to the bathroom, but I did get to the bathroom, and instead of throwing up I stood over the toilet and made gagging noises. Where was Willy? I wondered. I had made up Elsewhere, but I couldn’t go there any more than I could go to Hendersonia.
Except, of course, that I could—but before that prospect, I stepped back, shivering, unwilling to tamper with those dear shades and phantoms. About that time, while I wandered toward Mark’s computer, I remembered, I thought I remembered, that I had agreed to a contract with a sleek character made of cobwebs and mouse droppings. That part of the evening had been knocked out of my head by the angel’s bruising touch and the sight of that industrious and furious being at his eternal task: both of these had banged my head against the ground, inducing a mild amnesia.
I sat at the keyboard, clicked on something or other, I know not what, and a familiar blue rectangle claimed the center of my screen. Cyrax had dropped in to make his good-byes and pass on some more of his ominous advice:
underfoot, u hav dun xceeding well & I yr gide now plant a ki55 up-on yr wrinkled brow. 1gnore not yr hart-8rake, u hav earned it, it is yrs! & now u hav another mity task, ol’ buttsecks, 1 to test u to the x-treem of yr fond talent (LOLOL)
oho my deer u must follow yr Dark Man Joseph Kalendar through the lost echoes of his nuit sombre profonde! Yr title shall b—KALENDAR’S REALM. u must not gild that lily nor praise it, wht u wrote abt. his dghter struk hom, it did strike hom & he wants onle justthis. Justthis iz next-dor 2 mercy but another country 2 it! UZ yr hart-brake & u will find the way within.
those 2 u love r in yr ELSEWHERE, which is our EDEN, frum whence they began so long ago. We watch ovr them in their EDEN, self-created & beautiful to behold. u gave them that!
a last word abt the last word (LOL)—u will behold an IDEEL, & u must pass it by. IDEEL will des-troy u 4 u r not red-e 4 it, buttsecks, NOT NOT NOT 4 u r an un-perfect being in a un-perfect world, that is yr strength & yr lode-ston & yr compass 2.
35
At five o’clock in the sunlit afternoon of Friday, the twelfth of September, Timothy Underhill took his seat at the end of the second row of metal folding chairs lined up in a sweet, breezy glade in Flory Park, on the far eastern edges of Millhaven. A professor of religion at Arkham University had once told him that it was one of the most beautiful parks in the country, and he saw no reason to dispute the old man’s claim. Sunlight fell through the leaves overhead and scattered molten coins across the grass. In front of the rows of chairs, filled primarily with teachers and administrators from Philip’s school and congregants from their church, Christ Redeemer, Philip stood a little way before an imposing African-American gentleman wearing a white robe with voluminous sleeves over a shirt with a black banded collar. This was the Reverend Gerald Strongbow, who conducted services at Christ Redeemer and before whom Philip Underhill’s lifelong racism had, apparently, left him, as if by unofficial exorcism.
Tim had developed a great fondness for Reverend Strongbow. In a brief conversation at the edge of the glade, the reverend had told him that he enjoyed his books. The man had a gorgeous voice, resonant and deep, capable of putting topspin on any vowel he chose. After the remark about Tim’s novels, the reverend inclined his head and said, more softly, “Your brother was a tough customer when he first came to us, but I think we managed to slide some good Christian goose grease into his soul.”
A little buzz and rustle of conversation went through the assemblage when China Beech appeared, holding lightly on to her brother’s arm, at the far end of the glade and, in a cream-colored dress, pearls, and a pert little hat with a veil, began to make her way up the aisle. The expression on his dour brother’s face when China Beech joined him in front of the clergyman astounded Tim, for it contained an emotional sumptuousness that would never before have been within crabby Philip’s reach.
Tim thought of Willy Patrick coming toward the signing table at Barnes & Noble, fear, fatigue, and fresh, amazed