In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods by Matt Bell

Author:Matt Bell [Bell, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Adult, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781616952549
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE FRACTURING MOON FELL THROUGH a cloud of sound, the racket of the sky’s awful cracking, and every part of the moon’s broken body arrived aflame, the first rough clumps to impact jolting the dirt into the air, and then the next wave concussed the already-broken ground, sending shock waves across the lake and also debris back toward the sky, great eruptions digging deeper craters. Above us the other moon snapped back upon the dazed ellipse of its orbit, suddenly brighter without competition, and as I watched it dance back into place I also saw how the sundered sky refused the dirt’s offering, so that soon gravity returned earth to earth, ten thousand handfuls of rock and sod falling upon the dirt and the lake, and for some time both the foundling and I had to crouch and cover our heads, to protect ourselves from the last moon rocks piling up in the bottom of the boat or else splashing loudly into the water around us.

When at last it was safe I stood and found my balance and looked toward the shore, through the swirling debris and dirt clouds, and there I was sure I spied some portion of the house still standing, set upon a promontory shoved up through the cracking of the earth. Behind it I saw the woods aflame, and from those woods came again the bear, her brutish shape emerging grotesque from the fire. I could not possibly have heard her above the loud discord of the dirt’s destruction, but when I saw her bared teeth and angry stance upon the shore I imagined her hoarsened sound calling across the lake, and then I lost sight of her in the confusion. A moment later I again thought I saw her fur-bare armor silhouetted against the fire, imagined the sizzle of exposed bone, that terrible pain issuing from her lungs. I watched for her where I could, but more than I wanted to know where she was, I wanted only for her to be gone, and then I saw her leaving, a blank shadow turning slowly in a sea of red flames, returning the way she had come, back into the blazing trees.

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