by David Nickle
“Please — ” he shut his eyes and pulled his hands from his thighs “ — go on.”
“Your Grandfather also stood outside the dancehall sometimes,” she said. “Only nearer the lake; we would sometimes see him, a strange and mysterious man, staring out at the waters. On the night we met, in the midst of June, I remember my friends were late. It was still dusk when I arrived, and the music had not yet started — although the motorcars were already pulling up to the front door, the beautiful ladies already stepping from the cabs with their dashing escorts. And there he was, your Grandfather, standing in his place by the beach. Seeing me alone, he called to me. ‘Please, madam, I seem to require some assistance,’ he said. ‘Why, me?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘please come down now.’
“Were I with my friends, I should never have done so — imagine, an unescorted young lady, going to the side of a perfect stranger! — but I was alone for the moment, and curious; there was something odd about him.
“As I drew nearer, I saw he was near the waterline, his trousers rolled up and his feet buried up to his ankles in the sand. He wore a white dinner jacket, I remember, and held his shoes and socks in one hand.” Grandmother put her hand on Michael’s arm. “‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’ve gotten stuck.’”
“Help me,” said Michael, who was feeling increasingly stuck himself.
“Yes,” she said distractedly.
Grandmother’s fingers squeezed on Michael’s arm again, and as they did, he felt a great rush of fresh, cool air swimming into his lungs. Grandmother’s eyes locked with Michael’s. “I felt myself sinking a little in the soft sand,” she said. “As though I’d just been loaded down with a parcel. My back bent, and my belly sagged. Then, easy as that, your Grandfather stepped out of the mud.”
Michael lifted his hand, flexed the fingers and drew a deep breath. He looked at Grandmother wonderingly.
“I must finish the story,” she said. “Grandfather stepped out of the mud, and onto the water.”
“You mean — ” into, Michael was going to say, but stopped himself. He could tell by her eyes that Grandmother had meant what she said: Grandfather stepped onto the water. Grandmother nodded.
“He walked out a dozen yards, and danced a little jig. I remember how his toes splashed the water so delicately. ‘Just like Jesus!’ he shouted, grinning like a fool. ‘And I couldn’t do it without you!’
“Of course, I was enthralled. As was he — for that evening was when he learned to fly,” she said. “Suzanne, bless her, has been spared the suffering — for you haven’t yet thought it through, and you’ve left her. Intact.”
“What are you talking about?” Michael’s voice conveyed threat again, but this time he didn’t bother to correct it. “Grandmother, this is a dreadful game you’re playing. Now answer my question, please — how did you find out about my, ah, situation with Suzanne?”
Grandmother’s smile was thin and cool.
“Why, Michael,” she said, “we have known about your situation since you were a small boy.”
“You can’t have known — Suzanne and I only just separated a month ago. Why didn’t you let on earlier? In your house?”
“Don’t take that tone with me.” Grandmother glared at him through wide lenses. Now something in her tone had become as threatening as Michael’s had earlier. “Suzanne is incidental. Your true situation is that you were a selfish, stupid boy then, and now you have grown into a selfish and stupid man. We decided you bore watching since the day we made this place.”
“You — made this place?”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t recognize it,” she said. “It has changed since that afternoon.”
“This is enough,” he snarled, and opened the car door. Whatever spell had ensnared him a moment ago was gone now — he could walk as well as anyone, air came and went in his chest with ease, and his arms were strong and mobile again. He slammed his door, and strode around the front of the car, to the passenger side. Anger grew tumourously in his belly. Hadn’t he waited long enough? Grandmother had been playing games with him all evening — just one condition, she said; bring me with you; I’ll tell you a Goddamned story. And . . .
And now, she insulted him. Called him selfish, stupid. Then and now.
“Get out!” he shouted, pulling the door open and grabbing Grandmother by the arm, squeezing deliberately too hard. “You said you’d take me to see Grandfather, and now by hell you will do so! Is he even here?”
