Galilee by Clive Barker Page B

of delaying tactics. Time to do this, if I was going to do it.
    I wheeled my way to the door, glancing back once to see if Luman was still in sight. He’d gone. I was on my own. I took a deep breath, and grasped the door handle. There was still a corner of me that hoped the door was locked and I’d be denied entry. But the handle turned, and the door opened—almost too readily, I thought, as though some overeager host stood on the other side, ready to usher me in.
    I had some idea of what I thought lay on the other side, at least architecturally speaking. The dome room—or “sky room” as Jefferson had dubbed his version at Monticello—was, I’d been told by Marietta (who’d crept up there once to do the deed with a girlfriend) a somewhat strange but beautiful room. At Monticello it had apparently been used as a child’s playroom, because it was hard to access (a design deficiency which also applied to L’Enfant) but here, Marietta had told me, there was a whisper of unease in the room; no child would have been happy playing there. Though there were eight windows, after the Monticellian model, and a skylight, the place seemed to her “a little on the twitchy side,” whatever that meant.
    I was about to find out. I pushed the door wide with my foot, half-expecting birds or bats to fly’ in my face. But the room was deserted. There was not so much as a single piece of furniture to spoil its absolute simplicity. Just the starlight, coming in from nine apertures.
    â€œLuman,” I murmured to myself, “you sonofabitch . . .”
    He’d prepared me for something fearful; a delirium, an assault of visions so violent it might put me out of my wits. But there was nothing here but murk and more murk.
    I ventured in a couple of yards, looking everywhere for a reason to be afraid. But there was nothing. I pressed on, with a mingling of disappointment and relief. There was nothing to fear in here. My sanity was perfectly secure.
    Unless, of course, I was being lulled into a false sense of security. I glanced back toward the door. It was still open; still solid. And beyond it the landing where I’d stood with Luman, and debated the wisdom of coming in here. What an easy mark I’d made; he must have been thoroughly entertained at the sight of my discomfort! Cursing him again, I took my eyes from the door and returned them to the murk. This time, however, much to my astonishment, I discovered that the sky room was not quite as empty as I’d thought. A few yards from me—at the place where the lights of the nine windows intersected—there was a skittering pattern in the gloom, so subtle I was not certain at first it was even real. I kept staring at it, resisting the urge to blink for fear that it would vanish. But it remained before me, intensifying a little. I wheeled my way toward it; slowly, slowly, like a hunter closing on his quarry, fearful of alarming it into flight. But it didn’t retreat. Nor did it become
any the less mystifying. My approach had become less tentative now; I was very soon at the center of the room, directly under the skylight. The patterns were in the air all around me; so subtle I was still not absolutely certain I was ever seeing them. I looked up to my zenith: I could see stars through the skylight, but nothing that would be likely to create these shifting shadows. Returning my gaze to the walls, I went from one window to the next, looking for some explanation there. But I found none. There was a little wash of light through each of them, but no sign of motion—a wind-stirred branch, a bird fluttering on a sill. Whatever was creating this shifting shadow was here in the room with me. As I finished my study of the windows, muttering to myself in confusion, I had the uncomfortable sense my befuddlement was being watched. Again, I looked toward the door, thinking maybe Luman had crept back to spy on me. But no; the