The Forgotten Door

by Alexander Key

  Mary said, “Locks are to keep out thieves.”

  “Thieves? Thieves?” It was another new word with a confusing thought behind it.

  “A thief is a person who steals,” she explained. “We have a lot of valuable things here in the shop. If the windows weren’t barred and the door didn’t have a good lock on it, somebody would break in and take everything we own — even the safe, probably.”

  “B-but why —”

  Thomas asked, “Don’t people steal where you’re from?”

  “Of course not! Why would they? It seems so stupid. They —”

  “Go on!” Mary urged. “You’re remembering.”

  “I —” He shook his head. “I almost thought of something, but it’s gone. I only know that stealing is — stupid and foolish. I’m sure I’ve never heard of a person doing it. Why would he?”

  “It’s one way to make a profit—” Thomas began dryly, “if you don’t mind risking jail. There are people who’ll do anything for money. They’ll even start a war.”

  “Profit? Jail? Money? War?”

  “Here we go again!” said Mary. “You see, Thomas, English is strange to him, because it contains ideas that are strange.”

  Little Jon listened carefully, holding back his astonishment as she proceeded to explain. One subject led to another. She had finished about war, and was touching upon government and rulers and power when they were interrupted.

  A man on horseback was approaching. It was the same rider who had gone by on the road Saturday evening, before the Beans appeared in their truck.

  “That’s Angus Macklin,” said Mary. “He lives up the road beyond the Johnsons. I hope he goes on.”

  But Angus Macklin, seeing the door open, stopped, dismounted, and came in. He was a short, thick man with round, blinking eyes and an easy smile. Little Jon was not deceived by the smile, though he was fascinated by the repulsive wad of tobacco Angus was chewing.

  “Howdy, folks! Howdy!” Angus said heartily. “See you’re open for business. Ought to be gettin’ some customers if the weather holds.”

  “Little early for tourists,” Thomas told him. “How are things, Angus?”

  “So-so. Ain’t seen Tip an’ Lenny around, have you?”

  “Not this morning. Why aren’t they in school?”

  “Aw, you know kids,” said Angus Macklin. “School’s out tomorrow, an’ it’s kinda hard to make ’em go. When they heard about that wild boy, they just took off. Gilby told me about it yesterday after church. Soon’s we got home, my kids lit out to hunt ’im. They lit out again this morning — pretended they was going fishin’, but I know better. Mighty queer about that crazy wild boy. Gilby tell you how far he jumped? Near forty feet!”

  “Nonsense!” Thomas said shortly. “Gilby was probably drinking. I’m sure he saw a stray Indian kid.”

  “Oh, I dunno,” said Angus, scratching under his cap and blinking owlishly at Little Jon. “That thing he saw was plumb wild and unnatural. I’ve seen some queer things myself in these mountains. Lights, where there shouldn’t be no lights. Heard music where there shouldn’t be no music. My kids can take care of themselves, but all the same, that wild thing could be dangerous.” He paused. “Nice-lookin’ boy you got here. Ain’t noticed him around. He visiting you folks?”

  Thomas nodded. “Jon O’Connor. Son of an old friend of mine in the Marines.”

  Angus smiled meaninglessly, and grunted. “Well, I’ll go along. You see them fool kids o’ mine, tell ’em I want ’em home.”

  They watched him ride away. Thomas said, a little angrily, “So, the news is out. I should have known Gilby would tell somebody like Angus. It’s going to spread all over the mountains, and get wilder.”

  He drew forth the knife and clip he had hidden under the workbench. As he studied them again, he began to whistle softly through his teeth.

  “Out with it,” said Mary. “Are the gems real?”

  “They’re real. I can’t quite believe it. Jon, have you any idea what these things are worth?”

  Little Jon looked at him intently. “They are not worth what you think they are, Mr. Bean. You’re thinking they’re worth more than your house, and everything in the shop — but that’s all wrong. Anyway, a thing shouldn’t have two values.”

  “Two values?” said Thomas, raising his eyebrows.

