An Evening at the Carnival with Mister Christian

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The Clemens' house was a simple affair, yet not without modest comforts. The one place Jennifer liked to sit and think was on the west-facing porch that Jeremiah and Langston had finished only a months before. She loved her view of the valley beyond the Charles, and the mountains rising in the distance, and while she doubted the colony would ever spread that far, she could hope! Now, with Na-taka-ri's sickness weighing heavily on her mind, she felt an unnatural sense of gloom in the autumn air. 'What is this pox?' she wondered. 'And why do WE not fall ill?' She leaned back in her chair lost in such thoughts, until her eyes fell to a perfect joining in the woodwork -- and she smiled.

Langston had designed the porch without his brother's help, yet even so the three brothers had crafted a nice retreat from the sooty confines of their cabin. And even though Jennifer thought the porch felt a little like a boat, she wanted Langston to design more additions to the house.

But best of all, Langston had -- out of love for his sister -- fashioned a sturdy and elegant rocking chair from local cherry trees. Everything he fashioned, she observed, was executed with the greatest care, crafted with tremendous pride. The chair, this porch, his work for the Guild... all of it so precise, and she thought that with such talent as she had on hand there was little her family couldn't accomplish! They already had so much to be thankful for...

There were trees for the taking in abundance on the hills that lined the river; how unlike Devonshire this was! No permission was needed to fell a tree, no sheriff patrolled the woods on the lookout for poachers! All was unbridled freedom and she loved the feeling, yet now there was Na-taka-ri and her illness, and that one simple problem threatened to undo all her hard work. She was aware of their tentative standing in the colony; without their father they were still considered a great unknown, and even all his money could not buy power -- that kind of lasting power needed to create a dynasty. And without power there was little she could do to counter the fear that would surely sweep the colony if it became known she was hiding a poxed native girl in the colony's midst.

And so, lost in thought on that gentle Friday afternoon before the Carnival, Jennifer watched the last autumn leaves fly from the trees around their house, she watched them fall and settle on the ground. She rocked silently with an ancient calico cat on her lap; the sturdy creature purred contentedly while watching the leaves as they tumbled along. Jennifer thought of Na-taka-ri and Langston and little else while she ran her fingers through the cat's fur, and she struck that certain spot behind the cat's ears and he began to rumble with an infinite -- if casual -- acceptance of his place in her life. She smiled when she felt the cat roll onto it's back and hold her hand in his front paws, for she knew he wanted his belly rubbed.

And she longed to feel such ease in this life. To center her life with a man by her side. An equal -- not a master. A man who would confront life head on, with her. A man who could, at times, roll over on his back and purr contentedly -- for her.

'Are men really so simple?' she thought. She could see little difference between men and cats, after all, and she wondered if men were truly so simple-minded. First, there was Claus Esterhaus making noises about wanting to marry her, and now Jebediah Moore letting it be known that he wanted to take her to the carnival. And while these distractions were almost fun, Langston had visited great trouble on their house, and try as she might Jennifer knew of no way to help the girl. How would the colonists react if they were discovered? And how would the native folk react if the girl's death occurred under her care? Would the troubles begin again? And then on top of everything else that might happen, would the colonists blame the Clemens family for any renewed conflict with the natives?

So her thoughts tumbled like dry leaves across windblown blades of grass, and Jennifer could not help but feel that life was not as simple as the reds and golds of autumn's journey through time. Had she missed her springtime, she wondered, or was it the music of winter she'd heard in the swirling mist -- music slipping from her grasp once and forever?

Yet even now as she sat in Langston's chair on her porch, she had the unmistakable feeling that this Mr Christian knew the answers to all her questions, and she longed to ask him what to do.

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"I am not going! And to you, if you should go -- well! I say unto you now that you will be damned for all time!" Jeremiah saw Timothy was on a sore rant this Friday afternoon, and even Jennifer was a little taken aback by his fear-stoked warnings. "Any who go to this heathen celebration will squander what good will the Lord holds in thy name! No! I say again, and hear thee well! Do not go, for He will forsake thee!"

"Heathen celebration? Timothy! What has gotten into you?" Jeremiah asked as he tended another haunch of venison roasting on the iron spit.

