“Orpheus founded too the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been rent asunder by the Maenads he rests in Pieria."

— Apollodorus, “The Library," I, 3, 2.

“I hope you've been comfortable?"

“As comfortable as one can be in prison, sir."

“You need not concern yourself. You're not being charged with anything. This protective custody is a precaution, for your own good, you understand."

“A prison is a prison, sir."

“Well then, let us get you out of it as speedily as we may. Please, have a seat. Something to drink?"

“Water."

“Ah. They… mentioned you've been refusing any drink stronger than-"

“Yessir. Strictly water. Boiled, if it can be managed."

“Will you accept tea?"

“...tea would be fine. No alcohol."

“Very well. Do you mind if I-?"

“I'd very much prefer you didn't, sir."

“Very well. Tea for the both of us, then. Whatsoever will put you at ease. While we wait for it, do you feel sufficient to begin? I understand it was quite an ordeal."

“That's quite alright sir. The sooner I can be done with the business, the better."

“If you would state your name and species, for the record?"

“Colonel Avery Antioch, Mastiff."

“And how did you become involved in the Appleseed Affair, Colonel?"

I was stationed at Fort Ontario, sir, after the revolution. I understand my war record was one of the reasons I was volunteered, though of course I was told only that I had orders to lead an expedition. Very secret. We weren't told what the expedition was about until it set out.

We joined Jack Orfeo at Albany. I knew something of his reputation, of course, that regrettable business with his poor late wife, and of course I'd had his literary works recommended to me. Hadn't read them. Never had a taste for poetry before. I was unaware of his… professional expertise. He seemed no more than a mockingbird and unprepossessing widower: coat as grey as his feathers .

My orders were to accompany Mr. Orfeo, in command of a security detail.

“You had no speculations about the object of the expedition?"

“I had heard some rumors, of course, about what was happening to the southwest. Some said riots and unrest, among farmers out in the fringes, thought to be objections to the whiskey tax. Others said that the Tories were plotting a re-invasion of the British through Canada. The day I left, talk in the officer's mess was all of Prattsburgh, though of course no-one knew anything for certain of what had happened there. But I try to make a point, sir, of dismissing barracks gossip from my consideration. I was told that Mr. Orfeo was making inquiries, and to do whatever was required to see he completed them to his satisfaction. That was enough for me."

Perhaps if I had listened, I would have had some warning of what we were to see when we reached Prattsburgh. But then, I suppose, if I had had it, I would not have believed it.

The place was an utter shambles. Houses burnt down, carts overturned. 

The granary was broken open, and the corn and barley were tossed every which way. Looked like there'd been a barn raising dance among it after it'd spilled out.

Entire neighborhoods were deserted. The whole district northeast of the river, as we approached, was empty and silent. It was difficult to keep the men in hand.

“And Orfeo?"

“I don't follow, sir."

“Was he affected by the unsettling scene? Poet and mystic and all that, after all."

“Oh. No, not at all sir. He was calmer than I."

More than anything, Mr. Orfeo seemed curious. 'Intrigued' is maybe the word. We often had to halt because the mockingbird would suddenly notice heaven-knows-what, duck down an alley or into a burned out storefront without warning. It was most frustrating, especially given the state of the men's nerves. Imagine, sir: he leads you into what looks like the aftermath of an invasion, and instead of getting through unknown and possibly hostile territory quickly, you have to keep wasting time waiting and doing nothing while he tilts is head at the ashes in a dead forge or sniffs the air in a milliner's yard that's overgrown with a thicket.

“Overgrown with a thicket?"

“Yessir."

“Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?"

“All among the deserted buildings, sir, in the yards, sometimes even in the middle of the street, spindly grey plants. Twiggy, brittle things, sir. Something like… you're familiar with blackberries, sir?"

“I've had them in a tart, I suppose."

“I mean the plant, sir. Imagine blackberry canes, but made of smooth grey wood instead of thorn."

“Well, I'm no botanist, Colonel, but I don't doubt some expert will be called in to review the report, so I appreciate the details. Was there anything else you noticed about the plants at that time?"

“Yessir. When they were broken—and at times there was nothing for it but to push through them, in places they entirely blocked the road—they smelled of brandy. Not good brandy, but very strong."

“I see. You may resume your report."

As I said, we made slow going of it. Mr. Orfeo would stop to examine something, and we would wait, and then not a block later he would stop again. The worst of it was I had no idea how long it would be until we got through. I couldn't send forward scouts, of course, not without knowing what had happened, if there was some ambush party watching us. In any case, the men were unnerved enough that I judged it imprudent to let any of them separate from the group.

When I expressed these frustrations to Orfeo, he was apologetic. He'd gone into what seemed to have been some sect's meetinghouse. All the pews had been pushed haphazard against the walls, some forcefully enough to break them, and he was on his hands and knees counting scraps of paper. Torn up pages from hymnals, he later said. But he promised to make better time. “I have a not-uncertain guess as to what we will find happened here," he said.

I think the men were relieved when we crossed the bridge to the city proper. If only because there were lights visible in windows, and militiamen on guard. They looked in a rough state. In my experience, a guard who looks like that has too much to cover and not enough fellow guards to cover it.

The destruction was, if anything, greater in central Prattsburg. But at least there were people here, making some attempt to clean things up: hauling broken wood away, scrubbing walls, picking through the remains of what seemed to be a brickwork tenement that had fallen in on itself. There had clearly been attempts made at cutting back the strange thickets, as well, though most seemed to have been abandoned partway through.

The bodies had all been laid out in the town square.

“Bodies?"

“Eighty-four of them was the tally they gave us. I had the men count and confirm. Many were unidentifiable."

“Due to disfiguring injury?"

“Nossir, though most had at least…"

“...if the topic is too painful-"

“I'm well enough sir. Apologies. Most had at least one limb torn off. Some more than one."

“Torn, specifically?"

“Yessir. But that was not the problem. The faces were reasonably recognizable. The problem was nobody could be found who had any acquaintance with them to do the recognizing. As Mr. Orfeo pointed out, there were far, far more than eighty-four people missing."

The city administration, such as it was, was operating out of a coffeehouse opposite where city hall, looked to have been burned to the ground, stood.

I had been briefed that Mayor Thuss would be the local authority. This proved not to be the case. It was instead a Miss Reasonability Goodwin, chipmunk, formerly head librarian. It would prove upon inquiry that Miss Goodwin was the only remaining elected official in the city.

I must admit some surprised admiration here for Mr. Orfeo. He handled the situation eminently well. Beyond what my capabilities would have been.

At his direction, I ordered the men to reinforce the city militia and assist in whatever recovery efforts were underway while I remained to guard him myself.

“Was that wise, Colonel?"

“At the time, sir, I was unaware of any significant danger. In hindsight? If there had been danger, it would have been of a kind against which an entire battalion would have been no more effective than a single old mastiff with a rifle. In either case, more could be accomplished by assisting the populace."

“Understandable, I suppose."

As I said, Mr. Orfeo was well-suited to the situation. As poet and mockingbird, he was very well-spoken. And as a scholar, I suppose, his temperment let him put a librarian such as Miss Goodwin at ease, which she clearly sorely needed before she was able to tell us anything of use.

He said, “I can see there was some calamity here, Madam, it is an act of heroism that you continue to do what must be done."

She said, “My thanks, sir. It has… helped, I think, not to have to think about what happened that night."

He said, “Then I am sorry, but asking you what happened is precisely what I am here to do."

She didn't say anything in reply.

He went on, “But this can wait, you are clearly exhausted. No no, I'll hear no refusal. You'll do nobody any good if you work yourself to collapse, and I'd wager you've not had a full night's sleep since… the event. If you will permit me to call upon you in the morning? In the meantime, I am assured Colonel Antioch is capable of directing emergency efforts."

I nodded when he introduced me.

The acting Lady Mayoress was eager enough to depart. I spent the evening assisting Mr Orfeo in reviewing reports of the incident. And you will have received copies of those, I have no doubt.

“Indeed, Colonel. We were hoping Mr. Orfeo's report would shed some light upon them."

“Ah. But, of course, he did not make one. Which explains why you are relying on me. I see now."

“Apologies Colonel, I was under the understanding you had been informed."

“No need. 'I was under the understanding you had been informed' is a time-honored motto for old soldiers like you and I, sir."

“Well said. If, then, you could give us whatever understanding you have of the disaster in Prattsburgh. Anything would be helpful."

The following, then, is my understanding of events of March the Thirty-First through April the Third. This based upon discussions that occurred when Mr Orfeo took breakfast with Miss Goodwin, as well as reports he spent the night before reviewing. It should be understood that I did not see the entirety of these. I could peruse them only until I would be called upon to arrange such and such medical aid or find shelter for a just-discovered survivor or some other relief task.

