the meeting. I,ll wait in a separate room."
"Oh, you have to do that. I can,t leave you here alone."
After a long while, he said, "It,s not coming." He was speaking of the change, of course.
"Are you certain?"
"I know it,s not," he said.
He didn,t feel the restlessness. He didn,t feel the desire.
They didn,t talk about it anymore.
Finally, Laura went up to bed early.
Reuben opened the letter again and looked over the impenetrable writing. He collected the gold watch from the mantel. Marrok.
At 1:00 a.m., Reuben woke Laura. He was standing by the bed in his robe, with the fire ax.
"Reuben, what in the name of God!" she whispered.
"Keep this beside you," he said. "I,m going up on the roof."
"But you can,t do that."
"I,m going to try to bring the change, and if I can bring it, I,m going up. If you need me, call to me. I,ll hear you. I promise you, I,m not going off into the forest. I won,t leave you here."
He went outside into the oaks. The rain was quiet, irregular, and barely penetrated the canopy here. The light from the kitchen window was dim through the interlocking branches.
He put his hands up, and ran his fingers back through his hair. "Come now," he whispered. "Come."
He tensed the muscles of his abdomen and immediately the deep spasm came, sending shock waves through his chest and his limbs. He let the robe drop in the leaves. He stepped out of the slippers. "Quickly," he whispered, and the sensations rolled upwards and outwards, the power radiating from his stomach into his chest and into his loins.
He tugged at the hair as it came bursting out, smoothing it back, tossing his head, loving the weight of it, the thick protective hood of it, as it curled down to his shoulders. He felt himself rising, his limbs swelling, as the sensations themselves seemed to support him, massaging him, holding him weightless in the brightening light.
Now the night was translucent, the shadows were thinning, and the rain felt like nothing, swirling before his eyes. The forest sang, tiny creatures surrounding him, as if welcoming him.
In the kitchen window he saw Laura watching him, the light very yellow behind her, her face in shadow. But he could clearly see the glistening orbs of her eyes.
He ran towards the house, directly below where two of the gables met, and springing on the wall effortlessly, he climbed up the protruding blocks of stone, higher and higher until he reached the roof. Through the narrow little valley of slates between the gables, he made his way to the great square glass roof.
He saw now that it was set below the gable rooms, and roofed only the secret space of the second floor.
The gables showed it only blank walls as they surrounded it, as if guarding it from the world.
Dead leaves filled the deep gutters that ran along each side of it, and it gleamed like a great black pool of water beneath the light of the mist-shrouded moon.
He went on his knees to move across it. It was slippery with rainwater, and he could feel how thick the glass was, and see the iron ribs that supported it, crisscrossing beneath him, but he could not see into the room or rooms below. The glass was darkly tinted, laminated perhaps, surely tempered. In the southwest corner, he found the square hatch or trapdoor that he had only glimpsed from the satellite map. It was surprisingly large, framed in iron, fitted flush into the iron, like a large pane of the roof. And he could find no handle, or way to open it, no visible hinges, no edge to grasp. It was sealed tight.
Surely there was a way to open it, unless he,d been wrong all the time. But no. He was sure that it opened. He explored the deep gutter, digging like a dog through the leaves, but he found no handle, or lever or button to push.
What if it opened inward? What if it required weight and strength? He tested it with his paws. He figured it was about three feet square.
He climbed to his feet and stood on it, approaching the south side first and then, flexing his legs with all his strength, he jumped.
The thing flapped open, the hinges behind him, and down he went into the darkness, catching hold of the edge above him with both paws. The scents of wood and dust, of books, of mold, flooded his nostrils.
Still gripping the rim, his