The Paper Grail

by James P. Blaylock

  Edith and Sylvia went back to sit with Mrs. Lamey on her bench against the wall. She still held on to the bones, clutching them in her hands and staring in the general direction of the machine. Her eyes were focused, though, on some distant place, as if the machine were a window on another world. Howard found himself hoping that whatever place it was, it was somewhere serene and safe.

  He didn’t feel any hatred for her at all, which vaguely surprised him. She was just a lonely, lost old woman wrapped in a blanket now, her life twisted and stunted by witchery and greed. Now that Howard had seen the power of the paper Grail and had gotten a good look at Jimmers’ machine, he could understand the ambition that drove Mrs. Lamey.

  Jimmers stepped back away from the table and folded his arms. “I can’t say with any certainty …” he started to say, as if uneasy again with the idea of “cranking it up,” as Uncle Roy had put it.

  “None of us wants any certainty,” Roy said, interrupting him. “None of us minds a little uncertainty.”

  “Just don’t let any ghosts steal my damned truck,” Bennet said, nudging Lou Gibb in the arm.

  Uncle Roy turned down both propane lamps, throwing the room into shadow. “Let her rip,” he said to Jimmers.

  Mr. Jimmers hesitated for another moment, gathering himself, then he reached out and spun the wheel hard, slapping it faster and faster with the palm of his hand. He manipulated a lever and squeezed the bulbs in among the jars, and the machine made tiny splooping noises like thumb-sized frogs leaping into a pond.

  This time Howard could predict what he would see and hear: the fishbowl glow of light, the distant footsteps, the humming, the sound of mechanical men deep in conversation. He thought of the ghosts in the Studebaker and Uncle Roy’s spirit woman on the stairs. Was this the same sort of thing? A one-hundred-year-old hoax?

  There was a sudden draft, and the temperature in the room fell ten degrees in a swoop, the back door slamming shut with a bang that made Howard jump. The lighted mist became a smoky wraith that swirled and congealed over the picnic table. Everyone still standing around the machine stepped back into the shadows, huddling together almost inadvertently, and Sylvia stood up from the bench and joined Howard, peering over his shoulder, her face full of wonder.

  Mrs. Lamey’s divining rod clattered to the wooden floor, and Howard saw her stand up then, too, squinting, unable to believe her eyes. She stooped and picked up the bones, then took a half-step forward, talking under her breath. Jimmers held up his arm to stop her, and Edith stood up then behind her, putting a hand on Mrs. Lamey’s shoulder.

  Through the swirling, machine-made cloud, a vague, nebulous shape appeared, seeming to grow in size and clarity, as if the white mist from the machine were a lighted avenue out of the heavens, and some vast, unruly force were rushing at them along that avenue, out of the void of time and space.

  It was a human form that materialized in the light, apparently made out of glittering snowflakes. It seemed to be speaking in tongues, but haltingly, as if with a deficient command of that language.

  The myriad voices from the machine fought to become one voice. They were broken apart at first, as if by some aural kaleidoscope, but then they fell together and became whole—the voice of a single, old, enraged man uttering what sounded like a prepared speech in a vast auditorium. “Blanched sun!” he thundered. “Blighted grass! Blinded man!” He paused to gather himself, looking around suddenly with a puzzled face, as if surprised to find himself there. He held out his glittering arms and examined the backs of his hands, opening and closing them stiffly. Then, gesturing with both arms in a broad arc, he went on, speaking in a tone of deep authority: “If you ask me for any conceivable cause or meaning of these things, I can tell you none, according to your modern beliefs; but I can tell you what meaning it would have borne to the men of old time!”

  He stopped again and looked around him, right at the little knot of men and women standing just outside the circle of lamplight. It wasn’t clear that he saw them, and yet he seemed to be speaking to them directly, with a voice full of conviction and knowledge. Uncle Roy’s face was hanging in disbelief, and Mr. Jimmers looked as if the vision before them justified his entire existence. Mrs. Lamey’s eyes were narrowed, and she gasped for breath as if she had run a race.

