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Cross Product, chapter 14: In a midnight choir

Late on Saturday afternoon I was lying on a soft, mossy slope in the sun, looking up at the clouds and thinking of not much of anything. I had gotten so far into the whole thing of moving no muscles except my eyes, that I didn't even turn my head to look when someone came and lay down on the ground next to me, even though it was so close that I could feel all the moss along that side of my body depress slightly with the weight. When she spoke I recognized the voice as Taylor's. "What are you doing?"

Words seemed unfamiliar for a moment and it took me a second or two to remember how to use my tongue before I could tell her that I had just been looking at the clouds. She said she had something she wanted to read me, and I turned my head and saw her hoist herself up on one elbow over me and wave a book in my face. It looked like a Bible, but when she started reading it was clear that it was something else entirely. I wondered where she had gotten it.

"And when he was hung before the crowd in the town square they asked him, 'Have you any last words?' and a fit of revelation came upon him and he preached to the assembled multitude, who jeered him, calling for the sentence to be carried out. And the Queen's knight rode out armed and militant and it was done, but not before he had finished speaking. Let every mind consider and let every voice be raised in a midnight choir against future need repeating the words revealed thus, for if things ever get so bad again, these mysteries are the way to put them right:"

"I am the preserver of things never created nor destroyed. I am knowledge without wisdom and writing without thought. I have spoken the unutterable words and I am to blame for the crimeless victims. I keep them in a box and feed them oats and corn. I cannot justify it. Forgive me."

"When the boy-child cried his own name, deep in the holy city, I heard it, though I did nothing. When the river overflows its banks and spills across the flats like cow's milk into a bucket, I see but ignore each spurt and eddy. Some day, when you learn the secrets of my creation and take your places as lords and ladies of life, and death, I will feel your wrath. But better things may be said of me."

"Is not my face in the clouds of the air and the foam on the sea? Cannot my voice be heard in the rush of the landslide and the crackling of your hearth fire? Surely in the blackest night when you open your eyes and see nothing at all, you are looking on my countenance, far and radiant. Don't lose your breath."

"Worship me together, two by two, if you can. Mark my feast days with releases of domestic animals and with songs and stories, but also with dignity and solemnity. Do not sacrifice to me. Always have a care for -" "Hey!" I didn't get to find out what I was supposed to always have a care for, because Taylor had stopped reading and scrambled to her feet at the interruption. I looked around and saw Mella, whose voice it had apparently been, standing on the trail some distance into the forest, beckoning frantically. Taylor was halfway to her; I followed.

"What were you doing?", Mella demanded. "Well, I," Taylor began. Mella grabbed the book, saying, "Give me that!", and made it disappear, probably into a pocket or something. She was breathing hard. "I'm not sure you realise how much danger you could be in," she said, "Look." She pointed up at an angle, at a patch of the sky visible through a break in the tree canopy. At first glance I saw nothing but some puffy clouds, then my brain noticed the perfect oval shape of one of them and I realised it wasn't a cloud at all but an airship, or dirigible or Zepplin whatever. I'm not certain of the difference. It was plain white except for a symbol painted near the front that was a plus sign inside a circle. The astronomical symbol for Earth, I realised, or how a mathematician might write down "exclusive or".

"Things are moving very fast now," Mella told us. "I wasn't planning to come find you until tonight, when there are some things we can do together. But now I think it's important for you, and your friends of course, to stay at my house where I can keep an eye on you." I started to say something meaningless and she cut me off, saying, "I'm not asking a question here." She turned and stalked down the trail. Taylor rolled her eyes at me as if to say, "What next?", and followed; I brought up the rear.

At one point, near the top of a muddy slope covered with fallen arbutus leaves, Mella suddenly stopped and shot out her arms on either side to prevent us from passing her. "Ssh!", she commanded. Looking down the slope I could see another segment of trail passing along the bottom. It was dark down there, and there were some trees in the way blocking the view, but I could see a long line of figures marching along the trail, dressed in dark-colored clothing with a few bright patches. Uniforms, I guessed. Military or police. We stood there hardly daring to breathe while several dozen of them marched by us below; they never looked up or noticed us. When the last ones had disappeared around a curve of the land Mella lead us along the trail again, faster than before, back to our campsite.