It was most disturbing, I recall, that sometime past midnight, Mr Orfeo said, “Singular, is it not, that all the survivors are of more than average age?"

Which I had not noticed. But he was correct.

Throughout the winter, apparently, the city of Prattsburgh had been gradually infested with disreputable and eccentric preachers. Unkempt, unwashed, preaching disturbing, outlandish doctrines. Quite unlike respectable ministers. They would accost passersby with incendiary and sometimes obscene sermons. They would threaten destruction at the hands of an angry god. They would hold loud, raucous, all-night-long revival meetings, often unauthorized on public squares, or obstructing the public thoroughfare. They were frequently more than inebriated. Arrest dissuaded them from these practices not at all: I understand the jailhouse rang like a bell tower with their shouted sermons.

Mayor Thuss was on the point of issuing orders banning them from the city. I saw these, drawn up but not signed. Before he could, I would guess, the next stage of the crisis emerged. The growth of 'a strange and unrecognized weed' as Miss Goodwin put it, “It grew alarmingly fast, and from places quite unaccountable. Between cobblestones, out of wells. A stable had its roof torn off, the plants within grew so fast. Everyplace there was bare earth, it seemed, and some there even was not. I heard claims of shoots sprouting from the very boards of the wharf at the river. The worst, though, was the graveyard." Upon which she declined to elaborate, and Mr Orfeo did not press her.

Citizens were unable to go about their business. Many were unable to leave their homes. But before any solution could be attempted, one among the vagrants came forward and claimed to be responsible. He identified himself as one John Chapman.

“You should know, Colonel, we've had some success unearthing this man's past before Prattsburgh. We needn't go into it if it would disturb you?"

“That's alright sir. If I can offer relevant experience, then I might as well satisfy my curiosity."

“Precisely my hope. He seems to have been born in Massachusetts, not long before the revolution. His mother died in childbirth, reports conflict on her name. No knowledge of a father's identity. Next record of him is of an apprenticeship at an apple orchard in the Ohio valley. Now defunct. He seems to have left that community after a short time, and on not entirely friendly terms, but no plausible accounts of why have surfaced."

“I should revise what I consider plausible, in his case, sir."

“Noted. After this Chapman becomes a widely known regional character. He lives a nomadic life, at the edges of settled land, wandering from place to place and planting apple orchards. Many of these for local settlers, usually in return for shelter and food, but many also in unaccountable places. Deep in the wilderness, far from population centers, some in such inaccessible locations that it beggers understanding how he even reached them in the first place. Nor does he seem to have returned to these: they are planted and then abandoned to grow wild. His personal eccentricities become more pronounced. He gives up wearing shoes. He apparently adopts eccentric religious views. Some accounts have him wearing a helm, described as similar to a centurion out of an illustrated gospel. Others maintain it was merely a cooking vessel. Other accounts describe him as wearing nothing at all save a wreath of ivy over his horns."

“Horns, sir?"

“The man was a goat, was he not?"

“I… Well sir, I cannot speak to what the records say, but this is the first I've heard of his being a goat."

“How singular. Well, that is the little we know of him. Some regard him as a folk hero, supplying the means of pies lest people go hungry. Others thought of him as a nuisance and said what he planted was good only for making rotgut cider. The last he'd been heard of was some three years prior to the incident. It was assumed he'd perished, of hunger or exposure or mischance, out in the wilderness somewhere. I suppose we cannot say for certain that he did not."

“How do you mean, sir?"

“Well, the man in Prattsburgh who claimed to be Chapman? You say he was not a goat, and we have only his word—at least less than perfectly trustworthy—that this was even Chapman at all. So it may be, if the man who claimed responsibility there was a different species than that in the available records, you follow me?"

“Oh, I have no doubt it was him, sir. But it's perhaps best if I come to that chronologically, so that I can keep it straight in my own head."

Whatever his prior history might claim, according to the Prattsburg accounts this John Chapman was a leopard. The rest of the description matched well enough: bare feet, ragged clothing, ivy and a cooking implement on his head. He claimed the plants were “a new orchard for a new earth" and that the preachers, and whatever following they had collected, were “his people." He then made some kinds of claims to ecclesiastical pre-eminence and called for the resignation of Mayor Thuss.

The mayor is said to have replied with accusation that Chapman “supposed he would be replacing me?"

“Oh not at all sir, whyever would I desire such a thing? My promised throne is not anything so petty and mundane as thine. A great kingdom awaits me in Heaven, sir. It is for your good I bid thee come down, come down. Cast off thy clothes, enter into innocence, rejoice in music with us, and taste of the fruit of my gardens. Then thy eyes shall be opened and thou shalt be as the gods!"

Mayor Thuss allegedly said, with heated language, that this proposition was quite ridiculous. He ordered Chapman arrested, and made some very colorful threats about the nature of his expected incarceration.

At which point the account becomes unclear, at least so far as I saw. None of the guardsmen who were with the Mayor were to be found. All other accounts become very confused at this time: people talk of panic, delusions. Compulsions to begin dancing to unheard music, being unable to stop. Many report suddenly becoming drunken without even the pleasure of drink. Others report finding themselves in strange places, or hearing voices of the dead. There were apparently many acts of violence, the motives of which were mysterious even to the perpetrators.

It was confirmed that Mayor Thuss was torn limb from limb by a crazed mob. Some claim Goodwife Ague Thuss, his elderly mother, was among them, but as no trace of the poor woman was to be found, I can neither confirm nor deny it sir.

The episode of widespread hysteria ended with the rising of the sun. Of Chapman there was no sign. The greater part of his followers had also departed. Some of these were beginning to return, in state of great confusion, as we departed with Mr. Orfeo, but of the rest I can say nothing sir. If any sign of them has been seen since I have not heard of it.

“Well Colonel, I can say your account accords with everything else we've been able to learn of the disaster. I am almost disappointed, I confess, I had hoped there would be some discrepancy, something you had noticed with others had not, that would provide a critical insight of some sort."

“If anyone had critical insights, sir, it would have been Mr. Jack Orfeo. But if he had, he did not share them with me. He just gave us all jewelry."

“I'm sorry, jewelry?"

“Little amethyst beads, sir. He told all the men to wear them at all times, tied around your wrist or hung round your neck or just kept in your pocket if nothing else. Ordered us all not to go without them for even a moment, which technically he did not have authority to do but we were all too shaken to argue."

We made good time from Prattsburgh. The road was largely unblocked by the grey thickets, and those that were there were easily navigable. It helped that we had gotten beyond the mountains.

That is not to say the plants weren't odious. Many couldn't be described as anything but trees, and by far the vilest I've been unfortunate enough to lay eyes on. The leaves seemed a subtly wrong color, as if some noxious grease was on them. Most were somehow flowering and bearing fruit at the same time, sir. The fruit stank of sour brandy and the flowers of… well, I'll not use the barracks term, sir, but I trust your experts will know what I mean by… seminal fluids? The branches were ropy and almost muscular, in places the roots had pushed through stone to find soil. Other plants nearby them were withered and brittle: I do recall Mr. Orfeo stopped to investigate and the leaves of grass crumbled to powder at his touch. And though I can't explain why, whenever my back was to them I felt sure something was looking at me.

I know the men felt the same, for many complained to Mr. Orfeo. He assured them they couldn't be going mad, because they still had their amethyst. I don't think they found this encouraging.

As we went we encountered more of Chapman's outrages.

“Are you speaking of disasters similar to Prattsburgh, Colonel? We have no reports of-"

“Not like Prattsburgh, sir. Chapman seems to have avoided towns afterward. The trail we followed west went out of its way to circumnavigate settlements like Calumnus and Quincti. The incidents we heard of, or encountered, were more uncanny if less threatening."

Most of these would have been easy to dismiss as mere country tales, if not for what we'd seen already. Standard things: a laborer is asked to share a drink of water, he passes the dipper to what he thinks merely some vagrant, but on accepting it back finds the pail is now full of cider. A miller's daughter hasn't walked since her childhood polio, but after speaking with Chapman she not only rises from her bed but embarks on a campaign of unchastity of heroic scale, and that with somehow her father's full approval. A family offers him shelter for the night, the next morning they pack up all their things to go west, and the morning after that the neighbor finds the cabin collapsed and rotting, with the same damnable trees growing from the ruins, as if it'd been abandoned for years. These are just reports we heard as we progressed west, you understand sir. The first I actually witnessed was the wreck of the riverboat.

It was driven into a sandbar just off the near bank. It was tilted so heavily that the stern corner was under a little standing wave. It was covered in ivy and of course the damnable saplings: though the roots were starting to claim the sandbar they'd plainly come from the boat itself.

“Would you mind ordering a halt, Colonel?" Orfeo said. I didn't mind.

When I had done seeing to the men, I found him examining the wreckage from the bank, notebook open. I asked if he would need help reaching the boat itself.

