When the night came, he walked abroad. The lights drew him out.

They twinkled in the distance, seeming to call out to him in their tiny, clear voices. He went down into the village. The streets were mostly empty at this time. The few people he passed did not even glance at him. He wandered among the places at his ease. Here was the house. There was a lit window. Behind it, a girl asleep at her writing table. The pen had mostly slid out from between her slack lean fingers. Her cheek was nestled in the crook of her arm. Her cheek rested among the empty lines of her single half-filled page. What had she been writing? he wondered from where he stood outside the window, peering through a crack in the curtains. What had she been writing? A letter? A poem? A lamp sat burning on her desk. He entered the house with ease, stepping over the skinny dog that was stretched out sleeping on the doorstep, growling in her rubber ball dreams. In silence, he walked the sleeping house. The kitchen first. He always went to the kitchen first. This was a kitchen like most other kitchens. He had been here many times. The familiar smells clung close to the brick walls. The half-empty pots, when he touched them, were cold with the unnatural coldness that cold pots have. He checked the stove. There was no glow. He touched it, and it was also cold. He did not touch anything twice. He moved out of the kitchen into the sitting room. Empty room. Vacancies sitting on the chairs, perched uncomfortably on the armrests of the chairs. The cushions lay lonely by themselves. Like forgotten toys. The air hung in the silence, waiting for morning, when there would be laughter, a name called, the clanging of pots and pans. He stood in the room and breathed it a little. This was a house well lived in. Well lived in. He stood and breathed it a little. But he did not stand long. Soon, he was walking again toward the bedrooms. The dark swirled about him as he walked. His heart quickened. His steps were light and brisk. The parents room. The cold of the doorknob was its natural character. He wrapped a long hand around and turned it, ever ever so slowly, and the door swung open and he stepped inside. What hit him as he entered was the noise. Hed known about this beforehand, of course. But it seemed tonight he was not concentrating. He would chastise himself for that later. Now he was standing in the room with noise all around him. He was frozen for a moment, confused (something else he would chastise himself for). He thought he had stepped into a roomful of angry dogs.

Then he relaxed. The noise was snorting. The man and his wife, they were snoring. He listened for a moment. They snored, he thought, perhaps as they livedin a ragged and touchingly pathetic unity. He could almost see their content, shuddering forms lying feet away from him in the perfect dark. Next, their daughters room. Neatly bare. He stood over her. He was very nervous now. He had not been with a woman in how long? He stared down at her, as if the free force of his gaze would somehow alleviate his other inhibited sufferings. He watched the pulse ticking in her throat. The warm, wet air swirling in and out her as she breathed. Leaning across her, he blew gently on the lamps tiny guttering flame. The last room in the house was smaller than the others. He entered it with utmost utmost care. He crouched down, but he also pushed up to tiptoe. It was an ugly figure that crept through the shadows toward the child sleeping in the corner in the darkness. He groped blindly until he found the edge of the small, narrow cot. Kneeling, he bent and, very gently, he probed the sightless dark. Touching the smooth, soft throat, he slid his gnarled fingers slowly down. Until he had found the little girls pulse. He held his fingers there. Eyes shut even in that awesome dark. Finally, satisfied, he took his hand away and settled down to sit with his back against the cot. He sat there through the night, listening past the silence for the whisper of her breathing or the flutter of her heart. * Most of the village believed that Lily was mad. To be honest, well, she was a little mad, yes. But not mad like the villager thought she was mad. Not barking mad. In fairness, there were reasons the villagers accused the child of madness. She was a strange little creature. She was wont to disappear most days, shortly after breakfast, and not a hair of her would be seen until dinnertime. Of course, this wasnt all that strange; a lot of the village children were the same. But it did turn a little weird when you considered that no one, not even any of the other children, knew where she so routinely went off to. And they were just as clueless as to why she had lately begun to reappear every evening covered head to toe in soot. Blackie was always worried about that. What will your parents think? he asked her after another day playing in the Cull House. They wont let you come out tomorrow. Standing at the foot of the hill at the edge of the village, the House was a burnt skeleton of a house. The walls stood disconsolately around heaps of naked char. Blackened sheets of aluminum, remnants of a roof that had burned away years ago, flapped in the wind against the walls. (They made Lily think of huge strange birds, angry at their entrapment.) The front door hung off its hinges like a thing sick and dying.

