No more delay! This was the perfect time to make the attempted passage!
There! John was again having that sensation of being watched!
Crazy! Maybe he was crazy, after all. Still ... John was determined to make the effort, if only to try to rescue Cream. A quick ...!
There was a grinding noise beneath the stairs, a sound John had never heard. A heavy rumbling. A deep grating, followed by the stairway shuddering, as if a heavy man was tromping down the steps!
After that -- almost as startling as the noise ... silence. Broken by a soft sound ... under the stairs ... a kind of scraping ....
Still looking at the stair cavity, John saw an apparition emerging from the blackness beneath the stairs. Something moving ... slowly! A form like a large dog, bent over, crawling ...!
John almost cried out! Hearing noises, feeling rain, was one thing. But now to see ...!
Though wanting to bolt, John held his ground to see that the ... thing ... emanating from the aperture was ... a person. ... A small girl?
John couldn't seem to think, his mind numb.
The young person all the way out now but still on all fours, she raised her head to see John towering over her.
Shock!
Disbelief!
In an instant, John saw the girl's face drain to a sickly white, her eyes wide and fixed on him.
The girl was dressed ... in what had to be a Halloween costume, a kind of shift. Pixie leather shoes. A ... beautiful child. Thirteen, maybe. Tall for her age?
John found his tongue at last. "Hello," he said, trying to sound cheerful, at the same time speaking quietly.
The child, still on all fours, continued to stare up at him.
John now had the impression that the girl was moving so lethargically because she ... couldn't go any faster ....
Where had she come from? Not through a hole under there. He'd searched every inch of that space.
Time to play questions and answers. "What were you doing back under the stairs?" John asked gently, attempting to be non-threatening.
No answer. Only the stationary, stunned, look of those liquid eyes. "I won't hurt you. Don't worry." No response.
The direct approach not working, how about nonchalance? "I don't really care. It's just that I lost my cat back under there and I thought you might have seen her." Cats were good. Girls liked cats. "A white Persian. Named Cream. And I thought if you'd found a way in from the outside, that Cream might have gotten out the same way; that you had seen her. I'd give you a reward if you found her."
"White ... cat?" The child said this in spite of herself, as if forgetting an order to keep silent.
"You've seen her?"
Balancing precariously on her knees and on one hand, the girl pointed back under the stairs, at the same time nodding solemnly, her eyes never leaving John's face.
Then, heavily, fell back to her four point stance.
She's terrified of me, John realized. Petrified.
"Don't worry. I'm happy that you saw my cat. I only want to get her back."
Nothing from the girl but that unnerved look, the child's mouth drawn down at the corners as if the girl was about to cry.
"My name's John. What's yours?" The last thing John wanted was for her to be afraid of him.
Ah ...." It was as if she ... couldn't recall ... for whatever that was worth. "Ah ...." Then, like remembering something long forgotten, "Platinia."
"Is that your given name or your last name?"
For the first time, there was an expression on her face other than fright. Bewilderment. Not much of an improvement.
"Platinia."
"OK."
"Great one," the girl said, pleading, tears filling her eyes. "Take Platinia back." He could see a thin sheen of perspiration forming on her upper lip.
"Back?"
She pointed under the stairs. "Melcor ... has made ... mistake. He was to bring you ... to him." She was speaking slowly, the words sticking in her throat, coming out in pants. "There was shaking ... and I was ... here. I not stay here!" That, on a rising note of panic.
The earth shaking? He'd felt that, too. Saw the stairs quiver. Was his house on some kind of minor fault? Had there been a tremor, the girl feeling it in her hiding place under the stairs? Was that what had frightened her?
"It's all right, now," John said, trying to sooth her, wanting to help but not knowing what to say or do.
For a long moment, neither of them moved, John standing, the girl before him on her hands and knees, both of them in the hall, in front of the space under the stairs.