“Oh, no thank you Colonel," he said hastily, “I wouldn't think it safe for anyone to set foot on it."

I asked what he thought had happened.

“Let us see if we can find someone to tell us."

He proceeded to interview a catfish.

"I'm sorry, Colonel, would you be willing to repeat that?"

"Yessir, I know. But yes: Orfeo squatted down on the riverbank, splashed at the surface a while with one hand until the head of a catfish emerged. Must have been fully the size of a grown man. And he began to ask it questions."

"Good afternoon to you, sir," Orfeo began. "Might I ask who you used to be?"

If it made any reply it was unintelligible to me.

"I see. My apologies, and my condolences. Could you be so good as to tell me, Captain, how you came to be, well, as you find yourself presently?"

I saw muddy water wash over its great flat face and its mouth flap, but no sign could I see of anything that imported a meaning.

"Indeed. And where did you encounter him?" Orfeo said as if he could.

"Oh, truly?"

"I see…"

"I see!"

It went like that for rather some time. I confess I had to remind myself of Prattsburgh, of the bodies lying in the town square, to hold off the impression I had stumbled into a nursery-rhyme folly.

"You must admit, Captain, that it was partially their own doing, then."

At this there was a terrific splash. Mr. Orfeo came away from the bank, wiping river water from his face and feathers.

“I'm quite well, Colonel," he brushed off my attempt to help him, “merely a little damp. The good Captain seems to have taken umbrage at my last observation, is all."

I asked if he meant the catfish.

“Indeed, sir, though no doubt the local authorities would know him better as Captain Hamish Shrive. They may be wondering what has become of the man."

The answer to which, I asked, is a catfish?

“Well, it seems," he carefully checked that his notebook was not damaged, and then let us rejoin the company, “that he and his crew offered Our Mr. Chapman a lift downriver. After a day or so, however, one of the crew made at attempt at robbing the man, though of what I have not the least idea. And the results were as you have seen."

All this he said as if transforming a boat's crew into catfish were a perfectly common and even reasonable response to attempted robbery.

“Now, you saw no transformation yourself, however?"

“No sir."

“So by your own observations there was nothing that could not be explained as a boat wreck, a large catfish, and an eccentric poet?"

“I would not credit such an account sir."

“But if it could disprove the whole affair?"

“If the whole affair were 'disprovable,' sir, why would I be giving this account? Does the army of the federal republic put a man in protective custody for a week over a large catfish? I understand, sir, the desire to believe the whole thing to not have happened, but we neither of us can deny it. If you wish to have my account, sir, then I am happy to give it, but I am afraid that there is nothing to be done about the fact that it is outlandish and extraordinary: it is the account of outlandish and extraordinary events. Others may disbelieve it afterward, as they please, but if you and I stop to disbelieve at every incredulous detail there is little purpose to my saying it at all. Sir."

“I understand, colonel. My apologies, I shall strive to keep my doubts unvoiced. Please continue."

Our course followed the river out of the mountains, as Chapman seemed to have traveled along it for some ways.

We encountered a company of cavalry, bound north toward the lakes to quell incipient insurrection among farmers there over whiskey tax, though they had also reports of the involvement of Adventists: practicing sectarian medicine in anticipation of the end of days. Jack Orfeo advised their commander not to proceed until every man in his detail was equipped with amethyst. “Alas, captain, I have not enough myself to supply you, I should stop at some mining assayer or the office of a geological survey, if such a thing can be found."

I do not think this advice was taken seriously.

We encountered a wide plantation of wheat, tobacco, and sweet corn that was much neglected. Not only was it overrun with the abominable and unseasonable trees, but what was more peculiar was that large portions of the crops had mounted among them metallic—replica models, I supposed—of astonishing beauty and craftsmanship. The metallurgy was very rough and poor, rusted in spots, but the detail was beyond anything I had ever seen. A sprig of wheat, or an ear of corn, or a squash, sculpted in every detail out of what a goldsmith or coppersmith would send back to the foundry, as slag, and with firm admonitions to find another supplier. All the rest of the crops, though, were either already succumbing to rot and the withering proximity of the trees, or had been burned leaving behind only the metallic effigies.

There was a sign, by the road, which read 'trespassers shall be.' The bottom plank of it was broken off, and all around the broken edges was a film of gilding.

Orfeo advised against closer investigation, but he took some samples of the metal model crops off the margins of the place. I would guess these are now among the evidence collected by this inquiry, sir? Well enough then.

Finally at a small town, scarce more than a general store at a crossroad, we came upon a most grotesque sight. At first it appeared the figure of a woman—rodent of some kind though as you will hear it was, by now, impossible to tell what species—had been constructed out of braided but still-living thistles. Mass of spiky leaves instead of feet, the long stalks wound into the shape of legs, you understand. The detail was astonishing, which was not to anyone's benefit, for it was clear enough to see the expression of pain and terror on howsoever much of her face had not disintegrated into thorn and purple flower. And of course, in order to get near enough to see as much, one could not help noticing the skeletal remains the thistle-effigy had been built around, as if the plants were the muscles and skin.

“That were," Orfeo located the proprietor of the general store, “Sally Canthor, or Cross Sally as we knowed her in these parts. Most disagreeable lass. Bout half a month ago some wild folk rolled into town-" and from the description he gave Chapman's entourage were immediately recognizable, “-and Sally took up with em. Took up with their leader, some bull wearing rags and a dutch oven for a hat, and no shoes. Spent most of those days keeping my head down and staying out of trouble, but Sally, she wanted to be sole mistress of the whole affair, started one too many squabbles amongst the group, so the bull-fellow, he marches her into the center of the road and then…" he pointed at the thistle effigy.

“And you mean to say that this is in fact Miss Canthor?" asked Orfeo.

“Well, I couldn't say 'is,'' the old mallard said, “but it sure was."

Before I left I enquired if we ought to give the poor woman a burial. Orfeo refused on the grounds it was unlikely she was, in fact, dead.

“And Chapman was a bull, now?"

“Yessir. This, earlier, is why I discounted the species mismatch between accounts of Chapman. It is entirely consistent with accounts we discovered as we tracked him."

“I see. In the interest of expediency, Colonel, might I ask: at what point, if any, did you discover intelligence as to Chapman's goals or intentions?"

Well sir, upon reaching the flatlands beyond the last of the mountains we found ourselves in an alluvial floodplain. We were now in unorganized territory, and I could no longer count on the authority of the army being recognized, so we proceeded cautiously.

I had concerns about encountering native folk—we all know that relations since the revolution have been uncertain at best, and though I speak pretty passable Iroquoian my Chippewa is sparse—but we saw no sign of them. An Anabaptist plowman we met claimed he'd accompanied a Shawnee party to try setting fire to one of Chapman's thickets, “but t'was no good, when mornin' come the cuss'ed things was grown back twice as thick!"

Where those he'd accompanied were now, he either could not say, or would not say to soldiers.

It is perhaps well that they did not succeed. If burning had proved the answer, then all of the Ohio valley would have needed to be put to the torch. I am not a man of great sensibility, as I think you know, but the first sight of the riverland, as we descended from the hills, was chilling in ways to which I cannot put words. Perhaps Orfeo could have, he was a poet. I've heard, though, of the inspiring sight as one crosses the mountains: the continent beyond spread out, under the sun, rivers and plains like patterns on a carpet so that a man feels he could walk a hundred miles at a step. But the carpet was stained. Even from a distance the patches of twisted trees were plainly visible. I could not say how they were so easily distinguished from any other flora, perhaps something about the color was wrong, or the shapes the groves formed on the ground: the edges of them sprawled out into the surrounding lands, in patterns like hooks or veins, the way a rash reaches out from an infected bullet wound. I kept fancying that I saw them moving—like the surface on a pot of oatmeal just before it begins to boil—but only when I wasn't looking directly at them. Whichever grove I fixed my eyes on would be still, but the others around it would seem to be bubbling and twisting until I turned my stare to another.

It made one most reluctant to go down among them, but we had no other choice. The stench of them, sir, I will spend the rest of my life wishing to forget. The cloying sweetness of rotten apples, the sharpness of cheap moonshine, the sourness of stale vinegar. Under that the blossoms stank,  which I'll not describe again. But even more there was something I cannot place. Like the chemist's shelf in a doctor's practice, or like the scorched iron at a smithy. It was so thick that more than smelling it, one could feel it, like the air when trudging through a South Carolina swamp in high summer. It made one feel drowsy, and unbalanced, and even a little seasick.

I made a point, when we stopped for the night, of removing Orfeo's bead of amethyst from my pocket and binding it round my wrist with good thick thread, so that it were touching my fur directly. Whether that helped, or whether I merely found the going easier in the morning because I had grown accustomed to the foulness, I cannot say.