Just one more game, Lily told him. Then well go. Blackie was already shaking his head. But its nearly dark already. Itll take forty-three minutes to Oh, come on, she said impatiently. Just one more. She grinned. Ill make it easy, I promise. The other hesitated. Then he sighed. Well, alright, one more. But we must be quick. Theyd started playing in the Cull House some months ago. The game they always played was hide-andseek. Lily loved it, because she always got to hide first. She hoped Blackie didnt suspect, but the truth was that she used the games mostly as an excuse to explore the house alone. She would creep silently from one chamber of magnificent ruin to the other as she listened to him count slowly to a hundred. Standing in the center of the living room with his eyes closed. When he found her, usually more than an hour later, she would be buried deep in sooty memories. In the cellar, picking through boxes of untouched wine. Or in the attic, rummaging through the piles of wreckage till she found a pocket watch, a singed rag doll, surviving parts of an old book. Or in the playroom. A lot of the toys were still recognizable. There was bicycle with the tires blown out. Once shed sat quietly in the large dining room, sat quiet as a mouse at the dinner table in the dining hall. Theres been other people sitting at the table, too. Lily had looked at each of them carefully. Thered been four of them: two big and two small, and one of the big ones had been wearing a thin gold necklace. She had sat with them for a long time. Shed been fascinated by how black they were. And that they had no clothes. Or hair. Or faces. When Blackie had found her, hours later, hed burst into tears. It was the first time shed ever seen him cry. Afterward, she promised him that she wouldnt go into the dining room again. Ever. But shed peeked in again, a couple of weeks later, just a quick peek around the door. They had been sitting there still. Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, hundred. She heard him finish counting and turn around. His footsteps began heading for the stairs, and then he stopped, catching sight of her where she knelt in a corner of the large room. I hope this does not sound very rude, Lily, but I can sort of see you over there. She looked over her shoulder and beckoned to him. Come. Check this out. She was kneeling in front of the gutted piano. She was not looking at the fire-eaten boards or the charred pegs and blackened strings. But in front of the piano, just beside the remains of a long overturned stool, there was a picture frame. It lay face down in shattered glass. A corner of the wooden frame showed a crack, but that seemed to be its only damage. Lily had spent hours searching the house for pictures of the people who lived here.

The closest shed ever gotten to any sort of connection was a pile of curly ashes in the fireplace. She felt strangely excited that this frame might hold a good-enough picture. Blackie came up and crouched down beside her. Whats that? She reached out slowly. Picked it up, flipped it over. A portrait of the family, the picture perfect. There was a man, his wife and three children. The woman stood behind her sitting husband. Her hands were placed carefully on his shoulders. She looked, despite the studied smile, a little tired. Beside her stood a pretty young lady. She was almost as tall as her mother and bore a strong resemblance to her. In front of the man stood the other two children. Gangly, sprite kids about Lilys age. They looked mostly bored with the whole business. The face that Lily found most fascinating was the fathers. The first thing that struck her about it was that he did not have a beard. Strange. Shed always believed fatherhood to be synonymous with facial hair. He was the only person not smiling dutifully into the camera. He was not smiling at all. He sat at stared out of the picture at everything. The word that came foremost to mind, looking at the high, smooth forehead, the thin nose and pointed chin, was cold. She glanced at Blackie. He was hunched down beside her, staring at the picture. She said: Do you know who this is? He said no. I think its the man who lived here. A family lived here. This is them, I think. Anyway, she straightened. Go count again. So he went to the center of the room and began to count again. And this time, Lily crept away to hide, but she picked the picture first, after Blackie had closed his eyes, and slid it into the pocket if her calico dress. * This is Jonathan Cull, Sophie told her that evening, when Lily got home and showed her. I remember him. I saw him a couple of times. Sophie was Lilys sister. She was a lot older than her by fourteen years. She was also looking at Lily curiously. Where did you find it? Lily shrugged. Sophie frowned at her. You havent been fooling around the Cull House, have you? I havent been fooling around.

