Fool on the Hill (4 page)

“They’re mini-cannons. Cobweb hooked them up to an electronic firing circuit and loaded them with buckshot. Should be enough to stop an owl.”

“Or blow your own wings off.”

“Maybe. But there’s always my parachute. . . .”

Zephyr looked at the cannons again. They certainly were an interesting idea-even if they were also dangerous—and she had to admit that no similar weapon could be mounted on the glider.

“Neat, aren’t they?” Puck asked, reading her thoughts.

“Pretty neat,” Zephyr admitted. “I—”

As if suddenly awakened from a dream, she realized that George was no longer in sight. Both glider and biplane had begun to drift out of West Campus in the direction of Fall Creek Gorge. Without bothering to say goodbye, Zephyr broke formation and began angling back in the direction of The Boneyard, where she knew George would be by now.

“What—?” Puck said, abruptly finding himself flying alone.

“Go home, Puck,” Zephyr called back to him. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Terrific,” said Puck, watching her speed away. He opened up the throttle once more and turned to follow her. “Jesus, Troilus, and Cressida—here we go again!”

VI.

The thing to remember, George, is that artists are magical beings. They’re the only people other than the gods who can grant immortality.
. . .

The Boneyard was located below Stewart Avenue, about halfway down the side of The Hill. George had discovered the place several years ago, and had visited it regularly ever since, using it for inspiration. He would walk among the tombstones, pausing frequently, reading names, dates, epitaphs, and asking himself questions: What was this person like? How did she die? It says here she was married; were they happy together? This one over here died young; did he enjoy what time he had? What did he do on his sixteenth birthday?

Hundreds of tombstones here; hundreds of stories, each individual one far too long to ever tell in its entirety. But every so often George would see something that would stick in his mind, maybe just an unusual name, and the next time he sat down to write, that person would become part of a new tale, one step closer to eternity.

Strangely, for all the time he had spent in The Boneyard, he was constantly discovering new things. On this particular day he came across two unusual stones that he had somehow never noticed before. One was a standard rectangular piece of marble that bore the words:

DEDICATED TO THE LOVING MEMORY

OF HAROLD LAZARUS

1912–1957

BY HIS ADORING WIFE

GOD GRANT HIM REST

The inscription was kind enough, even a little touching, but the embellishments were grotesque. Beneath
GOD GRANT HIM REST
was an etching that depicted some sort of demon with a bow and arrow chasing after a doe. More demon figures floated in the upper corners of the stone, and the whole was topped by an intricately carved gargoyle figurine that leered at the onlooker.

George shook his head, trying not to laugh. Poor Harold Lazarus. What had he done to deserve such a monument? Or had his wife just had exceedingly bad taste?

“What do you say, Harold?” George asked, crouching down beside the stone and taking out a notepad. “How’d you like to live forever?”

He made a rough sketch of the gargoyle, softening the features so that it looked unlucky rather than fierce. Underneath the sketch he wrote: “
LAZARUS—HAS ADORING BUT TACKY WIFE.
” George had no idea what story might come out of it, but he would endeavor to give back some of Harold’s dignity.

The other stone had no humor in it. It was set on the top of a small rise, and in comparison to the stones around it—expensive, tall things that looked like scale reproductions of the Washington Monument—it was hopelessly crude. It didn’t even have a definite shape, but appeared rather as if someone had started with a boulder and knocked bits and pieces off until it was small enough to be used as a marker. Likewise, the inscription had been chiseled in the roughest manner, but was still legible. George stared at it for a long time.

HERE LIES ALMA RENAT JESSOP

BORN APRIL
2 3, 1887

DIED APRIL
2 3, 1887

HER FATHER LOVED HER

The sky continued to darken. The rain would not wait much longer, and George still wanted to visit a particular spot at the far north end of The ‘Yard. But for a few moments more he stood before the stone, studying its rough, hammer-hewn surface, until at last he understood.

“You son of a bitch,” he whispered, awed. “You made it for her yourself.”

VII.

