Lightfall by Paul Monette

Author:Paul Monette
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480473812
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

VII

THEY BEGAN TO GATHER in the dew-soaked grass beside the church at a little after six. By six-thirty-five they were over a hundred. Just then, a certain glow in the sky tipped the color from pearl to palest blue. A shiver of excitement seemed to touch them, though their voices never rose above a whisper. It was what they called “false dawn”—a trick of the light on the water as the sun crawled up to the rim. They shifted and searched the distance, as if they could hardly breathe before the new day broke. When the tower clock struck seven they formed a line, the oldest at the front. There would not be room for all of them inside.

Michael had no idea it was time for the morning service. The moment the first gray tinged the dark he had gone out into the cemetery to rid himself of years. He threw off fifty stones in as many minutes. He would have kept working—he wasn’t tired—if the bell had not reminded him. Forty-eight hours, he thought, when the seven chimes were done. Then he turned and headed back, zigzagging through the chilly mist that smoked beneath the pines. He was as naked as he had been the previous night.

He could see the crowd building before he reached the gate. He stopped, shrank back, and moved under cover of mist to the side door. He let himself into the robing room at six minutes after. He realized now he was meant to start at precisely 7:11. He went to the rector’s closet and poked among the vestments. The heady odor of mildewed serge had a marvelous tang. He pulled out a black wool gown, then a starched white smock and a goldworked hood. He slung the outfit over his arm and turned to the rosewood box where the rector kept the wafers.

These he’d been eating compulsively for the last two days. It was only after he’d emptied the box that he knew what he had to have it for. He had taken it down to the harbor with him the afternoon before. There, in the hollow skull out in the bay, he filled it full of fungus—scooping the spores from the nooks and corners, brushing them out of Joey’s eyes. He carried the little casket under his arm now as he ducked through the curtains and into the church proper.

He stood on the altar steps a moment, wishing the room would stay empty. Then he dropped his garments to the floor and sat on them, thinking to rest while he still had time. As the din outside began to build he let his eye wander over the beams and stone-work, the narrow deep-set windows. The sleepless night must have finally hit him. He began to think he was in a fort, and no one would ever get in.

The mayor saw to it that the doors at the rear were opened right on time. They creaked back ceremoniously, and the congregation filed in. Michael watched.

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