A Green and Ancient Light (21 page)

As the offertory stretched on, I looked at my paper again and read the words:
IF ONCE YOU BUT YOU WERE CONTINUE NOW
. Tapping the pencil against my lip, I began to rearrange the words in my head, shuffling them like cards. Spreading the paper on my hymnal again, I wrote:
IF YOU WERE BUT ONCE,
CONTINUE YOU NOW
. Frowning, I crossed that out and changed it to:
NOW YOU CONTINUE BUT ONCE, IF YOU WERE
. I didn't like that, either.

I almost missed the offering basket when it came down the row. At the last second, I scrambled to fish my coins from my pocket, and I dropped my pencil onto the floor. Grandmother gave me a long-suffering look.

When I had the pencil again, I wrote:

ONCE YOU WERE . . . BUT NOW . . . IF YOU CONTINUE.

That seemed to make the most sense to me, even though the thoughts weren't explicitly stated, and I drew a star beside it and underlined it.

When the organist was well into the postlude and the people were beginning to file out, Grandmother leaned toward me and said, “That was a good sermon.”

I glanced toward the priest, wondering if Grandmother had actually been able to hear him. “Was it?” I whispered back.

“I meant yours,” she said.

*  *  *  *

In the narthex and on the church steps, Grandmother faced a barrage of questions about what the soldiers had been doing at our cottage. Mrs. C —— complained that she'd pulled a muscle in her neck trying to see the back of our property from the arbors behind her place, and she came close to blaming Grandmother for her discomfort. Mrs. D —— asked if the rumor were true that, because of her education, Grandmother had been enlisted by the Army as a special consultant for help in capturing the enemy fugitive.

“The only help they enlisted from me,” Grandmother replied,
“was in getting an advance on supper at half past four.” She confessed that the dogs had followed my scent—apparently, Grand­mother felt the porch of God's house was no place for “camouflage.” Although she left her own scent out of the story, I still thought the admission was large-spirited of her: she got no end of tongue-clucks and I-told-you-so looks from Mrs. C ——.

But Grandmother also made much of how Captain S —— had searched her attic from corner to corner for any signs of intrusion. At that news, everyone recalled again the unlatched garden gates, footprints, doorknobs rattled at night, lurkers-behind-fences, and the cigarette-end Mrs. D —— had found—which, in fact, she produced again from her handbag, still wrapped in its handkerchief, and showed to the priest for his opinion. If he had one, I didn't hear what it was.

We walked home under our umbrellas, stepping around the puddles. After lunch, while Grandmother took a nap, I tried applying what I'd done in church to the words from the sacred woods.

I used scratch paper from the decoy notebook for this, because even if I were on the right track, it would require a lot of trials and cross-outs. I played with the inscriptions one by one, rearranging the order of their words again and again. I tried it with the poem, too, but quickly saw that I was getting nowhere.

We would have to go back soon to the garden to take care of R ——. Mr. Girandole might not return for a while yet.

*  *  *  *

All day, Grandmother and I were both practically climbing the walls. The rain pattered endlessly. We would gladly have braved it, but after the soldiers had been to our cottage, we were under too much
scrutiny. We couldn't risk anyone seeing us climb the meadow: on a day such as this, we couldn't possibly be gathering firewood or much of anything else except mud. So, there was nothing for it but to turn in early and start out the next morning before the sun was up. I wondered aloud if R —— could survive for so long, trapped in the blackness of the compartment.

“He has water and food,” said Grandmother, but she looked worried too.

For the rest of that rainy Sunday, we swept and dusted to keep ourselves busy, and we took naps in the late afternoon. I emptied the ice box's pan. For supper, we had chicken-and-rice soup, rolls from the bakery, and vegetables from the garden. Thinking of R ——, I felt guilty to have so much light and freedom of movement, to have warm food.

Grandmother nudged me awake in the pre-dawn hours, when the world was dripping and all was quiet. We were both too sleepy to eat anything. Grandmother put on her raincoat and rain hat, which made her look like a fisherman. She dressed me in a waterproof poncho with a hood. It smelled musty, but it covered me like a cloak and hung down to my ankles all around. We left the umbrellas at home. Mr. Girandole had the lantern, so we'd have to do without it. Since he also had the medicines and the shears, we could do little else for R —— but take him food. Instead of the carpet bag, which would quickly become drenched, Grandmother loaded a rucksack with provisions, and I slid a pencil and my notebooks into it—both the real notebook and the false one, from which the major had ripped pages.