  “Yes, sir,” he said seriously. “You’re judging the value of my knife by the amount of money you could sell it for. But that has nothing to do with its real value.”

  Thomas whistled softly. “I can’t figure you out, Jon. It’s a good thing we’re not in business together, or we’d never make a profit.”

  “But — doesn’t the idea of a profit seem wrong?”

  “I’ll try to explain, Jon,” Thomas said very patiently. “If Mary and I couldn’t make a little profit on the things we sell, we’d soon go broke and wouldn’t have enough to eat.”

  Little Jon looked at them helplessly. Again the dreadful feeling of lostness poured over him. He was sure of the answer now. Mary Bean had guessed it.

  Suddenly he turned, peering out of the back window as he heard Rascal barking. Rascal was lost too, chained in a world where everything seemed wrong.

  “Please,” he begged, “may I take Rascal out of his pen? I promise he’ll be good.”

  Thomas frowned, but Mary said, “Let him try it, Thomas. I’m sure he can manage Rascal.”

  “Um — O.K. We’ll chance it this once. And here’s your knife, unless you want me to keep it in the safe. You don’t want to lose anything like this.”

  “Oh, I won’t lose it, sir. I’ll need it to — to —”

  “Go on,” Mary said quietly. “You need it to — to do what with it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it will come back if I run with Rascal. I think running will help.”

  As he darted out the door, Mary said, “He’s upset, Thomas. I think he sees the truth. Can’t you see it too? You’ve got facts enough — or is it that you just don’t want to face the facts?”

  “But, Mary, they don’t make sense. I can’t —”

  “Look at him!” she gasped, staring through the rear window. “Thomas — look!”

  In his eagerness to release Rascal, Little Jon was racing up the steep lane. Unconsciously he had made his feet light, so that his boots hardly touched the ground. Only a deer could have equaled his upward bounds.

  “You win,” Thomas said finally, expelling a long breath. “I don’t know how he got here, and I can’t understand why some things are so familiar to him — but he didn’t come from this world.”

  “Of course not. What are we going to do?”

  “H’mm. Seems like the important thing is to find out how he got here, if we can. I’m afraid I see trouble ahead.”

  He Remembers Something

  SLEEP DID NOT COME EASILY that night. For a long time Little Jon lay motionless beside Brooks, thinking of the day while he listened to the sounds beyond the window — the familiar and unfamiliar sounds of a world he didn’t belong in.

  Somehow, by some accident, he had been lost on a planet that was not his own. It had been hard for the Beans to admit that to him, but of course there wasn’t any other answer. Only, how did he get here — and why did so many of the wild creatures seem familiar?

  Thomas had a theory about the wild creatures, and life on other planets. As they puzzled over it that afternoon, Thomas had said, “The latest belief among astronomers is that our Earth wasn’t made by chance. It’s the result of certain exact conditions. There are other suns just like ours, and the same laws affect them. So there are bound to be other worlds like ours — with life developing on them in almost exactly the same way. If there are people like Jon on them, then naturally —”

  “I won’t dispute you,” said Mary, “but that doesn’t solve Jon’s problem.”

  That was when Thomas suggested they get some help.

  “Oh, good heavens, no!” she exclaimed. “How could anyone really help us
? You know how people are. Don’t you realize what a mess it would be if officials started buzzing around? The papers would get it, and we’d have reporters and half the world swarming all over the place. Honestly!”

  “Um — guess you’re right. Thank Pete some idiot like Angus Macklin didn’t find you, Jon. It was lucky we happened on you when we did.”

  “No, it didn’t happen that way, sir. I picked you.” He explained to the Beans how he had waited for them.

  “That settles it,” said Thomas. “If you picked us to help you, we’re sticking by you. Now, here’s the crazy thing to consider: Our civilization is pretty advanced — the most advanced on Earth — yet we’re just beginning space travel. We’re not able to reach distant planets yet. So — how did you, whose civilization seems to be behind ours, ever reach us? You must have —”

  “Thomas,” Mary interrupted, “you’re starting off wrong. Can’t you see how wrong you are?”

