Author's Note: This one requires some explanation. When I instituted the Malachy O'More Challenge (found on my bio page, for all who are interested), I naturally accepted it myself, and drew "Ex Antiquitate Urbis" ("of the city's antiquity"; motto #75 on the list, traditionally associated with Pope Gregory XVI). Accordingly, I wrote up a Subreality story about Virgil visiting the Writers' Café, posted it on this site as well as on the SCML, added it to the C2, and figured I was done.
Later on, however, I decided to compile all my Subreality stories in one large omnibus fic (story ID 4872656, for all who are interested in that), and I found myself regretting that I couldn't add "Ex Antiquitate Urbis" to that collection - since, of course, my Challenge story had to be posted individually in order to appear in the Challenge archives, and we all know how the Powers That Be feel about posting the same story twice. And then, about a year ago, I visited the Yuletide Exchange Web site (those who are interested in that may simply Google "Yuletide Treasure") and took on a request to write the story you are about to read. At some point during the inordinately lengthy creative process, it occurred to me that "Ex Antiquitate Urbis" would be a remarkably appropriate name for this story as well - and I resolved, accordingly, to remove the original "Ex Antiquitate Urbis" from its position on my profile, add it to "The Subreality Collection", and retroactively declare this story to be my true submission to the Malachy Challenge.
I mention all this, not because I expect anyone to care about the tangled history of my minor stories (truth to tell, I fully expect most readers to skip this note altogether), but because future respondents to the Malachy Challenge may want to know whether they can validly replace their completed Challenge stories with other stories that they would rather have representing them and their mottoes in the C2. In which case, they may be gratified to know that the moderator himself has already done precisely this.
Disclaimer: If you're looking to blame someone for the Cthulhu Mythos, don't look at me.
Pity, and heed, the soul that has strayed from the sunlit paths of wholesome and human pleasures, and turned to seek the nameless and terrible things that lie athwart the dark alleys and disused byways of the universe. Whether such a one be lost irretrievably, or whether the providence of unknown gods may ultimately preserve him from the psychic decay which is the just reward of such untoward inquisitiveness, he remains forever a man alone and haunted, separated from his fellows by the ghastly awareness of things that no man may know and remain undefiled.
Yet even the most depraved such soul was once a man like other men, once had a heart that inclined to natural objects of desire and a mind eager to gather innocent knowledge. It is unjust to forget this, and dangerous as well – for to forget what the wicked once were is to forget what oneself, being innocent, might yet become. For this reason, I have acceded to the request of Clara Koenig of the Sorbonne to record the events that transpired on August 20, 1917, at the intersection of Jenckes and Benefit Streets in Providence, Rhode Island.
Nan Braithwaite leaned on the gate in front of the century-old house of Thomas Durfee, motionless save for the strands of blond hair that the wind blew across her eyes. There was a dreamy smile on her face, as though the venerable dwelling were whispering merry thoughts into her ear – which, in a sense, it may have been.
She stood thus for some time, oblivious to all about her – and, thus, it came as something of a shock to her when a throat cleared above her head, and a mild voice said, "Excuse me, is this fence-post taken?"
Nan yelped, and whirled around. A tall, thin, almost gangling young man, with vague gray eyes and hair of a slightly lighter blond than Nan's own, was standing behind her with a quiet smile on his sallow-cheeked face.
Nan took a deep breath, and put a hand to her bosom. "I'm sorry," she said. "You startled me, that's all. I would never have shouted like that, if I hadn't been..." She hesitated, unsure how to explain what she had been doing to this unknown young man.
The young man, however, seemed to require no explanation. "Don't mention it," he said, with a wave of his hand. "You're the Braithwaite girl, aren't you?"
Nan blushed. "Am I that well-known?" she said. "Does everyone in Providence, when they see a girl staring dreamily at an old building, say to himself, 'That must be Anne Braithwaite'?"