She came out of the car easily — almost too easily, for a woman of her size. Lifting Grandmother was like lifting a heavy coat, nothing more, and Michael stumbled back with wasted momentum when her feet landed on the ground. He regained his balance, and made a fist at her.
“I have to see Grandfather!” he shouted. “You’d better take me to him!”
She coughed again. Her eyes seemed enormous in the flat cloud-light. Infuriatingly, they didn’t seem particularly frightened. She regarded him levelly as she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a package of cigarettes.
Michael managed to hold his rage in his fist while she dug out her lighter, lit the cigarette, while she puffed the cigarette to life, up until the point where the smoke came cascading from her lips — and then it was no good. The anger leaked away, and left only a crumbling kind of shame behind. Michael grimaced at it. He’d threatened his Grandmother — manhandled her! What could be worse, more base, than that? His hand dropped, open and empty, at his side. When he finally spoke, he did so quietly.
“Please, Grandmother,” he said, “I need to fly.”
At that, Grandmother let loose another coughing laugh. “Evan told me this would be difficult,” she said. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll take you to your Grandfather. He’s in the garden.”
“The garden?”
“You remember, dear — from the movie.”
At once, it came together for Michael. He looked around the landscape — now nothing but a flattened plain, mottled with stone and debris, but fundamentally equalized by the force of the Earth. In his memory, he drew up the past — the house, with its wide glass doors, and the trees and the garden, the chaos of greenery there. The memory of it floated over the ruined ground like ghost towers.
Grandmother walked through them easily — she wasn’t even using a cane — and Michael followed. After a time, the ground beneath his feet altered, and Michael realized he was no longer walking on gravel. The ground was brick now, smashed brick and masonry, mixed with the occasional splintered piece of wood.
“This place,” said Grandmother, “was an unfortunate side effect. But it was early, and we didn’t quite understand the forces involved. And we did have to act quickly — so I suppose we really can’t blame ourselves.”
“Why did you have to act quickly?” Michael thought he might know the answer already — as he looked around, as far as he could see there was nothing standing above ankle height. There was nowhere for Grandfather to hide. Not above ground.
Grandmother stopped then, and turned around — turning, Michael saw, as though she were standing on a Lazy Susan. Or floating above the ground, just an inch. She fished into her purse, and pulled out a coil of what looked like rope. She tossed it in the air, and it unravelled slowly, drifting to him as though floating in water. Michael reached out and caught it easily. As he held it, he saw it wasn’t rope at all — it was a length of plastic hose, ribbed with wire.
“If we hadn’t done something soon,” said Grandmother, “then your Grandfather would have driven us all into the Earth, with his foolish indulgence.”
“Where is Grandfather?” said Michael. “I have to talk to him.”
Grandmother smiled in a way that was not very Grandmotherly at all.
“Look down,” said Grandmother.
Michael looked down — and immediately realized his mistake. Gravity seized him with two strong hands around his skull, and he fell hard to his knees. He dropped the hose and put his hands
out to break his fall —
And they sank into the ground.
Michael yanked back with his shoulders, but his hands wouldn’t come out. It was as though they were set in cement. He tried to lift his knees, but they were embedded in the ground as well.
“Help me.” The words came out as a whisper, but Grandmother heard them.
“Of course, dear,” she said, and then he saw her feet beside him. She bent down and lifted an end of the tube she’d tossed him. “I’m sorry — I should have explained. It goes in your mouth — that’s very important.” Michael felt a hand on the back of his head, and Grandmother’s other hand set the tube firmly between his teeth. “Clamp down,” she instructed.
Michael sank further — his groin was pressed against the ground, and as far as he could tell his thighs were almost completely submerged. In the distance, he heard the sound of a car engine.