Rick and Jeff were sitting on rocks talking quietly. Mella marched up to them and demanded that we all drop everything and come along; they didn't argue but exchanged shrugs and looks with Taylor and myself. We followed her just a short distance to the edge of the Godstown subdivision and her house. Looking along the road I could see a figure, probably the Commissionaire, approaching, but he was a long way off. Mella saw him, too, and said "Hurry!". We rushed into her house and she pointed down the stairs and said "Down there." As we piled down into the basement I heard her doing up locks on the outside door.

The basement was dark until Jeff found a light switch and flipped it on. The room we were in wasn't the same one I had visited before; this room was just an empty space with bare concrete floor. Some tall cabinets stood on one side; the windows, like all of Mella's downstairs windows, were covered with aluminum foil.

We waited there for what must have been several hours, although with no watches nor time sense that we could trust, I'm not sure that statement means anything. After a long time I tried to climb the stairs and go find Mella, but the door at the top was locked from the outside. From one point of view we were prisonors of a crazed hippie; but to be perfectly honest, I didn't feel too upset about it. When I descended again I found the others sitting in a circle on the cold floor, talking about everyday things, anything other than our present situation.

After a long time, when I guess it was dinnertime, Jeff used a paperclip he had found somewhere to pick the little lock on the cabinets. Inside were hangers with a half-dozen identical bluish-grey blanketlike robes; also three bottles of syrupy kosher wine and a shoebox full of things that looked like hockey pucks, wrapped in plastic food wrap. After some debate and conjecture it was decided that these were pemmican.

I was inclined to just lock the cabinets back up, but a vote was taken and hunger won, and food and drink were passed around. Eventually even I was talked into sampling them. I liked the wine but the pemmican tasted horrible. Assuming that that's even what it was; I wasn't sure it was food at all. We waited some more, and then I heard the door at the top of the stairs creak open and Mella came down them.

Jeff looked guilty when he saw her. "Uh, we had some of your stuff..." he said, gesturing at the empty bottle and the box of hockey pucks sitting open on the floor. "I hope that's okay." She smiled. "No, that's exactly what that was there for and you're welcome to it. It's almost dark outside now, time for us to do our bit."

She took us up the stairs and picked up a gas lantern from the kitchen counter, and a burlap sack, which clinked. "We'll go out that way," she said, indicating the sliding doors in the kitchen. I opened them and she went out and headed down from the patio into the muddy backyards, walking towards the start of a cedar chip trail that led off into the woods. I was last to leave the porch; I couldn't figure out how to lock the sliding door from the outside. I gave up and just slid it shut, hoping that would be okay.

We followed Mella down the cedar chips until we reached a muddy square clearing. At the center stood what looked like a stainless steel wok, mounted on a photographic tripod. Part of the tripod was rusty, and the bowl was filled with rainwater. A big brown spider had spun a web between the legs. Mella knelt by the tripod, unmindful of the mud soaking into her skirt, and murmered something to the spider. Then she used a twig to shoo it gently down one leg, before breaking up the web and tipping the tripod to pour off the water.

Mella directed us to sit on rocks at the corners of the clearing, facing out into the forest. "North for you, that means freedom," she told me. "Jeff, you sit facing West, and remember heritage." Then she sent Taylor at the South corner to represent intelligence, and Rick in the East, "to look into the distance."

She said we should be on the lookout for anything or anyone trying to enter the clearing, and that we must prevent that from happening if at all possible. But on no account, she stressed, were we to move from our assigned positions or turn to look into the clearing; even if that meant letting "someone or something" enter. I asked if she was expecting some kind of trouble. Mella laughed, and said, "Only from the North."

We took our places, and she began the ritual. I couldn't see what she was doing, but I imagined that she started by unpacking the bag she'd brought, which probably contained one or more ceremonial daggers, candles, a chalice, something to use as an offering, and whatever else. I only have a vague idea of just what witches do, but even so I'm probably far more informed than the average person. As a programmer I deal in powerful unseen forces myself; it's always a good idea to keep half an eye on the competition. I imagined her arranging things in the bowl, could almost hear the clinking sounds as objects were set down and repositioned.