"Fool! Haven't you been listening? Saturday is All Hallow's Eve! No good can come of this wretched carnival . . . this Carn -- Evil," he sputtered these last words even as he threw heavy emphasis on the last two syllables, drawing out words like a blood-soaked knife from it's rusty scabbard.

Yet when Jeremiah laughed, Timothy recoiled as if he'd been slapped on the face.

"Oh-in-deed!" Jeremiah stuttered. "I wouldn't have thought that important enough to warrant mention. Hallow's Eve, you say?" Jeremiah said as his laughter came again, though he cast a sidelong glance at Jennifer, seeking her support. "I shouldn't think that would matter in the least. What has the Good Rector to say about all this?"

"The Rector?! Ah, but that is the most hideous thing of all, brother, for he has been seduced by these visions too! He is going! And I tell you both, with God here now as my witness, a great peril awaits. God's wrath will be visited upon us if we fail to heed His warning!"

"Warning? What warning?!" Jennifer asked, now interested enough to wonder where Timothy was going with this.

"The warnings in the notice! Have I not already told you of this?! Or were you blinded by the Master of Darkness himself?!"

"As I said, I saw no warning. Tell me again, brother," Jennifer asked, now perplexed, "just what did you see?"

Wide-eyed with troubled fear, Timothy quailed before his memory of the vision: "Great red serpents coiled 'round buildings, great buildings -- higher than the sky. No, they were coiled around the very house of God, choking the life out of God himself! Striking out at those who walk the righteous path, delivering poison to all who heed this evil calling, the Dark Master's voice! Oh heaven help us, don't go, Sister! Please don't go!"

Jennifer looked at Jeremiah and shook her head, for she was genuinely confused and took no comfort when she saw Jeremiah shrug his shoulders. Though they all had talked about the experience of seeing visions inside the notice itself, so consumed with the excitement each felt none had as yet pieced together the differences each saw within. Now, as she listened to Timothy and looked at Jeremiah, a dark hollowness came over her, yet an unknowable fire began to burn in her chest.

"Timothy, you say you saw serpents inside the broadsheet? Jeremiah, what did you see inside the mist?"

"Nothing of the sort, Sister. Again, I saw only a dimly perceived future filled with opportunities and riches beyond measure. Great machines at work, armies of men laboring in this New World, turning it into a land of prosperity without limit! But I saw no serpents, no people devoured in Satan's flames! If anything at all, I saw the very opposite!"

"Nonsense!" cried Timothy. "Such perverted vision can only result from labors of the Deceiver!"

Jennifer thought back to her own encounter with the notice, and to the haunting images she had seen within. She saw men and women dancing and in that instant she heard the music that had bedeviled her ever since. Something had taken her measure, she was sure of it. But why? And who would do such a thing? But -- what else had she forgotten in the hours since?

Because one other feeling about the encounter still troubled her, but what was it -- what had she forgotten?

"This is too queer," she finally said -- to no one but herself -- her voice trailing off into the smoke. Then it hit her: "Timothy!? Did you hear music? From within the image?"

"Music? No, Sister, not one note! Did you?"

"Jeremiah? What of your vision? Did you hear music, or see couples at dance?"

"Dancing? No, indeed not, and neither did I perchance to hear music. But...what is this?"

"Yes. What could this mean, brothers? This omission is too odd to be mere coincidence!"

"Nothing is too odd for Satan, Sister! No vision is innocent that comes from the Great Tempter!"

"Timothy, you may be right in your thinking in one regard. If by chance this summons is as deceitful as you imply, then all who go to the carnival may yet be deceived again, so I would ask you this: would it not be better for us to go and see these temptations for ourselves, so that we may better understand what may befall us? If the people of the colony have been chosen by the Master of Temptation himself, should we not go to see what forms these temptations might take? How can we resist evil on such a scale if we can not even muster the strength to know what form our enemy takes?"

Timothy looked at her first with suspicion, then he grew thoughtful as the import of her words penetrated.

"I know of not one good reason, Sister, other than that the danger would be most great. Few men can resist Lucifer, or his agents, just as His strength is mightiest in proportion to His audience. With such strength as the deceiver might have at a gathering of this size, I would fear for us all!"