The first settlement we reached was amid a great slough beside the river, and proved to be inhabited almost entirely by a single extended family of frogs, shouting at one another across the fields or singing behind their oxen, though the songs were not what I would call suitable for genteel ears. But the matriarch, Mrs. Burreky-Cass, was an agreeable enough yeoman of a bullfrog, and not only welcomed us but was more than happy to volunteer information about Chapman.

“Oh I certainly see'd him," she was busily engaged in shelling peas in her seat of authority, a rocking chair on the porch. “Land sakes was that a thing. He come here lookin' to hire a boat, musta been sunday last."

We were less than a week behind him, it would seem.

I ventured that perhaps he was pursuing the same goal that had led him to cross paths with the unfortunate Captain Shrive.

“Did anyone go with him?" Orfeo asked.

“Oh, would't a one of us hire a boat to a man so disreputable as that, nor set foot in a one with to row it," she shook her head gravely but with justifiable pride. “So that fool of a skunk he had with him, he paid good cash for nephew Jethrow's beat-up ol' canoe. An eye for a deal, has our Jethrow. He floated off alone in't and that's the last we see'd him."

I thought we would next be talking to nephew Jethrow. But instead Orfeo asked what she had meant by 'fool of a skunk.' We were directed to an outbuilding, a hay barn at the lower end of the settlement, empty in anticipation of the mowing.

“Good lord," Orfeo started. “Paul? Paul Liminus, is that you?"

Paul Liminus proved to be the name of a skunk, younger than Mr. Orfeo but with something of a similar look about him. His clothes had once been very fine, though long journey and places such as a disused hay barn had done their best to undo this. He seemed quite unconcerned with his state of uncleanliness or the quantities of hay stuck in his tail.

“Oh Orpheus, famous of name," the fellow seemed something other than sober, “to what fate am I brought, by love and madness divine, that thou shouldst find me here?"

“Pull yourself together, man!" Orfeo said sharply. I ordered two soldiers to help him get the fellow to his feet, and the rest to search the building to be sure we were not interrupted, for the skunk smelled not of himself, but of harsh apple brandy. “Colonel Antioch," the mockingbird turned to me, “may I introduce Mr. Paul Liminus. Very far indeed from Baltimore, where for all I knew he was supposed to be!"

“Perhaps you're familiar with my poetry?" the drunken skunk smiled in my direction.

“So I gather," came a voice, and I found old mother Burrecky-Cass had followed us unnoticed, and was now standing behind, ample arms crossed over her apron as if she meant to halt a stampede by sheer force of disapproval, “that you'll be takin this fellow off'a our hands? Much obliged, then." She gave us no time to refuse. “Don't have no use for useless folk."

“Can you tell us, ma'am?" Orfeo called after her, “which way Chapman went?"

“The first time or th'other?" She replied without breaking stride. “First time amn't for me to speak on. But the second time he gone west."

Once we had made a few miles' march further west, for we seemed suddenly much less welcome among Mrs. Burrecky-Cass's clan, I permitted a halt so that Orfeo might satisfy his curiosity with Mr. Liminus. I will admit to my own curiosities there as well.

"Paul," Orfeo began, it seemed he had some acquaintance with this fellow already, "what in heaven's name are you doing here?"

"If any among us," the skunk laughed bitterly, "when bidden by the whispers of the muse, could deny them, why he would have no business calling himself a poet. Is that not how you put it, back at the old hall?"

"And what came of that?!" Orfeo said sharply. But he sighed and continued with more patience, for the man was quite clearly still under the influence, "Please, Paul, just tell me what happened."

"I understand some questions have already been asked of Mr Liminus?"

"Indeed, Colonel. I examined the reports on my way here. They were less enlightening than I had hoped. His talents as a poet aside, the man seemed, well, how shall I put this?"

"A bloody fool, sir?"

"Perhaps not quite like that. But I could not disagree."

Liminus, it came out though with great difficulty, had been a resident of Baltimore, where he had some family incomes and nursed literary ambitions. These took a turn for the dramatic when he began correspondence with some sort of poetical society, of which Jack Orfeo and his wife were both prominent members. He did not speak much of this society's business, and the topic seemed painful to Orfeo, but I gathered that the proceedings were both not entirely respectable and considerably more esoteric than is usual for a literary society.

This is, no doubt, where Mr. Orfeo acquired his singular reputation. And Mrs. Orfeo her infamous misfortune.

"It came to me when I was out drinking, one night," the skunk finally admitted, after much frustrating discursion from him.

"What did?" and much patient interrogation from Orfeo.

"Inspiration!" Liminus beamed, "Inspiration and enthusiasm! I'd never written with such ease, such ability, and the more I wrote the more vivid the dreams became, and the more vivid the dreams, the wilder and more evocative my pen. Jack, it was everything we used to theorize about, but more, so much more!"

"How does that bring you here?" Again Orfeo had to turn Liminus to the business at hand. "How does that bring you into the company of a man like Chapman?"

"The dreams and the writing did that, Jack. Inspiration and enthusiasm, in the most," he attempted to point emphatically and seemed not entirely capable of judging the gesture's direction, "technical sense! Every line I wrote, every dream I had, they grew clearer and more insistent: where I must needs travel, whom I must needs seek out, that when I found him I should do whatsoever I could to aid him."

"Aid him at what?" Orfeo scowled, there seemed to be no need to specify that by 'him' Liminus meant 'Chapman,' "what is he doing, Paul, that you were needed?"

"He needs a poet," Liminus himself seemed frustrated, though whether with us or with himself I could not say, "he is at the writing of a myth. An old myth on new pages."

"Go on," said Orfeo, with a gravity in his voice I did not then comprehend.

"Well, you know better than anyone, you can't both write the myth and be it, Jack. If he would be beneficiary of a myth, then he needs someone who can put it into verse, and make it real, for it to last!"

"You did this?!" Orfeo took the drunkard by the shoulders, roughly. He sounded equal parts infuriated and awestruck. "By god man, whatever possessed you-"

"You know very well what! Inspiration! Enthusiasm!" Liminus tried, and failed, to brush Orfeo's hands from his shoulders, "But no. This is not my doing. I couldn't do it. I'm not poet enough for what he needed. Couldn't... capture the grandeur of it, the splendor, the raw wildness of it. So instead we came here. Had to find someone better. I wasn't enough of a poet to write his myth, but I was enough to open him a doorway to someone who was. And once I'd done that, why... he'd no more use for me. No more inspiration. No more enthusiasm."

Orfeo released the man and looked to me, as if he expected me to offer some remark. Perhaps he took my complete incomprehension of this discussion as some confirmation of some conclusion he'd come to. "Who was he looking for, Paul?"

"He went down the river."

I said something to the effect that he was making for New Orleans.

“Not that river!" Liminus's snort was derisive. “The other river, for Mrs. Broadstreet." The skunk had slumped to the ground against a sycamore by the road. "Couldn't say if he found her. But he never came back. And by the time I'd woken up all the rest of his merry band had moved on—after him, I'd guess, they'll still have their share of inspiration and enthusiasm, I don't doubt. Lucky them."

“Paul." Orfeo's voice was stern, the way I wouldn't have thought a mockingbird's could become, “this… this is everything we promised never to do. This is not the purpose of the mysteries. If a man like Chapman uses what we discovered, then the world-"

“-will become the sort of place," the Skunk croaked, “in which a man can descend to the shadows and rescue one he loves as easily as going to the corner tavern."

I was certain Orfeo was going to strike the man. But instead he turned to me. "Colonel," I could see the gears turning behind the bird's eyes, "could we spare a couple of men to conduct Mr. Liminus back toward civilization? He may yet have valuable information, if but he can regain coherence enough to lay hands on it. I should place him under arrest, if I were you."

By the time I'd wrangled a couple of the lads as volunteers, Orfeo had composed most of a letter. "One last question, Paul. You said you were out drinking when this Enthusiasm took hold of you. Do you recall what you were drinking?"

Mr Liminus smiled ironically. "Old country applejack, from upstate."

"What brand, man?!"

"Why... how should I remember a thing like that?"

"As I feared." Orfeo added a last line and finished the letter. "Colonel, would you be so good as to address this to, why, whatever officer you think will have the most power to act on it, and the most sense to take it seriously? I think it imperative that all cider, brandy, applejack, and any other apple-derived consumable which cannot be known, with absolute certainty, to have nothing to do with any of Chapman's trees be at once confiscated and disposed of."

“I hope that letter was acted on, sir."

“To some extent. I understand the congressmen even now are wrangling over it, whether the army has the right to confiscate food and drink in the interest of public safety. If any of them have gotten so far as to ask why we wanted it confiscated, I've not heard of it."

“I see, sir. Let us hope it is a moot point, then, and get on with why it may still be necessary."