“This place is supposed to be dangerous, you know,” said Puck, trying to keep up with Zephyr as she weaved among the gravestones. They had landed the glider and plane back by the entrance to The Boneyard and begun following George on foot. Puck could no longer remember the reason for this, but reflected that it couldn’t have been an intelligent one. “It has rats in it.”

“You’re not afraid of rats, are you?” Zephyr asked him.

“No, of course not. Not if there are only a few of them, anyway.
I
know how to take care of myself.”

Zephyr laughed for the first time since he’d been with her that day. “If you’re hinting that I don’t know how to take care of myself,” she said, “just remember who taught you fencing.”

“Your Grandfather taught me. You were just a sparring partner.”

“Yes, but you never beat me in practice, did you? Not once . . . oh, come on, Puck! If you insist on tagging after me at least try to run a little faster.”

Puck grunted and tried to put on extra speed, but Zephyr moved extraordinarily quickly even without her glider. And Puck had a bigger load to carry—in addition to his sword, he also bore a needle-firing crossbow that seemed to gain weight with every step.

“Listen, Zeph,” Puck wheezed, nearly tripping over a blade of grass. “I’ve been meaning to ask you . . .”

“The answer is no, but what do you want?”

“Well, Cobweb and I and a bunch of others were thinking of holding another Lab Animal Freedom Raid in a couple weeks, and I was wondering if you wanted to—”

“No thank you,” Zephyr cut him off. “That’s just a big prank anyway, and you know it. Why don’t you ask Saffron Dey? I’m sure she’d love to go with you.”

“Look, Zeph, Saffron . . . Saffron’s a hell of a nice sprite, and all, and I have to admit that I was a little taken with her for a while, but when you get right down to it, she’s not even in your class!”

“You think so?” Totally disinterested.

“I know so! Look, I’m really sorry if your feelings were hurt, but I can’t believe you’re still upset. . . .”

“
Upset!?
” She threw a look back over her shoulder that would have curdled root beer. “
Upset!
You were doing it with her in a
display case,
for God’s sake! How do you expect me to feel?”

“So it was in a display case, so what? Nobody could see us! Nobody except Cobweb, of course, and he traded me two thimblefuls of tequila so he could w—”

Puck trailed off abruptly, wondering not for the first time what wrong he had committed that his tongue should run so very much faster than his brain. Zephyr said nothing further, simply picked up the pace even more until Puck was nearly hyperventilating.

Ahead, a concrete walkway spanned a narrow, stream-filled gully. George was just crossing it, drawn by something on the other side. Zephyr hurtled after him, energetic as ever, while Puck plodded doggedly in her wake.

They both felt it at the same time.

It was a presence, a cold radiation that came at them from across the gully, as if a small black sun had been placed somewhere on the other side. Both sprites stopped dead in their tracks, sudden terror rolling over them like thunder.

“What is it?” Zephyr whispered, as if afraid of being overheard.

“I don’t know.” Puck had set down his crossbow and was shivering. “It’s bad . . . there’s something very bad over there.”

Across the gully, George continued to walk along unconcernedly.

“How can he stay over there?” Zephyr wondered aloud. She too had begun to shiver. “Can’t he feel how bad it is?”

“Maybe he can’t. And maybe if he can’t feel it, it can’t hurt him.”

“Do you think it knows we’re here?” Zephyr said.

As she spoke, two graveyard rats, big ones, sprinted out of hiding from behind a nearby tombstone. Puck saw them coming and scooped up his crossbow, managing to kill one with a shot that was more luck than skill. The other rat continued charging forward, leaping into the air at Zephyr as soon as it was close enough.

“Zeph!” Puck shouted. “Look ou—”

But she was already turning, sword in hand.

VIII.

George had found what he was looking for.

It was a plain white marble square laid flat against the ground, more a plaque than a proper gravestone, and weathered by many years. He had no idea why such an unremarkable thing should seem so special to him, yet it was true that he had never visited The Boneyard without coming by here to look. One strange thing he’d noticed—all the other standing gravestones in the area had sagged, seeming to lean away from this one like petals from the heart of a strange flower. Surely that was just coincidence, but it added to the illusion that this was, well, the
center
of something.

