Book 1: Prelude

              “Every  story  has  a  beginning,  yet  every  beginning  is  different;  for  every  story  is  different.”  said  the  voice  in  the  darkness.

              The  sleeping  boy  stirred  and  turned  over  but  did  not  waken.

           “To  begin,  one  must  have  a  knowing. To know,  one  must  have  seeing. And so  few  of  you  can  really  see.”

           The  boy’s  eyes  remained  half  shut  as  sleepers’  will,  so  that  the  objects  of  the  room  melded  with  his  dreams  and  flowed  into  fantastic  and  ponderous  meanings. And still  the  voice  in  the  darkness  wandered  through  his  dreams,  and  through  a  thousand  confused  worlds  the  boy  still  heard  him  speak.

           “They  grope  in  the  darkness  and  think  that  they  are  seeing,  and  wander  in  a  fog  of  their  own  constant  thinking. The shape,  the  form,  the  nature  of  reality. Is the  world  as  it  seems? Does it  run  on  ancient  laws  that  are  rigidly  obeyed? Was it  always  as  it  now  is?”

           The  boy  stared  in  his  sleeping  vision  at  the  ominous  shape  of  the  window  and the  summer  night  outside  it. Stars began  to  gleam  in  it,  first  one  and  then  another  and  then  the  dark  was  bright  with  silver  lights. He watched,  enchanted  even  in  slumber,  and  the  stars  stood  and  laughed  at  him  as  he  stood  beside  the  water,  strange  cold  merry  laughter  that  pricked  him  like  chill  breezes,  their  silver  figures  hard  and  prickly  with  rays,  dancing  on  the  mirror-like  surface  as  though  the  lake  were  made  of  glass.

             “They  say  that  all  is  relative.”  the  voice  said  from  the  air  and  out  of  the  tree  at  his  side. The solid  island  seemed  to  waver,  as  if  its’  very  nature  was  shifting. “They say  the  world  has  always  been  like  this,  dead  and  shifting  and  bereft  of  all  magic. What was  it  in  truth,  Forest?”

            And  even in  his  dreaming  state  confusion  came  upon  him.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">            “The  beginning  is  known. The ending  is  known,  for  we  walk  onward  toward  it  and  it  is  nigh  beneath  our  feet. But it  is  not  known  of  the  transition.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">           The  boy  wanted  to  speak  but  his  throat  refused  to  work.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">           “The  roads  that  walk  the  heavens,  and  the  roads  that  go  to  earth. The world  that  once  was  is  as  far  from  the  world  that  is,  as  the  stars  are  far  from  the  land  from  which  men  see  them.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">            The  boy  tossed  and  turned. The room  was  hot,  smothering. The shapes  of  real  things  began  to  shed  their  portentous  meanings,  slipping  down  to  resume  their  normal  proportion.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">             “Beginnings  never  begin.”  the  voice  said  distantly  as  it  slid  down  into  the  dreams  he  was  leaving. “They merely  continue.”

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<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">                                              <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: Ravie; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">PRELUDE <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

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<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">             The  stars  looked  down  on  Winsted.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">             They  spread  over  the  deep  blue  of  the  ancient  dome,  hard  and  clear  and  white,  walking  up  the  heavens  overhead. The orange  dullness  of  the  streetlights  met  the  ancient  blue  at  the  hem  of  the  trees  and  produced  a  weird,  black  region  where  was  no  light  at  all.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">      And  still  the  stars  looked  down  on  Winsted,  and  the  little  town  reposed  in  the  horseshoe-shaped  valley,  blissfully  unaware  of  the  scrutiny. The storefronts  were  lit,  even  the  ones  like  the  antique  shops  that  were  closed,  a  single  wall  of  close-built  store  buildings  divided  by  narrow  alleys  and  bared  stairs,  stores  on  the  bottom  and  apartments  above. Restaurants glowed  and  the  big  white  sign  above  the  old-fashioned  cinema  halfway  down  Main  St  shed  a  comforting  light  on  the  people  exiting  the  purple-lit  doors. In blue  neon  letters  atop  the  sign  GILSON’S  announced  its’  name  to  Winsted. The 7:00  movie  was  over  and  there  was  a  whole  night’s  worth  of  other  things  to  see  and  enjoy,  and  the  couples  and  young  people  and  lone  middle-aged  men  headed  up  the  street  to  the  dim  bars. Neon signs  in  red  and blue  announced  their  wares,  the  two  colors  in  such  proximity  giving  an  eerie  impression  of  purple. None of  the  walkers  looked  up  so  much  as  once  at  the  ancient  places  overhead,  but  then  it  was  doubtful  they  would  have  seen  much,  anyway. The lampposts  along  Main  St  were  shedding  a  white  auroa  from  their  globe-shaped  lamps,  and  the  glare  of  moving  white  from  passing  cars  blended  with  the  orange  higher  up. The world  seemed  to  end  at  the  rooftops,  and  Winsted  glittered  under  its’  canopy  of  manufactured  light  and  bustled  on,  as  always.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">              Tall  and  silent  above  the  streetlights  St. Joseph’s rose,  the  front  illumined  by  a  single  lamp  facing  backward  on  a  streetlight  pole,  but  the  pinnacles  of  peak  and  chimney  and  great  steeple  soared  into  darkness,  hardly  to  be  seen. The fields  below  in  the  river  flats  were  flooded  white:  a  late  baseball  game  was  winding  down,  and  parents  hollered  and  bats  cracked,  and  above  them  was  only  a  roof  of  ink:  no  star  could  see  into  that  glare. The cemetery  on  its’  queer  hill  behind  the  park  was  invisible,  asleep  under  its’  scattered  pines.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">            Behind  the  close-set  wall  of  nightlit  shops  the  little  city  was  settling  down. The rising  banks  of  house-lights  on  either  wall  of  the  valley  were  dimming  as  lights  were  turned  off. The horseshoe  valley  swept  in  a  square  curve,  horns  facing  north,  Mad  River  and  Main  Street  following  the  curve. Where the  valley  turned  east  after  the  first  bend,  it  opened  into  a  broad  level  a  half-mile  wide,  known  once  as  The  Flat  but  now  just the  inner  city. There apartment  windows  glowed  in  high  old  houses,  and  people  dark  as  the  dusk  around  them  clustered  upon  the  steps  and  porches  of  ancient  tenements. Higher up  the  houses  grew  more  pleasing,  the  yards  were  tended  and  trees  grew  in  them,  the  green  overlaid  by  the  dull  orange  of  the  sad  lamps. Up the  skirts  of  the  climbing  hills  the  houses  rose,  street  above  street,  row  of  orange  above  row  of  orange. Black and  quiet above  them  rose  the  hills,  unhaunted  by  lights  save  for  the  climbing  threads  of  streetlights  along  major  roads.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">            Above  the  town  the  ancient  lake  lay  mirror-calm,  free  at  last  of  the  boats  that  beset it  by  day,  that  filled  it  with  waves  like  a  small  but  unquiet  sea. Long and  winding,  it  twisted  through  the  tops  of  the  hills  like  a  floor  of  black  crystal,  the  reflection  from  the  houses  gleaming  like  gems  far  down  inside. And the  stars  gleamed  above  them,  and  the  stars  looked  down  on  Winsted,  and  brightest  of  all  they  looked  down  upon  that  lake. It felt  as  if  other  eyes  than  the  stars  were  gazing  on  that  lake,  watching  it,  eyes  older  than  the  trees  or  even  than  the  hills  beneath  the  trees. But the  night  was  empty,  and  darkness  walked  where  the  lights  of  men  did  not  fall,  and  the  darkness  was  silent.

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