  “But, Mary, I’m judging by what I see. Jon’s people haven’t progressed beyond barter and the handloom. They must be tribal, for he knows nothing of money, laws, cities, and government.”

  “Thomas, cities come and go. Governments fall, and money becomes worthless. Is there a mill on this earth that can produce anything as wonderful as Jon’s jacket?”

  “Well, if we had that kind of fiber —”

  “But we haven’t. Can anyone on this earth learn a language as quickly as he learned ours — and read our thoughts the way he does?”

  “No.”

  “Can anyone move the way he does?”

  Thomas shook his head, his lips compressed.

  “Thomas,” she went on, “if all the people on this earth — everybody — were absolutely honest, would we need laws and jails — and armies and bombs and things?”

  “H’mm. Guess not.”

  “Doesn’t it seem obvious that Jon’s people are actually far in advance of us?”

  “They’re certainly mighty intelligent …”

  “So intelligent that they could easily have all the expensive and complicated things we have, if they wanted them. But they must not want them. They don’t value them. I’m sure they’ve progressed way beyond them — and value other things more. Thomas, how long do you think it will take us to do away with crime and war?”

  Thomas Bean shook his head. “At the rate we’re going, we’ll need another million years.”

  “Then there’s our starting point. If Jon’s people are a million years ahead of us, they’ve long known about space travel, and they’ve simplified it. They seem to have simplified everything else. My goodness, Thomas, they could have worked out something as simple as stepping through a door from one room to another.”

  “That sounds a little farfetched,” said Thomas. “But maybe I’m a million years behind. Does it make any sense to you, Jon?”

  Something moved in his mind. “From one room to another,” he repeated. “Door — door — It seems familiar — the idea, I mean.”

  “Think!” Mary Bean urged. “Think hard!”

  It was no use. The thought, whatever it was, remained in hiding.

  When Brooks and Sally came home from school, he spent the rest of the afternoon helping Brooks in the garden. Already they had begun to accept him as Jon O’Connor.

  Lying awake in the night beside Brooks, he searched again for the hidden thought. It seemed important, the most important of all the hidden thoughts; but the harder he searched for it, the farther it seemed to retreat from him.

  He dozed finally, and long later awoke suddenly. Rascal was barking, warning of wild creatures crossing the pasture. Deer.

  Instantly, silently, he was out of bed, telling Rascal to be quiet while he drew on his clothes. In another minute he was outside, running with lightened feet to the pasture fence and bounding over it.

  But the deer had been frightened by Rascal’s barking. They had gone back up the forested slope, and refused to come down again.

  Disappointed, Little Jon paused, and automatically glanced upward.

  For the first time since his arrival he saw the wonder of the stars. Here in the open pasture, above the black bowl of the surrounding mountains, they blazed in uncounted millions. Even as he stared at them, one streaked like a flaming jewel across the sky.

  A shooting star! There had been shooting stars when — something happened. Shooting stars — and a door.

  He raced back to the house, excited. It was nearly dawn, and the Beans were already stirring. As he burst into the living room he saw Thomas, still in pajamas, lighting a fire in the fireplace.

  “There was a door! I remember that part …”

  “A door?” said Thomas, as Mary hastened in from the kitchen. “What kind of door?”

  “I don’t know. But it seems that I was standing somewhere, looking at the stars, and I fell. And as I fell, I remembered something about a door …”

  “Go on,” Mary urged.

  “That — that’s all I can remember, as if it were part of a dream. Just stars, and thinking of a door.”

  “Could you have been in a ship?” asked Thomas. “You might have fallen out of one in some way.”

  “No — no — it wasn’t like that. I suddenly fell into something — and when I woke up I was here on a mountain, and it was morning.”

  Thomas stood snapping his fingers, frowning. “Mary,” he said finally, “it’s possible you’ve hit on the right idea. Jon, as soon as we’ve finished the chores and had breakfast, we’re going hunting. I want to see that spot where you found yourself.”

