The Possessors

by John Christopher

  Mandy looked around at them all. “But where was he? How did you find him?”

  George said exuberantly, “Ruth found him. They were sitting together in the snow when we fell over them. Just the other side of the avalanche.”

  Jane said, “But we looked there! We searched all round, this morning.”

  Grainger was staring at the boy, deeply puzzled. So much for doctors, Mandy thought lightheartedly. He had said the boy must be dead. They could be wrong. Probably he was a little miffed over that. But they could be wrong. Life still had its surprises. Tears stung her eyes again.

  “Little beggar had buried himself in the snow, apparently,” George said. “That’s how he lasted out. A good thick blanket of snow over him. And he had a spot of grub with him, so he didn’t lack for nourishment.”

  “But why?” Jane asked. “Why did he go out into the snow? What happened?”

  In an expressionless voice, Ruth said, “It was the shock, I think. He woke up down there in the basement, and found himself alone. He didn’t know what he was doing. I suppose the last thing he remembered was being out there, by the avalanche. He just went out there again. He was shocked, you see.”

  Grainger said, “But not too shocked to get hold of a basket, and fill it with provisions, before he went.”

  George said, “No limit to the things you can get up to when you’ve had a blackout. I knew a chap who brought a Lancaster back with two engines out and three-quarters of the controls shot away. And he didn’t remember a thing after the flak hit him over Berlin.”

  “Not quite the same,” Grainger said quietly. “He was continuing a routine action.”

  “Not exactly routine.”

  “But not irrational. Ruth, I think I’d better have a look at him now.”

  She seemed reluctant to part with the boy; as was, Mandy felt, no more than natural. She herself remembered that she had been going to get something hot and nourishing for him. There were a couple of shell eggs she had been hoarding. Beaten up with hot milk, and a little brandy … She slipped away while Grainger was reaching for the boy.

  When she returned with the drink, Grainger was just completing his examination. He was frowning, as though trying to work out a problem in an unfamiliar idiom. Mandy came past him, and held the glass for Andy.

  “Try and drink it right down,” she said. “I’ve made sure it’s not too hot. You’ll feel better after this.”

  The boy drank obediently.

  Grainger said, “Pulse slow, heartbeat down. And he’s damnably cold.” He turned to Ruth. “I think we ought to get him to bed, right away, and keep him there. I would very much like to have someone else look at him.”

  Ruth said, “He’s all right now.” She spoke with flatness and conviction. “I shall look after him.”

  Mandy said, “I know you will. But he’ll be best in his bed, won’t he? There, he’s drunk it all. Feel a little better, Andy? George will carry him upstairs for you.”

  “No,” Andy said. His voice sounded strange, too, but it could be expected to do so, after all he had been through. “I can walk up, thank you.”

  “If you’re sure …”

  He took his mother’s hand, and they left the room together.

  Mandy said to Ruth, “I’ll bring a drink up to you.”

  “Don’t bother.” She looked at Deeping, who was trailing after them. “I’ll take him up and we’ll lie down together. We both need the rest more than anything else.”

  Deeping hesitated, then nodded. “You’re sure there’s nothing I can get you?”

  “Nothing.”

  The two of them went upstairs, slowly, as though tired. Which they would be, Mandy thought. And Ruth, whatever she said, could do with something warm inside her. A cup of tea, and perhaps a touch of rum with it.

  She went back to the kitchen, and made the tea. The kettle was still simmering on top of the stove. While she was waiting for the tea to brew, she helped herself to a quick drink from the bottle with the wine vinegar label which she kept behind the jar of vanilla sugar. She slipped it back just before Marie came in from outside. Warmed and relaxed, she told Marie to get some rum from Monsieur, poured the tea, added a generous tot, and gave the bottle back to her to return.

