AND still the knots.
Sometimes he would wake in the middle of the night and feel the cord moving beneath his pillow. Its presence was comforting, its eagerness was not, waking,. as it did, a similar eagerness in him. He wanted to touch the remaining knots and examine the puzzles they offered. But he knew that to do so was tempting capitulation: to his own fascination, to their hunger for release. When such temptation arose, he forced himself to remember the pathway, and the beast in the trees; to awake again the harrowing thoughts that had come with the beast’s breath. Then, by degrees, remembered distress would cancel present curiosity, and he would leave the cord where it lay. Out of sight, though seldom out of mind.
Dangerous as he knew the knots to be, he couldn’t bring himself to burn them. As long as he possessed that modest length of cord he was unique. To relinquish it would be to return to his hitherto nondescript condition. He was not willing to do that, even though he suspected that his daily and intimate association with the cord was systematically weakening his ability to resist its seduction.
Of the thing in the tree he saw nothing. He even began to wonder if he hadn’t imagined the whole confrontation. Indeed, given time, his powers to rationalize the truth into nonexistence might have won the day completely. But events subsequent to the cremation of Catso put an end to such a convenient option.
Karney had gone to the service alone-and, despite the presence of Brendan, Red and Anelisa-he had left alone. He had little wish to speak with any of the mourners. Whatever words he might once have had to frame the events were becoming more difficult to reinvent as time passed. He hurried away from the crematorium before anyone could approach him to talk, his head bowed against the dusty wind which had brought periods of cloud and bright sunshine in swift succession throughout the day. As he walked, he dug in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. The cord, waiting there as ever, welcomed his fingers in its usual ingratiating manner. He disentangled it and took out the cigarettes, but the wind was too snappy for matches to stay alight, and his hands seemed unable to perform the simple task of masking the flame. He wandered on a little way until he found an alley and stepped into it to light up. Pope was there, waiting for him.
“Did you send flowers?” the derelict asked.
Karney’s instinct was to turn and run. But the sunlit road was no more than yards away; he was in no danger here. And an exchange with the old man might prove informative.
“No flowers?” Pope said.
“No flowers,” Karney returned. “What are you doing here?”
“Same as you,” Pope replied. “Came to see the boy burn.” He grinned; the expression on that wretched, grimy face was repulsive to a fault. Pope was still the bag of bones that he’d been in the tunnel two weeks previously, but now an air of threat hung about him. Karney was grateful to have the sun at his back.
“And you. To see you,” Pope said;
Karney chose to make no reply. He struck a match and lit his cigarette.
“You’ve got something that belongs to me,” Pope said. Karney volunteered no guilt. “I want my knots back, boy, before you do some real damage.”
“1 don’t know what you’re talking about,” Karney replied. His gaze concentrated, unwillingly, on Pope’s face, drawn into its intricacies. The alleyway, with its piled refuse, twitched. A cloud had apparently drifted over the sun, for Karney’s vision, but for the figure of Pope, darkened subtly.
“It was stupid, boy, to try and steal from me. Not that I wasn’t easy prey. That was my error and it won’t happen again. I get lonely sometimes, you see. I’m sure you understand. And when I’m lonely I take to drinking.”
Though mere seconds had apparently passed since Karney had lit his cigarette, it had burned down to the filter without his taking a single pull on it. He dropped it, vaguely aware that time, as well as space, was being pulled out of true in the tiny passage.