Enigmatic Pilot_ A Tall Tale Too True Part 15

"You will build a church of meaning and procedure upon a mystery you have mistaken. Your church, even if it is a cathedral, will be a house of cards, and the genuine mystery will be missed."

McGitney scratched his red beard. If this boy was not the Enlightened One that had been promised, he sure sounded like him.

"All right," he said. "Supposing you are not he whom we have been expecting. Nevertheless you say you have a truth to tell us about the sacred markings and what we believe. Tell us your truth."

"I'm afraid you won't like it," Lloyd answered, shuffling his feet on the sod floor to wipe off the mud he had acc.u.mulated.

"It is written that the truth will set you free. This must be why you have found us tonight. There can be no other explanation. And if, as you say, there are things about the Headstones that exceed your understanding, too, then perhaps there is a larger truth at work than any of us knows-or can ever know. But tell us the truth you came to tell, whoever you really are, wherever you really come from. It must be important. After all that has happened tonight, that much is clear."

Lloyd looked McGitney in the eye, then scanned the faces around the room. Then he held up the box the professor had given him, in what seemed another life.

"The markings on this box, which you can all see are exactly like the markings on the strips of wood you carry, were not made thousands or even a hundred years ago. They were made in recent times by twin brothers. Wild, sad creatures. Freaks of nature, you would call them. From Indiana."

A great choral sigh was released around the storehouse.

"The twins were deformed and disabled. A man who ran a medicine show had found them and taken them in, intending to exhibit them for profit, although I think he had too much heart to exploit them. Maybe because of their monstrous appearance they seemed to have grown up in their own world, never a part of the life that we know-though alert enough and smart in their own way. At least they were not imbeciles. But they could not speak English. Instead, they spoke a language all their own, which was every bit as odd to hear as these markings are to look at. The pitchman thought their speech was just animal chatter, but I know know that it had a pattern and a depth-and a variety at least as great as English, perhaps much greater. I was given this box with their written language carved into it, because I hoped to study it and understand its meaning. I first believed it was something they invented, although both the writing and their speech had a-I'm not sure of the right word-an that it had a pattern and a depth-and a variety at least as great as English, perhaps much greater. I was given this box with their written language carved into it, because I hoped to study it and understand its meaning. I first believed it was something they invented, although both the writing and their speech had a-I'm not sure of the right word-an authority authority that some made-up code is not likely to have. But if they were specimens or representatives of some bigger group or a people whose language this is, I don't know where to look for them." that some made-up code is not likely to have. But if they were specimens or representatives of some bigger group or a people whose language this is, I don't know where to look for them."

Lloyd paused, and McGitney tugged at his beard.

"You're saying these writings are the creation of idiots from Indiana, and only a few years old?"

"I did not say they were idiots," Lloyd answered. "It appears they were from Indiana, but there is no actual proof of that."

"But why do the characters and symbols spring to life? Why do they glow?"

"That I do not know-yet," Lloyd responded. "I agree with you that it's wondrous strange, but you have a.s.sumed that the illumination is somehow inherent in the symbols-that they have a life of their own. Maybe the cause lies rather in how the symbols have been made. I have seen luminous fungi in caves. There are water creatures with strange properties, and any number of minerals with unusual characteristics. I cannot account for the capacity just now, but I propose to you that the mystery of the gleaming could be reconciled and the secret of the symbols still remain unsolved."

"But your contention is that the sacred markings are not old and do not tell of the grand historic legacy that we, the Quists, have come to know and wors.h.i.+p through the Book of Buford?"

"The sheets of bark are old," Lloyd replied. "Clearly. The markings on them may or may not be. But I saw the wild twins making such symbols and figures with my own eyes not long ago. They would use any surface that was made available to them, and a range of implements from charcoal stick and quill to awl or sharpened bone. You will note that all the illuminated examples we have here are carved, which allows for the indentations to have been treated with some unknown material or by some undetermined process after creation. Sadly, we lack any examples of their writing system produced by pen or chalk on paper or parchment. It would be very interesting to see if such specimens would also demonstrate the same luminosity now. If they did, that would suggest that there is something, however difficult to understand, about the symbols themselves. If not, it would support the theory that the figures have somehow been treated. I myself have never observed the glowing of the writing on my box. In any case, I can see that all this is hard for you to follow, because you did not know other examples of the writing existed. Believing these bark fragments to be unique, you have therefore attributed special significance to them, which by definition they do not have-although they may very well have other kinds."

