From the Dust Returned

Then Timothy welled up in the tall umbrella shape of Uncle Einar to look out from his wildly amused eyes as he picked up a tiny pale body: Timothy! Picking up himself! “Be a good boy, Timothy. See you soon!”

Swifter than borne leaves, with a webbed thunder of wings, faster than the lupine thing of the country road, going so swiftly the earth’s features blurred and the last stars tilted, like a pebble in Uncle Einar’s mouth, Timothy flew, joined on half his flight.

Then slammed back in his own flesh.

The shouting and the laughing faded and were almost lost. Everybody was embracing and crying and thinking how the world was becoming less a place for them. There had been a time when they had met every year, but now decades passed with no reconciliation. “Don’t forget, we meet in Salem in 2009!” someone cried.

Salem. Timothy’s numbed mind touched the word. Salem—2009. And there would be Uncle Fry and Grandma and Grandfather and A Thousand Times Great Grandmère in her withered cerements. And Mother and Father and Cecy and all the rest. But would he be alive that long?

With one last withering wind blast, away they all shot, so many scarves, so many fluttery mammals, so many seared leaves, so many wolves loping, so many whinings and clusterings, so many midnights and dawns and sleeps and wakenings.

Mother shut the door.

Father walked down into the cellar.

Timothy walked across the crepe-littered hall. His head was down, and in passing the party mirror he saw the pale mortality of his face. He shivered.

“Timothy,” said Mother.

She laid a hand on his face. “Son,” she said. “We love you. We all love you. No matter how different you are, no matter if you leave us one day.” She kissed his cheek. “And if and when you die your bones will lie undisturbed, we’ll see to that, you’ll lie at ease forever, and I’ll come see you every All Hallows’ Eve and tuck you in more secure.”

The halls echoed to polished lids creaking and slamming shut.

The House was silent. Far away, the wind went over a hill with its last cargo of small dark flights, echoing, chittering.

He walked up the steps, one by one, crying to himself all the way.

CHAPTER 10

West of October

The four cousins—Peter, William, Philip, and Jack—had lingered on after the Homecoming because a cloud of doom and melancholy and disbelief hung over Europe. There was no room in the dark House, so they were stashed almost upside-down in the barn, which shortly thereafter burned.

Like most of the Family they were not ordinary.

T

o say that most of them slept days and worked at odd occupations nights would fall short of commencement.

To remark that some of them could read minds, and some fly with lightnings to land with leaves, would be an understatement.

To add that some could not be seen in mirrors while others could be found in multitudinous shapes, sizes, and textures in the same glass would merely repeat gossip that veered into truth.

These boys resembled their uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents by the toadstool score and the mushroom dozen.

They were just about every color you could mix in one restless night.

Some were young and others had been around since the Sphinx first sank its stone paws in tidal sands.

And all four were in love and in need for one special Family member.

Cecy.

Cecy. She was the reason, the real reason, the central reason for the wild cousins to circle her and stay. For she was as seedpod full as a pomegranate. She was all the senses of all the creatures in the world. She was all the motion-picture houses and stage-play theaters and all the art galleries of all time.

Ask her to yank your soul like an aching tooth and shoot it into clouds to cool your spirit, and yanked you were, drawn high to drift in the mists.

Ask her to seize that same soul and bind it in the flesh of a tree, and you awoke the next morning with birds singing in your green head.