The Link

by Richard Matheson

  He is, in no sense, an advocate of parapsychology but, in the expansiveness of his thinking, neither does he discard the “intriguing potentialities” of psi. Indeed, as he points out, the word “Physics” means, in the original sense of its Greek origin, “seeing the essential nature of all things” which, of course, must, by definition, allow for the fullest examination of parapsychology.

  Moreover, he says (not pedantically but presenting the idea as one friend to another) there exists, in the world, evidence that many “unknown” realities not only exist at present but apparently existed, as well, in the pre-dawn of recorded history.

  “We speak here, naturally, of evidence which begins to merge with ancient memories,” he says. “Evidence more imprecise than that of customary science involving, as it does, the concept of early man possessing abilities to discover—and even harness—certain earth forces of which we are no longer aware.”

  His words throw Robert back momentarily to the Dowsercon and the words of the speaker who mentioned “a vital life stream creating a connection between mankind and some kind of cosmic force the nature of which we no longer seem to comprehend.”

  He is back almost instantly, hearing Bellenger begin to speak of the Dogons.

  “Here are these primitive African people who, centuries before astronomy existed, possessed a knowledge of the universe astonishingly accurate.”

  We may, at this point, briefly dramatize the Dogons, using Bellenger’s voice as narration.

  “Using sticks with which to scratch their symbols in the dusty soil, these incredible people described the actual existence of the star Sirius. They knew it to be a binary star, a ‘dwarf’ star—call it Sirius B—revolving around Sirius A. They knew it to be white, to be, as they described it, ‘heavier than all the iron on earth’, that the orbit of Sirius B around Sirius A took 50 years and was elliptical! How? How could such people have possibly known that?”

  Back to Bellenger. We see, now, what makes him what he is—an almost childlike fascination with knowledge, an insatiable curiosity to know what “makes things tick”.

  “The Dogon knowledge of astronomy in general is no less astounding,” he continues. “They knew about the halo which surrounds Saturn before telescopes were invented to see it. They knew about the four main moons of Jupiter. They knew that the planets revolve around the Sun—that the Earth is basically round and that it spins on its own axis.

  “Inconceivably, they knew that the Milky Way—they didn’t call it that, of course—is spiral-like in shape, a fact not known to astronomy until well into this century. How, I ask you? With no instruments whatever at their disposal, how could these people know the movements and characteristics of virtually invisible heavenly bodies?”

  He has scarcely touched his lunch. Clearly, thought is his food, investigative zeal his nourishment.

  “And consider this,” he says. “Evidence strongly indicates that some ancient race explored the coasts of Antarctica when those coasts were free of ice. A race that utilized instruments of navigation far superior to anything possessed by man until the second half of the eighteenth century. How?

  “Further, that a capacity for abstract thinking of an extraordinary degree is indicated by what we would term ‘primitive’ astronomy, mathematics, cartography, tool-making, stonemasonry, architecture, seamanship, metallurgy, etcetera.

  “You see,” he goes on, sharing the wonder with them, “the point is and the question is: Do we know now what mankind may well have known eons ago?”

  Robert stares at Bellenger. It is as though the scientist is telling him something directly, something which may help him tie together all the “loose strings” of his thinking and understand the result. He has no idea what that something is.

  He knows, however, that he is in contact with it.

  “You know,” says Bellenger, “one of the unutterable tragic circumstances of man’s history was the burning of the library at Alexandria. Here was a veritable fount of knowledge—one-million-volumes in which the entire science, philosophy and mystery of the ancient world was recorded. Burned by soldiers to heat water for their baths! Good God, how can we live with this dreadful memory? Such cleanliness is hardly close to Godliness.”

  He is silent for a few moments. No one speaks. They wait.

  “For what appears to be,” he continues, “from the legends of ancient civilizations to the philosophical and mathematical literature of classic times, is a body of tantalizing hints. Hints of lost knowledge that had come to terms with phenomena not yet acceptable to modern science—phenomena which, most definitely, includes those of parapsychology.”

