Authors: Chris Adrian
The Great Night (37 page)
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Though he had never seen the movie before, Henry knew when the end was coming. Enough people had died, and the
not-so-surprising secret had ripened sufficiently to be revealed, and the music was increasingly becoming dominated by strains of the overture, and, most importantly, he knew it was almost time for him to do something. That knowledge had come as certainly as had the lost memories of who he was and what had been done to him, and though he didn't totally comprehend the plans his terrible childhood friend had for the two of them, he knew he bore some responsibility to stop them. He stood very stiffly next to his friend, who was now a large handsome black Lab, and now Bobby's spitting image, and now a thin wild-eyed man whom Henry knew was Ryan twenty years later. Henry could tell he was amused by the musical even though his face was impassive.
not-so-surprising secret had ripened sufficiently to be revealed, and the music was increasingly becoming dominated by strains of the overture, and, most importantly, he knew it was almost time for him to do something. That knowledge had come as certainly as had the lost memories of who he was and what had been done to him, and though he didn't totally comprehend the plans his terrible childhood friend had for the two of them, he knew he bore some responsibility to stop them. He stood very stiffly next to his friend, who was now a large handsome black Lab, and now Bobby's spitting image, and now a thin wild-eyed man whom Henry knew was Ryan twenty years later. Henry could tell he was amused by the musical even though his face was impassive.
It was very strangeâmuch stranger than being lost in the park, or discovering that it had once been his home, and stranger even than remembering there was such a thing as magic, and that he had lived with it and used it and been good at it and suffered for the lack of it, and even stranger yet than the strangest and most wonderful discovery of the night, that it was something as lovely as it was terrible that he had been so afraid ofâto feel so powerful and so helpless. He knew how to turn a tree into a house, and bacon into a pig, or a pig into a cop, or cop into a pennyâand yet he didn't know what to do to stop his friend and make things better.
The answer came from the musicalâor, rather, one of the players, the tall lady with cobwebs in her hair, whom Henry recognized from his time under the hill, and for whom he still felt a twinge of hatred, though it was very small and very much overpowered by the pity he felt for her, since her glamour fell away now in his memory, and he knew her from the hospital as well. She was brandishing a silver knife and threatening to kill herself for love, and throwing herself on the dirty homeless-looking man who played the lead, who told her over
and over that there was no room for love anymore in a world that contained the horror of Soylent Green. The rest of the castâall the population of the hill, it seemedâcame walking in procession onto the stage to sing about people who ate people, how lonely they were, and how sad, but they had so much more to say about them than just that. Henry strained to listen, but the words escaped him, not because the music and voices weren't loud, but because new voices had jumped in to confuse the lyrics. At the same time he saw Bobby weeping as he broke up with him, while Henry patted him dumbly and numbly on the back. He saw the boys of Fourteenth Street scattering in the police raid, ocelots and raccoons and fleet foxes sailing over the wall and between the legs of the policemen to run free in the city, only to wake within days like Henry, remembering less and less of who they really were and where they had been until there was nothing left at all. He saw Mike raging in the form of a bear, then fleeing to his room under a barrage of bullets, and dying there in his bed in his own form, and Ryan, wearing the form of an angry boy, punching a policewoman in the face. And he saw a black Lab puppy, sitting still but not quiet in the middle of the stage, weeping and howling.
and over that there was no room for love anymore in a world that contained the horror of Soylent Green. The rest of the castâall the population of the hill, it seemedâcame walking in procession onto the stage to sing about people who ate people, how lonely they were, and how sad, but they had so much more to say about them than just that. Henry strained to listen, but the words escaped him, not because the music and voices weren't loud, but because new voices had jumped in to confuse the lyrics. At the same time he saw Bobby weeping as he broke up with him, while Henry patted him dumbly and numbly on the back. He saw the boys of Fourteenth Street scattering in the police raid, ocelots and raccoons and fleet foxes sailing over the wall and between the legs of the policemen to run free in the city, only to wake within days like Henry, remembering less and less of who they really were and where they had been until there was nothing left at all. He saw Mike raging in the form of a bear, then fleeing to his room under a barrage of bullets, and dying there in his bed in his own form, and Ryan, wearing the form of an angry boy, punching a policewoman in the face. And he saw a black Lab puppy, sitting still but not quiet in the middle of the stage, weeping and howling.
