The cross-crowned belfry was silhouetted against the jaundiced haze of the night sky, but the bell within was only a shapeless ripple of dark motion. This close to the source of the mesmerizing sound, James was caught, his feet held fast by the street’s tarry asphalt. The narrow street going up the hill telescoped his vision right to the front doorway of the church, the dark wooden doors standing ajar, inviting him in, daring him to enter, but his feet were stuck to the street and his legs wouldn’t move and he couldn’t focus his scattered thoughts because all his senses were arrested by the telescoping street and the tolling of the rocking bell, pitching and catching the clapper in perpetual flux and timeless motion. Out of time. Outside of time. Beyond the margins of history-in-the-making. Unmade. Undone. Understanding none of it. He stared. His pores poured sour perspiration. Hissing secrets taunted him, swirled round his axis of ignorance, and he sensed the underground surfacing at last, rising up from the darkest depths to claim its own—its secret spawn.