Good. Because its not the place for a body to go. Ive heard of some funny things that happened there in the past. Lily wanted to know what funny things. Sophie looked a little uncomfortable. Well, its all talk, you understand. So dont tomorrow you go poking around up there, but Ive heard talk that not everyone died in the House that day. What day? The day the House burned down. You werent born then. It used to be a really fine house, you know, before the fire. Finest for miles around. The Cull family was very rich. They owned every inch of land around these parts. I thought Daddy owned our land. Sophie snorted. Up until the fire, we barely owned the clothes on our backs. Every year wed barely be able to scrape up the rent. More than once the elder Cull just let a whole years rent slide. And even then it was all we could do to hold the roof down. So then what happened? Lily asked. Sophie said: The elder Cull died, thats what happened. And he came back from wherever and took over. She jerked her chin at the photo frame in Lilys hand. Jonathan Cull. He changed things around here. He was this brilliant fellow, you see. Had a doctorate degree and all that. Wasnt one for small things. He changed the fortunes of this town. Whatd he do? Miracles, Sophie told her, thats what. Hed shown up once, at their house, late in the night. Thin and tall, with his high, funny voice, hed asked if their father was home. I couldnt believe it, Sophie said. A Cull standing at our door. I nearly swallowed my tongue. He talked to Papa late into the night. Sophie couldnt hear what they were saying, but when Jonathan Culll was gone, Papa had called her and Ma into Johnnys room. He was alive then? Lily asked, because Johnnys room was her room now. Sophie said: His palsy was getting worse and worse. He wants to help us, Papa had told them. Mamas eyes had nearly rolled out of her head. Why? Shed wondered, but Papas face was shining. It was all settled. Their lands wouldnt be doing poorly anymore.

The harvest would be three times, four times larger than the present yield. Theyd be able to pay for Johnny to go to the Doctor in Germany in four months time. But how? Mama had asked him What are you going to do? Miracles, Papa had told her, thats what. There was a sack of them in the living room, and Papa had already ordered a dozen more. And they would be able to pay for all this, he assured them. Their harvest would be bountiful. Only, they would have to start cooking only once a day. No more lighting the fire or warming food or lighting lamps. Miracles, it turned out, were highly flammable. The less fire in the house, the much better. It also turned out that miracles stank. The smell, Sophie said, followed them everywhere. In school, in the market, in church. They were forever afraid that someone would notice the smell and comment on it. It was so bad, it made Mama sick most nights, and Johnnys palsy got even worser. It would be okay, Papa assured them. Each night, he loaded another sack and slogged it off to the farm where, under cover of darkness, he spread its contents on his farm. He dared not smoke a pipe. He dared not brew himself a cup something hot. They were always cold, cold, cold. But it would be okay, Papa assured them. Their harvest would be bountiful. And so it was. Their farm yielded nearly five times what it had in what was formerly its best season, some twelve years before. The ears of corn were crowded with fat gold kernels, the bean pods stretched full. There had never been a farm that looked more luscious and succulent. But there was a problem: everybody elses farm looked just as good. Miracles, it turned out, were universal. All the farmers had been buying from Cull. All of them thought the others werent. They were now collectively screwed. Especially when the time for payment came. Miracles were expensive. Cull had made deals with each of them: double rent every half-year for a years supply. Now, with all the farms buried under slowly rotting produce, nobody wanted to buy from anybody else. They were worse off than they had been in the beginning. But Cull didnt want to know about any of that. The day after the first farmers rent went unpaid, he served the man a quit notice. Exactly three weeks later, Cull showed up at the door. He came with a band of hired soldiers. He had the family come out and herded them away from the house. He left them standing in a huddle about a hundred yards away, surrounded by the soldiers. A lone soldier, a lit torch tossed through the sitting room window. The house lit up like so much tinder. Halfway through the burning, their little girl began screaming something about a dog. She broke away and ran past the startled soldiers for the house. They yelled at her to come back, but they didnt go after her. She didnt go very far. When she got within a dozen yards of the house, she stopped. She just stopped, Sophie said, and stood there.

She was still standing there the next morning. When the smoke had cleared and the soldiers went back for her, the girl was like a wooden statue of a girl. They took her away to bury. Turned out, miracles were lethal. What happened to her? Lily asked. Sophie shrugged. They found the dog in the kitchen later that day, she told Lily. Roasted to the bone, standing in the middle of the kitchen like a rock. And so it went, Sophie said. Any family that lived a day past the rent would be served a quit notice. with nowhere to go, they would wait in growing dread. And then, three weeks later, Cull would appear with the soldiers at night. They would burn the house down. Soon, it was their turn. Papa didnt sleep that night. All night she heard him walking about, going for a piss, going for some water. I woke up, and it was dark, and everywhere was quiet. I heard a funny sound in the other room and I got up and went out. There was a candle on the table. Papa was sitting there. She stopped, staring into the middle distance. Lily suddenly wasnt so sure she wanted to hear the rest of this story. Sophie said: He was just sitting there crying. Lily said: Crying? Sophie said: He paid the rent. Johnny died four days later. But the town got their revenge, she said. What did they do to him? Well, it wasnt what they did. It was what they didnt do when his house caught fire. He must have been, said Sophie, the only one awake in the village at the time. Perhaps working on his precious accounts or something. He ran out of the house, ran into the village, screaming. He ran into the village screaming like a mad man, and he looked like a mad man. No one knew what was the matter. Until a minute later, when everyone could smell the horrid, horrid smell of burning miracles. No one came out. He started pounding on doors, screaming through windows. No one came out. Lucy stared at her sister. Everyone was asleep. They were asleep, werent they? Sophie wasnt looking at her. She said: Afterward, he started cursing them. He yelled and cursed all of them. All of us. I was looking out the window and I caught sight of him running past our house. He didnt look so smart then.

