pressure of turbulent air, more like the invisible tides of a cold sea
washing across his body.
By the time he hurriedly dressed and snatched the loaded .22 pistol
from the nightstand, the pull-chain was swinging wildly and clinking
against the burnished brass body of the lamp. The windowpanes
vibrated. The paintings rattled against the walls, askew on their
wires.
He rushed downstairs into the foyer, where there was no need to switch
on a light. In the front door, the beveled edges of the leaded panes
in the oval window sparkled with reflections of the mysterious glow
outside. It was far brighter than it had been the previous month. The
bevels broke down the amber radiance into all the colors of the
spectrum, projecting bright prismatic patterns of blue and green and
yellow and red across the ceiling and walls, so it seemed as if he was
in a church with stained-glass murals.
In the dark living room to his left, where no light penetrated from
outside because the drapes were drawn, a collection of crystal
paperweights and other bibelots rattled and clinked against the end
tables on which they stood and against one another. Porcelains
vibrated on the glass shelves of a display cabinet.
To his right, in the book-lined study, the marble-and-brass desk set
bounced on the blotter, a pencil drawer popped open and banged shut in
time with the pressure waves, and the executive chair behind the desk
wobbled around enough to make its wheels creak.
As Eduardo opened the front door, most of the spots and spears of
colored light flew away, vanished as if into another dimension, and the
rest fled to the right-hand wall of the foyer, where they melted
together in a vibrant mosaic.
The woods were luminous precisely where they had been luminous last
month. The amber glow emanated from the same group of closely packed
trees and from the ground beneath, as if the evergreen needles and
cones and bark and dirt and stones and snow were the incandescent
elements of a lamp, shining brightly without being consumed. This time
the light was more dazzling than before, just as the throbbing was
louder and the waves of pressure more forceful.
He found himself at the head of the steps but did not remember exiting
the house or crossing the porch. He looked back and saw that he had
closed the front door behind him.
Punishing waves of bass sound throbbed through the night at the rate of
perhaps thirty a minute, but his heart was beating six times faster.
He wanted to turn and run back into the house.
He looked down at the pistol in his hand. He wished the shotgun had
been loaded and beside his bed.
When he raised his head and turned his eyes away from the gun, he was
startled to see that the woods had moved closer to him. The glowing
trees loomed.
Then he realized that he, not the woods, had moved. He glanced back
again and saw the house thirty to forty feet behind him. He had
descended the steps without being aware of it. His tracks marred the
snow.
“No,” he said shakily The swelling sound was like a surf with an
undertow that pulled him relentlessly from the safety of the shore.
The ululant electronic wail seemed like a siren’s song, penetrating
him, speaking to him on a level so deep that he seemed to understand
the message without hearing the words, a music in his blood, luring him
toward the cold fire in the woods.
His thoughts grew fuzzy.
He peered up at the star-punctured sky, trying to clear his head. A
delicate filigree of clouds shone against the black vault, rendered
luminous by the silver light of the quarter moon.
He closed his eyes. Found the strength to resist the pull of each
ebbing wave of sound.
But when he opened his eyes, he discovered his resistance was
imaginary. He was even closer to the trees than before, only thirty
feet from the perimeter of the forest, so close he had to squint
against the blinding brightness emanating from the branches, the
trunks, and the ground under the pines.