"I wouldn't know about that," said the boy. "But I've seen you around on my walks, and my mother's told me more than once that Judge Braithwaite's daughter is the only other person in Rhode Island who's as obsessed with this city's history as I am."
Nan frowned. Now that he mentioned it, she seemed to vaguely remember seeing this boy herself – poking around the choir loft of the First Baptist Church, perhaps, or rambling the back alleys of the waterfront. "So you feel it too, then?" she said.
"Feel what?" said the boy.
"Oh, you know," said Nan. "That sense that, in Providence, the past is a living thing – that every street remembers the footsteps of everyone who's walked on it, and that your lips touch Roger Williams's at one remove every time you take a drink of water. How did that one poem put it? 'A weight of ages did at once descend upon my heart.'"
The boy nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, that's about right," he said. "Of course, it was probably even truer for Wordsworth, living as he was in London..."
Nan shrugged. "I've never been to London," she said. "And I don't know that I'd care much for it if I did. I almost think there might be too much history in a place like London – that the legacy of the dead might overwhelm the people who are still living. That's what's nice about Providence: it's old enough to have some real history, in a way that places like Wyoming don't, but it's a short enough history that you can still feel that you can contribute something to it."
The boy seemed to be struck by this notion. "H'm," he said.
"You don't agree?" said Nan.
"I'm not sure," said the boy. "I never really thought of it that way before. The more history, the better, I always assumed."
Nan cocked her head. "You never worried that the present might get buried in the past?"
The boy grinned (he had a sort of lopsided smile that heightened his overall aura of pleasant awkwardness). "Truth to tell, I never worried much about the present at all," he said. "I figured there were enough other people doing that in the world. You take any hundred people, even in a city like this one, and I suppose ninety-five of them will be so wrapped up in today's news, today's problems, even today's baseball scores, that there's no more room left in their minds for anything more than a week old." He snorted. "Honestly, what's so special about the present, anyway?"
"Well," said Nan, with an attempt at blitheness, "it is what we have to live in."
The boy didn't seem to have heard her. "Oh, it's exciting enough while you're in it, I suppose," he said, "but it doesn't last." He jerked a thumb at the mansion in front of them. "You see that? That's what lasts. That house has been standing since 1780, and it's still standing today. You think any of the new houses they're putting up now will still be standing in 2054?"
Nan considered. "No, probably not," she said.
"All right, then," said the boy. "You'll excuse me if I prefer to let the present look after itself."
While Nan was still trying to think of a response to that, a distant clock tolled four times, and the boy started. "Is it four o'clock already?" he murmured.
Nan glanced at her wristwatch. "About that, yes," she said. "Why, do you have some kind of appointment to keep?"
"In a sense," said the boy. "My mother expects me home by half past five, and I was hoping to make it at least to Meeting Street before I had to turn back. So, if you don't mind – I hope I don't seem abrupt, but..."
Nan shook her head. "No, that's fine," she said with a small smile. "Even the best of us sometimes get tripped up by the demands of the present moment."
A look of annoyance flickered briefly over the boy's face, but the next moment he dispelled it with a laugh. "Yes, I suppose we do," he said. "Well, so long."
He turned westward, and began walking in the direction of the Providence River. Nan turned back to the Durfee house, and began to open herself up to its mystique once again – but then a thought struck her, and she turned to call to the boy's retreating back. "Wait!"
The boy glanced over his shoulder, looking a bit startled by this sudden accostment. "Yes?"
Nan laughed nervously. "Oh, it's nothing, really," she said. "It's just... here we've spent the last five minutes exchanging our philosophies of life, and I just realized that I don't even know your name."
"Oh, is that all?" The boy laughed. "Charles. Charles Dexter Ward."
Nan knew the name; the Wards were a prominent family in Providence, and she had passed their mansion at the top of Prospect Terrace a score of times. "Really?" she said. "Well, thank you for a very intriguing five minutes, Mr. Ward."
"My pleasure," said her companion.
And he set his face to the river once again, and strode down the steep incline of the hill until he was lost to Nan's sight.