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Halfway along the track that led from the crossroads to the Courthouse, Will heard the squeaking of ill-oiled wheels behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see not one but two bicycle headlights a little distance behind him. Breathing an invective little curse, he stood and waited until Frannie and Sherwood caught up with him.

“Go home,” were his first words to them.

“No,” said Frannie breathlessly. “We decided to come with you.”

“I don’t want you to come,” Will said.

“It’s a free country,” Sherwood replied. “We can go wherever we want. Can’t we, Frannie?”

“Shut up,” Frannie said. Then to Will, “I only wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“So why’d you bring him?” Will said.

“Because . . . he asked me,” Frannie said. “He won’t be a bother.”

Will shook his head. “I don’t want you coming inside,” he said.

“It’s a free—” Sherwood began again, but Frannie shushed him.

“All right, we won’t,” she said. “We’ll just wait.” Knowing this was the best deal he was going to be able to make, Will headed into the Courthouse, with Frannie and Sherwood trailing behind. He made no further acknowledgment of their presence, until he got to the hedgerow adjacent to the Courthouse. Only then did he turn and tell them in a whisper that if they made a sound they’d spoil everything and he would never ever speak to them again. With the warning given, he dug through the hawthorn and started up the gently sloping meadow toward the building. It loomed larger by night than it had by day, like a vast mausoleum, but he could see a light flickering within; there was nothing but exhilaration in his heart as he made his way down the passage toward it.

Jacob was sitting in the judge’s chair, with a small fire burning on the table in front of him. He looked up when he heard the door creak, and by the flames’ light Will had sight of the face he had conjured so many ways. In every detail, he had fallen short of its power. He had not made a brow wide or clear enough, nor eyes deep enough, nor imagined that Steep’s hair, which he had seen in silhouette falling in curly abundance, would be cropped back to a shadow on the top of his skull. He had not imagined the gloss of his beard and mustache, or the delicacy of his lips, which he licked, and licked again, before saying, “Welcome, Will. You come at a strange time.”

“Does that mean you want me to go?”

“No. Far from it.” He added a few pieces of tinder to the fire before him. It crackled and spat. “It is, I know, the custom to paint a smile over sorrow; to pretend there is joy in you when there is not. But I hate wiles and pretences. The truth is I’m melancholy tonight”

“What’s . . . melancholy?” Will said.

“There’s honest,” Jacob replied appreciatively. “Melancholy is sad, but more than sad. It’s what we feel when we think about the world and how little we understand; when we think of what we must come to.”

“You mean dying and stuff?”

“Dying will do,” Jacob said. “Though that’s not what concerns me tonight.” He beckoned to Will. “Come closer,” he said, “it’s warmer by the fire.”

The few flames on the table offered, Will thought, little prospect of heat, but he gladly approached. “So why are you sad?” Will said.

Jacob sat back in the ancient chair and contemplated the fire. “It’s business between a man and a woman,” he replied.

“You need not concern yourself with it for a little time yet and you should be grateful. Hold it off as long as you can.” As he spoke he reached into his pocket and pulled out more fuel for his tiny bonfire. This time, Will was close enough to see that this tinder was moving. Fascinated, and faintly sickened, Will approached the table, and saw that Steep’s captive was a moth, the wings of which he had caught between thumb and forefinger. Its legs and antennae flailed as it was dropped into the flames, and for an instant it seemed the draft of heat would waft it to safety, but before it could gain sufficient height its wings ignited and down it went. “Living and dying we feed the fire,” Steep said softly. “That is the melancholy truth of things.”

“Except that you just did the feeding,” Will said, surprised by his own eloquence.

“So we must,” Jacob replied. “Or there’d be darkness in here. And how would we see each other then? I daresay you’d be more comfortable with fuel that didn’t squirm as you fed it to the flame.”

“Yes . . .” Will said, “I would.”

“Do you eat sausages, Will?”

“Yes.”

“You like them, I’m sure. A nicely browned pork sausage? Or a good steak and kidney pie?”

“Yes. I like steak and kidney pie.”

“But do you think of the beast, shitting itself in terror as it is shunted to its execution? Hanging by one leg, still kicking, while the blood spurts from its neck? Do you?” 

Will had heard his father debate often enough to know that there was a trap here. “It’s not the same,” he protested.

“Oh, but it is.”

“No, it’s not. I need food to stay alive.”

“So eat turnips.”

“But I like sausages.”

“You like light too, Will.”

“There are candles,” Will said, “right there.”

“And the living earth gave up wax and wick in their making,” Steep said. “Everything is consumed, Will, sooner or later.

Living and dying we feed the fire.” He smiled, just a little. “Sit,” he said softly. “Go on. We’re equals here. Both a little melancholy.”

Will sat. “I’m not melancholy,” he said, liking the gift of the word. “I’m happy.”

“Are you really? Well that’s good to hear. And why are you so happy?”

Will was embarrassed to admit the truth, but Jacob had been honest, he thought, so should he be. “Because I found you here,” he said.

“That pleases you?”

“Yes.”

“But in an hour you’ll be bored with me—”

“No, I won’t.”

“And the sadness will still be there, waiting for you.” As he spoke, the fire began to dwindle. “Do you want to feed the fire, Will?” Steep said.

His words carried an uncanny power. It was as though this dwindling meant more than the extinguishing of a few flames.

This fire was suddenly the only light in a cold, sunless world, and if somebody didn’t feed it soon the consequences would be grim.

“Well, Will?” Jacob said, digging in his pocket and taking out another moth. “Here,” he said, proffering it.

Will hesitated. He could hear the soft flapping of the moth’s panic. He looked past the creature to its captor. Jacob’s face was utterly without expression.

“Well?” Jacob said.

The fire had almost gone out. Another few seconds and it would be too late. The room would be given over to darkness, and the face in front of Will, its symmetry and its scrutiny, would be gone.

That thought was suddenly too much to bear. Will looked back at the moth, at its wheeling legs and its flapping antennae.

Then, in a kind of wonderful terror, he took it from Jacob’s fingers.