The rain had become nothing more than a mist. Through the hedges, Mrs. F ——'s house was entirely dark. The tall grass soaked
my pants' cuffs in no time, and the footing was slippery. Grand­mother chose her steps carefully, prodding with the stick, clutching my arm. Twice, I slipped and landed on one knee. It took forever just to reach the edge of the woods. With no lamp, no light from the moon or stars, I wondered if we'd be able to find the grove at all; but Grandmother never doubted the way. Fallen limbs and dead trunks presented the greatest obstacles. I remembered the mushroom fairy-rings and hoped we weren't blundering through them—or if we were, that any fairies still in this human realm would understand our purpose and forgive us.

The blackness was paling to gray shadows on the outskirts of the sacred garden. Grandmother pulled me to a stop and whispered, “You go on up there first. Don't make a sound, and keep your eyes open. I wouldn't put it past the major to have left a few men here to spy on us. You'll do a better job of seeing them than I would.”

She sat on a log, and I crept forward. The rain had stopped altogether, but as I'd seen before, a white mist floated between tree trunks. Birds warbled. I pushed the hood off my head.

This was a dramatic hour at which to enter the garden. In this light, looming from the mist, the statues might have been more than sculpted stone. I half-expected the dragon's neck to turn; I half-expected to hear its roar, the crunching of Heracles's footsteps. In the pre-dawn, Apollyon's hair and robes might be flying in the wind.

Despite the rain, the odor from the gourd still lingered. I held my breath where it was worst. Keeping close to the bushes, I tried to see ahead before I advanced. The stone house leaned stark and black in the gloom. The tranquil lower glade stretched away; I made a
slow circuit, checking behind the house (Apollyon was standing still, though as always, his gaze seemed to follow me), beyond the mermaid, inside the screaming mouth. I climbed to the temple and searched the hilltop; I went out of the ravine by the sleeping woman and re-entered by the square pool, which was now almost full to the brim—the new rain had mixed with the brackish dregs, creating a soup of leaves and twigs. Inside the leaning house, the stench was nearly unbearable. Grandmother couldn't stand the perspective of the building itself; I could imagine what she'd say now. I crawled up to R ——'s chamber, wondering if he could hear my soft footfalls crossing above him. But I didn't dare call out a reassurance until I'd mounted the corner ladder to the roof, where I'd never been. The stone rungs were dank and rough.

Pushing open the hatchway was the moment of truth: if soldiers were camped on the roof, I would give myself away. Holding tightly to one cold rung, I put my other arm up against the hatch and pushed. It rose with a ringing scrape. I'm sure my eyes were round as two full moons as I peered up over the hatchway's edge.

Only a scattering of leaves and sticks occupied the roof.

The view from the top was breathtaking: arches and trees, tangled thickets and aprons of mist, figures of myth and dream in the heart of a deep forest at dawn. As I looked around, something told me this was one of those eternal moments, a memory I would carry with me forever—recalled at odd moments, for no particular reason, for the rest of my life. I looked everywhere, trying to absorb every detail—the glistening bark, the sudden flutter of a bird, the smells of wetness and newness mingling with the ancient stone beneath me and the taint of the potion I'd poured out. It would never again be this morning, this summer. In a few months, my age
would have two digits, and it would have two digits until I died or reached one hundred. This was my last single-digit summer.

With a deep breath, I closed the hatch above me and hurried back to Grandmother. She was waiting contentedly on the log, admiring the view. When we moved into the garden, she wrinkled her nose and fanned at the smell. “Girandole,” she muttered. “He never does anything halfway.”

On the inner stairway, she coughed and made such a face that I doubted she'd go any farther. “If I had three wishes,” she said, “I'd use one to wish we could keep R —— anywhere but here.”

“Why not use it to wish him back to —— where he came from?” I asked, lending her an arm.

“That's right. In this stink, I can't think straight.”