He ran out of the village. He ran up the hill, back into the house. The fumes didnt stop him. Maybe he held his breath. No one ever saw him again. * Lily told Blackie the story the next day. She said: They let his family die. He said: There used to be two companies producing fertilizer in these parts at the time. Growers United and Meirrack-Cull. They killed his family. Meirrack-Cull was the smaller of the two. It was started ten years after the first one by Lloyd Meirrack and Jonathan Cull. Their idea was to focus on small farms; their product was cheaper because it was experimental. So it was also more dangerous. They didnt have to do that. His family didnt do anything to them. You must listen to this story. It was more dangerous. The Uniteds werent very efficient. They were skimming off technology from IG Faber, but they were being cautious. They didnt really believe plants could be fertilized with reprocessed nerve gas. Meirrack-Cull, though, went all the way. They couldnt afford to do anything less. It was a business thing. There was a little boy and a little girl, Lily told him. They killed them, too. The Meirrack-Culls were much more effective. They worked every time. The farmers mixed the pellets into the soil, where theyd sublimate and fix. The Uniteds were hit and miss, but the Meirrack-Culls worked every time. The fertilizer had a terrible smell. The farmers used to call it stone gas. They thought the pellets were funny little stones, you see. It can also be highly flammable. The urea, the ammonia. Boom, says the house. Turned out, the Meirrack-Culls also released organophosphates at high temperatures. It causes frozen convulsions. It cuts off cellular respiration, so calcium ions diffuse into the sarcomere and bind with troponin and cross What? bridging occurs between the myosin and actin proteins. By this time, of course, the heart has stopped beating, so your muscles are unable to complete the cycle, and you have a state of frozen muscular contraction. Highly-accelerated rigor mortis. Lily said: They let the two little children burn. Blackie started to say something. Then he stopped. Lily said: They just let the two little children burn.

Perhaps, said Blackie sadly. But what difference does it make now? he asked. They have finished burning. * Little live coals, burning dull in the darkness like damned souls. He touched each of them. Doused them one after the other with wetted fingers. He felt the pain of each tiny death. Soon, the stove was empty of its fire. He rose from his knees. Walked silent through the sleeping house. The parents bedroom. He stood for a little while. A roomful of dark, their snores tumbling all about the bed. Next, Sophies room. There was no lamp on the table today, and she was asleep in her bed. He stood over the slim, breathing form and listened. He held his own breath tightly in his chest. He must stop coming here, to this room. When last had he been with a woman? Each breath like a sprig of garden mint, crusted with sugary ice. If you listened closely, you would begin to hear whispered endearments. He must stop coming to her room. The childs room. A candle burned brightly on the table. Scattered over the small, knee-high table were pages of paper marred with the rudiments of a drawing, over and over againa childs idea of a burning house. On the floor lay the child herself in a tired heap. And on the table was the small grubby picture frame she had taken yesterday. The truth was that he wasnt angry anymore. He had never been angrier and more afraid than that night, when he had screamed and cursed and begged, and nobody would come out. It had shocked him that revenge could be so complete. But he wasnt angry anymore. It was as he had said to her: the fires had finished burning. All that was left in his life, at the bottom of his chest, was a handful of soot. Except for the spark that was Lily, of course. Her laughter, her youth. The pulse ticking at the base of her neck. Her fire was still burning, and she warmed him. Perhaps, he thought, she was his imaginary friend. Jonathan Cull, or whatever was left of him (Blackie: a charred, stick-like creature; hairless, naked and burnt; an effigy) blew out the candle. He blew out the candle and sat beside the sleeping girl, sat on the cold bare floor beside the little girl, hugging his bony knees, waiting for the coming of the morning.