Everville (51 page)

"Like how?"

"It was just after Morton Cobb died. He was saying how it was better that he'd been killed that way, 'cause it was a better story."

"A better story?"

"Yeah. An' I was a-what the fuck did he call me?-a disseminator, I think that was it, yeah, a disseminator, and people liked to hear really brutal stories... " He lost his way in the midst of his recollections, and threw up his hands. "I don't know, he just seemed like a sick sonofabitch. He had this voice-it was kinda like a hypnotist or something."

The notion rang a bell. "What did he look like?" Larry asked.

"'Bout sixty, maybe. Had a heard."

"Broad guy? Wearing black?"

"That's him," Will said. "You know him?"

"He was there this afternoon," Larry said, quickly. "I think he was the one who fucked everything up."

"Somebody should talk to Jed about him."

"Jed@' Larry growled, "he's no damn good to anyone." He chugged on his beer. "I'm going to talk to some of the band. they were really pissed with what happened this afternoon."

"Be careful, Larry," Will advised. "You don't want Jed on your back for taking the law into your own hands."

Larry leaned over the bar until he was almost nose to nose with Will. "I don't give a shit," he slurred. "Something's going' on in this city, Hamrick, and Jed's not got a handle on it."

"And you have?"

Larry dug in his pocket and tossed three tens over the counter. "I will have soon enough," he said, pushing off from the bar and heading for the door. "I'll give you a call, tell you when we're ready for action."

Elsewhere in town, a fair appearance of normality had been reestablished. In the town hall the first partners for the Waltz-a-thon were already wanning up. At the library annex, which had only been completed two months ago, Jerry Totland, a local author who'd made a nice reputation for himself penning mysteries set in Portland, was reading from his newest opus. In the little Italian restaurant on Blasemont Street there was a line of twenty customers waiting to taste the glories of Neapolitan cuisine.

There were mutterings, of course; rumors and gossip about what had brought the parade to a halt that afternoon, but by and large they simply added a little piquancy to the evening's exchanges. There was little genuine unease, more a mild amusement, especially among the visitors, that the event had gone so hopelessly awry. It would be a story to dine out on, wouldn't it, when they got back home? How Everville had overstepped itself and fallen flat on its ambitious face?

After the horrors of the afternoon, Erwin had not known what to do with himself. He had lost, in one fell swoop, all the friends he'd had, as surely as if they'd been massacred at the dinner table.

He had no real comprehension of what had happened at the crossroads, nor did he really want to know. Death had shown him some strange sights in the last few days, and he'd quickly learned to take them in his stride, but this was beyond him. He wandered the streets like a lost dog for a couple of hours, looking for some place to sit and listen to a conversation that did not remind him of his fear. But everywhere he looked for solace, he found people talking in whispers about the things that discomfited him.

Few of these exchanges were overtly concerned with the events of the afternoon, but all of them had been inspired by it, he was certain. Why else were people confessing their sins to their loved ones tonight, asking for forgiveness or understanding? they had smelled their mortality today, and it had made them maudlin. He passed from one place to another, looking for solace and, finding none, he returned at dusk to only place he was certain to get some peace and quiet: cemetery.

There he wandered among the tombs as the sun set, idly perusing the epitaphs, and turning over events that had brought him to this sorry state. What had he done to deserve it? Wanted a little fame for himself? Since when had that been a capital crime? Dug too deep into secrets that should have been left to lie? That was no sin, either; not that he knew of. He'd simply had a patch of bad luck.

He took a seat, at last, on a tombstone close to the tree where he'd first met Nordhoff and the rest. His gaze fell on the stone in front of him, and he read aloud to himself the inscription there.

What Thomas doubted, I believe: Thatfrom Death's hand there is reprieve; That I, laid here, will one day rise, And smell the wind and meet the skies. My hope is tender though, and must Be keptfrom harm by those that dust Has blinded. So I pray: deliver me from Thefaithless kin of Doubting Tom.

The simplicity and the vulnerability of the words moved him deeply. As he reached the end of the poem his voice thickened and tears came, copious tears, pouring down.

He buried his face in his hands and rocked back and forth, unable to stop weeping. What was the use of living in hope of life after death if all it amounted to was this absurd, empty round? It was unendurable!

"Is the poem so bad?" said a voice somewhere above him.

He looked over his shoulder. The tree was in its last lushness before autumn, its branches thick with leaves, but he caught a glimpse of somebody moving up there.

"Show yourself," he said.

"I prefer not to," came the reply. "I learned a long time ago that there's safety in trees."

"Don't kid yourself," Erwin said.

"What's the problem?"

"I want to be back in the world."

"Oh that," said the man in the tree. "It cannot he had, so don't break your heart wanting it." There was a shaking of the canopy, as the man adjusted his position. "They've gone, haven't they?" he said. "Who?"

