Free Castle: A Novel by J. Robert Lennon Page B

inside the device were hot and damp; I had to draw them more deeply to pull the air through the filters. The cold crept up underneath the cuffs of my pants, and the furnace, a monolithic, mound-like protuberance in the ground, snaked its black tentacles all across the room. It appeared to me like a giant mushroom, some massive death cap, and as I stood regarding its great dark enormity it emitted a thunderous clank, and a hacking whoosh, like a sudden gust of wind. I could see the blue glow of the gas flame etched around the edges of the door, and I felt something turn over in my chest. Perspiration began to leak out of my pores, under my arms and in my crotch, and inside my boots my feet began to itch. I realized, belatedly, that I ought to have urinated before I came down here. But that would have to wait. I gritted my teeth and, supplies in hand, moved forward into the darkness.
    The basement was laid out in a large square the size of the house, and had not been subdivided in any way. Enormously thick wooden beams supported the floor joists above, with the furnace in the center. The stairs had led me down to the south wall, and the light bulb was southwest of the furnace, illuminating the new circuit breaker box that Heph had installed. Foolishly, I had neglected to bring down a flashlight—but with my eyes adjusted, I could make out the north and east walls behind the furnace, and knew I would be able to see well enough to clear out the moldy trash.
    My heart thudding, I took a few tentative steps north. I felt my entire body tighten, the skin squeezing the bones, as if it were trying to shrink me to nothing. My jaw, tightly clenched all this time, began to spasm, and I struggled to keep my teeth from knocking together. But I continued, taking one step and then another, my hands cold and trembling, my head pounding, my face swollen and irritated from the nylon straps of the respirator.
    And then a familiar emotion took hold of me and my trembling subsided. Heat coursed through me. I gripped the lime bag and spray bottle tighter, crushing them in my grip, and vulgarities began to pour from my mouth.
    It is a well-known truth that fear gives way to anger—we have seen it, for instance, in those diagnosed with a dangerous illness, or among citizens of an occupied state during a time of war. But in my case, the transformation was immediate. My irrational fear melted in the face of an equally irrational rage. I cursed the slovenly, careless people who had left things in my basement capable of growing mold; I cursed poor Heph for forcing me halfway down the stairs. I denounced the forest and its cruel rejection of me, its master, and I spat and seethed at the thought of my sister, the devious whore, for interfering in my life after ignoring me for so long. In short, the world was my enemy: it had driven me here, to this sanctuary, and, not having had enough, it had forced me into its bowels to clear away the miserable reek of its past. And so, fueled by hate, I made my way across the near-lightless space to the far northeast corner, where a jagged lump reshaped itself into a pile of cardboard boxes, each slumped, eaten away by fungus, and spilling books through its ruptured sides.
    I gathered up as many of the books as I could carry, and then, my teeth tearing the insides of my cheeks, the taste of blood on my tongue, I roared up the stairs and out the back door, to fling their infernal rot into the brutal spring sun. I made many trips—a dozen, I’d say—growing angrier with each return, until at last I howled at the limp stinking cardboard that remained, bellowed as I scooped it up and hugged it to my chest and hauled it out into the light.
    By the time I had opened the box of lime and begun dumping it on the floor, my anger had weakened, and with that task completed, my fear returned. I had time for a few spritzes of the antifungal spray before, wracked by terror, exhaustion, and spent emotion, I dragged myself at last