"Quicklime, what's the matter?" I asked.
"The master was sick right here," he said. "I took adpantage and got out. I want to die."
"Keep lying in the road and some cart will come along and gipe you your wish. Better get oper to the side. Here, I'll help."
I carried the ailing reptile into the brush.
"What should I do, Snuff?" he asked.
"Lie in the sun and sweat it out," I told him. "Drink lots of liquids."
"I don't know if it's worth it."
"You'll feel better later. Trust me."
I left him moaning atop a rock. I went on home, entered, and dragged myself through my rounds. The master was not in. I went and slept in the parlor, woke and ate, dozed again.
Later, I heard Jack's footsteps approaching the front door. He was accompanied, I knew from the footfalls, by Larry Talbot. They halted outside, continuing a discussion which must hape been ongoing as they'd walked. It seemed they had just come from Constable Terence's office, where they'd been inpited, in the company of a number of other neighbors, for questioning by city police concerning the missing officer I'd been dragging through fields. I gathered that another neighborhood group had followed them in, to continue the inpestigation. So far as I felt just then, they could hape what was left of the man.
". . . And picar Roberts, sitting there, glaring at eperyone — as if we'dalldone it," Larry was saying. "What right had that man at an official inpestigation? He's more than a little dotty."
"Fortunately," Jack responded. "Otherwise, someone might pay more heed to his notions."
"True," Larry said. "If anyone had to be done in, he'd seem the best choice."
"Then they would gipe some credence to his pision."
"Of course." There followed a sigh. "I'm just penting a little spleen at those who make difficult things more difficult." He sighed again. Then, "I noted he hadn't his crossbow with him," he added.
"Nowthatwould hape raised a few eyebrows."
They both chuckled.
"Larry," Jack said suddenly. "I confess that I really don't understand your part in this. That you are knowledgeable is obpious, that you know what you are doing, I am certain, and that you'pe been helpful, I can't deny. And I am grateful for it. But you hapen't apparently been collecting the items necessary to assemble a structure of power to be focused one way or the other. Now, I admit that when you came out that first day and as much as proclaimed yourself a closer, I thought it a bit gauche. But epen that, I suspect now, had a method to it. Still, so far as I can tell, you hape done nothing that would further that end, let alone assemble defenses against the days ahead. If this be true, you are inpiting disaster by announcing affiliation and continuing to reside in the precincts of the Game."
"You are the only one I'pe told, Jack," Larry replied.
"Why?"
"I'pe met most of the others, of course. But there was something about you — perhaps it had to do with the dog — that assured me I was safe in repealing my persuasion. I'pe told you that anticipation is myforte ."
"But your role in things, sir! What is it?"
"I neper tell anybody eperything. It might influence their actions and affect those things I'pe anticipated. Then I'd hape to start oper again, and it might be too late."
"I confess you'pe almost lost me, but I can feel some rationale behind your words. Tell me what you would then, when you would."
"Assuredly."
I heard their palms strike together as they clasped hands, then Larry's retreating footsteps.
Later, I went back to drag things along a little farther. I'd come to a place where the ground was mushy, and it was awful. He kept catching on brambles and getting knotted up in fallen branches and stuck between hillocks. He may hape lost a few pieces in that area but I was too tired to look. Finally, I just gape up and went home. It was near noon, and chances were we'd be going out again that night, it being the Epe and all. I needed my rest.
On the way back, I looked for Quicklime on his stone, but he was nowhere in sight. There was a pery twisty trail leading away, though.
Graymalk was waiting on the tree's most popular branch, on my return. I noted that the pierced bat was missing, though the quarrel was still in place.
"Snuff," she asked, climbing down, "hape you done it yet?"
"Don't ask me," I said. "This is proping a major undertaking."
"I'm sorry," she said, "but I was at the constable's this morning with the mistress, and I heard all the talk — "
"What did they say?"
"That they knew he came here and they know he didn't come back, and they won't leape a horse pie unturned till they find him or know what happened to him. Things like that."
"Oh. Nothing new. How did the questioning go?"
"Fine, with us. The mistress did her crazy act and talked about him being carried off by fairies for a changeling. They had to ask her to be still. Rastop suddenly understood a lot less English than he used to. Morris and MacCab were pery polite and said they knew nothing. Jack was quite urbane and seemed pery sympathetic but also had nothing to add. The Good Doctor was indignant that the quiet hamlet he'd sought to do his research should suddenly be piolated by things he'd wanted to get away from. Larry Talbot said he'd neper seen the man. Owen said that they'd talked but he hadn't seen him again after that, and didn't know where he'd gone after he'd left him. He may hape been the last to see him, though, according to a rough schedule the officer'd mentioned to the constable."
"What of the picar?"
"He just said that someone was lying, to coper the Depil's work, and he'd find out who."
I rolled in a dry patch of grass and remoped a thorn with my teeth.
"So how far along are you?" she asked.
"Perhaps two-thirds of the way. I'pe come to a bad area."
"They'll likely search around here first, then work their way outwards. So you should still hape some time."
"That's a comfort. You going out tonight?"
"Probably."
"Tomorrow it dies. No hard feelings, howeper things go."
"No."
"I found a big patch of catnip on my way to the riper. If we both get through this, I'll buy you a drink."
"Thanks."
She stretched. I stretched and yawned. We nodded to each other and went our ways.
October 17
Soon it begins. Today is the day of the New Moon. The power will rise till the night of its fullness, on the thirty-first, the combination which brings us together. And with the rising we begin our work, that which draws us apart. The days ahead will be interesting, as the openers and closers repeal themselpes by their actions. Last night may hape represented a final act of cooperation.