It's getting to be evening as I approach the Thorded homestead. I have my
last briefcase in hand -- my only piece of luggage. Somewhere a couple
miles back a lake is probably still bubbling from the addition of my
Camaro to its muddy depths. A brick on the accelerator had gotten rid of
the car nicely.
I search the darkening horizon. The Changing Hill is out there somewhere.
A child, looking to be a Thorded from the shape of his face, stares at me
sullenly and then runs up to the porch of the dilapidated old house. A
couple hundred yards down the field there's a newer house. I wonder which
one the head of the family lives in.
The boy is talking excitedly to an old man sitting on the porch swing of
the old house. I look around, staring at the new house, the old one, the
cars in the driveways. All the details are eminently forgettable and
promptly forgotten; none of it is important, none of it bears remembering
in my crowded head. Millenia of memories; who cares if I know what color
the Thorded house was in the 1990's?
"Gurgranpa wants to talk to you," the boy tells me. I hadn't noticed him
coming back up to me. My mind is becoming fuzzy -- it was a good thing it
was time to change. I needed another fresh start badly.
I follow the boy across the lawn and up the rickety porch steps to
confront the withered old man. The boy stands there awkwardly as the old
man blinks his cataract-milky eyes at me.
"I remember you," he says. His voice is thin and reedy.
"Phineas," I tell him.
"Bobby," he corrects.
I wince. "Bobby too."
"I was a boy when you were here last. I was the one father scolded for
pouring gravy on your hand at supper." He chuckles faintly at the memory,
and I shrug.
"I remember," I say.
"You helped us a lot. We would have never survived the Great Depression
without the money. It kept us fed during the lean years."
I hand my briefcase out to him mutely. He doesn't make a move for it so I
place it on the ground at his feet.
"You need a room and food and protection while you do whatever it is you
do up on the hill," he says after a long pause. I nod and he continues,
"I'll talk to my grandson about it. I'm afraid that he's never believed
the family legends about you, though."
"He doesn't need to. The money and stock certificates in the briefcase
will believe enough for him."
"I believe," the old man says as if I hadn't spoken. "I saw you change."
I nod, wishing I could change the topic.
"Pay attention, Luke!" The old man thumps his walking stick against the
young boy's leg and then brought it up to lift the child's face to me.
"Remember this man. He'll be back again when you're as old as I am, and
he won't have aged a year."
"No one don't get older," the boy says with a thick southern accent.
"He does!"
I help the old man up, ignoring the conversation about me. He talks to me
incessantly, telling about everything that has happened to the family in
the last eighty years as we walk to the big, newer house. The child lugs
the briefcase along as he quietly trails behind us. I end up standing
outside for about twenty minutes as the sun set, listening to the faint
arguments inside.
As I suspected, the large amount of money I had brought settles the issue
nicely.
After a long time the old man returns with his middle-aged grandson and
his great grandson Luke in tow. "Larry here is going to give you the
guest room and food while you're here. 'Bout a week, right?"
"One week, yes."
"I'll show you to your room then, Mr. Phineas," Larry says.
I shake my head. "The name's Henry now."
"You're not on the run, are you? Done something illegal?"
"Nothing at all. Just making a change of lifestyles."
The old man thumps the board with his cane. "He's the same one, I tell
you. You listen to me, boy!" The middle-aged man rolls his eyes. He
obviously doesn't put stock into the family legends. Stubborn runs deep
in the Thorded family.
"Can you show me to my room, Mr. Thorded?" I ask in attempt to end the
scene on the porch. "I'm really rather tired."
"Sure. Luke, show him to the guest room."
The young boy takes me through the house and past the eyes of at least a
dozen Thorded relatives. He takes a second to make a face at a teenaged
girl, probably his sister. I can feel their eyes heavy on me: Stranger!
I keep my face bland as I follow the boy's path by the kitchen and finally
to a small bedroom. "Bathroom's down the hall to the right of the
livingroom," he says, and scurries off.
I lie down on the bed and relax, only bothering to kick off my shoes.
Closing my eyes, I recite to myself in a quiet, mouthed litany:
Henry Goddard.
Henry Goddard.
Henry Goddard.
My name is Henry Goddard now.
I feel eyes on me again, and I sit up in bed. The teenaged girl, about
seventeen years old judging from her face, is standing in the doorway of
my room.
"What's your name?" she asks.
I crack a smile. Fortuitous. "Henry Goddard."
"I'm Samantha, Luke's brother. Gurgranpa says you're the immortal man he
talks about all the time."