"But you say this is not a message to us? That these are not a whole that tell a story. A lost book of revelation and prophecy?" asked a man with a large wart on his forehead that his turban was trying to hide.

Lloyd pursed his lips and then replied, "It seems the one thing that is certain in this matter is that none of us know for certain what these markings mean. The showman who was looking after the brothers thought it was just scribbling. We here all agree that there is a beauty and an order to the markings that lie far beyond any aimless scrawling. Far! This is a language-a true, full, rich language, however indecipherable it may seem. It may even be that it opens an unknown door on the nature of all languages. The characters, their shapes and repet.i.tions, are the most intriguing and hypnotic things to look upon I have ever seen. But why the brothers would need to communicate to each other in writing is unclear. And if they were writing for someone else to read, who did they have in mind?"

"So, you maintain," Soames piped up (his eyes still smarting), "that the Book of Buford is not based on an interpretation of these symbols?"

"I know nothing of your Buford," Lloyd said, shrugging. "I gather from what you have said that you think these writings make up some lost book of the Bible, and that you trace some connection with the people you think it describes. I say again, I do not know what this secret writing means, but I doubt very much that it has anything to do with the Bible-unless it is some interpretation made by the twin brothers, which from what I know of them seems unlikely."

"What about the woodp.e.c.k.e.r?" a sleepy knock-kneed lad called out.

"What woodp.e.c.k.e.r?" Lloyd puzzled. As distinctive as the story behind the Amba.s.sadors' language was, these people had even more peculiar ideas of their own.

"All right, then," McGitney said in his summing-up voice. "The truth you have to tell us is that our theology is based upon a lie."

"A misunderstanding," Lloyd interjected.

"Kendrick Quist and his relative Buford were frauds."

"They may honestly have believed what they said and taught."

"In that case, dupes. They may have duped themselves, but they certainly have duped us-and we have endured persecution and exile because of it!"

"So it would seem," Lloyd was forced to agree.

"The real source of the sacred writings is a couple of mooncalves from Indiana, where Quist was from. He may even have known them. Do you know anything more about them?" McGitney asked, as members of the group frowned and whispered.

Lloyd considered recounting the brothers' experience with the tornado, but decided against it. The Quists had had enough miracles and unexplained phenomena. He shook his head.

"And what became of these weird brothers?" McGitney queried. "Where are they now?"

"They disappeared," Lloyd answered. "I believe they are dead now. A tragic accident."

"Hmm," McGitney said, pondering. "If we are to believe you, then the true authors of our sacred texts are gone from this earth-and, with them, any hope of penetrating what it seems that you would call the real mystery."

"I would not say any any hope," Lloyd replied. "The problem is having enough of their writing to examine. I have had but the symbols on this box and little time or privacy for study. Your so-called Headstones are much more extensive samples. There is also the vital matter of the glowing. If my box has never done this before but does so now, it suggests some a.s.sociation or intercourse between the pieces." hope," Lloyd replied. "The problem is having enough of their writing to examine. I have had but the symbols on this box and little time or privacy for study. Your so-called Headstones are much more extensive samples. There is also the vital matter of the glowing. If my box has never done this before but does so now, it suggests some a.s.sociation or intercourse between the pieces."

"The markings change!" a young horse-faced girl sang out.

Lloyd took this comment as a reiteration of his point and continued. "Proximity may influence the luminosity. Cause unknown."

"What about you-when you touch them?" asked a man with a mustache that curled in a way that reminded Lloyd of the "f" hole in a violin.

"There may be several other factors at work, which we do not comprehend as yet," he answered.

"Fools, fools, fools we are!" an old dark woman gibbered.

"I would not say that," Lloyd barked (somewhat surprised at himself). "The Headstones are not what you thought them to be. But while they may not be sacred in the way that you have believed, they are worthy of great interest and perhaps much more than that, if their secret were fully understood."

Lloyd had intended his comments to be consoling, but, coming after all that had transpired, they were more than the Quists could bear. A woman in a sunflower calico dress and a knitted shawl thrust her googling baby into her husband's arms and began unwinding her turban. Several others started to do the same.

"Ah," McGitney lamented, remembering his moment of cowardice in the barn back in Illinois and his mad dash through the laundry line. He felt once again on the run, his vision clouded. Could he emerge to advantage once again?