It was Ryan but not Ryan, an actor who wore Ryan's face upon his own as if it were projected there, and every scene was excruciatingly clear, though they were laid on top of each other and within each other. “Why are you doing this to me?” Henry asked the lady with the cobwebs in her hair, because it was obvious to him that this was her magic. He spoke very quietly, but he was sure she heard him. She shook her head, singing and dancing and smiling faintly. A little brownie came running up to her, and bowed, and exchanged her silver knife for a wooden one. “Why are you doing this?” he asked again. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty? I didn't ask for any of this!”
“Hush,” said the black dog next to Henry. “Here comes the good part.” The lady knelt before the dog on the stage. Her eyes met Henry's a few times before he understood that she was trying to tell him something, before he saw that the way she was swinging her knife was an invitation to him to fight alongside her, and her eyes, which remained open, and dulled so convincingly after she fell on her knife that he worried she might actually be dead, stayed locked on his as she lay on the ground. So he stood very quietly as the show ended, as the last animal ran into the woods, and Bobby closed his door on him, and the puppy lay down on its belly and put its paws over its muzzle.
“What, Titania?” said Henry's friend. “Did you want to remind me of something I never forgot?” He was crying, but smiling fiercely. He took away his hand, releasing his hold on Henry, and wiped his eye. Henry jumped as a rabbit, and sailed through the air as a slim black ferret, and landed as a dog before he stood before her as man.
“I'm ready,” he said to her.
T
itania's attention wandered as she danced and sang. It was supposed to all be on Puck, focused there by the terms of the spell she was under, since her new mortal husband had commanded her to
sing her heart out
at him, and she would have done that, anyway, since the crude and complicated spell that she had woven into the song and substance of the play required her voice to come to fruition. He stood, at first impassive and unaffected next to his companion, who commanded more and more of her attention until he had all of it.
itania's attention wandered as she danced and sang. It was supposed to all be on Puck, focused there by the terms of the spell she was under, since her new mortal husband had commanded her to
sing her heart out
at him, and she would have done that, anyway, since the crude and complicated spell that she had woven into the song and substance of the play required her voice to come to fruition. He stood, at first impassive and unaffected next to his companion, who commanded more and more of her attention until he had all of it.
“How is he today?” he'd asked, just barely inside the door of their room, looking at the floor instead of at the child.
“How does he look?” she would always reply, and he would mutter something and wander out. “You are the worst doctor in the world,” she had told him at one point, in answer to some inane question when the boy was in his last days. She had noticed how he had a boy's face in his face but had not remarked that it was one she knew. Is that what this is all about? she wanted to ask Puck, but her words were all taken up in song. You have forgotten why we quarreled a thousand years ago, but
you want to kill us all because we took away your toy in 1988? She wanted to laugh, but then she let out a sob that stopped the music briefly: she weaved it into the spell, sadness and chagrin and a dawning glee, which she tried to squelch.
you want to kill us all because we took away your toy in 1988? She wanted to laugh, but then she let out a sob that stopped the music briefly: she weaved it into the spell, sadness and chagrin and a dawning glee, which she tried to squelch.
Dr. Blork had haunted her grief the whole past year, and she had come to hate him for failing to save her child, in ways it had never occurred to her to hate him before her Boy had died. She did not wonder how she could have failed to recognize him as someone who had lived under the hill: recognizing former changelings was the farthest thing from her mind in the hospital, and this one, like so many of them, used the magic that was left to them to hide what they were from themselves. She remembered how disdainful she had been of him, and what a poor choice he had seemed, though nobody had expected Puck to pick a changeling for his beauty or sweetness. What had been so distasteful about him, she understood, as she watched him weeping with ghosts in his eyes, was not that he was ugly or mischievous or smelled bad, but the huge capacity for suffering that had been so appallingly evident in him. Now that she really saw him, she thought she could remember the vast empty chambers she had seen in him when he stood forth with Puck, chambers that could be filled with only one thing. How odd, she thought, and how horrible to see them still there, slosh full of tears and regret, but no more capacitous, and perhaps not as full, as her own.