"That's right," I say. No use in pretending.
"So how old are you?" She steps into the room slowly, making sure I'm not
dangerous. She's a little afraid of me. I remain sitting on the bed.
"Ancient. Too old to count."
"Do you remember Jesus?"
I close my eyes, cast my mind back. Normally I wouldn't try to remember
these things, but I needed another friend, an ally in this house. Her
father, Larry, was obviously against me being here. It would be good to
have a friend besides the old man that no one believed.
Images flood me as I push back through the various lives I've led.
"I saw him speaking. The sermon on the mount. It was crowded. I had my
servants pushing back the commoners to give me room. I was one of the few
rich men attending. I had travelled a long way to see this man, possibly
to meet him.
"He gave his speech. It's very close to what you find in the Bible, after
translation.
"Afterwards, I tried to get close to him. I wanted to ask him a question,
an important question. The press of people was too thick, though.
Everyone wanted to touch the man, talk to the man, be his friend. He was
very charismatic. More so than any other man I've ever heard speak.
"Then people began screaming. Too many people, they pushed through my
servants. Men, women getting trampled. I stopped caring about meeting
Jesus, I only wanted to get out of there. People everywhere.
"When it was over, the hill was littered with bodies. Some people waited
around, thinking Jesus would come back and heal those injured in the
stampede. He never came.
"I returned to my manor in Northern Rome. There was nothing I wanted to
speak to such a man about. His words were powerful, but what I had
witnessed was far too ugly. I still don't believe I missed anything."
I open my eyes. The girl, Samantha, was sitting on the floor next to the
bed, staring up at me with wide eyes. "Your voice changed," she says.
"Your accent was so thick I could barely understand you."
"At least I didn't speak Latin or Hebrew," I say with a faint smile.
"That really happened, didn't it?" Her voice is low and whispering.
"Yes. Funny how some of that didn't get in the Good Book."
"What was the question you wanted to ask."
"It's not important now. I don't remember," I lie. She sits there and
absorbs my story in her head, and I close my eyes and remember being a
rich Roman citizen for a while longer.
"Do you remember Noah?" she asks after a long ponder.
I thought on this for a while.
"I was a carpenter in the next village. He sent for me, showed me his
plans. I scoffed at first. We would need to lash together every fishing
boat in the islands and then some.
"He kept insisting that the world would be flooded to purge the wicked men
in the cities. I never believed him, but his money was good. I built.
For days on end, I built. He became a great prophet, and soon he had
every fishing boat in the island villages tied up in his grand scheme. We
lashed them together, built still more boats upon boats as our hunters
killed every animal they could find for our larders.
"And the rains came, just as he said. Our island began trembling as we
ran for our giant make-shift floating city. Many didn't make it. I saw
Noah hit the village elder in the face with an oar as the man tried to
board. He was cursing the elder as being a wicked man who deserved to die
as he did so.
"We sat in our boats filled with dead animals for food as our island sank
beneath the rising waters. It rained so hard I couldn't see my hand in
front of my face. Several of the fishing boats were lost because the men
and women in them couldn't bail fast enough. The winds blew high,
breaking more boats off from the main mass. We floated in the ocean for
many days and nights of constant rain. Occasionally, we'd make sight of
the mainland where the cities were, but we would never land. Noah kept
insisting that everything would be underwater soon.
"When the rains finally stopped, we were just off the mainland. I could
see one of the cities on the horizon, and I knew Noah had been wrong.
Smoke curled up from the buildings as families began their daily cooking
under the now-cloudless sky.
"Our island was gone, though, permanently sunk. Noah had saved all our
lives, and for that much we were thankful. We steered our boats to an
unsettled area on the coast and started a new city, which flourished and
grew boundlessly. Noah kept insisting to the end of his days that we were
the only living people in the world, and no one had the heart to disabuse
him of his notions. He died mad and alone in his home, but we buried him
as a hero."
"Adam and Eve? Do you remember them too?"
I think back.
The memories are painful.
"Yes, I remember them."
"No story?"
"No story. It doesn't bear telling."
"Are you the devil? Or are you someone else...are you Cain?"
"Nothing quite so interesting," I scoff.
"Will you tell me more stories later?"
"Yes," I agree. "Catch me before I go out to the hill each night, though.
I'll come back confused when I do come back, and I'll go straight to
bed."
"Okay." She stands up, looks at me for a moment, walks out. I lay back
on my bed and try to put those memories Samantha had stirred up inside me
away, where they couldn't hurt me any more.
Oh, Eve, you foolish girl.
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