"Dark night of the soul!" he mourned. "A messiah comes to us at last, who says he is not our messiah and yet calls the lightning down to aid our members. Then he tells us that our faith is based on false teachings-that our prophetic forebearers are in fact lunatics or lusus naturae suitable for naught but display alongside the sawdust and hogskin mermaid, and the two-headed calf at a village fair!"

There followed much grumbling and argument and more than a little weeping and wailing. Lloyd could find nothing to say that he had not already said and, in being there to witness the unraveling of the Quist theology, regretted the effect his knowledge had imposed, although he was canny enough to realize that without his performance with the Eye they might well have talked their way around his words. Truly, faith is a kind of blindness, he told himself. But, then again, so is being too sure of what you see. The first pale light of dawn began seeping into the storehouse. It was time for him to get back to his coffin, and for the Quists to mobilize.

"I must go," he told them. "And so must you. Whether you take off your head wraps or not, you will not so easily lose your reputation."

McGitney, who had been comforting one of his wives, turned to Lloyd.

"You are right again, young warrior. We must carry on and come to terms with this new revelation at a safe distance."

"Why? What's the point?" one of the young people hollered.

"I'm a-goin' back to Indy-anna!" an old codger croaked.

"What say you, Brother McGitney? What in G.o.d's name do we do now?"

"Who said he's leader now?" A scraggly man choked and started snuffing the candles with a square-toed boot.

"Silence!" McGitney bellowed, recalling that moment of exhilarated surprise when the contents of the clothesline were removed from his head and he had found himself a hero. "Here is what I say. We must try to see the blessing in what has happened here. We are all still alive and unhurt, and if our pride and our faith have been challenged, perhaps in another way it has been renewed. If we are to put stock in what this boy has said-and it seems that we do-then we must remember that we have in our possession these things that have no less meaning than we supposed, just different. Perhaps we are more pioneers and pilgrims than we supposed. I say that we forge on as a family, as a clan and as a community, committed to freedom, industry, and the search for the significance of these tablets-an endeavor we can all partic.i.p.ate in without the need for prophets or messiahs. It strikes me that I myself have never looked more closely at the symbols than tonight because I had some inkling, I believe, of what they represented. The Book of Buford was a kind of curtain, not an exegesis. I say that what we leave behind in this meeting place is our arrogance of special providence, not our loyalty to each other or our fascination and reverence for these enchanted characters. It was them that brought us all together-that made us risk life, limb, and old ties. That is powerful significance indeed, worthy of many lifetimes of devotion and study. Other beliefs and sects have but copies or imagined texts, relics and articles of faith. We at least have originals, whose meaning is as undiscovered and untapped as the wilderness waiting for us outside that door. I say we should wipe our eyes and gird up our loins and be grateful. For tonight we have been saved. We have been released and we have been refreshed. From the dark night of despair, we have been given a new dawn!"

Lloyd considered McGitney's speech an example of both sod-level wisdom and true poise under pressure, worthy of both Hattie and St. Ives. If nothing else, the Quists had chosen the right leader, he was sure-a fact that contrasted sharply with the mesh-hatted bigot who had been incinerated. Perhaps an even brighter future lay ahead for the Quists than the one they had envisioned. He hoped so, for all their sakes.

McGitney had much to do now, holding the flock together, repairing breaches in trust and confidence, and trying to organize the group off to their hidden horses and wagons-to rea.s.semble and disperse, or to bid farewell to those insistent members who had lost faith forever and were now determined to return East to their old lives or to team up with other settlers headed West. But still, he made sure that Lloyd was sent off with, if not consensual thanks, then at least an acknowledgment of respect.

"Young Lloyd," McGitney said. "I know you would seek to have these tablets to a.s.sist your own inquiry. But these we must keep, because for better or worse they have been entrusted to us. You have your box, and in some way that we may yet decipher, our fates have been connected and may remain so. Go forth with what new blessings we have to give. You will not be soon forgotten."

Soames and Drucker together gave Lloyd a deep bow, which he returned. Then he stowed the box under his garments and stepped out through the door into the ghostly morning, taking a longer, more circ.u.mspect route back to the Clutters'. After his earlier performance with the vigilantes, it was deemed that he needed no escort. He thought Hattie would have been proud of the Li'l Skunk.