Oh my
, she thought, watching Puck cry next to Dr. Blork, and understanding what she had to do when Doorknob came running up furiously, looking certain to stab her with the rowan knife until he knelt and presented it to her, taking her silver knife in exchange. She took a moment to regret her decision, but not very long. As certainly as she knew what to do to save her people, she knew her husband wasn't coming back anymore than her Boy was coming back, that she had waited
as long as she could for both of them. She knew those facts would never be anything easier than a great gnawing sadness, and she knew it would always be true, even as she lived day after day into eternity, that she couldn't live without them.
, she thought, watching Puck cry next to Dr. Blork, and understanding what she had to do when Doorknob came running up furiously, looking certain to stab her with the rowan knife until he knelt and presented it to her, taking her silver knife in exchange. She took a moment to regret her decision, but not very long. As certainly as she knew what to do to save her people, she knew her husband wasn't coming back anymore than her Boy was coming back, that she had waited
as long as she could for both of them. She knew those facts would never be anything easier than a great gnawing sadness, and she knew it would always be true, even as she lived day after day into eternity, that she couldn't live without them.
Dr. Blork held her eye and nodded at her and even seemed to wink once: he came to her in one fluid changing leap. And he told her, as if in benediction, when he landed: “I'm ready.”
“So am I,” she said, and as gracefully as he had flown to her she stood and stabbed him in the heart with her wooden knife.
H
enry already knew that it took forever and no time at all to die. He had watched children die over weeks and months; some died over years, dying from the moment they were diagnosed with the incurable diseases that he and his colleagues handed out. And yet at the same time they were, eventually, alive one moment, and dead the next. But it was still a surprise how much time seemed to pass between the moment he was stabbed and the moment he hit the ground, and from that moment until the sun came up and darkened his sight forever. In that time he had the opportunity for all sorts of reflection, and a variety of action, and in a flash he considered everything he might do before he died, because he felt sure he could do anything in that short eternity. Except not die, of courseâthat was as solidly unavoidable as the wooden knife in his chest. But there was time, he felt, to undo his old forgotten friend, and he felt just about magical and mighty enough to do it, as capable as he had been incapable a few moments before. He had the certain sense that death would grant him that wish.
It's too bad I have to die
, he thought,
but it's probably
worth it
. With a particularly clarified vision he saw what his friend would do if he was left unrestrained, and then his death seemed like a small price to pay.
Clever lady!
He thought of Titania, whose hundred thousand names he suddenly knew as well, and he pitied her and he hated her.
enry already knew that it took forever and no time at all to die. He had watched children die over weeks and months; some died over years, dying from the moment they were diagnosed with the incurable diseases that he and his colleagues handed out. And yet at the same time they were, eventually, alive one moment, and dead the next. But it was still a surprise how much time seemed to pass between the moment he was stabbed and the moment he hit the ground, and from that moment until the sun came up and darkened his sight forever. In that time he had the opportunity for all sorts of reflection, and a variety of action, and in a flash he considered everything he might do before he died, because he felt sure he could do anything in that short eternity. Except not die, of courseâthat was as solidly unavoidable as the wooden knife in his chest. But there was time, he felt, to undo his old forgotten friend, and he felt just about magical and mighty enough to do it, as capable as he had been incapable a few moments before. He had the certain sense that death would grant him that wish.
It's too bad I have to die
, he thought,
but it's probably
worth it
. With a particularly clarified vision he saw what his friend would do if he was left unrestrained, and then his death seemed like a small price to pay.
Clever lady!
He thought of Titania, whose hundred thousand names he suddenly knew as well, and he pitied her and he hated her.
But his friend was already vastly diminished, and swarms of faeries were molesting him cruelly, clawing at him with their nails and biting him with their teeth, hacking with little axes and swords, gouging black gobbets of flesh from him and swallowing them without chewing. He fought back, but his sadness dominated his rage and made him weak. In no timeâor was it forever?âthey had bound him with a necklace of bones, and the snarling black dog was a black Lab puppy with a mouth full of milk teeth. They might have been the bones of their fallen comrades, plucked from Puck's gullet, or they might have been Henry's friends' own bones, or they might have been Henry's bones. At the end he sat meekly at Titania's feet amid a pile of faeries, some dead and some mangled, and a fog of golden blood hung in the air, and there was dancing and song and a noise of bells.