I reminded myself that, while Grandmother attended to R ——, I'd have to keep watch. Without Mr. Girandole to listen to the wood's voices, it would be much easier for someone to sneak up on us. It was also harder getting Grandmother up the steps without Mr. Girandole's help.

When at last she'd struggled into the chamber, Grandmother rapped on the floor with her stick. “Are you in there, R ——? All is clear for the present.”

R —— cried out something in his own language. He seemed to be laughing and sobbing.

I looked questioningly at Grandmother.

“I believe he's thanking God,” she said.

We turned our attention to the floor. “Well,” said Grandmother to me, “open it up.”

I gave her a blank stare. Mr. Girandole hadn't shown me which two holes to stick my fingers into to trip the hidden catch.

“R ——,” said Grandmother, tapping again with her stick. “Do you know how to open the floor?”

It was hard to hear his muffled response through the slab, but I thought he'd said, “Wait! Wait!” along with more mumbling. I explained to Grandmother about the holes, but there were hundreds of them.

When one occupies the prison, however, one pays more attention to the lock. R —— had watched Mr. Girandole convert the chamber again and again. Even in the dark, he knew where to begin searching. After a few minutes, we heard the click, and the floor shifted.

Planting my feet, I tugged with both hands, and R —— used his good arm from below. The floor trundled back, revealing the compartment.

Foul as the odor I'd sprinkled was, the reek of the makeshift toilet was worse. Pale and wild-eyed, R —— looked ready to jump up into our arms, injuries or not. The water bucket was nearly empty, and the pan of waste was about to overflow.

“Out!” said R ——, clutching my ankle, since I was nearest. “Please! I go out now!”

Grandmother hunkered down and nodded. “That's a terrible pit you're living in. But it's still dangerous outside. The Army might come back. Someone from the village might come.”

R —— shook his head in desperation. “Out! Please! Smell. Too dark—no room, no breathe, alone. I am crazy, crazy!”

The first business, Grandmother told me, was to get that waste-pan out of there.

I nodded and took off the rain poncho. Having slid down into the well, I lifted the pan deliberately to the upper level, trying not to breathe.

“The stream is that way,” Grandmother said, pointing. “Empty the pan in the woods, not the stream, then wash it out well. What­ever you do, don't fall down the stairs.”

She stayed and spoke with R —— as I saw to the task. I took the pan far outside the garden before I dumped it. The stream chattered, swift and clear, in purple shadows. I balanced on a smooth rock and rinsed the pan thoroughly, scrubbing it with handfuls of pebbles and sand; then I washed my hands, enjoying the water's piercing cold.

It was daylight now, the gloom shifting to an emerald twilight that would grow deeper and richer throughout the day. Insects chorused, birds chirped and cawed, and from far away came the cannery whistle.

Next, I brought the bucket and filled it with clean water. After that, Grandmother had me assist in the compromise she'd reached with R ——: taking great care, we hoisted him out of the well and onto the floor beneath the window. He could breathe the fresh air, and standing briefly as we supported him, one on either side, he gazed out at the grove. He gaped at it like a man beholding a new world, but then he nearly passed out; he hadn't stood in a long time, and his injuries were far from healed.

I think he had barely survived his time locked beneath the floor. He'd told Grandmother that, several times, he'd tried to get out, willing to take his chances on being discovered; but he'd simply been too weak and injured to move the floor. He'd been convinced we weren't coming back, that he was already in his grave.

We laid him down on the upper slab with one of Mr. Girandole's blankets beneath him and another folded under his head for a
pillow. I left Grandmother to check his wounds and bandages, and I went out into the grove to stand vigil. I tried to imagine what I would say if a stranger ever came here—a soldier, a person from the village, or some prying friend of the major's—he had mentioned an artist who wanted to see the statues.

Though I kept my ears wide open, I saw no harm in going down to the dragon and dogs and wriggling through the bushes there until I found the inscription on the dragon's base, which I copied into my notebook. It said,
All is folly and you search both high and low in vain.
I didn't like that one—especially since the grand original entrance arch stood just south of the dragon. This beast was the first statue the duke's visitors would see; this was the first inscription they were meant to read—well, more accurately, the second, after the one on the arch about observing the garden piece by piece and judging whether it was all for deception or for art.