Grandmother let go of the hose and his head, and moved further back. Her cold, strong hands pushed down on his behind. There was a crunching sound, as his pelvis slid through stone and wood and dirt. “You’ll thank me for this later,” she said. “It’s better to go down feet first.”
The car engine grew louder. Out of the corner of his eye, Michael could see the glimmer of headlights. Finally, they grew very bright, illuminating the ground beneath him like a moonscape, and the engine stopped.
Michael heard a strangled moan then — dimly, he realized it was his own, carried through the tube that began in his mouth and ended a few feet away.
There was another tube, he saw — sticking out of the ground, just a few feet in front of him. If he listened, he was sure he could hear the faint noise of breathing coming from it.
The car doors opened and closed, and Michael heard voices:
“Mother,” said one — sounding very much like Uncle Evan. “Are we too late?”
“You are late,” said Grandmother, grunting as she continued to work at Michael’s back, “but I am managing.”
“Well now you can take a rest,” said a woman — Aunt Nancy? “We can take over from here.”
“Very well.” Grandmother let go of Michael, and he tried to struggle. But he was at an odd angle — bent forward about forty-five degrees. He could thrash his shoulders, wave his head around, but that was as much as he could hope for.
Soon, he felt more hands on him. Together, they pushed down harder than Grandmother could — so very soon he was nearly upright, waist-deep in the ground. His breath whistled through the tubing, cut by sobs.
He could see the other car now. It was a big American sedan, a Lincoln maybe, and as he watched the back door opened, and a third person got out.
It was Suzanne.
He tried to spit out the tube, so he could speak with her, plead with her — but as quick as he did, Uncle Evan pushed the tube back in.
Suzanne’s feet crunched on the debris as she walked over to him. He couldn’t see her face well — as she approached, she became not much more than a slender silhouette in the Lincoln’s headlights.
“Do I have to do this?” Her voice was quavering as she bent to her knees, put her hands on Michael’s shoulders. Michael thought he could see the glint of moisture on her cheeks — and was absurdly touched by it.
“It is the only way, dear,” said Grandmother. “Don’t worry — he’ll be fine. The Earth looks after its own.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought we could work it out.”
Suzanne pushed down on Michael’s shoulders, and he felt himself sinking further — the Earth tickled his collarbone, enveloped his throat and touched his chin. Suzanne had moved her hands to the crown of his skull, and now she pushed down on that. Desperate, Michael spat out the tube.
“Suzanne! Wait! Maybe we can work it out!” he gasped, as the ground came over the cleft in his chin, pressed against his lower lip. “Help me up!”
Suzanne took her hands from his head at that.
“No,” she said — although her voice was uncertain. She reached down, picked up the tube, and jammed it into his mouth. “Your Grandmother explained what happens when I help you up.” And then her tone changed, and it sounded very certain indeed. “I can’t let you use me like that.”
Then she pushed once more, and Michael was into the ground past his nose. He sucked cold, stale air through the tube. All he could see now was Suzanne’s boots, her blue-jeaned knees, and the inch or so of space between them and the flattened ground.
“That’s enough, dear,” said Grandmother, her voice sounding far away. “The Earth can do the rest.”
Suzanne’s hands lifted from Michael’s head, and he watched as her feet, her knees lifted further from the ground. He heard laughter from above — liberated, unbound from the Earth — and then that same Earth came up to fill his ears. The only sound was the beating of his heart.
The beating of his own heart, and faintly, the beating of one other.
“Grandfather,” he said, but the words were mangled through his tube and must have sounded like a bleat to anyone who lingered above. His tears made little pools on the ground in front of him. Although it was cold and hard that night, tightly packed in its own formidable grip, the Earth swallowed them greedily.