A number of things happened next, though Henry paid only partial attention to them. Titania began to call out names and issue orders; she named every faerie still living, and told them to fetch what was precious to them because they were leaving, abandoning the hill and moving farther west. “Wake the horses,” she said. “We will ride on the sea until we come to a new home.”
How interesting!
Henry thought.
I want to see what their new home is like.
But he didn't, really. There was something more important he should be thinking about, and yet, ridiculously, for another eternal moment what it was escaped him. At some point, before this or after this, Titania told Molly and Will and all but one of the other mortal cast members to go home, and they all did, turning and marching,
naked or clothed, down the hill and through the morning fog, out of the park and back into the world.
How interesting!
Henry thought.
I hope Molly and Will start dating!
And yet he didn't hope that, or else there was something he wanted more, and it seemed like a betrayal that they passed by without saying goodbye to him, though he knewâin fact, he could literally
see
âhow they were bound by Titania's words to do just as she said, and he knew they might forget everything that had happened that night and might invent other reasons to explain how they met or why they fell in love. To her remaining mortal cast mate, the male lead, whose name was Whoosh or Puff or Snuff, Titania said, “Goodbye.” Those words represented something terribly important, Henry knewâit came with knowing all her names that he knew her heartbreak as well, though he had known it anyway, when she was poor Mrs. Trudy Doolittle, whose son had died like everyone else ever born into the worldâand yet he suddenly cared least of all about that. It was the thought of Molly and Will walking home naked together and then falling in loveâreal love, not the lust and obsessions borne of faerie wineâthat made him remember.
How interesting!
Henry thought.
I want to see what their new home is like.
But he didn't, really. There was something more important he should be thinking about, and yet, ridiculously, for another eternal moment what it was escaped him. At some point, before this or after this, Titania told Molly and Will and all but one of the other mortal cast members to go home, and they all did, turning and marching,
naked or clothed, down the hill and through the morning fog, out of the park and back into the world.
How interesting!
Henry thought.
I hope Molly and Will start dating!
And yet he didn't hope that, or else there was something he wanted more, and it seemed like a betrayal that they passed by without saying goodbye to him, though he knewâin fact, he could literally
see
âhow they were bound by Titania's words to do just as she said, and he knew they might forget everything that had happened that night and might invent other reasons to explain how they met or why they fell in love. To her remaining mortal cast mate, the male lead, whose name was Whoosh or Puff or Snuff, Titania said, “Goodbye.” Those words represented something terribly important, Henry knewâit came with knowing all her names that he knew her heartbreak as well, though he had known it anyway, when she was poor Mrs. Trudy Doolittle, whose son had died like everyone else ever born into the worldâand yet he suddenly cared least of all about that. It was the thought of Molly and Will walking home naked together and then falling in loveâreal love, not the lust and obsessions borne of faerie wineâthat made him remember.
Bobby!
he thought.
Forgive me!
He meant, most immediately,
Forgive me for forgetting you
, and yet he also meant
Forgive me for everything else
, and yet also just as soon as he said it he realized it was not what he meant to say. Or rather, there was something more important to say to Bobby and not much time to say it. He tried to hurl himself across the country, but his body wouldn't budge, and he tried to fling himself there as a whispering wind, but that was too hard, too. Maybe impending Death was fickle with his gifts, or maybe he was too close now to actually dying to manage it. He needed a messenger. Everyone seemed so busy. The faeries were packing, and Puck was still weeping, and Molly and Will were shambling down
the hill. It seemed unfair, anyway, to make them carry his message; they had their whole lives to get on with. He considered Titania briefly, and though it would have been satisfying to make her deliver his messageâas his murderer she owed him something, he was sure of thatâhe knew she would ultimately be too hard to convince. It would take too long, and he didn't really have forever until he died. It only felt that way.
he thought.
Forgive me!
He meant, most immediately,
Forgive me for forgetting you
, and yet he also meant
Forgive me for everything else
, and yet also just as soon as he said it he realized it was not what he meant to say. Or rather, there was something more important to say to Bobby and not much time to say it. He tried to hurl himself across the country, but his body wouldn't budge, and he tried to fling himself there as a whispering wind, but that was too hard, too. Maybe impending Death was fickle with his gifts, or maybe he was too close now to actually dying to manage it. He needed a messenger. Everyone seemed so busy. The faeries were packing, and Puck was still weeping, and Molly and Will were shambling down
the hill. It seemed unfair, anyway, to make them carry his message; they had their whole lives to get on with. He considered Titania briefly, and though it would have been satisfying to make her deliver his messageâas his murderer she owed him something, he was sure of thatâhe knew she would ultimately be too hard to convince. It would take too long, and he didn't really have forever until he died. It only felt that way.
