For safety there is the whole width of the pond and the fact of black water. Dad's search already falters. He steps along the lake shore brushing aside low hanging branches. Nathan flattens on the ground. Dad steps forward and stops. He studies the forest. He heads back to the house but stops again, straightens, as if he has taken a breath of youth. It's almost as if he knows where Nathan hides, as if by scent or sixth sense he can feel his son's presence across the water. For Nathan, the fear becomes vivid. But the cemetery neither beckons nor sways him. He stands like an intruder, the lowering shadows of branches across his face, his arms. His stance weakens, his back bends, he returns to the house. Where he will, no doubt, drink a little, then dress for church.
Nathan steps into the kitchen and closes the door.
The fact that the curtains have been drawn carefully across the windows changes the room. Something about the light reminds him of water, pools of water. There is even the sound of water, the faucet dripping, added to the almost inaudible murmuring of the television in the nearby room. But the house radiates a peace only possible when it is empty. This is Sunday morning, and Dad and Mom have gone to take their places on pews at the Piney Grove Baptist Church, Dad to nod, entranced, while Mr. John Roberts speaks the gospel.
Since he is alone, he dares to go to the room he usually avoids. In the living room the curtains have also been drawn, not quite closed all the way, and gashes of sunlight fall through, slanting across the couch, across the coffee table and the open family Bible. Dad has left the television to play for the empty room, volume low, pale images flickering.
In the bedroom that opens onto the kitchen, his parents' bed is neatly made. The remnants of perfume and aftershave mingle and drift. Mom has let open her round box of talcum powder on the dresser, and a brooch lies near it, reflecting a moment of light. The room comprises its shadows, surfaces, scents; nothing here can be touched. They have slept on the bed but all evidence has been concealed between the neatly squared chenille spread, the high fluffed pillows. He pictures them lying side by side on their backs, eyes closed, hands folded across their chests.
His own room lies exactly as he left it, pallet scattered in the corner. Mom has not even folded the blankets. Nathan finds extra socks and takes his coat. He steals— now he thinks of it as stealing—another quilt.
In the kitchen again, in the moment before leaving, he waits. The silence and stillness fill him with foreboding. For a moment, a thought of the future intrudes, a moment of how long can I hide? But he locks the door behind him and, hiding the key once again beneath the flowerpot, he escapes into the autumn morning.
A warm wind is rising from the south. Nathan should be in church, between the shadows of Father and Mother, beneath the massed clouds of Preacher Roberts's voice, in the presence of God. He finds that he misses the event. But he feels no need of a change in hiding place. Even for a second day, the cemetery seems safe enough. He remains among the dead Kennicutts and their married relations, sheltered from October wind by quilts and tombstones.
From there he can hear the cars return after church, can hear his mother calling his name, exactly twice, when Sunday dinner is ready. Discreet, as if Nathan has stepped into the yard to play.
Time slows to a crawl. He has finished all his assigned homework and finds himself idly reading ahead in the history text, penetrating the chapters on the Hittite, Babylonian, and Assyrian Empires. The history takes on the quality of fable or fairy tale, read outside time, among graves. The sun slowly arcs overhead.
Once during the afternoon Roy appears along the shore of the pond. His quiet ambling could hardly be called unusual, but something in his walk, in the carriage of his shoulders, broadcasts disquiet. He stops near the small dam on the opposite shore and seems to be watching the vicinity of the graveyard. Nathan, for his part, hides from Roy same as from Mom, same as from Dad. But when Roy's mother's voice summons him back to home, the sadness that descends on Nathan is all the more complete.