He glimpsed many shapes and shadows along the way, and smelled the smoke of early cooking fires, the salivatory tang of bacon, and the glug of grits but garnered not a hint of any particular malice or intent toward himself or anything relating to either the vigilantes or the Quists. By the time he reached the undertaker and coffinmaker's establishment and had sc.r.a.ped the mud from his boots, the sky was streaked with b.l.o.o.d.y color. Softly, he cracked the door, relatched, and bolted it-and had just snuggled back down into his coffin to think of Hattie when his father rose, stretched and farted simultaneously, which almost set him giggling. Hattie could change pitch! Moments later, Rapture squirmed awake.

"Yeh all fine?" she cooed to her husband.

"Lord, I feel like the risen dead!" Hephaestus exclaimed. "I have a crook in my back that will need a poultice. Or, better still, a knee and a yank. But we need to be shoving on. I'm hankering to be gone now. On our way."

"I be there," his wife promised, swallowing a yawn. "How's Lloyd?"

"Ah, just look!" Hephaestus gestured. "A-peace like a suckling. You'd think there were no troubles a'tall in the world. He probably hasn't changed position the whole night. Leave the rousting to me. We have tracks to make."

CHAPTER 4.

I Show You Plenty Ghosts WE HAVE ALL HAD THE EXPERIENCE OF FALLING ASLEEP FOR A minute and then having what seems like an entire night of dreams. Often, these dreams act as a solvent to our day-to-day consciousness-a disbursing, confronting carnival of images and incidents that take us out of our familiar being and into fantastic new (or suddenly remembered) realms. Other times, we find ourselves not swept away from what we had been focused on before falling asleep but drawn closer, so that we seem to pa.s.s straight through the matter that was on our mind, merging with it. Such was the experience Lloyd had in the few short minutes of refuge and release that overcame him when he slipped back into his coffin as his parents were rising. minute and then having what seems like an entire night of dreams. Often, these dreams act as a solvent to our day-to-day consciousness-a disbursing, confronting carnival of images and incidents that take us out of our familiar being and into fantastic new (or suddenly remembered) realms. Other times, we find ourselves not swept away from what we had been focused on before falling asleep but drawn closer, so that we seem to pa.s.s straight through the matter that was on our mind, merging with it. Such was the experience Lloyd had in the few short minutes of refuge and release that overcame him when he slipped back into his coffin as his parents were rising.

His mind was so aroused by what had transpired with the Quists and the vigilantes, the secret writing of the Amba.s.sadors, and the lethal force of the Spirosian Eye (all of which, of course, had come close on the heels of the time-distorting effect of the Vardogers' music box and the questions raised by the accelerated decomposition of the cannibal dog), that even though he was drained of physical energy, his thoughts ran back over his night episode. The conundrum of the Eye seemed momentarily impenetrable, so he ended up sifting through the things he had said to the Quists-the idea that the twins' symbol system may have been treated by some process to create the illuminated effect. This, at first, had seemed to be the most logical explanation. He had even offered suppositions about what type of materials might be involved. Then he heard again in his sleep the remark made by the equine-countenanced girl: "The markings change!" "The markings change!"

At the time, he had been aware of some taut string of conjecture her words had stroked in him, but there had been too much happening to address it. Now, in the serial stream of hypnologic clarity, this a.s.sertion began to resonate more explicitly. He realized that her remark was like the instruction on the Vardogers' music box. Initially, he had thought it said one obvious thing-referring to the glowing effect of the writings. But it may have meant something both more literal and miraculous. Since he had first come into possession of the box, a vague thought had pa.s.sed back and forth in his mind-that the symbols and characters seemed to move or s.h.i.+ft with different examinations. Without the technology to duplicate the markings, it was impossible to decide the matter objectively. All he had was a foggy but needling impression that he had so far not had the energy, leisure, or privacy to explore.

The Quist girl had called his attention to it again, and now, in the twilight morning of half-sleep, he was able to at least contemplate the notion without prejudice. The idea of markings carved on a box, which were able to be altered-or to somehow alter themselves-was on the surface absurd. But suppose one had the suspicion that they did. What if this idea lingered and no matter how many times the writing was consulted one could not with absolute certainty feel as if the suspicion had been dispelled? This alone said something important about the symbol system, Lloyd felt. This was, in fact, a fundamental part of its uniqueness-that every time you confronted it, it seemed new and all the more indecipherable.

