03-22-2019, 03:48 PM
It was a big enough house to hide in. Jude pinballed from one room to the next, from the kitchen to the library to a guest bedroom, from hunger to boredom to exhaustion. The rain did not stop. He could hear it in every room of the house, sometimes close, sometimes far, but always there. Dizzy with the weight of the world, it took hours for Jude to settle himself again, to find the dark center within. The planets settled back into their orbits. The great known once more suffused him. He slept, finally, when all was once more right - or wrong, to be more to the point.
He had not been able to comprehend the idea of being refused. It had been a notion lightly drawn in his great sketch of a scenario, but now, with Near, it had come into focus. Rejection was a real possibility. The End was a real possibility. The fruitlessness of struggle became clear to Jude, just as he fell asleep, a fully-grown tree with barren branches. Perhaps it would all end as They claimed it would. That was fine. But he would not be party to it.
He woke in the night, around four, when restlessness interrupted dreamlessness. He laid in bed, staring into the darkness above him, waiting to see if waking was a mistake, if sleep would come for him again. No, not yet.
Jude knew that he could not stay. There was no point in staying here, with nothing to gain but irritation. He supposed he ought to say goodbye to the house properly, thank it for its watchfulness, its shelter. The house knew the truth. How hard, Jude thought, for it to bear that truth, on top of everything else it held up.
He went down to the cellar.
Calling worked no differently underground than it did aboveground, but the atmosphere was much more conducive to persuasion, so the family had always encouraged its patrons to cultivate a dark, isolated place for Jude's visits. The door to the cellar was locked, but like the latch in the barroom, the lock forgot itself when Jude grasped the knob. Down he went, his footfalls soft, his bare feet picking up dust as he strode between the bottles. At the back of one wall, he dragged his nails over the stone, waiting for one to catch. When the stone caved beneath his hand, sinking into the wall, the rest of the wall gave in turn, swinging in. Behind the wall was the room.
Well, technically two rooms.
The first room was a sitting area, with long wooden benches bolted to the floor on two sides. In the center of the room, four feet in diameter, a sigil had been carved into the floor - no mere pentagram, no soothing 'Om', but something else, something more menacing and more complex, curling snake-lines and fiery tongues of flame, all connecting to one great circle at its edge. The room beyond the first room, behind a modest wooden door, had been Jude's room, when he stayed here.
He didn't need to go in there.
The mounted pillar lanterns still held their candles, though it had been long since they were lit. Jude sat down on one of the benches and folded his hands; one by one, the candles flickered to life. This was where Courtland had sat, Jude remembered, and there Jude had been, on the floor, with his sister, looking back. How strange the view was from here.
He had not been able to comprehend the idea of being refused. It had been a notion lightly drawn in his great sketch of a scenario, but now, with Near, it had come into focus. Rejection was a real possibility. The End was a real possibility. The fruitlessness of struggle became clear to Jude, just as he fell asleep, a fully-grown tree with barren branches. Perhaps it would all end as They claimed it would. That was fine. But he would not be party to it.
He woke in the night, around four, when restlessness interrupted dreamlessness. He laid in bed, staring into the darkness above him, waiting to see if waking was a mistake, if sleep would come for him again. No, not yet.
Jude knew that he could not stay. There was no point in staying here, with nothing to gain but irritation. He supposed he ought to say goodbye to the house properly, thank it for its watchfulness, its shelter. The house knew the truth. How hard, Jude thought, for it to bear that truth, on top of everything else it held up.
He went down to the cellar.
Calling worked no differently underground than it did aboveground, but the atmosphere was much more conducive to persuasion, so the family had always encouraged its patrons to cultivate a dark, isolated place for Jude's visits. The door to the cellar was locked, but like the latch in the barroom, the lock forgot itself when Jude grasped the knob. Down he went, his footfalls soft, his bare feet picking up dust as he strode between the bottles. At the back of one wall, he dragged his nails over the stone, waiting for one to catch. When the stone caved beneath his hand, sinking into the wall, the rest of the wall gave in turn, swinging in. Behind the wall was the room.
Well, technically two rooms.
The first room was a sitting area, with long wooden benches bolted to the floor on two sides. In the center of the room, four feet in diameter, a sigil had been carved into the floor - no mere pentagram, no soothing 'Om', but something else, something more menacing and more complex, curling snake-lines and fiery tongues of flame, all connecting to one great circle at its edge. The room beyond the first room, behind a modest wooden door, had been Jude's room, when he stayed here.
He didn't need to go in there.
The mounted pillar lanterns still held their candles, though it had been long since they were lit. Jude sat down on one of the benches and folded his hands; one by one, the candles flickered to life. This was where Courtland had sat, Jude remembered, and there Jude had been, on the floor, with his sister, looking back. How strange the view was from here.