  She decided to take the tea up herself. She was climbing the second flight of stairs when she heard the child’s voice raised in alarm. Not Andy’s voice, though—Stephen’s. She hurried, spilling a little of the tea into the saucer. The door to the Deepings’ room was partly open, enough for her to realize that some kind of a struggle was going on in there. She pushed the door open with her elbow. Andy and his mother were on either side of Stephen, holding him, with Ruth bending down as though pushing him back into the bed from which he was trying to rise. They turned and looked at her as she came in, moving with an odd kind of unison. Their hold on Stephen slackened, and he broke free, flung himself off the bed, and ran full pelt for Mandy. His head bulleted against her stomach, and he clutched at her, sobbing.

  “Why, easy,” she said, “you’re spilling all the tea.” Over his head she handed the cup to Ruth, who took it, her eyes riveted on Stephen. Ruth said, “He woke suddenly, and was frightened.” Her voice was harsh, strained. “Seeing Andy … he must have thought …”

  “Poor old chap,” Mandy said. She rubbed his head, comforting him. “But Andy’s all right, you know. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing for anyone to worry about.”

  Stephen said something indistinguishable into her apron. She bent down to him, and took his head gently between her hands. He looked up at her quickly. As though reassured by what he saw, he said, “I want to come downstairs with you. Please, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  She looked at Ruth. “I guess he can get up now, can’t he? He’s slept long enough.”

  “Quite long enough.” Ruth put her hands out toward the boy. “I’ll send him down to you when he’s got washed and dressed. Thank you for the tea.”

  Stephen said, “No!” He faced his mother, his body pressed against Mandy’s. “I don’t want to stay with you.” Ruth looked more angry than anything else. And that was understandable, too, Mandy thought. After this terrible time with the younger boy—thinking he was dead, and then missing, and finding him at last out in the snow—her nerves must have been worn ragged. But for little Stephen, also, it had been grim enough. His brother dead, his mother crazy with grief, and to discover Andy standing by his bed, touching him … the Andy who had always been the favored one.

  Mandy said to Ruth, “He’ll be all right when he’s properly come awake. But I’ll see to him while you put Andy to bed. His clothes are in the next room, anyway, aren’t they?”

  Ruth stared at her, and the boy, and turned away. “All right.” Her voice was cold. “I’ll leave him to you, in that case.”

  They went through to what had been the boys’ bedroom, and Mandy closed the door. Remembering the physical modesty of the pre-pubertal boy, she said, “Your clothes are over there, Steve. Would you like me to leave you to get washed and dressed? I’ll go down and see about rustling up some breakfast for you.”

  “No!” The edge of fear was in his voice. “Please stay with me.”

  “Just as you like. But you will have to get ready pretty quickly, because there are lots of things I’ve got to do downstairs.”

  He said earnestly, “I’ll be very quick.”

  While he was dressing, Mandy looked out of the window. The far peaks were clear, sharp, and white against blue, but cloud was beginning to form at a lower altitude, thickening up in the valley below them. It would be a dull gray comfortable day down there.

  She said, “It’s wonderful about Andy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” His voice was indistinct.

  “It does happen sometimes. With animals and birds, as well as people. I remember when I was very small— younger than you are—I went for a walk with my father one cold winter’s day. I found a wren by the side of the path, on its back with its little legs stretched out. I p
ut it in my pocket—I was going to bury it when I got home. And just before I got home, I felt something flutter in my pocket, and there it was, quite alive. I put my hand in, and lifted it out, and it pecked my fingers and flew away.”

  She could remember how happy she had been: the feeling of having given warmth and life, as though a part of herself had gone into this small creature, flown away on those suddenly beating wings. She thought about it with rekindled pleasure. She did not mind thinking about those days. They were so long ago. And no one had been hurt by them, no one betrayed.

  She turned around. Stephen was dressed, and trying to comb his hair, looking at himself in the mirror over the wash-basin, his face screwed up in concentration and frustration. Her heart moved toward him.

  “Let me help you, Steve.” He suffered her ministrations patiently. “There. You look just fine. Shall we go in and see your mummy and Andy before we go down?”