  He nods. “It will come as small surprise to me,” he says, “if I live long enough, pray God I do, that the principles of future science turns out to be based upon not discovery but re-discovery.”

  Bellenger’s smile is gentle and beatific.

  “It may well be,” he suggests, “that the world does not require so much to be informed as to be reminded.”

  The lunch with Bellenger has opened up both Robert’s and Cathy’s attitudes. As he drives—Peter and Teddie napping in back—they speak as friends, not allowing their emotional involvement to affect their communication as human beings.

  When she asks him what is happening to him “psychically”, he tells her about the two OOBEs he has had and about his theory that his dream may be, in fact, an out-of-the-body experience as well; a literal returning to his childhood home.

  “But why always the rain then?” she asks. “Why always that song you hear? It can’t be that it’s always raining when you dream; it wasn’t that night I was at your house. It can’t be that the music is always playing there.”

  He gestures haplessly. “I know,” he says. “I’ve thought of that. Maybe it is only a dream.” He shivers. “Only a dream,” he mutters. “A nightmare.”

  He puts that aside by telling her about his Aunt coming to see him, what she said, what the speaker at the Dowsercon said—and how it all seems, somehow, to be connected to what Bellenger told them at lunch.

  “I feel like Columbus must have felt when he had this need to explore the unknown and couldn’t get a boat to do it in. I have such a strong sensation that there’s something out there waiting for me, like a—continent of knowledge—and I can’t find someone to buy that boat for me.”

  He laughs self-deprecatingly. “What a lousy simile,” he says. “You know what I mean though.”

  “Maybe you should go to Arizona,” she suggests.

  “I’ve thought of that,” he says. “But what would I do at an archaeological dig? What would I look for? Pieces of pottery? I can’t see that’s the way to find my answer.”

  “Well—” she smiles sympathetically. “I’m sure you’ll find that boat, Rob. And sail into the unknown and find your continent.”

  “And probably sail right off the edge of my flat world,” he says.

  He hesitates, then, deciding, tells her what Harry said to him; he feels that it is something she should know.

  As he was, she is stunned. “Oh, my God, I had no idea,” she says. She looks at Robert. “What did you tell him?”

  He draws in breath. “That my coming to England was not a renewal for us. That—” he hesitates again, then finishes. “—that it’s completely over.”

  Silence. He glances at her. “It is completely over, isn’t it?”

  She puts a hand over her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Oh, you have a right, you have a right,” she answers sadly. “You’ve made your intentions clear from the very start. I, on the other hand, have dilly-dallied like an idiot.”

  He waits. But there is no more. If he can gain hope from her irresolution, he will have to do it for he gets no added sustenance.

  “There it is,” says Peter.

  They look where he is pointing; he is driving again. There, rising above the distant tree tops, its roof blood-red in the sunset glow, is
Harrowgate.

  “Now we shall see,” says Peter, nodding eagerly.

  In mounting enthusiasm, he launches (as they approach the gigantic manor house) into a barrage of trivia questions regarding its archi-tecture, leaving Robert’s mind “in the dust”. That round window up there? The oculus window. That? The fanlight. That? The keystone. That? The sidelight. That?

  “I give up!” Robert cries.

  “Damn big house,” says Teddie. “It better have a damn big ghost to make this drive worthwhile.”

  “It would be criminal for such a house not to have a ghost,” Peter responds.

  “Peter,” Cathy chides with a smile. “Don’t jump the gun, my dear.”

  “Scout’s honor,” Peter tells her, right hand raised as though in court.

  “Both hands on the steering wheel if you please.” says Teddie.

  They are admitted to the house by a butler (“I feel like some subsidiary character in a Masterpiece Theatre,” Teddie mutters) and taken to a gigantic sitting room. The butler tells them he will inform Mrs. Keighley that they have arrived, then take their luggage to their rooms.

