by Jack Sharkey
"Who might that be?” I corrected, my pre-library master's degree in English coming to the fore. “It ‘could’ be anybody; it ‘might’ be relatively few people."
"Oh, shut up and answer the door,” said Annabel, smoothing Elizabeth's hair. Elizabeth grunted like a pig, then gave another scream. I went to the door and opened it.
"Evening, Hicks,” said Mr. Garson, my superior at the library, lumbering in. “I was driving by and saw your lights, and thought I'd drop in and see how you were doing on your report."
At that moment, Elizabeth screamed again. Garson was visibly shaken. “Good grief, Hicks, what was that?"
"That was Elizabeth,” I said, gesturing him ahead of me and following him into the parlor. “She screams."
Annabel rose to her niece's defense immediately. “It's for her lungs,” she said. “Her singing teacher says that a little screaming now and then develops lungpower."
As I made introductions, Elizabeth grunted like a pig.
"Lowers the voice,” explained Annabel. “I want her to sing Carmen some day, don't I, sweetums! But it calls for a contralto."
"She ... does this all the time?” asked Garson, his face a blend of fascination and revulsion.
"Only indoors,” I said.
"Elizabeth can sing The Song of the Flea in Russian,” said Annabel, with unpardonable pride. Elizabeth stuck her tongue out at Mr. Garson and made a vulgar sound.
"How nice,” he murmured, looking nervous. “But isn't that a baritone number?"
I shook my head. “Bass. Anyone can sing Carmen; Lizzie has her sights on Boris Goudanov."
"Albert!” Annabel was smiling, but her undertone was a hacksaw on broken glass. Garson cowered like a trapped rabbit.
"Perhaps,” I said with evil genius, “Elizabeth could be persuaded to sing a few numbers for you while I finish that report, sir?"
Before I even completed the sentence, Annabel was moving toward my spinet, flexing her fingers, and Elizabeth was inflating her bony chest. “Hicks...” said Garson, trying to think of some way to avoid the impending menace of Elizabeth's lungs.
"Only be a short while, sir,” I smiled, opening my study door and hurrying inside. I shut the door, locked it, then ducked out the connecting door to the kitchen and locked that, too. As I got into my sedan, even the walls of my house could not quite muffle the shrills and grunts that split the air of my living room.
* * * *
Porkle's house was midway between my house and Marshall Field's store. There were lights on at the side window. I parked up the street, then hurried back on tiptoe.
The windowsill was just higher than my head, but by resting one shoe atop a garden hose faucet beneath it, I could raise myself high enough to see into the room.
Inside, a man sat at a desk, talking to a taller, thinner man, who was smiling to himself as he filled the bottom of a snifter with brandy. I couldn't be sure they were the two men I'd seen loitering earlier from their faces, but any doubts I might have had were dispelled by the presence of the two tripod-gadgets near the desk.
"You're sure there's no return from Drendon?” said the man at the desk.
"No, Geoffrey,” said the other man to the would-be Park Czar. “I'm not at all sure. If people can be sent there, there's undoubtedly a way to get them back. How, I don't know, but the probability does exist."
"Damn it, Courtland,” growled Porkle, “I wish you'd stop trying to be so inscrutable! Are we safe, or not?"
Courtland, swirling his brandy in the snifter and inhaling its bouquet luxuriously, said, “Believe me, the odds are well with us. These vanishments—objects plus all record of their existence—have an opposite reaction, a sort of mental corollary in the minds of the vanishees."
"You mean they won't remember Oak Park? The U.S.? Earth?” said Porkle, his eyes widening. “But that's marvelous! Fat chance of returning if they don't recall"
"But they do recall that there is an Earth, Geoffrey. Don't forget Drendon is a relative of Earth's, due to—"
"Spare me the details!” muttered Porkle, much to my annoyance. I'd been itching to find out what or where this mysterious Drendon was. “But,” continued Porkle, “you said something to me about the unlikelihood of survival there."
"Their occupation while being transferred does, of course, influence their Drendon-shape, somewhat. But even a person who is adapted into Drendon-form will find that life there is fraught with dangers, even for the regular inhabitants."
I tried to recall what the Bakers might have been involved in when this odd translation occurred. Maggie Baker had been out in the kitchen, probably cooking. Timothy would have been tagging after her, asking kid-questions about her preparations, like a student of domestic science. Garvey Baker would have been at work watching the store. As to Susan, I didn't know. Last I saw of her, she'd been sitting mournfully on the sofa, looking lost and forlorn in the spot where the tree had materialized. I hoped earnestly that she hadn't become a Drendon-type weeping willow.
"You see,” Courtland was continuing, “Drendon is an entity, as befits any enchanted woods. Drendon does not precisely have a tree; part of Drendon is a tree. And all the trees, like Drendon, are quite alive, and more or less intelligent according to age and species.