  He shook his head. “I’d rather not.”

  “Well, then, we’ll go and find some breakfast.”

  As they came to the first-floor landing, she heard a noise and looked up. Ruth was gazing down from above. She looked tired, her eyes showing fatigue and a kind of emptiness.

  “We’ll look after this one,” Mandy said. “You go to bed and get some rest.”

  After the alarms and excursions with which it had started, the day was settling down to normality—insofar as normality could be stretched to cover their continuing to be cut off from contact with the outside world. On that point, George organized a sortie to see what progress had been made, if any, in the opening up of the road from Nidenhaut. He went on skis, and took Grainger with him and, on her last-minute insistence, Diana. Grainger then asked Elizabeth, who had finally emerged from their bedroom, if she would not come as well, but she shook her head, covering a yawn.

  “Still much too tired. If you do manage to get to the village, bring some of those Florentines back from the patisserie. I feel a craving for them.”

  “Not a hope.” He looked at his wife with frank and unstinted admiration. “You’re getting far too fat.”

  She smiled back at him, over the head of the much shorter Diana.

  “Darling, you know I’m your mother figure.”

  Over lunch, they reported what they had found. The way was still completely blocked and the curve of the rock face prevented their seeing what things were like farther down. George had had a shot at venturing out on the slope of rubble to see if it could be traversed, but it had begun to slide, and he had given up the attempt. Mandy felt both relieved and annoyed with him, hearing that. He was much too willing to take chances with his safety.

  Douglas Poole said, “Did you hear anything of activity on the other side?”

  “No.” George shook his head emphatically. “Not on the other side. There was a sound of what could have been clearing work, but a good way off. They’ve probably got at least one other section to clear before they get on to this one.”

  Deeping said, “So we’re stuck here indefinitely.”

  The familiar, slightly grousing note, absent since Andy’s collapse the previous day, had returned to his voice. George looked at him with irritation, and said, “Yes. Lucky we’re well stocked with food. And all good jolly companions. Aren’t Ruth and Andy coming down to lunch, by the way?”

  Mandy said, “No. Andy’s still asleep, and Ruth is staying up with him for the time being. She says she isn’t hungry just yet. I’m keeping some for them.”

  Deeping said, still sounding querulous, “I’m not feeling particularly hungry myself. A broken night always upsets my stomach. I don’t think I’ll have any sweet, Mandy. Just coffee.”

  Mandy sighed. “That’s another thing. We’ll have to go easy if there’s no sign of them getting through yet. Coffee in the morning, and after supper, but we shall have to cut it out after lunch, I’m afraid. Fortunately we’re not short of tea.”

  Deeping stood up from the table. “I’d rather have had coffee,” he said, “but I suppose it can’t be helped.”

  “No,” George said, “it can’t, can it? By the way, I’ve made your bill up to yesterday afternoon. Since then, board and lodging’s been on the house.”

  Deeping looked at him, flushing. “That’s not necessary. I can pay my way.”

  “Think nothing of it,” George said.

  Getting him alone later, Mandy said, “You were a bit unkind to him, George. He’s had a pretty bad time the last twenty-four hours, with Andy and Ruth.”

  “Don’t talk about that bastard. ‘I’d rather have had coffee.’ The only person he’s ever likely to worry about is Len Deeping.”

  She shushed him. Stephen was standing in the entrance to the kitchen. “What is it, Steve?”

  “Do you mind if I go downstairs, Mrs. Hamilton, and play with the race game?”

  The race game was an old Escalado, kept along with a number of other adjuncts to time-passing in bad weather, in a room in the basement somewhat optimistically referred to as the games room.

  “Why, yes,” she said. “Can you set it up?” He nodded. “Don’t stay down too long and get cold. There’s only one small radiator down there.”

  Which was the principal reason why the games room was little used during the winter season. She said to George, as she had said before, “We must do something about getting more heating in there before next winter.”