  After he’s gone, Peter claps his hands together once and looks around, obviously open to any and every psychic occurrence which might ensue. Robert is more guarded, still not certain “where he is” psychically and if he can deal with unexpected occurrences.

  Teddie, as expected, is a total disbeliever. “I expect to see nothing,” he tells them. “And hear nothing but the spiritual blatherings of your lady medium.”

  Cathy stands on middle ground, not denying the possibility—even probability—of psychic events occurring at Harrowgate but prepared, as usual, with ready explanations for them all.

  Peter involves Robert in yet another trivia guessing game about the house which breaks off as Mrs. Keighley enters.

  She is subdued and polite. She welcomes them to Harrowgate, thanks them for coming, tells them that her husband is out riding, says they must all “want to freshen up now” and leaves with the promise that they’ll talk at supper—“seven-thirtyish.”

  “Was that one of the ghosts?” Teddie says after she has drifted out as quickly and soundlessly as she drifted in.

  Supper at Harrowgate, Dr. Keighley present with his wife: 64, a handsome, trimly built man, immaculately dressed and groomed.

  Also at the table is their daughter Eunice, 16, very nervous, very shy; Robert notices how bitten looking her nails are.

  Their son, Mrs. Keighley tells them, is away at boarding school. Her manner is more relaxed now, even friendly and effusive—unlike that of her husband who remains aloof throughout the meal. Clearly, he is not delighted by their presence. Certain remarks he makes verify this more than once.

  Inexplicably, Teddie seems to take an instant aversion to the man; so much so that Robert, Cathy and Peter feel constrained to give him cautioning looks. There seems no rhyme or reason for him to have made up his mind so quickly about the doctor.

  Peter tries to render him mute by telling the Keighleys that he has had the records checked and discovered the names and histories of the owners of Harrowgate back through the 18th century.

  Oddly enough, none of these ever reported experiences of a psychic nature in the house.

  “There, you see?” says Dr. Keighley to his wife. He looks at Peter. “And there are none now.”

  “That isn’t true,” says Mrs. Keighley with a forced smile. “You know it isn’t, William.”

  “I know you think it isn’t,” he declares.

  Mrs. Keighley laughs—it is a strained sound. “Rest assured, it bothers me that we should have this—phantom lurking in the house,” she says. “I know, myself, that the previous owner lived here seven years with no such experience—and, before him, for thirteen years, an elderly couple experienced nothing.” Another laugh, distracted, over-bright. “Why us?”

  “Imagination,” Dr. Keighley says, adding that he expects their visit to be kept in total confidentiality; he has no desire that “unsavory publicity” attend their presence.

  Peter starts to reassure him when Mrs. Keighley breaks in, her laugh again completely out of keeping with the situation. “It’s gone beyond that point,” she says. “We’re clutching at straws, believe me.”

  “Edna,” says her husband.

  “We are clutching at straws, William.” She rides over him. “If we cannot get rid of this—thing, we will have to sell the house!”

  “We will not be selling Harrowgate,” her husband informs them quietly.

  A heavy silence, broken by Peter’s request that they tell their “story”.

  Dr. Keighley rises and leaves the table before this can be done. “I shall see you in the morning,” he announces coldly.

  “Not if I see you first,” mumbles Teddie. Cathy throws him a look.

  After Dr. Keighley has left, his wife proceeds to tell the story—and we see it dramatized. Throughout, her punctuating laughter is jarringly inappropriate to what she’s describing.

  “My husband and I sleep in separate rooms,” she begins.

  “That’s no surprise,” Teddie murmurs. This time, it is Peter who gives him a critical look.

  “The first occurrence was the sound of stamping in the attic,” says Mrs. Keighley.

  The upstairs of Harrowgate, the family’s wing, late night. We see each of them—Dr. Keighley, his wife and Eunice—in their separate rooms, looking upward at their ceilings with various degrees of reaction—from suspicion on Dr. Keighley’s part to dread on Eunice’s.