"Tell me about this ... Melcor," John asked at last, searching for a topic that would settle the child down, get the girl to talk. "Is he your father? A playmate, maybe?"
"Melcor is a powerful Mage ... great one. Not so powerful as you." At this, the girl bowed her head before him, her silky black hair swinging to either side of her face, hiding all expression.
Falling forward so that her weight was shifted to her elbows, the girl clasped her hands and touched her forehead to the floor, looking for the world like a pagan praying to a savage god. "Great Pfnaravin, I beg your help!"
And what did John say to that? What do you say to a child who's scared to death of you, thinks you're somebody else, and is pleading for you to do something incomprehensible. "Ah ... won't you stand up, please?" the girl trying to do that, instantly, as marines respond to a barked command ... but failed. Sank back to her knees, then sat back to cover her face with her hands like she was about to be beaten for disobedience. Though John couldn't tell because the girl was sitting with her legs under her, was it possible that she was crippled?
Wanting to do something to make the child feel more comfortable, John sat down carefully, the girl in front of him, the static electric generator behind him.
Seeing him come down toward her, the girl shied back, leaning as far away from him as possible.
"My name's John Lyon. Please. Just call me John."
"Yes. Yahn. I will remember. I will never forget. Yahn." Again, the terror in her dark eyes, sweat beading her forehead.
"John."
"Yahn," she said. "Yahn ... Yahn ...." The child had obviously taken the repetition of his name as a command to practice it, the girl trying to please him by burning his name into her mind.
"And your name is ...." In the strain of the moment, John had forgotten.
"Platinia." She was so servile. So panic stricken.
John realized that what he was feeling was a kind of overwhelming sorrow for her, his emotions about her seeming to be exaggerated. He had to do something for her. He had to!
Now that John was closer to her, he saw she was not dressed for this kind of weather, Not at all, the girl wearing a thin tunic, her arms and legs bare. She looked like she'd just gotten off a plane from the sunny south, coming straight from a Halloween party in Florida. But ... she hadn't stepped off a plane. She'd just ... appeared ... in that space beneath the stairs.
And before that?
What about her parents? Didn't they care where their daughter was at night? Curiouser and Curiouser.
"Please ... Yahn ...."
"J .. ohn," he said, regretting the correction instantly. John didn't mean to make her even more nervous.
"J .. ohn."
"That's right. Good. John." Perhaps praise was the way to settle her down. Tell her how pretty she ....
"Please ... John!" Again the child clasped her hands over her head; bowed before him. "Please. Take Platinia back!"
"Back ...? Where?" She looked up at him, amazed.
"To Stil-de-grain." Her eyes implored him to do as she asked, whatever that was. Stil-de-grain? Had he heard of that? A suburban sub-division, no doubt. Except that he'd never heard of Stil-de-grain. He was new in the neighborhood, of course ... new to Kansas City .... "Melcor could not talk to you. He would have begged you ... if he could."
"To Stil-de-grain?" She nodded vigorously, sweat trails streaking her face.
There had been a change in the child, from the girl looking like she might start screaming and never stop, to looking ... sick.
A hint of caution came into her eyes. "You ... have the power? I can ... help." She was imploring him to say yes. But yes to what?
It was then that John remembered the generator and the plans he had for it.
What if she had come from there to ...?
"Tell me, Platinia," John asked, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "Is Stil-de-grain a place ... a place ... like this?" The girl nodded, her eyes looking at him as if she were the adult, he the child.
"And the way to go to ... Stil-de-grain ... is back there, where you came out?"
"That is the way that Melcor knows." Her voice was thinner by the moment, already reduced to a hoarse whisper.
As slowly as he could, John stood, then stepped to the side to get the flashlight from the end post.
Noticing the Van de Graaff, the girl stared at it fearfully. Not a totally abnormal reaction since the generator resembled a creature from outer space.
Flashlight in hand, John stepped back and squatted down again, deliberately putting himself between the girl and that otherworldly looking piece of equipment. In place again, he switched on the light, the girl surprising him by crying out and drawing away from the beam, at the same time waving one hand at the light, as if batting at flying insects.