  “The boiler is pushed to the limit as it is. More important to keep the upper part of the house warm.”

  “We should have had a bigger boiler.”

  “The hell of it is we’re undercapitalized. And we’re not making too much profit at the moment. Not with me standing on my dignity to Deeping, and the people who should have taken their place lining the pockets of old Mueller, at the Buffet de la Gare in Nidenhaut. Maybe we ought to send a cable to Aunt Mandy.”

  She smiled at the familiar joke, the only reference to her American background that they normally permitted themselves. Aunt Mandy, married at nineteen to a wealthy coal owner and now nearly fifty years widowed, had written one letter to the niece who had been named after her, on hearing that she had left her husband for George. The letter had been long, but businesslike rather than reproachful. She had listed her assets, valued them, and arrived at a sum of three hundred and twenty-two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, as the nearest approximation. This was the estate which, in her previous will, had been left to her beloved niece, Mandy. It had been replaced, she explained in an un-American copperplate, acquired at Miss Hudnut’s Academy for Young Ladies of the City of Boston, by a new will. She wished to advise Mandy that her name did not appear in this one.

  “Do you mind being poor?” Mandy asked him.

  He grinned. “That should be my question.”

  And, of course, he was right: it should be his question. She smiled again. “Doesn’t worry me. Doesn’t worry me at all.”

  “What does worry you, Mandy?”

  He spoke gently. She knew what he meant, and wished there were some kind of answer she could give. He was such a good person. She had known that when she met him and now, seeing him more clearly because no longer blinded by that which had overwhelmed her, and glorified her, and destroyed her, knew it with greater certainty.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing worries me. Honey, off you go and look after our guests, while I look after the kitchen.”

  Ruth came down a little later, bringing Andy with her. Mandy asked her if they would have lunch now, but she refused.

  “Surely Andy will have something to eat,” Mandy said. “He’s had nothing but the milk and eggs this morning.”

  “No. That is, he ate some chocolate upstairs. Where is everyone?”

  “Most of them are outside, skiing. I think your husband is in the salon, though.”

  “And Stephen?”

  “He went downstairs to play with the Escalado.”

  “We’ll go down and look for him, I think.”

  Mandy watched them go, f
eeling faintly uneasy. They both still had that funny way of walking—a slowness, deliberation—which made her think they were not properly recovered from the recent events. They ought to have eaten something, too. She wondered if she should not go after them, and try to persuade Andy at least to have something; after what he had been through, he must need hot nourishing food. But she decided against it. Ruth was a woman not very much younger than herself, and with very positive ideas of her own. She would not take kindly to having someone tell her what was best for her son.

  She was looking at the new batch of bread she had put out when she heard the cry. It was indistinct, but she recognized Marie’s voice. Where was she, though? Outside? She remembered: she had sent her down to the food store to check up on various things before planning the following day’s meals. The voice called again. “Madame!” Mandy pushed the last tray back and hurried to the stairs.

  The voice was louder, crying for help, and there were other sounds. They came from the games room. Through the open door she saw a tangle of struggling figures—Ruth, Marie, the two boys. She could not think what had happened and, bewildered, called, “What is it? What’s happening?”

  The faces of the two women turned her way as she came through the doorway. Marie’s was shocked and frightened, Ruth’s … What she saw in that instant horrified her. It was not hatred, but a coldness, a terrible blankness. And a hunger. It scared her, but she took a step forward nevertheless.

  “Ruth …” she said.

  There was a moment of balance, of immobility, and then it broke. Figures erupted toward her: not only Ruth, but little Andy. They had gone mad, she realized, both of them, and shrank away. She wanted to cry for help, but could not. They came at her, reached her and, buffeting her out of the way, were past. Their footsteps retreated along the passage outside, in the direction of the basement door. Marie was weeping, the other boy white-faced. Mandy pulled herself together, and went to them.