"But not if we stand together, Brother. Not if we go together, and resist that who would befoul our new home."

"Yes, Sister," Jeremiah said. "Together we could resist anything. What say you, Timothy? We are a family, are we not? Can we not do this thing, if we stand together?"

Timothy was intimidated by the fear he felt, and looked at his brother and sister feeling now as if he stood at the crumbling edge of a vast precipice. Had they already been deceived? Were they already lost?

Could he yet save them?

Jennifer and Jeremiah were both struck by the look of stark terror they saw in Timothy's eyes; both could see that he had been drawn to the edge of an abyss; indeed, to Jennifer it seemed as if the very edge of the earth was pulling their brother's body closer and closer to an unfathomable darkness. A vast power was, she saw, hovering around the edges of his world -- waiting to consume him.

And what if Timothy is correct? Was this a power summoned to consume them all? Suddenly she felt his unreasoning fear take hold, and though she knew not why, she was willing to concede there may be some greater truth behind the veiled terror she felt in Timothy's eyes.

But what could this evil be?

"What have I forgotten?" she half said, half whispered to herself.

Why did music bedevil her so, whenever she tried to think this through? First the man in the field, the field with the cat: Strawberry Fields Forever?...Across the Universe?...what could it possibly mean? As she thought of the man in the grass by the bay, the day she cleansed the lion's wounds, in a blinding instant she saw the world aflame, huge gouts of smoking evil streaking through the air -- and then -- walls of molten earth, scouring the land until nothing was left. She fell back from the visions, adrift, cut away from all she'd ever known, and then the music, that other music began again.

She swallowed hard and fell to the floor...

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Langston returned from a second hurried journey upriver Friday evening, just as Jennifer was cleaning up after supper. He was exhausted and filthy, covered with mud and insect bites, and there were wads of reeds and twigs embedded in muck that hung from his hair and his beard. This had been a hard trip, he reported, but the few native folk remaining had not appeared angry. Jennifer sighed in relief, and she wanted details of what he had seen and done.

The native folk had not been unsympathetic, Langston reported, but refused to come to Na-taka-ri's aid. She was an outcast now, beyond their understanding, and the elders implied their medicine would not work on her. The white men would have to care of her, the chief said, make her pure for either this life -- or for her journey to the next. Langston said he understood and was walking from the village when a woman came up to him and gave him a small deerskin pouch with dried flowers and leaves in it; she told him to boil the mixture and make sure Na-taka-ri drank it all. So, he thought, word of Na-taka-ri's illness had spread through the village, and if this had happened how long would it take before everyone in the colony knew?

Jennifer thought about actions and consequences as she walked with Langston through the woods, walked to the cabin he'd built for Na-taka-ri, and she felt the inescapable pallor of death as they made their way along the forest trail. Jennifer set about making the old woman's "tea" when they arrived, then brother and sister huddled over the deathly ill girl while they helped her drink the liquid. Na-taka-ri seemed to rally a bit later, but became deliriously feverish in the middle of the night -- and death did not appear far off when rosy fingered dawn came next.

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Roger Foster had been the colony's Rector for six years. He was, outwardly at least, a pious and impractical man, given to finding persecutory conspiracies in every dark corner he happened upon. Tall and thin, his gaunt face and fierce eyes exuded a peculiar moral authority; regardless, most colonists trusted him -- almost as much as they feared him. Foster was, too, always meddling in the political affairs of the colony, always trying to assert divine authority over the their dealings with the natives, yet over the past few years his bold assertions had more often than not been proven to render peculiar insights, and were now regarded as having questionable value. He had, in other words, been proven downright wrong time and time again -- yet as he and his faithful flock were not easily swayed by facts Foster's fallibility mattered not at all -- to him, anyway, or to his chosen few. He was a man of faith, a man of conviction in an age when belief was increasingly at odds with perceived fact, and he hated these shifting moral sands... perhaps because he saw his loss of moral authority as civilization's failing -- at least in God's eyes -- failing a series of divine tests.