He settled for a squirrel. Its brain was small and its will was weak, but it was changeable and so he changed it into his messenger.
Listen
, he said to it,
you must go tell Bobby the good news.
And Henry told it, in rather a hurry, what it should say. The faeries had mounted their wagons and their chariots and their steeds, and Puck was sitting all alone by Henry's body, weeping silver puppy tears that rolled like marbles down the hill, and Molly and Will and the others had nearly made it through the fog.
Listen
, he said to it,
you must go tell Bobby the good news.
And Henry told it, in rather a hurry, what it should say. The faeries had mounted their wagons and their chariots and their steeds, and Puck was sitting all alone by Henry's body, weeping silver puppy tears that rolled like marbles down the hill, and Molly and Will and the others had nearly made it through the fog.
There is magic!
the squirrel said.
the squirrel said.
Exactly!
Henry said. And then:
No, no ⦠there is love! That's what I mean to say
. Or did he mean magic?
Just tell him the whole story!
he commanded, not knowing if the squirrel could do it, but wanting so desperately that it would.
There it is
, he thought.
The last thing I want!
He knew it was his mightiest moment as a magician, and he very carefully failed to want anything else while his fellow mortals found the steps out of the park and the faeries began their wild ride to find a new home, leaving behind a host of treasures under the hill, and leaving the body of Titania's boy, which began very subtly to rot, and leaving Puck to weep as long as he would next to Henry's body and then be free to harass the park and the city with muted mischief, but taking with them the secret word that might unbind him so it would never be spoken again.
Henry said. And then:
No, no ⦠there is love! That's what I mean to say
. Or did he mean magic?
Just tell him the whole story!
he commanded, not knowing if the squirrel could do it, but wanting so desperately that it would.
There it is
, he thought.
The last thing I want!
He knew it was his mightiest moment as a magician, and he very carefully failed to want anything else while his fellow mortals found the steps out of the park and the faeries began their wild ride to find a new home, leaving behind a host of treasures under the hill, and leaving the body of Titania's boy, which began very subtly to rot, and leaving Puck to weep as long as he would next to Henry's body and then be free to harass the park and the city with muted mischief, but taking with them the secret word that might unbind him so it would never be spoken again.
Henry died just at dawn, and did no more magic in the world. From the west side of the park a host of faeries streamed
down Waller Street, and birds fell out of the sky, and cats danced on garbage cans, and early rising widows fell down at their windows, blinded by the glorious glowing sight of them, and they rode faster and faster, so by the Outer Sunset those who witnessed their passing saw them as a wind full of color. They passed onto the ocean and were gone. From the east side of the park the mortals spilled out: Molly and Will, naked and hand in hand, just above the Duboce Steps, where they were quite startled by the lovely sunrise over the city; Princess and Huff and Mary and Bob and Hogg a little higher up. “I got one,” Princess said, because she had stuffed a faerie in her pocket, but when she brought it out she saw that it had been replaced with a bunch of sticks and a little grass. And from the north entrance a squirrel ran out and paused on the sidewalk on Haight Street, standing up on its hind legs and sniffing the air a moment before dropping to all fours and starting the long journey to Boston.
down Waller Street, and birds fell out of the sky, and cats danced on garbage cans, and early rising widows fell down at their windows, blinded by the glorious glowing sight of them, and they rode faster and faster, so by the Outer Sunset those who witnessed their passing saw them as a wind full of color. They passed onto the ocean and were gone. From the east side of the park the mortals spilled out: Molly and Will, naked and hand in hand, just above the Duboce Steps, where they were quite startled by the lovely sunrise over the city; Princess and Huff and Mary and Bob and Hogg a little higher up. “I got one,” Princess said, because she had stuffed a faerie in her pocket, but when she brought it out she saw that it had been replaced with a bunch of sticks and a little grass. And from the north entrance a squirrel ran out and paused on the sidewalk on Haight Street, standing up on its hind legs and sniffing the air a moment before dropping to all fours and starting the long journey to Boston.
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