  The ghostly face was the visage of John Ruskin himself, white-haired and with the wide-open eyes of a prophet and seer. He fixed those eyes on Heloise Lamey, singling her out. Clearly entranced, she bent forward, hearkening to his words, and she reached out a hand, thinking, perhaps, that he would take it, that the two of them would stride out into the dark and windy night together.

  The sound of bees rose on the air of the still room just then, and for a moment the ghost wavered and faded, his voice disintegrating again as the machine lost power. Mrs. Lamey cast Jimmers a look of such wild alarm that Jimmers lunged forward and spun the wheel, and almost at once the image leaped into metal-etched clarity, every hair on Ruskin’s head blazing white, as if he were ringed with fire.

  The sound of a siren rose around them, and the beehive noise faded behind it. Howard thought for a moment that the up-and-down whining of the siren was the noise of the machine, somehow, that it was wound too tight and was spinning out of control.

  Then there was the roar of a car engine and tires spinning in gravel. It wasn’t the machine at all that was making the siren noise. It was cars outside in the parking lot, police probably, on the trail of Mrs. Lamey and the stolen van.

  The museum door flew open just as John Ruskin’s ghost, nearly solid now, but still as white as moonlight and moving with the jerky rhythms of an old film image, reached both arms out, gesturing either at Mrs. Lamey or else to underscore some telling phrase, to implore his audience to ignore the three men who stood in the open doorway now, and to pay attention to him and to his passions, “By the plague wind every breath you draw is polluted, half round the world,” he told them. “In a London fog the air itself is pure, though you choose to mix up dirt with it and choke yourself with your own nastiness.”

  Mrs. Lamey moaned loudly, cast off her blanket, and in her muddy, tattered dress she tore away from Edith and flew past Jimmers in a savage rush, knocking him sideways and leaping into the circle of light thrown off by the machine. She scrambled awkwardly up onto the end of the redwood picnic table, still clutching the bones and knocking one of the propane lanterns onto the floor. She stood up, reaching out her arms to grapple with the image of Ruskin, who continued to discourse about plague winds and apocalyptic storms. He seemed to be solid to her touch, and he turned his head and regarded her vaguely, as if she were the ghost, just barely visible to him now. His voice faltered and his eyes opened wide.

  She teetered there on the table edge, nearly falling backward, but then hanging impossibly in the air, caught in the grip of some indecipherable force that defeated mere gravity. Jimmers shouted and threw out his hand, plunging it into the radium glow of the ghost light in order to steady her, to prevent her from falling. He howled, though, and jerked his arm abruptly backward as if something had tried to clutch his hand and haul him in.

  Right then, her face a composed mask, Mrs. Lamey stood straight up on tiptoe and very slowly rose above the table, her head thrown back and her face nearly grazing one of the open trestles that supported the roof rafters. She was washed in an electric-white aura that pulsated and spun, drawing the edges of the illuminated ghost of John Ruskin into herself like water drawn into a whirlpool, until his stretched face hovered beside her own, as if he were hidden behind her, peering over her shoulder. He seemed to be speaking only to her now, into her ear, as if she were the only person present who could hear him.

  She shrieked and threw out her hands, casting the arm bones of Joseph of Arimathea into the far wall, where they clattered to the floor. Like a wind devil, the ghost light whirled around her, her hair standing on end as if she would be drawn straight up through the roof.

  Uncle Roy’s mouth hung open in astonishment
, and the three men in the doorway—a policeman and two paramedics—stood gaping, too, as if they were on utterly unfamiliar ground, had found themselves suddenly on the moon and in the middle of some sort of alien ritual.

  The ghost from the machine shuddered—a quick convulsion, the light rippling like heat waves—and then exploded, flying apart like a snowball with a firecracker buried in it. Fragments of light showered away in a spiral nebula, as the ghostly voice of John Ruskin shouted one last time and fell silent.

  Mr. Jimmers rushed forward now, in an effort to help Mrs. Lamey, who had collapsed, and lay curled on the end of the table now like a sleeping cat, her head resting against one of the machine’s feet.

