you . . . if you trust me completely. Can you do that?”
Will nodded.
The young priest opened the gate that was part of the communion rail. He walked toward them.
“Good,” James said. “There’s time . . . and we have the name. God help us, we have the name.”
* * *
35
“Hey, Dad,” Sharon said, nearly barreling into Will as she went galloping up the stairs. She grinned. “Er, you like missed dinner.”
But then her smile faded.
And Will knew that she must have seen that he didn’t look okay. Something’s wrong with Dad . . .
I must be showing the telltale signs of insanity. This is how madmen look just before they cart them off.
He saw a book tucked under her arm. Mathematics Around Us. There was a ruler and space shuttle on the cover. A reassuring statement about the world. From the King’s foot to deep space — all of it is understandable, manageable by the human mind. With the help of modern mathematics’
Except for some things that just don’t fit, Horatio.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.
Will shut the door behind him feeling like Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. And what I’m selling today, they wouldn’t buy even on cloud cuckoo land.
Beth ran into the room, wearing a happy smear of chocolate across her face. She grinned — the weird gap of her missing front teeth both comical and bizarre.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said. Then, pensive, thoughtful . . . “Where were you?”
Will smiled at her. At least, he thought it was a smile.
“I — er — I had things to do.” He looked back to Sharon, but his oldest was already clomping up the stairs.
Away from me.
Away from the crazy man.
“How — how was school?” Will asked, taking a step toward Beth. But her snaggle-toothed smile was gone, and she backed up, and — Christ — I need a shower. Something to bum away, wash away, the church smell, the incense, the feelings —
Then Becca came out.
Looking as if she already knew some very bad news.
Becca watched him eat. Will felt her eyes follow the movement of his fork as he speared stringy bits of beef Stroganoff and then brought the food up to his mouth. He dabbed at his lips. Wanting to appear tidy while under such close scrutiny.
He didn’t tell her the truth.
Not even close.
“I got tied up at work,” he said between bites. “A big drug-trafficking case —” He nodded to her. “Big for Westchester, that is. Sorry …”
He went on eating, feeling Becca’s eyes studying him.
“What about your friends?” she asked slowly, as if afraid to bring the subject up. “What’s his name? Kiff?”
Will shook his head. “I don’t know. Strange stuff, eh? Pretty strange.” Another forkful of noodles and beef.
Then he quoted a bumper sticker. “Life’s a bitch.”
“You look like shit,” she said.
“Thanks.” He smiled. “I feel about that good too.”
His fork scraped noisily against the plate. He looked up to see Becca chew at her lower lip, the telltale sign of worrying. A dead giveaway.
“You should get to bed. Early,” she said.
Will shook his head, his mouth full.
“Can’t,” he said finally. “I can’t . . . because …”
But she saw this coming, Will knew. All along, saw it coming.
“There’s someone coming here tonight,” he said. He couldn’t make his mouth smile, too afraid of the sick, comical cast it would take.
“Thanks for telling me. Do you mind telling me who?”
Will nodded. He had practiced the fabrication in the car, saying it out loud to hear how it sounded, to see if it was the kind of lie that would encourage immediate disbelief.
“An old teacher of mine, from St. Jerome’s.” He cavalierly speared some food. “Going through some bad times. A divorce —”
“How old is he?” Becca asked, with an explosive laugh.
Will smiled back. “A young lady is taking him to the cleaner’s. I told him I’d help him get the ball rolling. Protect his savings account.” Will gestured with the fork. “That kind of thing.”
“And stay here?”
Will nodded.
“Just for a night or two. That’s all.”
Becca pushed her chair back and stood up. “Well, as I said, thanks for telling me. How long do I have to get the guest room presentable before — what’s his name?”
Will told her Dr. James’s real name.
James had said it wouldn’t matter. Not after it was all over.
“Okay, when is he coming?”
Will looked up. Becca wasn’t too happy. She didn’t like surprises, didn’t like people drifting into her house, unsettling it like a huge stone plopping into a still lake.
“Late,” Will said. “Very late. I’ll wait up for him.”
Becca walked away, shaking her head. And on the way out she passed Sharon, who had returned with her math book.
Sharon stopped at the entrance to the kitchen. She was a lean, sharp-eyed kid.
“Dad,” she said.
Will listened to the word. Cherished it.
He turned to Sharon, still leaning against the entrance, tentative. “Dad, do you know anything about finding hypot — hypothen —”
“Hypotenuses?”
Sharon snapped her fingers and said, “Yeah. That’s it.
Well, do you?”
Will squinted and made his eyes look up to the heavens. “I did once . . . a long time ago. But I doubt that it’s anything I can’t pick up again.” He stuck out his hand. “Here, let me take a look.” Sharon stepped forward, holding out her math book. “It’s like riding a bike. Something you never forget,” he said.
Which, Will discovered, wasn’t at all true.
And for a little while, he was lost to a quiet moment with Sharon and the wonders of elementary geometry …
* * *
Will flicked from the play-off game to the news, and back again. With a 5-1 score, it looked as if the Giants would tie up the series tonight. Then it would be three games each. Tomorrow night’s game would be interesting.
The news wasn’t on yet. He caught a bit of a sitcom, something about two guys living together with a teenage daughter — gimme a break.
Will waited for the news.
He heard Becca leave the bathroom and walk down the stairs, halfway, toweling her hair as if it were teeming with lice.
“Still not here?” she said.
Will shook his head. “No. He will be.”
“Show him where I put the towels,” she said.
“Sure.”
“And make sure you lock all the doors.”
“Don’t I always?”
“No, you don’t.”
“I will,” he said.
The sitcom ended.
“Good night,” Becca said.
“Good night,” Will said, turning to her quickly, and Becca disappeared upstairs.
Hard to look at her, he thought. She always was hard to lie to . . .
Jangling theme music. A lightning bolt, and then a bright-eyed news team came onto the screen.
He listened to the first story. A three-story tenement caught fire and killed everyone living inside it. A half dozen families, kids, old people. Neighbors were interviewed, talking inchoately about the smell of the smoke, the other smells. And how nice the people were. A shot of a sea of black faces standing ,around the building, wondering when it would be their turn to be caught in some ghetto inferno.
Then the world news. Footage of marchers in Estonia, celebrating its government’s decision to seek admittance to NATO and alliance with the West.
There were also clips from an anti-Semitic demonstration in an Estonian city. And the Soviets were threatening military force to keep Estonia “independent.”
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