So I sent Liminus back east with two men. They were mightily disappointed to be burdened with the fellow, but I think you will agree: in the end, they proved the lucky ones.

I asked, when we were ready to proceed westward again, what on earth the drunken skunk had been talking about.

"Well colonel," Orfeo still seemed shaken, "Mr. Liminus sent Chapman to meet Mrs. Samantha Broadstreet. A most respectable lady, and a poet of great skill, though never so much renown as she deserved."

I asked why.

"Because all that he's doing, all that he's done, it cannot be made to last without a poet to give it a proper form."

And he thought this Mrs Broadstreet had done this?

"Oh, not at all, sir. Not at all. For one thing, Samantha Broadstreet would heartily disapprove of Chapman, and still more heartily disapprove of his ambitions, she was an eminently pious lady of unimpeachable character. For another, if she had done this, we would know it: there'd be scarcely enough sense left in the world for you and I to be having this discussion."

Why, then, was he so concerned over this detail?

"Because Samantha Broadstreet has been dead nearly a score of years."

"Were you able to glean, sir, anything useful from the interrogation of Mr. Liminus?"

"Very little, I'm afraid, Colonel. Though what you report of him does make that little assume some semblance of sense. Mostly he deflects blame toward Chapman, and pleads for strong drink. But he did mention some 'great work' that he was by turns remorseful and relieved to have failed to do. If nothing else, your report gives us enough to suppose what that must have been."

"I think I may yet have more light to shed upon that, sir."

"Were you fortunate enough to find others who had contact with Chapman?"

"I would not say 'fortunate,' sir. But we found Chapman."

I want it noted, sir, that I am no raw recruit. I know how to reconnoiter a campsite, I know how to set up camp, I know how to post sentries. Three different companies, sir, in the revolution, will attest that I saw them safely around enemy ambush.

In light of this, I hope you will appreciate what it means that the moment the sunset had fully left the sky, a whole mob of Chapman's followers surrounded us.

I know not where they came from. The fields to either side of the road were empty when we arrived, I scouted them myself. And these folk were hardly what could be called stealthy. Singing, laughing, shouting obscenities: we should have heard them coming miles away.

To finally see them up close was a chilling thing indeed. One might think they were having a delightful time. That certainly seemed to be their understanding of the matter. There was food and drink being passed around—I saw skilly and duff, and cornbread, and rashers of bacon, any soldier would recognize as much I dare say, but also an unaccountable abundance of fresh fruit. Strawberries in October, if you can believe it sir. And everywhere there was strong cider, apple brandy, applejack. They were guzzling it, gulping it, passing jugs of it about, they flung sprinklings of the stuff over one another's heads like a papist padre. The stench of alcohol made it hard to breathe.

And there were acts of debauchery. I'd rather not elaborate, sir, you understand.

But under all of it there was this hunted, haunted look, in all their eyes. It put me in mind of the way my mother, when I was a pup, would look when she smiled at my pa when he'd come home soused and angry from the dockside taverns. Like someone afraid of being caught out not being happy enough. Or like the point, late at night, long after you ought to be asleep, when you go from the drunkenness to the hangover.

And at the epicenter of it all was Chapman. A skinny spotted wildcat, barefoot, threadbare overalls unbound at the shoulders so that they hung from his waist like a loin-girded prophet in the scriptures. Wreath of the blasted twigs around his head like a halo: leaves, blossoms, and apples all.

I barked to the men to catch muskets and form up even as his followers parted and he began to approach. I would've given the order to load and fire, but Orfeo shouted "lower weapons, please!"

It's to my men's credit that none of them did, or even looked at him. I did, however. I think I asked if he were mad.

"Far from it, Colonel, and if any of us hope to stay that way, do nothing to provoke them!"

I begrudgingly gave the order to lower muskets.

Yet Orfeo seemed to consider, "However, if it looks as if I am in any danger of... going with him, or agreeing with anything he says? Then Colonel, you have my leave and blessing to shoot me. To kill, if you'd be so good. I don't relish the prospect of a gutshot."

I had not time to ask what the devil that was supposed to mean before Chapman reached us.

Orfeo produced a white handkerchief from somewhere, waved it for a signal.

Chapman laughed. "Come now, friend, what need is there of that? I am come not to bring a sundering sword, but peace!"

"So you say," Orfeo replied, but he put away the handkerchief.

“So I do say," Chapman laughed, “and who is there to deny it? Is it not better to conquer with good drink, and good cheer? With fellowship and plenty? With the delights of love and a song of joy? Than with the tools of conquest men such as these," he gestured disdainfully at all of us, “have used: guns, and starvation, and plague, and the turning out of folk from their ancient homes? Why, if they may do it, and be thought righteous and just, how much more is it righteous and just if I do the same in turn?"

Orfeo's fists clenched, and he began reciting something in a hurried whisper.

"But my, how these boys look weary and parched." Chapman was smiling in a most unsettling way, “Come thou, fellows, have a drink with us, and rest so long as thou please!"

I am again proud to report that not a man of mine stirred toward him.

"And thee, Jack Orfeo!" Chapman either ignored or did not notice our rejection of his hospitality, "Why, thou I'm glad indeed to see! I've need of a man of thy talents, and a work like this, why, I daresay it'd make thy reputation indeed!"

"My reputation, sir," Orfeo said, "for better or worse is already made. I'm afraid I cannot assist you. I am here to ask you to release these people, let them go back to their homes, before any more harm is done."

Chapman laughed again. "Why sir, thou talk'st as though I'll take no for an answer! A true poet, I daresay, 'd understand. When inspiration is visited on thee, I say follow it, do not thou look back!"

Orfeo took a deep breath, and then I know not what I was expecting, but he began reciting again. Too softly for me to catch much of it, but it rhymed and had a windy rhythm. 'Something passed a sunset somewhere, let the heart go dry, for… something… is rising, and graven is the sky' is all I remember.

“Oh nay sir," Chapman laughed heartily, “thy songs will do naught but amuse me! But then," and his smile went flinty, “I do hear, t'is no different from the last time thou tried thy songs."

“For a final wind is rising," Orfeo recited louder, “and my soul is falling dumb. Then the timbre, then the thunder, then the tolling of the drums! And the wind cries alleluia and the noise is overcome!"

Chapman jumped back as if he'd touched a hot stove. His eyes went wide, and his grin got hard. T'was like it wasn't that he was smiling, but the smile was something he was determined to do, would not be denied at.

The smell of apples got powerful enough to make a man sick. I felt dizzy, and feverish, and I think I saw some of those plants sprout from the road at my feet. But then I felt something cool against the inside of my wrist, where I'd secured Orfeo's amethyst bead, and the feeling passed.

I had half a second, sir, where I thought, aha, now we've got the bugger.

And then he snarled, and snapped his fingers, and his followers rushed us.

"Colonel Antioch? Are you well?"

"I... will be alright, sir."

"If you like, we can continue this tomorrow."

"No need sir. And if it's all the same, I should like to get it over with."

"Would another cup of tea help?"

"I think so sir, thank you."

I daresay I need not describe the chaos that followed. Any man who's seen battle can understand the madness of it. And any man who has not, why, what good would a description do him?

We fired on the mad throng as they rushed us. The foremost went down, which dissuaded the others not at all, and then it was bayonet work. Nasty business that, for it was preachers and women and youths clawing at us.

They weren't trying to kill, at least, not at first. Their hands went for pockets, wrists, necks.

They were after our amethyst baubles.

By god, sir, if only I could have sent my mind back into the memories of the war, have told myself it was tories and traitors, redcoats and hessians. That would have been a dire thing, true, but it would have been better. Didn't sit well with me, sir, to have to run through a youth or an old matron. Still doesn't sit well. I wouldn't want to be the sort of man with whom it would sit well. But even worse is that they were laughing madly, all the while, while they clawed at my face, while they brandished kitchen knives or rusty farm implements. And even while they went down wounded and dying, they kept laughing.

Still, I thought our chances good. Mad as they all might have been, they were riotous, we were disciplined. They were civilians, we were soldiers. They were unarmed, we were not.

But then I saw McClarance swing his musket round at me. I ducked only just in time.

That was what happened, you see, if they took away your amethyst.

I shouted for retreat and didn't stop to see who obeyed. Above all else I had to get Orfeo out, for who else was there to make a penny's worth of sense of any of this? By some miracle he was untouched still. I don't know how he was staying out of their clutches but it was working. By pistol, by bayonet, and by rifle-butt, I cleared a path and I dragged him from that place.

Less than half my men made it out.

"To be quite honest, Sir, I had assumed that was why I was in prison."

"Experiencing a military defeat isn't a crime, Colonel."

"This one felt like it, Sir."

We retreated northward, veering northwest, the rest of the night. I think I had some vague notion of hitting the lake country, putting some kind of body of water between Chapman and us, since water seemed to be the only place his damn'd trees wouldn't take root. Had no idea how far we were from the lakes, of course, but we had to go some direction and it might as well be this one.