The stone bore no date, and only a single name, seven letters carved by some long-ago hand:

PANDORA

George hunched over the burial site, feeling nothing but a strange and inexplicable fascination. Zephyr or Puck, placed in the same location, would have died instantly of fright, but George merely thought to himself:
What story does this one hold?
It almost made him wish he could really resurrect the past, rather than just make up fictions.
What story? I’ll bet you it’s a good one, whatever it is.

He ran his fingers over the marble surface, tracing each letter. Lightning flashed in the distance.

IX.

Zephyr cleaned her sword with a piece of a dead leaf. She had killed the rat in one stroke, sidestepping and piercing it through the heart as it finished its leap.

“You see?” she said to Puck when her sword had been resheathed. “I can take care of myself.”

“Sure,” Puck said, still shaken. The bad feeling from across the gully had subsided a little but remained in the background, like a lingering nightmare.

“There’s one thing I’m curious about,” Zephyr went on. “It doesn’t look like many people get buried here anymore, does it? Most of the space is already taken. But then why would there be rats? Don’t they need lots of fresh . . . you know.”

“I couldn’t tell you, Zeph. But there’ve always been lots of rats in The Boneyard. Always. It really isn’t safe to stay here. More of them will probably be coming this way soon.”

“Let’s go home, then,” Zephyr said, after a pause. “I want to go home now.”

She had lost all interest in tailing George, at least for today, something for which Puck was silently grateful. He didn’t delude himself, though, knowing that he still had a long way to go before he would be back in her good graces.

They scurried back the way they had come, keeping a sharp eye out for rats, and it was only when they were airborne again—Zephyr with the help of an uphill gust of wind—that Puck began to feel safe.

X.

George made it home just ahead of the storm. No sooner had he set foot on his front porch than rain began thundering off the sidewalks and car rooftops hard enough to raise mist. This was accompanied by an amazing electrical show.

It being Sunday there was no mail—thankfully; the flow of fan and hate mail was slow but steady, and it took a lot of time to read—but his landlord had left a note on his door:

TENANT,

PLUMBER COMING SOMETIME DURING THE WEEK TO INVESTIGATE LEAKS. WINDOW REPAIRMAN NEVER THERE WHEN I CALL; PERHAPS YOU COULD TRY. AS FOR THE OTHER, I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN BY “ROACHES IN KITCHEN.” WE FUMIGATED ONLY LAST JANUARY.

YOUR LANDLORD,

DENMAN HALFAST IV

George smiled ruefully and shook his head. Denman Halfast . . . he remembered one time when he had given the man a copy of one of his books. It had been returned a week later, with the same sort of impersonal note: “
TENANT, TOO FANTASTIC AND TOO MUCH PROFANITY. YOUR LANDLORD
. . .”

Perhaps it was time he gave up renting and simply bought a house in Ithaca; he had money enough. But he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of putting down roots here, even tentative ones. He was still young enough to consider himself a wanderer, and as Uncle Erasmus had once said, wanderers rent or flop, they never buy. Besides, this particular house was where he had been living—with three friends—back when his first book,
The Knight of the White Roses,
had been published. He had read the
Times Book Review
every Sunday on this very porch, watching his novel climb the bestseller list a notch at a time until it reached a peak at number three, outdone only by Jackie Collins and the latest Stephen King.

He got himself a Coke out of the refrigerator and came back out on the porch to watch the storm. The rain smelled fresh and clean, like the promise of an exciting new year. And though neither George nor anyone but a certain Mr. Sunshine could know it in advance, this year would be the most exciting Ithaca had ever seen.

Oblivious to this, George sat on his porch, and drank his Coke, and made daydreams out of the rain. He wondered about the book he would write this year, and he wondered—not too desperately—whether love would find him at last and let him rest for a time. But he smiled all the while he was thinking about it, because at the core he was happy enough just to be alive and watching the storm, and this one thing made him special.