Steve Erickson - Arc d'X

“What are you talking about?” the priest said, taken aback.

“I’ll return when I can.” He had found a new capacity for ruthlessness in his life. It was part of a new power that didn’t allow for second-guessing in the matters about which he’d found a new determination. When he returned home, a moment beyond the door’s threshold he discovered a metamorphosis taking place. Laid out on the bed she was drained of color or cognizance. The blood in her was as still as stone. She was lividly caught in some abyss that denied Sally Hemings had ever existed. He put on his coat and went to the next circle and found a doctor.

The doctor came back with Etcher. He took one look at the woman on the bed and said, “She’s dead.”

Etcher gazed calmly at the doctor. “Let me explain something,” he answered, “she’s not dead.”

“It’s in the hands of God,” the shaken doctor protested.

“Let me explain something.” Etcher looked down at Sally and back at the doctor. “Things have changed around here, so you can’t be expected to have known. I’ve been running for the light, is the thing. I’ve been running and I’m almost there, and the light isn’t going to flicker out just at the moment I reach it. It’s not going to happen that way. You have to take into account the new power. You have to take into account the new capacity for ruthlessness.” He said, “There’s been a shake-up, so to speak.” He pulled the doctor down to his knees. “God works for me now.” He thrust the doctor’s face into Sally’s, whose eyes were open and still. “Listen: she breathes.” The doctor listened, terror-stricken. “You can’t be expected to have known,” Etcher assured him. The doctor and Etcher watched Sally for a long time.

She breathed.

The rest of the night Etcher kept the doctor there by the scruff of his neck. He pressed him into mixing concoctions and formulae; but the doctor, at a loss as to what was wrong with Sally, couldn’t treat her. Finally, when Etcher lifted Sally from the bed in order to change the sheets for what seemed the hundredth time, he turned around to find the door wide open; the doctor had made his escape.

Not long after, the doctor returned with the police. The cop in charge was a small wiry man with red hair and a mass of bandages where his nose used to be. The sound of his words seemed to leak out of everywhere but his mouth, which now jagged sharply skyward; there was no way for Etcher to know he’d seen this cop before, in the lobby of the Church in the middle of the night. The police left the doctor with Sally and took Etcher crosstown, up to the rock.

At the rock, Etcher was met by the priest who had left his key in the vault door months before. He didn’t say anything but took Etcher by a lift to a top floor of the Church, where Etcher had never been in the nine years he worked as a file clerk. The door of the lift opened on a long hallway, at the end of which were two open doors and, beyond them, a white room. The priest led Etcher to a small office off to the side of the hall, where another priest in a white robe was sitting at his desk waiting for him.

Etcher had seen this priest before, at one time or another. He’d never spoken to him. The priest in the white robe looked up at Etcher from his desk and motioned for him to take a seat. The priest who brought him disappeared.

The priest in the office was curt and officious. “You’re Etcher?” he said.

“Yes.”

“You’ve been working here for a while, haven’t you, Etcher?”

“Yes.”

The priest wasn’t looking at Etcher. He was making notes on something that had nothing at all to do with Etcher. “You’re very lucky to be able to work for the Church,” the priest said. Etcher, thinking this over, didn’t say anything. The priest looked up. “Do you want to keep your position as an employee of the Church?”

“I’m not really sure,” Etcher said. “Actually, I’ve been giving this matter some thought.”

This wasn’t the response the priest had expected. “You’re not sure?”

“Well …”

“There are reports, Etcher, that you’ve been acting rather strange lately. There are complaints about your recent work habits and behavior.”

“Complaints?”

The priest stopped taking notes and put down his pen. “Do you find this amusing?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, I haven’t thought about whether it’s amusing. In the larger scheme of things it might appear amusing. At some later point, I mean.”

The priest studied him.

“At some later point, it might—”

“Be quiet.” The priest had thought this was going to be a routine disciplinary session. He resented having to give it extraordinary attention or energy. “I’m putting you on suspension,” he said. “I hadn’t intended to do this. I assumed we would straighten this out in short order. I hadn’t anticipated your attitude, your impertinence. In several weeks we’ll reassess the situation. Maybe then, after several weeks without pay, you’ll appreciate your position. Maybe you’ll take the matter more seriously.”

“The problem is, I need the pay.”

“Yes,” the priest answered coolly, “I understand that. It would have been constructive if you had understood that before we had this discussion. Perhaps next time you’ll be less cavalier. More prudent.”

“You don’t seem to understand,” Etcher explained, “I can’t take a leave at this time. Not until I figure out what I’m going to do. I have a friend who’s very sick.”

“You don’t seem to understand,” the priest retorted, incredulous. “I didn’t say this was a leave, I said it was suspension. It isn’t something that you have any say about whatsoever.”

“Oh no. That’s not true. I have complete say.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known. But things have changed.”

“Changed?”

“I have the books.”

The priest blinked. “The books?”

“The old red ones. From the vault downstairs. The Unexpurgated Volumes of Unconscious History, such as they are.” Etcher said, “I have all of them.”

The priest went as white as his robe. He went whiter than the people of the Ice, he went whiter than Sally Hemings’ disease. His mouth finally curled into a desperate smile. “It’s preposterous.”

“Well, it’s understandable you would think so,” Etcher admitted.

“You’ve taken your life in your hands,” the priest croaked, “if you’ve so much as touched a single one of those books.”

Etcher laughed. “Well, now that you put it that way, that’s it exactly. I’ve taken my life in my hands.” He laughed for several minutes. When he stopped laughing he added, “There’s been a shake-up.”

The priest jumped from his chair and ran from the room.

Etcher sat waiting nearly forty-five minutes. He became tired of sitting and waiting; he was worried about Sally. He had finally given up waiting and was walking out of the office toward the lift when the priest returned. He appeared to Etcher to be in something of a state. “Come with me,” he gasped.

They walked down to the other end of the hall, through the open doors of the white room. Several other priests were sitting behind a crescent table, in front of which was an empty chair. The head of this group, sitting in the middle between the others, said, “Sit down, Etcher.”

Etcher wasn’t sure he’d ever seen this particular priest. “I’ve been sitting for an hour,” he answered irritably. “I have a sick friend.”

“Sit down,” the head priest said again, motioning to the empty chair. Etcher sat. After a moment the priest leaned forward, his hands folded on the table in front of him; the other priests leaned with him. “The books are gone,” he brought himself to say, after a moment.