  After breakfast, Brooks and Sally went down to catch the school bus, and Thomas got out a knapsack for Mary to fill with lunch. When it was ready he thrust an odd-shaped hammer into his belt and started for the truck.

  Little Jon looked curiously at the hammer. “That tool — it seems familiar. Do you — chip rocks with it?”

  “It’s a rock hound’s hammer, Jon. Thought I’d take it along and examine a few ledges while we’re out. Might find a thing or two for the shop. How did you know what it’s for?”

  “I had the feeling I knew how to use it. Have you another I may take?”

  “Why shore, podner, we’ll jest go prospectin’ together.”

  Thomas found a second hammer, and they were returning to the truck when a car with a star on the side turned into the driveway. The car stopped behind them, and a lean gray-haired man got out.

  At the sight of him, Little Jon was aware of sudden worry and alarm in Mary Bean, who stood watching from the steps. The man approached, studying them carefully with his hard, observant eyes. His nose was slightly hooked, and he made Little Jon think of a hawk he had seen the day before — a hawk searching for prey.

  “Mr. Bean?” said the man, in a grating voice. “I’m Deputy Anderson Bush, from the sheriff’s office.” He opened his coat and showed a badge.

  “Glad to know you, sir,” Thomas said easily, extending his hand. “I’ve seen you around, but … This is Mrs. Bean, and my young partner here is Jon O’Connor. What can we do for you?”

  “Like to ask a few routine questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure. Fire away.”

  Deputy Bush said, “Where were you people Saturday?”

  “In town most of the day. Er, is anything wrong?”

  “We’ll get to that. I understand you have two children. Were they with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “All the time?”

  “Well, most of the time, except when they were in the movies. I knew where they were all the time, if that’s what you want to know.”

  The deputy wrote something in a notebook, then looked down at Little Jon. “What about this boy?”

  “He didn’t arrive until Saturday evening.”

  “Where was he before that?”

  “Traveling — on his way here.”

  “His parents bring him?”

  “No.” Thomas lowered his voice, and added, “Both Captain O’Connor and his wife were kill
ed recently, and Jon’s been pretty badly upset. Must we …”

  The deputy finished writing in his notebook before he spoke. “Mr. Bean, I only want to know where the boy was all day Saturday and Sunday. That goes for your boy too. I believe Brooks is his name.”

  “Yes. You see, this is Jon’s first trip to the mountains. Took him all day to get here. He arrived about supper-time. Sunday, he stayed home with Mrs. Bean, and I took my kids to church.”

  “And Sunday afternoon?”

  “We were all here. No one left the place. What’s this about?”

  Deputy Bush made some more entries in his book. Again he glanced sharply at Little Jon. “Mr. Bean, have you heard anything about a wild boy in this part of the mountains?”

  “Er — yes, I have,” Thomas replied slowly. “Gilby Pitts told me about it, but I’m afraid I don’t take much stock in it. Do you?”

  “Mr. Bean, I don’t know what Mr. Pitts saw, but it seems to be very unusual. My job is to check up on it. Have you noticed any strange boy around?”

  “I certainly haven’t seen any boy that looks wild to me,” Thomas answered, smiling. “Is he accused of any crime?”

  Deputy Bush carefully closed his notebook and returned it to his coat pocket. “No one,” he said, “is being accused of anything yet. Do you know the location of Dr. Holliday’s summer place?”

  “Of course. Dr. Holliday is an old customer of mine. Gilby Pitts takes care of the place while he’s away. What about it?”

  “Someone broke into it — either Saturday or Sunday. Mr. Pitts didn’t learn about it until yesterday morning when he went over to finish some work he’d started last week. Some things were stolen.”

  “And you think a boy did it?”

  “No question of it. There are footprints and other signs. It was a boy about the size of this one, for he squeezed through a narrow window that a larger person couldn’t have entered. He may have had a helper. Now, Mr. Bean, don’t take any of this personally; I have to check on every boy in the area. Thank you for your help. Good day, sir.”

  “Good day, Mr. Bush.”

  Thomas stood snapping his fingers after the deputy left. “Of all the things to happen!” he burst out angrily.