Yet if it were just a matter of impressions one could argue that the sense of change and movement was due to the foreignness of the markings. The whole world was like this. Birds arrange themselves like musical notes on the rope between trees where you hang was.h.i.+ng. Are they the same birds you saw yesterday? Are they all all the same? Do all humans appear as un-differentiated and interchangeable to other undomesticated species? This question sent him down a long corridor of speculation, and at the end of the corridor was a painting. the same? Do all humans appear as un-differentiated and interchangeable to other undomesticated species? This question sent him down a long corridor of speculation, and at the end of the corridor was a painting.

The impression one had that the Amba.s.sadors' writing underwent some kind of alteration (perhaps continuously, perhaps not) struck him as no more extraordinary than a painting that seems to change color and mood depending on the light, which brought to mind again the story that St. Ives had told about the paintings in Junius Rutherford's possession. These apparently innocuous works of art, when observed over time, possessed very odd properties. It was not the effects their surface created that changed but the deeper structure, the very subject matter-or so his friend with the mechanical prosthesis had insisted.

As outrageous as the things the gambler had told him were, Lloyd acknowledged that there was a kind of consistency to them-and consistency, whatever form it takes, is always the hallmark of something one should pay attention to.

To Lloyd, the "painting phenomenon" was a transformation a.n.a.logous to what he imagined occurring with the twins' secret writing-and what the horse-faced girl may have been alluding to. The amount of s.p.a.ce, the frame for each, did not change, but what happened within the frame did, over time. Time was the crucial element. Time and the observer, of course. Without someone to observe the changes, would they occur?

His mind had often spun around this perennial question of philosophy and perception. But now he saw that there was another aspect. There was the much more subtle yet still intensely practical issue of how how the presence of a perceiver changed the event or object viewed. If, for instance, one was willing to grant some occult instability to the twins' writing, what was it that triggered the changing? People, when they know they are being watched, behave differently from when they think they are alone and unseen. They perform. Could it be that in some way the markings were the presence of a perceiver changed the event or object viewed. If, for instance, one was willing to grant some occult instability to the twins' writing, what was it that triggered the changing? People, when they know they are being watched, behave differently from when they think they are alone and unseen. They perform. Could it be that in some way the markings were performing performing, and that the increase in their luminosity was influenced by the number of people and the intensity of attention paid? This would suggest that there was something important about his own particular partic.i.p.ation, for the markings had shone brighter when he made physical contact.

This chain of thought brought to mind a comment his mother had made years before, when the husband of one of her herbal-remedy patients had asked with mock seriousness if she honestly believed ghosts were "truly real" or if she was just being colorful and folksy and thought that they were "creatures in the mind." To Lloyd's surprise, Rapture dropped the usual white accent she used in public and replied, "Show me now where yer mine true ends and de worl' begins, I show you plenny ghosts."

Something about ghosts. And time.

Ghosts and time were intimately related, and yet profoundly disconnected. For what were ghosts but people who had stepped out of time-who were now immune to time-watching from outside, interacting with the world but no longer of it?

What would the world look like outside time? Lloyd wondered in his sleep. What would human culture look like-or sound like-outside language?

Time was change. The glyphs of the Amba.s.sadors seemed to be constantly changing, except for the spiral symbol that looked like a tornado. So their language had something to do with time.

But was not a written language always about time? A fixing and freezing of a spoken language? In his dream state it occurred to him that he had a.s.sumed that the markings and carvings were transcriptions of the alien tongue the twins seemed to share. Their behavior had suggested that they understood each other's sounds. Because the one was so bizarre, he had made the link to their markings; it was not surprising that a method of transcription would appear alien, too. What had puzzled him was why they needed to write. If no one else could understand their language, what was the point of writing? They could speak to each other.

Looking at these a.s.sumptions now, he saw that people often write things down for their private benefit. (He did.) To make things clearer for themselves. To prioritize. To remember. Or for other as yet unknown people to find and read. To teach. What were most books? Messages written in the hope of being found and decoded. Perhaps the brothers were trying to teach people their language, only it was hard to find a suitable student.

Something about ghosts. And time.

In his trance state, Lloyd slipped through the hierograms and the phenomenon of their luminosity for a moment, back to the Martian Amba.s.sadors' speech and the question of what things would not just look like but sound like outside or in some new relation to time. Yes, there was something about ghosts and time when it came to the twins. And tornadoes-or at least the tornado that they had dropped out of.

He spiraled around and around, trying to cut through the shame and guilt he felt about his actions toward them, to hear their voices again, to visualize the changes he had imagined in their hierograms. Why was it that the one symbol that seemed the most representative of dynamism-the spiral icon-was the one element that he was certain remained constant?