Yet when Foster came upon the broadsheet he had been mesmerized by images of men and women in sexual congress, and for days -- and nights -- since, he had been haunted by the pulsing music that accompanied these images of deeply aroused couplings. Far from outraged, the Rector was looking forward to the Carnival's opening later that day, for he was convinced some great sexual experience was in the offing and so great was his need he could at times hardly contain himself -- and echoes of that pulsing beat only served to stir his cravings to a fever pitch. He grew hungry as bacchanalian thoughts washed over and through his body, and he trembled not in shame, but in pure, unadulterated lust.

But he faced sudden conflict now, what with that youngest Clemens boy spewing assertions that the Carnival was the work of Satan, and in church this morning Foster had found himself on the defensive. His worried brow creased the day, for earlier that very morning he had been informed there were rumors floating amongst the colonists to the effect that Satan had already lured the Rector into some sort of unholy union. A cloud had passed over his church, casting deep shadows of doubt, and in the dim light the Rector was certain Timothy Clemens was the source of these accusations -- and he was livid now, plotting his revenge.

Would might he do to counter these claims, to reclaim the high ground?

But what about the persistent rumor that one of the Clemens boys had taken a native woman to bed? He couldn't allow that! He would not allow the purity of his church to be sullied by this heathen carpenter. Oh no, not in his new world -- not again! And the eldest Clemens boy -- what was his name? -- was clearly getting too powerful amongst the colonists, for with his free thinking ways the boy was emerging as a threat to the power of the church. No, most certainly the boy wasn't of pure heart, but now the loquacious Timothy had earned the Rector's wrath -- and he warranted repudiation, as well.

He smiled again as he thought of the evening ahead, he smiled because he relished the thought of putting these upstarts back in their rightful place. But most of all, he smiled because he was certain his carnal cravings might at long last be indulged.

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Claus Esterhaus' thatched-roof cottage was nestled protectively in the shadow of the colony's innermost wall. He had chosen the site with due care, once he had determined the natives were not too big a threat, because of its proximity to the wharves and markets that were only now beginning to thrive. He was, after all, a respected Hanseatic timber merchant, honor bound to his company in Lübeck to help establish a trading presence in the New World. He stepped out of his house as evening shadows began to lengthen, and began walking inland along the river.

Word was the carnival had set up in a meadow not quite two miles inland, on the north bank of the river -- by the college John Harvard proposed to build. There was a path of sorts along the river, but it turned north to avoid a boggy area and really went nowhere near the carnival's supposed site. Claus wondered why the man in the broadsheet was staging the affair in such a remote and inaccessible part of the colony, so now he grew concerned with how he might get there -- and not show up covered in mud and wattle -- because he wanted to make a grand impression...

He decided to leave his house, therefore, late in the afternoon, because he wanted to allow plenty of time to skirt the boggy area -- yet he soon found he needn't have bothered. Already there were large groups walking west, beating a new path along the water's edge, and he could even see an ox-drawn cart far ahead. He turned, looked back to the gates that protected Charles Town and saw dozens more colonists streaming out, and despite the odds he craned his head, hoping to see Jennifer Clemens on her brown and white horse.

Yet he wasn't surprised when he didn't see her. The Clemens' place was, after all, on the peninsula across the river, near the road to Plymouth, but oh, how he hoped she'd be there! Tonight, of all nights! There was magic in the air...

And then he spied a skiff on the far side of the river, just putting in across the water and his heart skipped a beat. All of the Clemens boys were aboard; two of them were rowing while the third -- Langston, was it? -- stood to the tiller -- but where was Jennifer? Had she decided not to come? A sudden blackness fell over his heart when he thought of life without Jennifer, and his longing only grew more sharp with each beat of his heart. This couldn't be! Hadn't he seen her in the images! She had to come, for what would become of the future without her...

He followed the line their boat was taking and saw it would land near the proposed college, and he admired the boys' forethought: they would arrive fresh and clean -- while he would present himself as a muddy mess -- along with all the rest. He followed the boat's progress, watched it land then -- astounding! -- Langston stepped a slender mast, hoisted a lateen and sailed back across the river! Claus stood in open mouthed awe as he watched the skiff dart back across the green water, then he noticed that dozens of people along the bank were similarly amazed and he shook his head at the boy's audacity. He'd never seen such a rig before, not even in Lübeck, and certainly never in Britain. Where had the boy learned such things?