The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [117]
The crowd became a chorus and voiced a gasp and then a sigh as the thing flapped its huge wings and flew above our heads toward the entrance. Pester, his face a mask of wonder, reached up toward it from where he sat on Durst's shoulders. His index finger ran along its underside as it passed into the hallway, and then his finger, like a flame going out, disappeared from his hand. The boy's mask of wonder became one of horror and he screamed. We meant to help him but by then the powder that had fallen from the moth reached our eyes. It caused in me a feeling of sorrow more deep than the one I experienced upon my mother's death when I was five. The entire court was reduced to tears. Only Ingess had not been affected. I saw him retrieve his dagger from the floor with the same stoic look he had worn at the feast.
When the effects of the moth's powder had worn off, we gathered round Pester to inspect his hand.
"There was no pain," he said. "Only inside, a sadness."
Some touched the spot where the digit had been, still unable to believe it was gone. Ringlat, knowing that as the Bishop he should do something profound at this point but having no clue as to what, took the boy's hand in his and kissed the nub. Mokes actually turned to Tendon Durst for an explanation, and the Philosopher General mumbled something about insect fear and the ringed planet. Chin nodded as if he understood. The strange powder that had fallen now covered Frouch's beauty mark and somewhat disintegrated her power of enchantment. All jabbered like magpies, and the one thing that was finally decided upon was that strong drink was required. Before we left the chapel, Ingess apologized to us, especially Pester, since it had been his royal mind that had been responsible for the moth.
The evening ended with everyone, including the king, drinking themselves into oblivion. We wondered where the creature had wafted off to, but no one wanted to go in search of it. Sometime near daybreak, I and the others trudged like the walking dead to our sleeping chambers to feast on bad dreams. My last thought as I dozed off was of Frouch and her fleeting beauty.
Three days passed without a sign of the moth, and the court began to breathe easier, thinking that it was now time to put aside the tragic saga of Josette's death. I know that Ingess was approached by Saint-Geedon and some of the others about perhaps starting a project that might recapture the old spirit of Reparata, but His Royal very kindly put them off with promises that he would consider the suggestions.
On the night of the third day, while sitting in the garden with my cage of bats, I spotted the moth. It lifted slowly up like a dispossessed thought of ingenious proportion from behind a row of hedges, causing me to drop my pipe into my lap. I considered running, but its fluid grace as it moved along the wall of green hypnotized me. When I finally adjusted to the shock of its arrival, I noticed that same sound Sirimon had made when cavorting in Ingess's head. In less than a minute it had left a good span of hedge completely devoid of vegetation. Only a mere skeleton of branches remained. I nervously lifted the latch on the bat cage, thinking that their presence might frighten it away. As always they swarmed frantically out and around the garden, but none of them would dare go near the moth. Before I moved from my seat, I saw it consume an entire rose bush, a veritable mile of trailing vine, all of Josette's tiger lilies, and the foliage of an immense weeping willow.
The next morning, the moth having disappeared again, the court gathered in the garden, or I should say where the garden had been. Its destruction was so complete that I could count on my hands the number of leaves still clinging to their branches. There was a certain sadness about the destruction of that special place, but for the time being it was blanketed by a stronger sense of amazement