But by sunrise it was clear that Chapman hadn't bothered to pursue us.

"Colonel," Orfeo, the knave, was a hardier fowl than I'd taken him for, poet or no he was more awake than most of us. "I thank you for your protection and assistance. It wouldn't perhaps be true to say that I couldn't have gotten here without you, but the difficulties would have been considerably greater. A shame it was in vain."

I told him it sounded like he meant to dismiss me. And I asked what the devil did he mean, by in vain?

"I mean that it is time we parted ways, my friend. I do not know if I can stop what this man is doing. And I'll curse myself for a fool, well enough, that I didn't see how dire it was until now."

I must have said something asking if Chapman was a threat to the republic, for he replied so:

"More than to the republic, Colonel. To the continent. Perhaps further, if his ambitions have grown that high. I fear they may have. I must try something to stop it. But even if I can, the dangers will only increase from here, and there is nothing your men can do to protect me. To protect themselves!" He waved a wing at what was left of the exhausted and battered lot of them, "What I must now attempt, sir, there will be nothing they can do but throw away their lives, their souls, or both."

I insisted. I said I had been charged with his safety, and by my bloody honor if I had to turn back, then so would he!

And it was this that was the only thing, sir, that I ever saw truly anger the man.

"I, Sir," his voice was very careful and cold, “do not turn back." But his feathers were trembling.

He would not speak again to me until I had ordered the men home.

“If it is any comfort to hear, colonel, that part of your command did indeed report earlier this month."

"So the lads came home after all, sir. Those that made it."

“They had nothing to say but praise for your command, and concern for your well being."

“And I suppose that the reports they gave, sir, were what prompted your present inquiries?"

"You still know me, Avery, I see. But the pertinent question at the moment: aye, the lads came home. Why did you not come with them?"

"Orfeo asked the same."

I told him, well, if this task of his, whatever mysterious business it turned out to be, was so dangerous, and so necessary, why it was the business of the continental army to see to it that it was done and done properly. If there was a threat to the republic then my duty was to see it met by whatever man was best-suited to meet it. And I said, perhaps there was nothing I could do to assist in the doing of god-knows-what, but how if the brave and headstrong Mr. Orfeo trips in a ditch and breaks his leg on the way to god-knows-where to do it?

"Bravely said, Colonel Antioch," he clicked his tongue in his beak, "Nonetheless. I must release you from your duties. You may consider this expedition over."

So I said, why, then I'm as free a man as you. And if you are free to carry on, so am I.

At this he argued back no more.

We pressed on alone. We made better time, I must admit, and more importantly moved with better stealth. The first matter, I thought, was to discover where Chapman was, and where he was going. This was not difficult. Every town we passed had tales of maids leaving their laundry at the riverside, of mothers leaving babes in cradles, of old crones leaving their spinning wheels, and always west it was they went.

So we went west too.

With but the two of us alone, it was damned uncanny going. Without the lads about, there was nothing for hours but the pregnant silence of the twisted trees which were steadfast in their refusal to behave as trees ought. They intruded onto the road, they grew from barn roofs till the building collapsed with the weight and yet still put forth crooked branches from the splintered wreckage. They were even larger, now: some I marked were of such a girth that, had they not been so gnarled, they could have served as a ship's mast.

More than once we came upon a pond whose surface was entirely caged up by roots, as if they were woven into a basket. More than once we made our way under boughs high as a cathedral, where the sunlight through the leaves was turned odd and unnatural colors that have no names. More often than not I was obliged to wear a kerchief over my nose to endure the smell.

"Do you know, sir," Orfeo explained as we went, "what Apotheosis is?"

I think I said it sounded as if it would be made with oatmeal and taste very meager. Being no longer there officially, as a soldier, and perhaps made wary by the trees, I found myself more familiar in his company.

"Oh, it is much worse," he said. "Apotheosis refers to that process, or one of them at least, by which a mortal can ascend to godhood."

I said, like a saint?

"Quite the reverse. I know not, indeed, how truly the ancients spoke when they used the word "god" of those few who underwent it, in the olden times. But clearly it is what Chapman means to try, seen it sooner though I ought!"

By way of distraction I asked him to tell me how it worked.

"I know only in theory, you understand," he admitted. "Even had I the time and the resources to make such an attempt, Apotheosis is... not the sort of work in which I should have any interest. But the theory is thus: if a story be told well enough, and large enough, and hard enough, and if a man himself fulfill all the promises of that story, he can either take it within himself or cast himself into it."

I was much confused, and asked what meant he by 'it?'

“The story, Antioch."

And what would be the danger of that?

"Well, suppose a man cast himself into the story of conquering all these lands, and being crowned King of Virginia?"

Well, I said, very glib now, that might be no more than Virginia deserves. But I took, I thought, his point.

"I do not think you do, sir!" He insisted. "For there are direr matters of which I have yet spoken naught. For an Apotheosis to work, you see, the story must be, well," he cast about in circles, in the air, with his hands, “realized. Made actual. It requires a poet of sufficient skill and talent—which is what he wanted poor Paul Liminus for—and one suited to the kind of story it proves to be—which is why Liminus proved incapable. It must be believed, hard and solidly, and one means of that to gather a great throng, to tell it to and to remember it. And it must last."

He paused then, which I remember because when he spoke again his voice was cold in a way I had not heard since the battle of Montcalm Bay, when my commander was certain we would not live to see the sunrise.

"This story has lasted," he said. "For I recognize it now. And it is very old, and very dangerous. If Chapman can vouchsafe it, sir, then I think he may well become, if not a god than something which for all practical purposes might as well be one. And you and I have seen, my friend, what kind of god he would make."

Well, I said, we still have one thing in our favor. He has not yet the poet he needs. Who could write such a story?

"Well, I could, I daresay," Orfeo shrugged. "But he might not need me. If he is patient enough, who knows when another poet may be born, without the bitter wisdom of experience. And all the while his following swells, and the more they swell the less he needs a great poet. I could not say how long it would be before any balladeer, any writer of political lampoons for the sunday paper, would do."

That day will not come, I said, for we will stop it.

"These are extraordinary claims, Colonel Antioch."

"Indeed they are, sir. It would be natural for you to think them dubious, if not for, well..."

"If not for what?"

"Well, I know not the extent of the evidence your inquiry may have already turned up, Sir, but you would not have come to interview me, in a cell, yourself, if you thought I were merely mad."

"Could I not merely be visiting my old friend, who is taken unwell after suffering an unfortunate defeat?"

"I know you better than that, Sir."

Our progress west was uneventful, if all the more unsettling for it. We encountered no more of Chapman's followers, though more and more we heard of them, or saw evidence of them. Sometimes this was whole farmsteads or settlements abandoned, sometimes this was thickets of the accursed trees. But I fancied that they were avoiding us.

Orfeo took this as a good sign. "It may be, my friend, that his determination to strike west is encouraging. The story he is trying for, to my mind, ought to have him come from the wilderness and to the cities. Perhaps he tried at Prattsburg and found himself not yet sufficient to the task?"

I said, so, if he makes west now, then it may be he still fears a good solid musket, and wishes to be nowhere near the continental army.

"Perhaps. Or perhaps he means to reach the Mexican coast and try again in California, or float down the Mississippi and try New Orleans." Orfeo had succeeded in discouraging himself again. "What I need," he grumbled, "is advice. You would not happen to know, Colonel, where we might find the nearest crossroad?"

There I could not help him. This was rough country, unknown to me, and the roads scarce more than cart tracks and game trails.

The nights were worse: I will grant the vile trees one thing: they made excellent firewood. Perhaps it was that their sap was already alcoholic, but they burned right quickly—even fresh cut and still green—and remained steadily and evenly aflame. The fire, too, made their smell almost something wholesome, as if all foulness were burned away and underneath was merely the smell of baked apples. But all else was very bad: I cannot rightly say I had even a single peaceful night's sleep, out in that wilderness. Once darkness fell, the isolation became something palpable, the darkness at the edge of firelight became a cliff's edge, and one could not persuade oneself that the trees were not creeping closer whenever one's back was turned.

So it was really only to break the silence that I asked Orfeo about his part. I said something, I think, to the effect that he and Mr. Liminus seemed to have to shared some company with one another?

“Indeed we did, once," he answered as if I were speaking of some embarrassment. “We were a, well, let us say literary circle, in Storgeopolis. The Mysteries, we called it. Liminus was there, as was Cicero Hadad. Attakins, Tremblay, Wright, Boike-" he listed a cohort of names of which I had never heard, “Dr. Franklin attended more than one of our dinners, and rumor holds that he put some of what he learned of us, some symbology, into the Declaration and the Constitution, though I couldn't attest to it myself."