"The fools who used to gather here. Nordhoff and Dolan"-he practically spat the word Dolan out-"and the rest. I came down the mountain to finish my business with them, but I don't see them and I don't smell them-"

"No?"

"No. All I see is you. Where did they go?"

"It's difficult to explain," Erwin said. "Do your best."

He did. Described all that he'd seen and felt at the crossto ads, though his lawyerly vocabulary was barely adequate. It was the unburdening he'd sought, and it felt good.

"So they were whisked away, huh?"

"That's what it looked like," Erwin said. "It was bound to happen," the occupant of the tree said. "There was a bloody business started here, and it had to be finished sooner or later."

"I know what you're talking about," Erwin said. "I read a confession-"

"Whose?"

"His name was McPherson."

The man loosed a guttural growl that made Erwin shudder. "Don't speak that name!" he said.

"Why not?"

"Just don't!" the man roared. "Anyway, it's not his atroc ities I was referring to. There was another slaughter up on Harmon's Heights, before it ever had a name. And I've waited a long time to see its consequences."

"Who are you?" Erwin said. "Why are you hiding up there?"

"I think you've seen enough strangeness for one day," the man replied.

"Without laying eyes on me."

"I can deal with it," Erwin replied. "Show yourself."

There was silence from the tree for a few moments. Then the man said,

"As you wish," and the foliage sighed as he clambered down into view. He wasn't so strange. Scarred, certainly, and somewhat bestial, but he resembled a man.

"There," he said, when he reached the bottom of the e. "Now you see me."

"I'm-glad to know you," Erwin said. "I was afraid I was going to be alone."

"What's your name?"

"Erwin Toothaker. And yours?"

The wounded beast inclined his head. "I'm pleased to meet you," he said. "My name is Coker Ammiano."

It took Musnakaff an hour or more to prepare his mistress for the journey out into the chilly streets of Liverpool, during which time Phoebe was given permission to wander the house. It was a melancholy trek. The rooms were for the most part beautifully appointed, the beds vast and inviting, the bathrooms positively decadent, but there was dust on every surface and gull-shit on every window; a sense everywhere of the best times having passed by. There was no sign of the individuals who had lived in this house; who had admired the view from its windows or laid their heads on its pillows. Had they dreamed? Phoebe wondered. And if so, of what? Of the world that she'd come from? It amused her at first, thinking that the people who'd lived in these fine rooms might have yearned for the Cosm the way she'd yearned for some unreachable dream-place. But the more she pondered it, the more melancholy it seemed, that people on both sides of the divide lived in discontent, wishing for the other's lot. If she survived this journey, she thought, she would return to Everville determined to live every moment as it came, and not waste time pining for some sweet faraway.

When she emerged from one of the bedrooms she looked into a mirror in the hallway, and told herself aloud, "Enjoy it while you can. Every minute of it."

"What did you say?" Musnakaff asked her, stepping from a doorway along the passage.

She was embarrassed to have been caught this way.

"How long have you been watching me?" she wanted to know.

"Only a moment or two," he replied. "You make a fine sight, Phoebe Cobb. There's music in you."

"I'm tone-deaf," she told him, a little sharply.

"There's music and music," Musnakaff replied. "Your spirit sings even if your throat doesn't. I hear drums when I look at your breasts, and a choir when I think of you naked." She gave him the forbidding stare that had terrorized a thousand tardy patients, but it didn't work. He simply grinned at her, his decorated cheeks twinkling. "Don't he offended," he said. "This house had always been a place where people talk plainly about such matters.

"Then I'll talk plainly too," Phoebe said. "I don't appreciate you ogling me when my back's turned, and drums or no drums I'll thank you not to look at my breasts."

"Do you not like your breasts?"

"That's between me and my breasts," Phoebe said, realizing as the words came out how absurd they sounded.

Musnakaff erupted with laughter, and try as she might Phoebe could not help but let go a tiny smile herself, the sight of which only made Musnakaff gush further.

"I'll say it again," Musnakaff told her. "This house has seen many fine women, but you are among the finest, the very finest."

It was so nicely said, she could not help but be flattered. "Well....

she said. "Thank you."

"The pleasure's mine," Musnakaff said. "Now, if you're ready, the Mistress's bearers have arrived. I believe it's time we all went down to the water."

It took less than an hour of traveling on the road to b'Kether Sabbat for Joe to lose most of his sympathy for the refugees flooding in the opposite direction. He witnessed countless acts of casual cruelty in that time. Children more heavily burdened than their parents, whipped along', animals abused and beaten into a frenzy; rich men and women, hoisted up onto the backs of imperi ous cousins to the camel, cutting a bloody swathe through those careless enough to stumble into their path. In short, all that he might have expected to see in the Cosm.