She returned to the center and began a long declamation, her voice rising and falling in a slow pattern. I could only catch the loudest peaks. I was amazed at the fluency with which she could make up ritual language, if (as she had claimed earlier) she never read out of a Book of Shadows but always invented on the fly. She began by naming herself and each of the rest of us, describing our duties as she had stated them before, myself in the North "for freedom; the one called Jeff at the West point remembering heritage; dear Taylor in the South for intelligence; and dear Rick to the East looking into the distance." I wondered why Taylor and Rick rated as "dear" when Jeff and I apparently didn't.

Next Mella started calling down blessings on "this our holy cross", from the moon (which wasn't visible), the stars, the forest in general, and several individual trees which she identified with long complicated names that sounded vaguely Japanese, as well as rough descriptions like "the great cedar who stands fifty paces North of my door". She called out for protection and witnessing. Next she started humming a tune which sounded classical, maybe something Bach would have written. I heard a rustle of her garments and some footsteps and almost immediately I saw her walk solemnly across my field of view, from right to left, swinging a censer. She smiled, tight-lipped, when she caught my eye, but kept humming. I guessed that she made one complete circuit of the clearing before returning to the dish at the center.

It was dark by this time; the sun had set while she was walking around the clearing and, just like the night before, it got dark very fast. Mella lit the gas lantern. It cast galloping shadows of the tripod legs as she swung it around and fixed it in place. The forest in front of me was thrown into biting relief by the yellow-white light. Suddenly I thought of a practical reason for the seating arrangements: if Mella was working right next to that lantern, looking at small bright things, then she'd be blind to everything else. With our backs turned, I and the other three would still be able to see into the shadows. So the whole thing could be considered as a way of extending the dynamic range of human senses. I felt proud of myself for having thought of that, and wondered if I could understand the rest of the night in the same way.

Mella seemed to have started the main thrust of her activity. She was describing things and making statements about them, like "Let this chalice represent a body for the Goddess, vessel of the divine". I imagined her picking up the items and waving them around. It wasn't easy to follow because many of her words were mumbled and she often referred to "this" or "that" without saying exactly what. Then she switched into the imperitive, giving commands to someone. Possibly her Goddess? Mella said, "Fulfill the bargain. Accept this offering. Walk among us!" Suddenly her voice became much calmer, deeper. "My children, I walk among you. Speak, for I listen."

She came silkily up behind me and quietly said, "My child. Thou hast been very patient and strong; it's appreciated and it won't be necessary for much longer. I'm not sure what to say to thee and that's why I put thee first. Hast anything to ask me at this time?" This was it, I thought, my chance to find out what was going on. Where to begin? "Uh, well, I'd like to know what's going on," I began. She laughed. "What part of the entire Universe dost thou not understand?" "Well, all of it, really, but especially Godstown, and the Mountain, those radio dishes at the top, and..."

"Let's take it one thing at a time. Godstown: well, by definition that's not something of mine that I can tell about. Just think about the name! But not right now, thou hast other things to think about, I can tell. The Mountain: well, I can tell thousands of stories about trees but although I find them interesting, I don't think thou wouldst. As for the humans, they're relatively insignificant and boring and thou wouldst know more about them than I anyway. Sorry. The radio dishes, too, were created by human minds, minds very much like thine own. Very much like thine own indeed. So use thy mind. I'm disappointed, thou couldst have asked for much more, maybe something more personal. Too late! Now I must go talk to the others. I hope they can do better. Don't worry, though. I always come back." And I could hear her skirt rustle as she walked away.

I heard the woman walk over to Jeff, behind and to my left, and there was a whispered conversation punctuated at a couple of points by her laughter. Then she returned to the lantern and did something to it. The light became colder, bluer. I'd have thought she had pumped it up to boost the pressure, but I was sure it was a propane lantern that didn't need pumping. She was doing something to the tripod, because I saw her shadow blur across the trees in front of me several times as she moved between the light and where I was sitting. Always from right to left. Then her footsteps receded South, presumably to talk to Taylor.

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