He meant poetry, then? In the founding documents?

“Yes and no. Not merely, let us say." He dragged his claws across his forehead, all his grey feathers were unsettled, but he heeded them not. “You are a massachusetts man, I take it?"

I did not deny it.

“I could tell it in your accent. Well, you may think it hardly respectable, but our society was for the… practical use of poetry, let us say. I think at the time the lack of respectability was part of the goal, but we proposed: why, there are doors that a poem can open, and if some good for mankind be behind them, then it behooved us to try their locks. But then…" He looked at me across the fire, and the flames reflected in his yellow eyes, and for a moment I fancied I saw not a slightly built mockingbird but some pagan pontiff, older than the bible, bearing an oracular riddle that would crack open the world. “You have heard, I daresay, some of what became of Mrs. Orfeo? Heuridisia, she published under her maiden name of Winchester?"

I acknowledged I had heard some rumors connected to that name.

“She was, I daresay, a greater poet than I. Perhaps not so pleasant to the ear, but for the goals of The Mysteries so much more effective. She was fearless, ambitious, and glorious, and perhaps I ought to have dissuaded her but I did not, ere it led her to… places from which she could not return." He was huddled in on himself, feathers puffed as if it were deep winter. “I learned more of poetry, true poetry, in my attempt to rescue her than I did in all the rest of my study or tutelage, but… it was not enough."

I felt as if I were merely one in a great audience, as if all the world held its breath to listen.

But that was all the account he was willing to give. “I must apologize," he said, “My thoughts ought to be on our mission, not the past. I should know better than anyone not to look back! In the morning I must try… whatever I may, to find that crossroad."

Come sunrise there were shoots sprouting from the campfire ashes. Already at least two feet high.

As we carried on I caught him reciting something, under his breath, more than once. I caught only a line or two, that I can recall: 'but come you home my darling, what gifts I fain would give, the autumn in a bottle, the ocean in a sieve.' What that meant I could not hope to guess. Each time he noticed that I had noticed, he would lower his voice again. But presently he stopped and stood a good deal straighter.

"We will find a crossroad about a half an hour's walk ahead," Orfeo announced. "Come now, we mustn't dawdle. We are expected."

And it was as he said. Over a prairie rise we saw a crossroad ahead, with a crude wooden sign faded so by the sun that nothing of it could be read but the fur trader's marks carved into the signpost.

Under it was a crow. She had laid out some manner of picnic, and had a kettle boiling on the fire.

I was, by now, ready to regard anything at all unusual as a threat, but she did not look mad, and she did not seem drunk, and she was alone. "Moreover," Orfeo reassured me, "look about you! For the first time in how long: can you see even one of Chapman's trees?"

In which he was correct. Not a sprig of unnatural reeking plant was to be seen.

"Well, now Ah declare!" The crow produced a second cup from her pack. "Ah did wondah who it was could be callin' for the comp'ny of a respectable lady-a business such as myself. Jack Orfeo, you cunnin' rascal! An' for once you ain't by your lonesome, why it does a good heart good to see it!"

"Mrs. Heckaday, this is Colonel Avery Antioch." Orfeo introduced me, and I took the opportunity for a stiff little bow. This seemed like only an old peddler woman, but so glad was I to meet anyone at all not off their head with cursed applejack that I don't doubt I would've treated a dockside fishwife like the queen of France! "Colonel, might I introduce Mrs. Magdalen Heckaday. If any soul alive will know what is to be done, I should wager it is her."

"Honey, y'all'll make me blush," the crow reached for the teapot. "Now, had Ah known Ah was havin' a second guest, Ah shoulda thought to bring a third cup."

I told her that was quite alright, I had the tin cup from my messkit if need be.

The tea she poured me was sweet, very strong, and so hot I couldn't touch it. Yet somehow it could be drunk. I put my thoughts on the beverage so that I might not have to consider how it was that Jack had sent her a message merely by muttering under his breath.

"My apologies, Maggie," Orfeo took the cup she passed him as well. "I'm afraid the business at hand was so dire I quite forgot the social graces."

“Well, all the more reason for usin' em then, Ah say!"

I said, if Chapman were not stopped, there might very be no social graces left at all.

“You, suh," Mrs. Heckaday, “hail from Puritan country. Beleivin' the world's gon' come to an end must be in the soil, up thereabouts."

“I fear it is as grave as the Colonel says," Orfeo tapped his beak diplomatically.

“Ah'm not unaware, honey," Maggie sighed, “of what powerful wrong this Chapman scoundrel's intendin'."

“You know what he is doing?"

She shut her eyes and sipped her tea. “Course Ah do."

Orfeo looked pained, as if someone dear had disappointed him. “What will it cost me to learn it of you?"

“Ah'm not so despert an' mercenary as all that, sugah. Not yet. Won't charge y'all nuthin' y'all caint spare. And it ain't as if you don' know yoself, well enough." She finished her tea, and glowered into the cup as if it had made an uncivil remark. “But mah conscience ain't gon' give you so much as hint less Ah'm shore you know what you're walkin' yoself into."

“I came to hear," Orfeo settled himself across from her upon the picnic blanket, “whatever you are willing to tell me."

“That's better sense'n Ah recall you showin' last time Ah gave you good advice."

Orfeo declined to respond to that.

“Ah presume you done guessed what story he's tryin' to write on the world." Her next remark was not a question.

“I have," Orfeo answered it nonetheless.

“An' you know who he's gon' be if he can make off with it."

“Indeed."

“Then you know," she sighed like a grandmother who has failed to dissuade a young man from going to war, “this ain't like to be a showdown you walkin' away from, honey. Even if you win."

“You know, Maggie," Orfeo's voice had gone very quiet, “why that discourages me nothing."

It was at this point I interjected, something along the lines that while they were plainly both most knowledgeable, an old soldier could make neither heads nor tails of this.

“You ever been, suh," the crow asked me, “to a prayer meetin', or a sermon? One where the congregation's not so numerous as they might be. Runnin' late, perhaps, because here they come tricklin' in, by twos an threes, five minutes, seven minutes, ten, twelve, after the Reverend already begun sayin' his piece. An have you remarked on how there's some invisible number, impossible to guess, as makes all the difference? If there ain't enough folk then there's no holiness in the place, no grace in the gatherin, but once they match it, once they exceed it, then the spirit is alive and movin'?"

I ventured to quote that passage, about how if two or three are gathered in the Good Messiah's name, he is there with them.

“Indeed, suh, though we're all blessed lucky it's gon' take a good deal more'n two or three for what Chapman means to do." She stirred the fire beneath her kettle with a walking stick. “If Ah'm readin' rumor right, and Ah ain't never read it wrong yet, then he tried already to set the whole business off, but he found he didn't have enough yet."

I was baffled. Prattsburgh had been meant to be worse?

“Indeed, Colonel." Orfeo spoke up. “The story Chapman wishes to set himself in ends very ill. It finishes with blood and rending—the technical term is 'sparagmos'—after which there will be no stopping him."

“If," Mrs Heckaday interjected, “he's got enough folk behind him when it happens. He'll put it off as long as he can, y'hear? The longer he does, the harder t'will hit, like drawin' a bow fu'ther and fu'ther."

“And you have seen," Orfeo said darkly, “how easily he can win folk to his cause."

I tried, and failed, to avoid asking what would happen should he succeed.

“The end of everything, I daresay," Orfeo said.

“Oh honey, hardly," the old crow gainsaid him. “Things got seasons. They rise an' fall. This world's old enough to have seen this'n before, an' Ah daresay she gon' see it again someday, from someone else if not Chapman."

“We cannot be certain," Orfeo maintained, “that should he attain full Apotheosis, that his power would come ever to any end."

“Course we can," Mrs Heckaday sniffed, “It come to an end before, did'n it? He ain't the fuhst. How else d'you suppose the story got told in the fuhst place?"

Orfeo looked away. “But in the meantime, how many will suffer, and die, waiting for it to end?"

“Suffrin' an dyin', sugah," the old crow sighed, “always been the deal. The Good Lord Himself din't exempt Himself from it."

“And if I can follow that example?"

When she replied “What are you sayin'?" she sounded as if she knew the answer.

“His story is set in motion toward a wicked end. But a story does not care what end it has, only that it be given an end." The mockingbird looked grim, as I have seen a man look before a bayonet charge. “There is another end it can have."

The crow laid a claw on his shoulder, gently. “You don't gotta do this, hon."

“You once told me, my dear Mrs. Heckaday," he sighed, “not to look back. No matter what. And I did not heed you, for I was a fool. I know better now. I must not, I will not, look back."

For but a moment, I thought, she was on the point of clutching him to her, like a mother clutches her chick. “On your head be it, then," but that moment passed, and she was again all enigmatic unconcern. “You will face Chapman three days journey south along the river just yonder. He will not expect you. He will not think he need expect you. What happens then is your affair, Ah take no responsibility on it."