When these sorry spectacles became too much, however, he simply set his sights on the city itself, and his weary limbs found fresh strength. The people who had lived in b'Kether Sabbat were as petty and barbarous as die citizens of any terrestrial city, but the edifice they were vacating was without parallel.

As for the wave of the lad, it seethed and divided, but did not advance. It simply hovered over the city like a vast' beast, mesmerized by something in its shadow. He only hoped that he could reach the city, and walk its streets and climb its blazing towers before the lad's interest staled, and it delivered the coup de grfice.

As he came within a quarter mile of the nearest ladders-the city looming like an inverted mountain before him-he heard a shrill shout above the din and an ashen creature dug its way through the throng to block his way.

"Affique!" he said. "Afrique! You're alive!" The creature laid his webbed hands upon Joe's chest. "You don't know me, do you?"

"No. Should I?"

"I was on the ship with you," the man said, and now Joe recognized him. He was one of the slaves Noah had seconded to crew The Fanacapan: a broad, burly fellow with sluggish, froglike features. His manner, now that he was once again his own man, belied his appearance. He had a quick, lively quality about him. "My name's Wexel Fee, Afrique," he said, covered in smiles. "And I am very glad to see you. Very, very glad." "I don't know why," Joe said. "You were treated like shit." "I heard what you said to Noah Su@a Sunimamentis. You tried to do something for us. It's not your fault you failed." I'll in afraid it is," Joe said guiltily. "Where are the others?" "Dead." "All of them?"

"All."

"I'm sorry." "Don't be. they weren't friends of mine."

"Why did you not die and they did? Noah said when he was done with you-"

"I know what he said. I heard that too. I have very sharp ears. I also have a strong will. I was not ready to die."

"So you heard but you couldn't act for yourself9"

"Exactly so. I'd lost my will to his suit." "So you were hurting."

"Oh yes. I was hurting." Fee lifted his right hand into view. Two of his six fingers were reduced to gummy stumps. "And I would have gladly killed the man, when I woke."

"Why didn't you?" "He is mighty, Afrique, now he's back in b'Kether Sabbat. While I am very far from home." He looked past Joe now, towards the sea.

"There are no ships, Wexel."

"What about The Fanacapan?"

"I saw it sink." He took the news philosophically. "Ah. So perhaps I did not outlive the others so that I could go home." He made the first smile Joe had seen on this woeful road. "Perhaps I tried to meet you again, Afrique."

"My name's Joe."

"I heard my enemy call you by that name," Fee replied. "Therefore I cannot use it. This is the etiquette in my country. So I will call you Afrique." Joe didn't much like the dubbing, but this was no time to offend the man. "And I will come with you, back to b'Kether Sabbat. Yes?"

"I'd certainly like your company," Joe said. "But why would you want to come?"

"Because there are no ships. Because I found you in a crowd of ten thousand souls. And because you may be able to do what I could not."

"Kill Noah."

"From your lips, Afrique. From your lips." caravan that descended the steep hill from the house on Canning Street was nine souls strong. Phoebe and Musnakaff, both on foot, Maeve O'Connell, traveling in an elaborate sedan chair, home by four sizable men, plus an individual leading the way and one tagging along behind, both of them very conspicu ously armed. When Phoebe remarked upon this Musnakaff simply said, "these are dangerous days. Who knows what's loose?" which was not the most reassuring of replies.

"Come walk alongside me," Maeve said as they went. "It's time you kept your side of the bargain. Tell me about the Cosm. No, forget the Cosm. Just tell me about my city." "First," said Phoebe, "I've got a question."

"What is it?"

"Why did you dream this city instead of another Everville?"

"I was a child in Liverpool, and full of hope. I remember it fondly. I didn't remember Everville the same way."

"But you still want to know what's happened to it?" Phoebe pointed out.

"So I do," Maeve replied. "Now tell."

Without knowing what aspects of Evervillian life would most interest the woman, Phoebe began a scattershot account of life at home. The Festival, the problems with the post office, the library annex, Jed Gilholly, the restaurants on Main Street, Kitty's Diner, the Old Schoolhouse and the collection it contained, the problems with the sewage system "Wait, wait," Maeve said. "Go back a little. You spoke of a collection."

"Yes-"

"It's about the history of Everville, you say?"

"That's right." "And you're familiar with it?"

"I wouldn't say-"

"Yet you didn't know who I was," Maeve said, her face more pinched than ever. "I find that strange." Phoebe kept her silence. "Tell me, what do they say about the way Everville was founded?"

"I don't exactly remember," Phoebe replied.

Suddenly, the virago started to yell. "Stop! Everybody stop!" The little procession came to a ragged halt. Maeve leaned out of her chair and beckoned Phoebe closer.

"Now listen, woman," Maeve said. "I thought we had a bargain."