It was not a letter like A A or or Z Z. It was not even a unit of meaning, he thought. It was...

It was a kind of system unto itself. A value system for interpreting all the other symbols and their relations.h.i.+p to each other. Was that it?

He could not grasp onto the mechanism. All his young life he had sought out with instinctive acuity the essential elements of machine operations and physical processes. He was a born engineer, with a pathological curiosity. Now he was seeing a whole new world open before his dreaming eyes-the possibility that behind and inherent in language were mechanisms equally as real as the physics of a slingshot or the chemistry of a beer vat, but far more mysterious and perhaps much more powerful.

If one could connect the mechanisms of language with ballistics and pharmacology, optics, harmonics, hydraulics and medicine, mathematics and music. If one could master the secrets of symbols and syphons, surgeries and solar energy. If one knew the exact point where the mind ended and the world began, and could render it...

Who would need projectiles if they had mastered that enigmatic science?

He glimpsed then, for just a flutter, a symbol so potent that it was beyond all representation of other things and ideas, but alive unto itself. Inclusive and yet apart. Because it was the Whole-simultaneously inside and outside itself. Not the word made flesh but the word made time-and the ghosts made flesh the word made time-and the ghosts made flesh.

That was what the spiral of the twins was, perhaps. That was what he had caught a flicker of that night with his beloved Hattie.

A key and a keyhole, too. And if one could pa.s.s through the spiral one could look back and see and hear the secret language unified and clear. He fixed his mind on this and sent himself outward, imaginatively trying to enter the spiral, to gain the other side. And then...

Swirling strings and flowering fractals of ideograms and morphemes exploded before his eyes, as if the dusty leather-bound tomes he had pored over in Sch.e.l.ling's bookshop had opened all at once inside his head. He saw Egyptian hieroglyphs, lush brush-stroked Chinese characters on long, unwinding scrolls. Arabic poems tiled into mosaics. Greek and Hebrew letters hammered in stone. Alchemical and astrological symbols. The tracks of animals in tar pits-the silhouettes of bison and ibex on cave walls-musical notes, tattoos, hand signals, constellations. Complicated chains of numbers twined into lattices that in turn formed the skeletons of fabulous beasts like gryphons and unicorns, whose emerging flesh and scales then took on the mesmerizing puzzle patterns of still more figures-radiant angels and ghastly demons, horned-bone shaman masks and polished metal armor made of tinier masks made of geometric shapes that were the visual representation of still other numbers, coalescing to build vast temples and coliseums of notation that grew and glistened like sentient crystal systems. On and on the symbols rained at him, blossoming into jungles of unknown significance-metamorphosing into monsters and monoliths, t.i.tans, totems, face cards, and pieces in forgotten games.

But through all the pictograms and treble clefs repeatedly appearing amid the empires of equations and alphabets was the insignia of the Vardogers' clawed candle, and the tornado emblem of the teratoid twins-a spiral ch.o.r.eography suggestive of conceptual aggregates and psychological a.s.sociations-which was something entirely different. As different as the momentary flare of a firefly in a bean row from the electric haunted hieroglyph you would see if you could follow its whole life-every single pulse and drift of wing-and hold it in your mind as easily as that one blink. It was as different as the bending of the youngest blade of gra.s.s in a fifty-acre field from...the wind.

The wind made him think of his ghost sister, Lodema, and he recalled where he had got the notion of building shrines to her that summoned and revealed the subtlety and power of the unseen breeze. It was because of the old Wyandot man back in Zanesville, King Billy.

King Billy made moons.h.i.+ne and talked to himself, but he knew the tracks of every animal, from a field mouse to a fox. He knew when to fish with h.e.l.lgrammites and when to use night crawlers. He could tell you the time of night by smell. He read the world with his whole body, his being so embedded within it that he was always on the page that was being written. All around his shack he had rigged up nets of tinkling beads and spoons. King Billy called them "ghost traps."

Lloyd saw them again in his dream, feathered, jagged-warning, intriguing-sometimes invisible, depending on the light. They kept away bad spirits and busybodies. They defined Billy's property, reflected his view of the world, and provided decoration. Insects and animals interacted with them, like the shadows and the seasons. Lloyd saw them again now as like the symbols of the Amba.s.sadors. A living web of meanings that marked where the World becomes Mind. Where the Word becomes Time. Where the Ghosts become Flesh.

CHAPTER 5.