While it was a reasonable response for the girl to be afraid of the generator (not everyone had one of those lying around the house,) it was not plausible that she be afraid of a flashlight.
And yet she was!
Never seen a flashlight??
"Don't be afraid, Platinia," John said, softly, trying to keep rising excitement from his voice. "This is a flashlight. It won't hurt you."
"Magic," the child said reverentially.
"It just shows a light. That's all." Reassured, the girl now seemed enraptured by the light, her dark eyes first on the flashlight, then following the ray it made.
Turning slowly, John threw the shaft of light past the girl and into the space under the stairs, the beam drawing sharp, white lines in the dark.
Nothing to be seen, John switched off the light.
His legs cramping by this time, John sat back, wanting to be more on the child's level anyway, wishing to seem smaller so his size didn't scare her. He put the flashlight on the floor -- as far from the girl as he could.
"Tell me again about how you got here. It might help to get you back."
The child swallowed, glanced up at the ceiling, then down. She was breathing hard; through her mouth. She really didn't look well at all. "I ... am Melcor's slavey. I help with the ... magic." The girl paused, the pause lengthening into a silence.
"Go on. That's good."
"Melcor ... the magic ... dies. He must bring Pfnaravin back. The great Mage."
"Tell me about the ... Mage." Mage was a fancy name for wizard, John thought.
"It was in the tower. Melcor must use Crystal-Magic to bring Pfnaravin back. When the ghost hand came ...." Even to speak of this -- whatever it was -- made the girl nervous. That much was clear.
"Go on."
"The hand of Pfnaravin. In the air."
"And what did this ... hand ... do?"
"It was ... still. It had no life. Melcor held it there." The child hung her head, breathing deeply, panting.
"Let me understand you. You were with Melcor?"
"I am Melcor's slavey. Yes."
"And you were in a ... tower?" The girl nodded. "Looking for ...?
"Pfnaravin. You ...." She dropped her head as if trying to concentrate, then looked up at him again, her eyes sparkling with an unnatural light."
"Go on," he prompted. "You saw a hand?"
"Yes. The hand." The remembrance of this seemed to bring her around.
"Just a hand? Not attached to anything?"
"Fastened in the air." She made a motion with her own hand, sticking it out in front of her, palm down, as if suspended on a string, keeping it there a moment before letting her arm flop into her lap of its own weight.
"How?"
"Magic."
"I see ... magic." The child nodded solemnly, her dark eyes pleading with him to understand. "Go on."
"Melcor put a spell on the hand ... and he could see."
"See?"
"See ... what you see, great Pfnaravin. .... John," the girl corrected, cowering back as if he might strike her for not remembering to say John.
The hand! Of course! The hand that had "come through" was ... his hand. Somehow, when his hand had gone into the other "reality," his hand had "stayed" there. Stayed in a place with a different climate -- warmer than Kansas City in the fall. Summer time. A summer with warm air. Rain. In ... what had the girl called it? In ... Stil-de-grain. And when his hand had first "gone through," this Melcor Mage person had "gotten a fix" on him. No doubt why John had the feeling of being ... watched. As if someone were behind him sometimes, watching his every move. Though it was crazy, this fantasy made a kind of sense. John was breathing as hard, now, as the girl.
"And what did Melcor see?"
"Melcor ... used Crystal-Magic ... saw from your eyes. He saw what you see." The girl's eyes were filled with awe as she looked across at him. "I watched. I learned to say some words."
"But how did you get here?"
"A mistake. It was time. A shake of earth. Time for Pfnaravin to come through."
"But there was a mistake? Something went wrong?"
"Yes. I came to you, great Mage." She bowed her head.