  “Stand clear!” commanded the policeman. He stepped into the lantern light. It was the cop from the harbor, looking both suspicious and baffled. The two paramedics pulled a gurney through the open door, then hurried across to lift Mrs. Lamey onto it before checking vital signs. She lay there limp, like a doll with half its stuffing gone.

  “Dead?” Jimmers asked in a hollow voice.

  “No. Unconscious,” one of the paramedics said.

  She stirred then, and her eyes blinked open. Her face was empty of animation, though, like a rubber mask. She began to gibber, barely moving her lips, and her hands twitched on the top of the sheet-covered gurney as if she were picking tiny weeds out of a flower bed.

  “Mrs. Lamey?” one of the paramedics said to her, looking at her eyes. He passed his hand in front of her face, then snapped his fingers.

  She stared straight toward the ceiling, though, or at some point beyond it, oblivious to him, her face limp and her hands still plucking at the sheet. The paramedic shook his head at the cop.

  “Finish up and get her out of here,” the cop said, “and don’t leave her alone in the damned van this time.”

  “I think the van’s safe from her now,” Uncle Roy said softly. He stepped across and turned up the lantern that still sat on the back of the table.

  The cop looked hard at Roy, then at Bennet and Howard, realizing who they were, as if scattered puzzle pieces had fallen into place suddenly, only to form a picture so weird and complicated as to be beyond his comprehension.

  “What’s this now?” the cop asked. “The whole damned gang, is it? You’re Roy Barton, aren’t you?”

  Uncle Roy nodded, smiling cheerfully. “Glad you arrived, Officer,” he said, shoving out his hand. The policeman looked at it dubiously before he shook it.

  “Poor old Heloise Lamey,” Roy said. “She burst in here ten minutes ago, right in the middle of all this.” He swept his hand around the room, as if to clarify the whole doubtful business. “I don’t know if you’ve met Mr. Stoat. He’s a financier. He’s underwriting this whole venture.”

  “Stoat?” the cop said flatly. “What venture is that?” He looked hard at Stoat and then took a closer look at the machine.

  “Ghost museum, haunted house,” Roy said. “That doggone icehouse was a firetrap. We decided to shift out here when the place burned down.” Uncle Roy gestured at the machine. “Stage magic. You know how it is. The kids love this sort of thing. You’ve got kids yourself …”

  The cop smiled and started to nod, as if then and there he would pull photos out of his wallet and pass them around. Then he looked abruptly suspicious again.

  “Mr. Stoat here is the man who pulled me out of the fire down at the icehouse,” Bennet said.

  “Good man.” The cop caught sight of Sylvia then, who was sitting with Edith on the bench, back in the shadows. “Hi there,” he said cheerfully. Sylvia waved tiredly at him.

  “How many kids have you got?” Roy asked.

  “What? Three. Why?”

  “Put the officer down for three tickets,” he said to Howard. “Gratis.”

  “Right,” Howard said.

  “What happened to your face?” The cop narrowed his eyes at Roy. “Nasty bruise.”

  “Stepped on a rake up in Caspar,” Uncle Roy said. “I’ve been up there shoveling manure.”

  “I bet you have. You can quit shoveling now, though. We’re knee-deep in it.” He smiled for the first time. “Jack Mac Donald’s been telling me about you,” he said.

  “Jack?” Roy said, surprised. “You know Jack?”

  “We play poker. Saturday nights. Friendly game.”

  Roy looked at Bennet and winked. “Don’t need another couple of players, do you?”

  “Well, we are a little short right now,” the cop said, smoothing down his mustache.

  “Then we’ll fit right in,” Bennet said. “I’m only five eight and Roy here’s nearly a midget when he takes the risers out of his shoes.”

  Uncle Roy laughed, then looked at Mrs. Lamey and stopped abruptly. She still gibbered and twitched, as if enlivened by a tiny electrical charge, with not nearly enough current to start her up. The two paramedics pushed her rolling stretcher toward the door, maneuvering her through it and down the couple of stairs outside, disappearing from sight.

  “Poor old thing,” Roy said softly. “She was always delicate. Like a thin piece of glass. Nothing but sharp edges, but it didn’t take much to crack her.”