'We do."

"So why aren't you telling me the truth? Hub?" "I... don't want to hurt your feelings," Phoebe said.

"Mary, mother of God, I've sufferings to my name the likes of which-" She stopped, and started to pull at the collar of her robe. Musnakaff started to say something about not catching cold, but she gave him such a venomous look he was instantly silenced. "Look at this," she said to Phoebe, exposing her neck. There was a grievous scar running all the way around her neck. "You know what that is?"

""It looks like-well it looks like somebody tried to hang you.

"they tried and they succeeded. Left me swinging from a tree, along with my child and my husband."

Phoebe was appalled. "Why?" she said.

"Because they hated us and wanted to be rid of us," Maeve said.

"Musnakaff? Cover me up!" He instantly set to doing so, while Maeve continued her story. "I had a very strange, sour child," she said, "who loved nothing in all the world. Certainly not me. Nor his father. And over the years people came to hate him in return. As soon as they had reason to lynch him, they took it, and took my poor husband too. Coker wasn't of the Cosm, you see. He'd come there for my sake, and he learned to be more human than human, but they still sniffed something in him they didn't like. As for me-" She turned her head from Phoebe and peered down the hill.

"As for you?" Phoebe said.

"I was what they wanted to forget. I was there at the beginning-no, that's not right-I was the beginning. I was Everville, sure as if it had been built of my bones. And it didn't suit the Brawleys and the Gilhollys and the Hendersons and all the other fine upstanding families to remember that."

"So they murdered you for it?"

"they turned a blind eye to a lynching," Maeve said. "That's murder, I'd say."

"Why aren't you dead?"

"Because the bough broke. Simple as that. My sweet, loving Coker was not so lucky. His bough was strong, and by the time I came out of my faint he was cold."

"That's horrible."

"I never felt love for any creature the way I felt love for him," Maeve said. As she spoke Phoebe felt a mild tremor in the ground.

Musnakaff apparently felt it too. He turned to his mistress with a look of alan-n. "Maybe it would be best not to speak of this," he said. "Not out in the open."

"Oh pish!" Maeve said to him. "He wouldn't dare touch me. Not for telling what he knows is the truth."

The exchange puzzled Phoebe, but she didn't let it distract her from her questions.

"What about your son?" Phoebe said. "What happened to him?"

"His body was taken by beasts. He always had a stench to him. I daresay he made a better meal than Coker or me." She pondered for a moment.

"This is a terrible thing to say about your own flesh and blood, but the fact is, my son was not long for this world one way or another."

"was he sick?" "In his head, yes. And in his heart. Something in him had curdled when he was a child, and I thought for the longest time he was a cretin. I gave up trying to teach him anything. But there was malice in him, I think: terrible malice. And he was best dead." She gave Phoebe a sorrowful look. "Do you have children?" she said.

"No." "Count yourself lucky," Maeve replied.

Then, abruptly shaking off her melancholy tone, she waved Phoebe away, shouting, "Rouse yourselves!" to her bearers, and the convoy went on its way, down the steep hill.

The state of the dream-sea had changed considerably in the hours in which Phoebe had been a guest in Maeve's house. The ships in the harbor no longer lay peaceably at anchor, but pitched and bucked, tearing at their moorings like panicked thoroughbreds. The beacons that had been burning at the harbor entrance had been extinguished by the fury of the waves, which mounted steadily as the party descended. "I begin to think I'll not be able to keep my end of the bargain," Maeve said to Phoebe once they were on flat ground.

"Why not?"

"Use your eyes," Maeve replied, pointing down towards the beach, where the breakers were ten or twelve feet high. "I don't think I'll be speaking to the 'shu down there."

"Who are the 'shu?"

"Tell her," Maeve instructed Musnakaff. "And you, set e down." Once again, the convoy came to a halt. "Help me out of this contraption," Maeve demanded. The bearers sprang to do just that.

"Do you need help?" Musnakaff asked her.

"If I do I'll ask for it," Maeve replied. "Get on with educating the woman. Though Lord knows it's a little late."

"Tell me who the 'shu are," Phoebe said to Musnakaff.

"Not who, what," Musnakaff replied, his gaze drifting off towards his mistress. "What is she doing?"

"We're having a conversation here," Phoebe snapped. "She's going to do herself some harm."

"I'm going to be doing some harm of my own if you don't finish what you were saying. The 'shu-"

"Are spifit-pilots. Pieces of the Creator. Or not. There. Satisfied?" He made to go to his mistress's side, but Phoebe caught hold of him.

"No," she said. "I'm not satisfied."

"Unhand me," he said sniffily. "I will not."

"I'm warning you," he said, jabbing a beringed finger at her. "I've got more important business than-" A puzzled look crossed his face. "Did youfeel that?"