A shake of earth? An earthquake in that other place, in ... Stil-de-grain. And with earthquakes, you got ... piezoelectricity! Could it be that an earthquake had charged up the girl, the polarization making a bridge for her to come across? "You can make the magic?" the girl pleaded. "I can help." Though she was still looking at him, her eyes seemed increasingly unfocused.
John felt a sharp stab of guilt! Here he was, wasting time by considering all the possibilities while the girl was ... sick. Not just frightened, sick ... and ... getting worse. He saw that now. Would have seen it sooner except for the emotion of the moment.
"I think I do have the 'magic,'" John said, pointing behind him at the Van de Graaff generator. "I was just about ready to use it when you came through the other way."
Making an effort to understand, the girl smiled for the first time; a thin, sad smile.
"Soon," she whispered. "I ... am dying."
That, John believed! He only hoped he could take her home. To make the attempt, he'd have to charge up both of them; go through the "hole"; explain to this Melcor that he'd been messing with the wrong man; get Cream and get back before the static electricity on his body had drained away. Cream had gotten through one way, the girl the other -- both unharmed. Surely he could go and return if he moved quickly.
In and out. Simple. Neat. Anyway, he had to get the girl back to her Melcor. That was the least he could do. And he had to get Cream. He had to.
Just one more question. "This Melcor. Would he try to keep me in ... Stil-de-grain ... against my will?"
"He could never do that, Great Mage!" Even as faint as her voice had become, the girl said it with conviction. And that was all John needed to hear.
His mind made up, John stood up suddenly, frightening the girl anew. Here he was, about to attempt something unprecedented in science, and he couldn't even remember not to frighten a timid girl. Gulliver stands and the Lilliputians tremble! Stupid. "Don't worry. It's just time to go back, is all," John said feebly. "Here, take my hand." Timidly, the girl struggled to reach up to him; put her small hand in his large one.
Careful not to hurt her, John pulled her up gently, the child leaning on him heavily, her small arm about his waist. Carefully, John brushed the sweat from the girl's forehead; was shocked to see how weak she looked. "I'm going to turn on this machine. It makes its own ... magic." If magic was what she understood, then magic it was. "It's not dangerous. This make
s little ... sparks on your body. Your hair stands out." She nodded solemnly. That, she understood. John was on the right track. "Then, I turn it off and we crawl right back and out the other side. We go back the way you came here. All right?" She nodded, her eyes grave.
Their "traveling plans" made, supporting the child by putting an arm around her, John stretched down and snatched up both the machine's plug and the extension cord's socket, fumbling them together so that the pulley motor hummed into life, the belt beginning to turn, faster, faster.
Straightening, John knew that inside the machine, electrons were being deposited on the aluminum ball at the top, the vertical belt humming past the metal "fringe" within.
Being as gentle as he could be (and get the job done) John took the girl's small hand and forced it down on the metal ball, the girl struggling feebly, John placing his other hand on the ball.
Yes.
Even in the moist air he'd added to the house with the humidifier, John felt the static, his hair starting to stand out, the girl's hair rising about her head as well.
Fully charged, John bent down and jerked the extension cord, the cord's plug pulling out of the wall socket across the way.
Turning, rushing now, John dragged the girl to the space, pushed her down and in, John getting on all fours behind her to scrabble in after her.
Unceremoniously, John shoved the child into the hole; scrabbled in after her.
In and, impossibly, further in, until, precipitously, John and the child plunged over an edge. Were tumbling into blackness. Into ... nothingness ....
* * * * *
Chapter 9
Shock! As if waking from a dream, John felt confused. Had much time passed? He didn't know. He only knew that he was alive, breathing. And remembering. He'd crawled under the stairs, fallen into blackness, and here he was, standing up, in a dimly lighted room. A room made of stone, narrow but tall -- a circular room by the look of it. Beneath his feet was a rough stone floor, damp, the smell of the place, musty. He spun about to see the girl, Platinia, just behind him, standing quietly as if awaiting orders. Though she still wore that strangely fearful look, she no longer looked ill.
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