  The cop nodded. “She had a rough time up at the beach tonight. Freak storm up there did a lot of damage, nearly drowned the old woman, knocked her around pretty bad. She went haywire when they got her down to emergency. These boys left her alone for half a second, and she up and drove off in the van. Took some time to track her down.” They heard the door of the paramedics’ van slide shut then. The engine roared, and there was the sound of wheels on gravel as it backed out onto the coast highway and motored away north.

  “What I wonder,” the cop said, “is why she came here. And what was she doing up on the table there?”

  Roy clicked his tongue regretfully. “She and Artemis Jimmers here were married. Years ago. She’s been pining away for him.” He gestured at Mr. Jimmers, who wore a long face, as if this were a personal tragedy.

  “You’re the one who lives down at the stone house, aren’t you?” the cop said.

  “Caretaker,” Jimmers said, “since Michael Graham’s tragic death.”

  The cop nodded. “My father used to lend Graham a hand, back when Graham was putting up the tower. I even hauled stone around out there when I was a kid. Old Graham was something. I learned to drink coffee there. He used to haul it out in a big ceramic jug with a spigot. I’ll never forget that. Left the place to you, did he?”

  Jimmers shook his head. “Just caretaker,” he said. “Holding on to the place until the rightful owner came along. Howard Barton here is the owner now. Lock, stock, and barrel. It’s all down in Graham’s will, giving me power of attorney. We’re all supposing Howard will do the right thing and marry Sylvia, and the two of them can hoe chard out there together. Work the garden.”

  Howard sat down hard next to Sylvia on the bench, looking at her in disbelief, his head swimming. Sylvia widened her eyes at him. “Was that your proposal?” she whispered. “Did you put him up to saying that?” Before Howard could utter a word, though, she stood up and rushed across to hug and kiss Mr. Jimmers, then turned around and went after Uncle Roy, holding on to Jimmers’ shoulders with one arm and throwing the other around Roy’s neck, hugging them both together.

  After a moment she let them both go. Grinning, but full of emotion, Roy picked up the knocked-over lantern and inspected it carefully. “Mantle’s whole,” he said to Jimmers. “Can you beat that?”

  “A mystery,” Jimmers said. “Better document it.”

  Roy pulled a book of paper matches out of his pocket and lit the thing with a shaky hand, turning up the knob until the room glowed with the light of both lanterns. Then he spotted the arm bones lying one beside the other on the floor, and he picked them up, looking them over.

  “Relics,” Stoat said to him. “The genuine article.”

  “What?” the cop asked, cocking his head.

  “Part of the props,” Roy said to him. “A haunted house has go
t to be full of bones. It’s standard stuff. Chains rattling in the closet and all.”

  The cop looked doubtful, on the verge of speaking, when a voice from across the room interrupted him. It was Lou Gibb, his broad face full of astonishment.

  “I’ll be go-to-hell,” he said softly. He and Bennet were both staring at the wall, where the collection of framed photographs had hung.

  Uncle Roy, followed now by everyone else, strode across to look closer at the dirty plaster. Two clean white images stood out against it, as if someone had splashed the wall with whitewash. They seemed almost to drink in the light from the propane lanterns. There couldn’t be any doubt about what they were.

  Roy touched one of the images hesitantly, as if afraid it would rub off, or would burn him, but it wasn’t paint or charcoal or anything of the kind; it was shadow and light, captured and fixed onto the wall, a spirit photograph developed when the ghost from the machine had flown to pieces.

  Roy turned around, smiling broadly at Edith like a little boy who has just recovered some wonderful lost object. It was John Ruskin’s face on the wall, a satisfied grimace tugging at the corners of its mouth. Next to it, like the flip side of a coin from the spirit realm, was the astonished, wild-haired countenance of Heloise Lamey, her face showing jumbled traces of nearly every human emotion, as if her very spirit had departed from her body and was fixed now on the plaster wall.

  Uncle Roy gestured grandly at the images, bowing like a maestro.

  “Back in business!” he said happily, dusting his hands together before reaching out to clap Howard on the back.

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