  “Since the attic has been sealed off for centuries,” says Mrs. Keighley, “we took my husband’s word that some kind of animal had gotten up there and was trying to get out.”

  “Animal?” says Teddie. Cathy frowns at him.

  “The next occurrence came a few days later,” says Mrs. Keighley.

  Dr. Keighley is asleep in his bed when he is jarred awake by three violent banging noises on the corridor door.

  Rising, he moves there sleepily and opens the door. The corridor is empty.

  He is about to close the door when he changes his mind and walks to the door of his wife’s room, tries to open it. It’s locked.

  He knocks and hears her gasp inside.

  “Edna, it’s me,” he tells her irritably.

  Her footsteps rush to the door and she unlocks and opens it.

  “Did you hear those banging noises?” he inquires.

  She shudders. “Of course I heard them.”

  “How many?” he tests her.

  “Three. Enormously loud.”

  Her husband grunts and turns toward Eunice’s room. Something different crosses Mrs. Keighley’s face—a kind of anger.

  “My husband then asked Eunice if she’d heard the banging noises,” says her voice. “Naturally she said she had. One would have had to be deaf not to hear them.”

  CUT TO the inside of Mrs. Keighley’s room the next night. She is on her knees, praying. O.S., loud banging noises can be heard, many in number.

  “The same sound came again the next night,” says Mrs. Keighley’s voice. “Many more of them. I was never so frightened in my life. I prayed that the noises would cease. Also, the house seemed unnaturally cold.”

  CUT TO her room the following night, Eunice now praying with her. O.S., the banging noises.

  “The next night, Eunice prayed with me,” says Mrs. Keighley’s voice. “None-the-less, the sounds were heard continuing, louder than ever. Again, the house was unnaturally cold.

  “On the third night, my husband saw the host. He denies it now but that night he did not.”

  CUT TO Dr. Keighley’s room. He is sitting in bed, reading. Suddenly, he shivers as the room goes cold. He looks around.

  The book spills from his grip as deafening blows begin to strike the door.

  His face goes hard and, rising, he begins to stride angrily across the room.

  Suddenly, the corridor door flies open, making him lurch back with a hollow cry.

&nbs
p; Standing in the doorway is a small man with an ugly, glaring face, dressed in a Middle-Ages outfit, a stained handkerchief around his neck.

  Dr. Keighley gapes at him. Through clenched teeth, he demands to know who the man is.

  The man stands motionless, glaring at him.

  “Who are you, I said!” cries the doctor.

  The man turns away and disappears. Dr. Keighley stands frozen for a few moments, then runs to the corridor and looks.

  There is no sign of the man.

  The expression on Dr. Keighley’s face leaves little doubt that, despite his willful personality, he realizes that the small, ugly man was not real.

  As they go upstairs, Peter asks Teddie to please control his tongue, they are guests at Harrowgate. Teddie apologizes (in his own fashion) but adds that there is something about Keighley that makes “the hackles rise.”

  As Teddie retires, Robert, Cathy and Peter go into Keighley’s room (he has moved to his wife’s room, his wife and Eunice to another wing) where they will spend the night; two extra beds have been installed and they will take turns keeping watch.

  “Well, I wonder what we’ll see, if anything,” says Peter with anticipation.

  Robert, looking toward a paneled wall, “sees” a section of it sliding open rapidly and a crazed Mrs. Rochester-like lady in tattered grey come rushing across the room at him, brandishing a bloody dagger.

  He represses a smile. It has been another of his mini-fantasies.

  They discuss the haunting. (The “so-called” haunting, Cathy says). It possesses what is known as “vividity” in that distinctly percussive noises have been heard in the attic and on the door of this room. Moreover, the effects could not be simply designated as hallucinatory since all three members of the family heard them simultaneously.