Chapter 47 The Walls

The east wing wall opened on the fifteenth of January. Not broke. Not crumbled. Opened, the way a door opens, the plaster and the lath and the paint separating along a line that ran from floor to ceiling, a line that followed the path of the root's tendril, the one that had breached the hallway a month ago. The crack widened, slowly, the edges pulling apart with a sound like a joint being dislocated, and from the opening poured the green-gold light of the mold, and the mold's growth filled the crack, covering the exposed lath and plaster with its soft, iridescent skin, and the skin pulsed, and the pulse was the root's rhythm, and the rhythm was the deep's voice, and the voice was the sound of the house becoming something else. Eli stood in the hallway and watched the wall open. The opening was not violent. It was deliberate, precise, as if the root had planned the exact point of the breach, the exact angle, the exact width. Through the opening he could see the chamber beyond, the root standing in its pool of dark liquid, the symbols blazing on the walls, the mold covering every surface, and the light was brighter now, the amber glow intensifying, and the sound, the deep's low tone, was louder, filling the hallway, filling the house, filling the woods beyond. The wall continued to open. The crack widened, the plaster falling away in slow, controlled pieces, each one landing on the floor with a soft thud, and behind the plaster the lath was visible, the thin wooden strips that held the wall together, and the lath was covered with the green-gold mold, and the mold was growing, spreading along the strips, covering them, incorporating them, the wood becoming part of the root's system, the wall becoming part of the root's body, the house becoming part of the hollow's flesh. Nora came down the hallway. She stopped beside Eli and watched the wall open, and her face was calm, her eyes steady, her breathing slow and even. She had been watching the changes for weeks, had been listening to the deep's voice through the root, had been feeling the deep's patience and its gratitude and its desire to surface, and she was not afraid. She was witnessing, the way Eli was witnessing, the way his great-grandfather had witnessed, the way all the keepers had witnessed, standing in the house that had been built on the deep's edge and watching the deep reach up and touch the walls and the floor and the ceiling and the very air of the rooms. "It's the east wing," Nora said. "The deep is reaching through the east wing. The root's tendril found the weakness in the wall and is widening it. The east wing is becoming the deep's passage." "Passage to where?" "To the surface. To the world above. The deep is using the house as a door, Eli. The house is the door. The chamber is the threshold. The east wing is the passage. And the passage is opening." The wall finished its opening. The entire east wing wall was gone, replaced by a curtain of green-gold mold that hung from the ceiling and pooled on the floor, and through the curtain the chamber was visible, the root standing in its center, the symbols blazing, the dark liquid spiraling on the floor, and the sound was louder now, the deep's voice filling the hallway, filling the house, filling the woods, and the voice was not hostile, not benevolent, not anything that Eli could name. It was the sound of the deep, making itself known, reaching through the house, reaching through the walls, reaching through the boundary that had kept it silent for so long. And the boundary was gone. The fence was gone. The walls were gone. The east wing was gone. The house was open to the deep, and the deep was open to the house, and the two were merging, the living and the silent, the world above and the world below, the keeper and the kept, and the merging was not a violation but a union, not an invasion but an embrace, and the embrace was the root's way of bringing the deep to the surface, and the surface was the deep's destination, and the destination was the house, and the house was becoming the deep's home. Eli stood in the hallway with the deep's voice in his bones and the mold's glow on his face and his wife's hand in his, and he understood, with a clarity that was not his own but the deep's, that the keeping was not a wall. The keeping was a welcome. The keeping was the world above saying to the world below: come in. We have been keeping the door for you. We have been waiting. We have been listening. And now you are here, and the door is open, and the house is yours. And the deep spoke, and the speaking was the sound, and the sound was the welcome, and the welcome was the keeping, and the keeping was the door, and the door was open. The opening was not a breach. It was an invitation. The root's tendril had found the weakest point in the wall, the seam where two sheets of plaster met, and the tendril had pushed through, slowly, deliberately, the way a vine pushes through a crack in a fence, and the pushing was the deep's way of entering, the deep's way of saying: I am here, and I am reaching, and the reaching is my work, and the work is the keeping, and the keeping is the door, and the door is open. The curtain of green-gold mold hung from the opening like a veil, and the veil was translucent, and through the veil Eli could see the chamber beyond, the root standing in its pool of dark liquid, the symbols blazing on the walls, and the light was brighter now, and the sound was louder, and the deep was speaking through the mold, through the root, through the house, and the speaking was the deep's way of saying: I am here. I am the wall. I am the room. I am the house. I am the deep, and the deep is waking. The root's branches spread through the opening, and the branches were covered with the green-gold mold, and the mold pulsed, and the pulse was the deep's heartbeat, and the heartbeat was the sound, and the sound was the deep's voice, and the voice was saying: I am here. I am the root. I am the wall. I am the house. I am the deep, and the deep is here. Eli pushed the curtain aside and stepped through the opening into the chamber, and the chamber was larger now, the walls receded, the ceiling raised, the floor smoothed, and the room had opened into a space, a hollow, a cavity in the earth, and the cavity was the deep's heart, and the heart was the deep, and the deep was here. The root stood at the center, its trunk as thick as Eli's body, its surface smooth and seamless, the dark helix band spiraling from floor to ceiling, and the root was the deep's spine, and the spine was the deep's way of being upright, the deep's way of supporting the sky, and the supporting was the deep's work, and the work was the keeping, and the keeping was the door, and the door was open. Nora stepped through the opening behind him. She stood in the chamber and looked at the root, at the symbols, at the mold, at the liquid, and she said, "The house is the deep's body. The chamber is the deep's heart. The root is the deep's spine. The mold is the deep's skin. And the deep is here, in the house, in the chamber, in the root, in the mold, in the world." ---