“Madam, my humble thanks." Orfeo got to his feet like a man who has suffered a trial. “And my payment."

He passed her a most alarming sum, in banknotes. I thought her about to object, but then she vanished it somehow within her jacket and rose as well to dismiss us.

I took my leave of her until we meet again.

“We shall, suh," was the last she said.

“We might speak to military intelligence, and see what they know of this Mrs. Heckaday."

“Aye sir, though I would not wish the lady imposed upon in any way."

“She seemed to be suspiciously knowledgeable regarding Chapman."

“Very knowledgeable, sir. But not suspicious."

“I'm afraid I don't follow, Colonel."

“I daresay I don't either, sir. In any case, sir, I should be very surprised to find the intelligencers know aught at all useful of a woman such as her. For my part, I shall be happy to question her when next we meet."

“Pardon?"

“Sir?"

“Well, I am quite at a loss to understand your meaning."

“Perhaps I ought to continue my account, sir?"

Orfeo was, as we made our way south along the river, the quietest I had ever seen him. He wrote and studied in his notebook, and he recited at great length under his breath. Sometimes he would hum some tune, unknown to me, to himself: once I fancied it had moved him to quiet tears.

As we progressed, the vile grey trees, their reek of rotgut applejack, grew thicker and thicker upon every hand. After three days, as was foretold, we came upon Chapman and his throng of followers.

They had lit some manner of bonfire atop a low hill, not far from the river. We concealed ourselves in a thicket, to observe them.

“And there is Chapman," Orfeo whispered.

I at first could not credit it, for nowhere did I see the scrawny spotted cat whom we had confronted. But he pointed, and I saw a huge buffalo, in the same clothes, and with somehow the selfsame countenance. I know not how his species changed, but I could deny not that it was the same man.

“You have your amethyst, Colonel?"

“Aye."

“Good. May it keep you safe, for this," Orfeo said, “is where we must indeed part ways." He continued before I could protest. “Avery. One of us must bring back word! If what I must now attempt fails, then the people must be warned that Chapman is coming. There may not come a second chance at stopping him! The innocent folk of the republic may need make readiness to defend themselves, or flee!"

Which was only sense, I couldn't deny it.

For a time Orfeo was invisible, as he had left the thicket and my immediate sight. My eyes found him again once he approached the hilltop, and I could see his form against the evening sky.

Chapman's followers came to surround him, but the buffalo—if that, or indeed any form, was what he truly was—raised a hand and they touched him not.

He came forward, and he and Orfeo exchanged some words. I heard nothing until Orfeo raised his voice, “-then we are agreed. If you will permit me, then, I shall tell your myth to the utmost of my ability."

Chapman looked thrilled.

I swallowed a curse and reached for my pistol. Orfeo had made me promise to shoot him if he did thus, and I meant to keep my word. But the ball and gunpowder had been removed. No doubt by Orfeo, before he left. My guns were no use.

No sooner had I realized this, had looked up, when I saw Orfeo raise his hands and declaim, in a louder voice still: “Every the oar-thief kitty deo knee sue mysterious kay tethaby parry the imperium the epastis epitome and on!"

“I'm sorry, what was that Colonel?"

“That was what I heard, sir."

“That sounded like nonsense."

“Oh, I don't doubt in whatever language he was speaking, some poetics or magic words or some such, it was nothing but sense. But as only a plain American, that is as close as I could grasp it, sir. I may have no guess what it meant, but I know with all certainty the results. Every second of what happened next is etched in my memory."

I saw all Chapman's wild throng go silent and still, as if they'd heard their names called but were unsure from where.

I saw Chapman's smile, for the first time in my experience, vanish.

I saw Mr. Orfeo smile, and turn his back to Chapman's wild band. He swept a graceful bow, like a thespian at performance's conclusion. Perhaps at me, perhaps at the setting sun, perhaps merely away from Chapman.

All the mad throng snarled, and bared their teeth, but in a puzzled, sleepwalking sort of way, as if they were uncertain why they were doing so.

Chapman cried aloud but I couldn't make out what he said.

And they fell on Mr. Orfeo, with tooth and claw. Whatever his words had been meant to do, whatever he had attempted, it had failed to save him. There was naught I could do for the poor man.

At which point, sir, I am glad to say I managed to avert my eyes.

“Sparagmos. I see."

“Sir?"

“Do not trouble yourself, Colonel. Please continue."

There is little more to tell, sir. I remained hidden, in the thicket, as long as I dared. Many times, throughout the night, groups of the mad throng would wander past, and they seemed different, more surly, and weary, I do not doubt it would have gone very ill for any who angered them. I gradually perceived that though they passed coming from the direction of, well, the slaughter, none returned toward it, and come sunrise I determined to espy the conditions on the ground.

They were all dispersing. Those that were not were lying upon the ground, clutching their heads and moaning. None offered any opposition, nor indeed seemed to regard me at all, as I approached.

There was… nothing much left. In the way of remains. I was able to recover only Mr. Jack Orfeo's book of notes. The leather cover, fortunately, protected it from much of the blood.

Of Chapman I could see no sign.

I made my way, as speedily as I could, back east, sir. I cannot recall much, it was like a long, heavy fever dream. You will remember some of the worst marches of the war, Sir, the numb weariness of it? It was just so. I would almost say I stared straight ahead, like a sleepwalker, the entire way. All the while the sense of being alone, as if the world were growing larger under my feet, only grew.

And now I am here.

“Well, we have the finest minds attempting to decipher the notebook you turned over. It was well done, recovering that, at least."

“I thank you for the attempt at soothing my pride, sir. But my mission was a failure. Chapman is still out there, unopposed now that Orfeo is dead."

“Ah. Well, as to that, colonel, I take it you did not, yourself, look within the notebook at any point?"

“No sir."

“Then you were unaware there was, in the rear pages, a missive addressed to you?"

“...I was not aware, sir."

“Then if you will permit me. Ahem."

“My dear and final friend, Avery Antioch,

It is customary, I suppose, for a dead man to leave behind some final wishes to be carried out by those loved ones left behind. Of course, my literary works are with my publisher and for my material goods I care nothing: final wishes such as those may see to themselves.

My final wish to you, faithful Avery, is that you blame yourself not one whit. What has happened to me, if you are reading these words, is exactly as I intended. I know what end Chapman means this story to have, but a story does not care what end it is given, only that it is given one. So it must be ended now, before it is too late, and used up so that nothing of it is left for him. Before Chapman is too powerful, it can yet be changed from a story of a man becoming a god to that of a man dying at the hands of mad fanatics.

This is my task, and mine alone, and you have seen me safely to it. What happens next, however much it looks like defeat, is victory.

Weep not for me. I am reunited.

Do not look back,

— Jack Orfeo"

“I don't think I understand, sir. I was… that is… I thought he had failed. I thought, or rather, I feared there would be rioting and violence, and madness in every glass of cider, and that Chapman would be mere days from naming himself emperor of the Americas…"

“Not so, happily. There have been no reports of riots or unrest, of ill-mannered vagrant preachers, or any ill-effects of strong drink beyond the wholly natural. The uncanny thickets and foul trees you described are not to be found, though I understand the botanists have found a great multitude of dried and dead twigs upon the western roads, which may indeed be they. Avery, if one does only credit all the extraordinary details of your account, then it does indeed sound as if Mr Orfeo's intentions were entirely successful."

“Then there is no danger?"

“No more than ever. Colonel, the republic, which you and I fought for, that shared dream of liberty and equality, is safe."

“A shared dream, for which blood was shed…"

“Colonel?"

“And if enough believe it, any balladeer would do…"

“Avery?"

“I… must beg your pardon, sir, I am… a little bewildered."

“Then if I might suggest you come dine with me?"

“...am I not free to go, sir?"

“Of course. But I would suggest that what you need, after such an ordeal, is a good dinner with an old friend and a comfortable night's sleep."

“Oh. Aye sir, I understand. Thank you sir."

“Avery, please. You needn't address me by rank, at this point."

“...thank you, John."

“Come now, you're a hero! The nation owes you a great deal!"

“...do not look back."

“What was that?"

“Nothing. I should be pleased to dine with you, John. Though…"

“Yes?"

“I should be grateful to be served no wine."

“Of course."

ADDENDUM: Colonel Avery Antioch was last seen departing the Storgeapolis home of General and Mrs. ****, roughly nine o' clock in the evening after dinner, with a volume of the collected poems of Heuridisia Winchester borrowed from the household. His current whereabouts, and ultimate fate, are unknown. Any persons reading this report, who have any knowledge pertaining, are hereby ordered to inform their superior officers, or to contact by letter their representative in congress if not under military obedience, with all possible immediacy.