Chapter 3
It’s quiet with Max gone. I mean, it always is; he chatters like a territorial bird, but this is different.
At first the only thing I hear is the water in the lake settling after the god fell into it, like it’s whispering to itself to calm down, calm down.
I keep my eyes on it, waiting for the god to emerge, because gods like emerging from water, don’t they?
They do it a lot in narrative vids. And ancient history.
Though not so often in the sermons Margery Wingard likes to preach in town, now that I think of it. Her gods don’t do anything fun.
I hear the crackle of wood burning, the pop of sap as it boils, the crunch as a burning branch falls to the ground. I look back at the forest. There’s a hole where the god burst through, almost hilariously in the shape of a door that got knocked down. The trees there are broken and burning.
A forest fire started by a god.
And then, over the sound of the fire crackling and the lake settling–
I hear voices.
We only have a few neighbors, far enough away to keep out of our business–that’s the whole point of living out here–but suddenly what sounds like dozens or even hundreds of people are on their way here. What could they be doing? Chasing the god? Following it? I–
Except they’re not coming from the forest. They’re coming from the lake.
The water doesn’t stir any more than it was anyway, but there are voices rising from it.
Not the screaming of the god. Actual voices.
I can’t make out words, just different tones and pitches and emotions behind them, but they’re definitely human.
Some are having arguments, some are laughing with each other, some are lonely, some are in crowds.
I can see it, too. Flashes of color, images too blurry to make out completely, but impressions of sky and land and blood, even, and figures moving here and there.
And I can sense almost every feeling you can think of hanging in the air in front of me, anger and love and laughter and fear and cowardice and triumph and despair.
It’s Noise. This is the Noise a bunch of men would make if they were in one place all together.
If none of them had taken the cure.