Swamp Witch and the Tea-Drinking Man
Swamp witch rode her dragonfly into town Saturday night, meaning to see old Albert Farmer one more time. Albert ran the local smoke and book, drove a gleaming red sports car from Italy, and smiled a smile to run an iceberg wet. Many suspected he might be the Devil’s kin and swamp witch allowed as that may have been so; yet whether he be Devil or Saint, swamp witch knew Albert Farmer to be the kindest man in the whole of Okehole County. Hadn’t he let her beat him at checkers that time? Didn’t he smile just right? Oh yes, swamp witch figured she’d like to keep old Albert Farmer awhile and see him this night.
That in the end she would succeed at one and fail at the other was a matter of no small upset to swamp witch; for among the burdens they carry, swamp witches are cursed with foresight, and this one could see endings clearer than anything else. Not that it ever did her much good; swamp witch could no more look long at an ending than she’d spare the blazing sun more than a glance.
As for the end of this night, she glanced on it not even an instant. For romance was nothing but scut work if you knew already the beginning, the end and all the points between. The smile on her lips was genuine as she steered past the bullfrogs, through the rushes and high over the swamp road toward the glow of the town.
By the time she was on the town’s outskirts, walking on her own two feet with the tiny reins of her dragonfly pinched between thumb and forefinger, the swamp witch had a harder time keeping her mood high. Her feet were on the ground, her senses chained and she could not ignore the wailing of a woman beset.
It came from the house which sat nearest the swamp — the Farley house — and the wailing was the work of Linda Farley, the eldest daughter who swamp witch knew was having man trouble of her own.
She had mixed feelings about Linda Farley, but for all those feelings, swamp witch could not just walk by and she knew it. There was that thing she had done with her checkers winnings. It had made things right and made things wrong, and in the end made swamp witch responsible.
“One night in a week,” swamp witch grumbled as she stepped around the swing-set and onto the back stoop. “Just Saturday. That’s all I asked for.”
Linda Farley was a girl of twenty-one. Thick-armed and -legged, but still beautiful by the standards of the town, she had been ill-treated by no less than three of its sons: lanky Jack Irving; foul-mouthed Harry Oates; Tommy Balchy, the beautiful Reverend’s son, who wrangled corner snakes for his Papa and bragged to everyone that he’d seen Jesus in a rattler’s spittle. Swamp witch was sure it would be one of those three causing the commotion. But when she came in, touched poor Linda’s shoulder where it slumped on the kitchen table, and followed her pointing finger to the sitting room, she saw it was none of those fellows.
> Sitting on her Papa’s easy chair was a man swamp witch had never seen before. Wearing a lemon-coloured suit with a vest black as night rain, he was skinny as sticks and looked just past the middle of his life. He held a teacup and saucer in his hands, and looked up at swamp witch with the sadness of the ages in his eye.
“Stay put,” said swamp witch to her dragonfly, letting go of its reins. The dragonfly flew up and perched on an arm of the Farleys’ flea-market chandelier. “Who is this one?”
The man licked thin lips.
“He came this afternoon,” said Linda, sitting up and sniffling. “Came from outside. He says awful things.” She held her head in her hands. “Oh woe!”
“Awful things.” Swamp witch stepped over to the tea-drinking man. “Outside. What’s his name?”
The tea-drinking man raised his cup to his mouth. He shook his head.
“He-he won’t say.”
Swamp witch nodded slowly. “You won’t say,” she said to the tea-drinking man and he shrugged. Swamp witch scowled. People who knew enough to keep their names secret were trouble in swamp witch’s experience.
The tea-drinking man set his beverage down on the arm of the chair and began to speak.
“What if you’d left ’em?” he said. “Left ’em to themselves?”
Swamp witch glared. The tea-drinker paid her no mind, just continued:
“Why, think what they’d have done! Made up with the Russians! The Chinese! Built rockets and climbed with them to the top of the sky, and sat there a moment in spinning wheels with sandwiches floating in front of their noses and their dreams all filled up. Sat there and thought, about what they’d done, what they might do, and looked far away. Then got off their duffs and built bigger rockets, and flew ’em to the moon, and to Mars. Where’d they be?”