"Oh, you can't tell it at a glance, but just attempting to take an axe to one might bring on frightful results. And then, it has animals, too.” His voice lowered here, and reminded me chillingly of one of those old-time horror-tale tellers on radio in the thirties. “Some animals slither in the gloom on nefarious missions of slimy terror, some bound about in gay abandon, frolicking on the sward in the hot glow of that ridiculous sun which only sets on certain occasions. Some you can go up to and kick without temerity; others you dare not even let know you're within shouting distance if you know what's healthy. And this latter sort are not only monstrous, they are well in the majority, and you can count it a day well spent if you narrowly escape death walking from the front door of your house to the mailbox. They prowl the forest incessantly, and are never sated!"
"Stop!” said Porkle, his plump face grey and greasy with sweat. He swabbed his thick features with a silken kerchief. “That's enough. I get the picture!"
"It's an intriguing place, really,” said Courtland, disappointed in the other's lack of enthusiasm. “A mythophile's dream, Porkle, with its monsters, beasts, furry fauns, sly satyrs, vampires, werewolves, wyverns, centaurs and such. Always, day upon day, in this overgrown, vegetation-choked locale, every moment of life is precious, every life is in deadly peril, what with deadfalIs, quicksands, pits, things that scream, things that slurp, things that impale you on their horns, things that crush you in their grasp, things that bite, things that stomp, and things that can do anything the other things can do, and much better."
"Please,” said Porkle, weakly. “No more. I take your word for it. It's very unlikely we'll ever hear of the Bakers again, or that Hicks character."
His last phrase stymied me for a second, until I recalled that these two men had followed me to Susan's house. Then it started making sense. Susan's father had refused to sell; so had I. The plan might have been to kill two birds with one stone, getting me while I was inside Susan's house along with the family. But they hadn't known I'd leave the house so soon, or that I had left in fact. They still assumed that I had been translated into Drendon—wherever it was—with the others. Which gave me a slight leverage.
Dropping to the ground from my perch, I dusted the windowsill grit from my fingers and strolled around to the front door. A touch of the bell evoked muted chimes inside the house, and in a moment, the tall scientific half of the duo, Courtland, was opening the door to me. “Yes?” he said, scowling deeply. (It was, after all, nearly two in the morning.) “What is it? What do you want?"
"My name is Albert Hicks,” I said, pleased to hear the quick intake of his breath. “And I want your scalp, if you don't mind."
"Hicks!” he echoed numbly. “But how could you—” Then a tra
ce of his suave demeanor returned, and he said smoothly, “I'm afraid I don't follow you. But won't you come in?"
I kept my eyes on him as he shut the door behind me. Courtland wasn't the sort I trusted where I couldn't see him. He led the way toward the room in which I'd seen himself and Porkle discussing my supposed fate, and I went inside warily. At the desk, Porkle looked up blankly.
"Who—” he began, but a wave of Courtland's hand silenced him.
"You were saying something about a scalp?” smiled Courtland, as I sat gingerly on the edge of a chair.
"Yes,” I said, keeping my voice as politely sardonic as possible. “I think it's rude of people to shunt other people into strange woods without asking them first."
"What?” gasped Porkle, jumping to his feet. “Who is this guy, Courtland?"
"I'm Albert Hicks,” I said grimly. “Lately of Drendon."
Porkle's face went chalky to the hairline, and he dropped back into his swivel chair with a soft squeal of alarm. I turned to Courtland. “When you send people away like that, you ought to make sure it's for good. Your gimmick wore off in an hour, and we all popped right back where we belonged. Shame on you."
"You're lying,” Courtland declared flatly, his eyes lustreless and deadly. “That cannot happen."
"But it has!” quailed Porkle. “Look! Here he is. If he didn't go there and back, then how does he know about Drendon?"
Courtland's shrewd eyes flicked about the room, and I felt a faint chill of panic as his glance came to rest upon the window, its lower edge slightly ajar. A mirthless smile uptilted the corners of his thin mouth. “I think I understand,” he said, stepping back from me and drawing a slim blueblack automatic from inside his suit jacket. I stared helplessly into the barrel of the gun, no longer feeling very clever, as Courtland reached for one of the tripod-things and touched a dial on its back. A soft throbbing hum began to issue from the odd construction atop the tripod, and in another instant the sound was received and echoed by the other machine, a few feet away.
Between the two things, the air began to shimmer and writhe, like air above a hot pavement in summertime. I didn't need a scientific education to know I was looking at the doorway to Drendon. Courtland motioned to me with the muzzle of his automatic.
"If you'll just step between the transmitters?” he said gently. Something in his tone told me that he didn't much care if I went through alive or dead. This gadget of his, discounting any other advantages it might have, was the ideal way to dispose of occasional corpses. If I didn't walk through that shimmering gateway, there was a good chance I'd be plugged through the head and simply dumped through.
I got to my feet and tried the only trump I seemed to have, Porkle's distrust of science. With a smile and a shrug, I stepped toward that pulsing blur as if I wasn't seared stiff, and said, “All right, if you insist. But I'll only reappear in an hour."
Even Courtland looked uneasy at my bluff, and his momentary expression of uncertainty was all the impetus Porkle needed to crack.
"You idiot!” he raged at Courtland, coming out from behind the desk. “I told you your stupid scheme was—"
"Porkle!” Courtland yelped, spinning to face him. “Watch where you're—"
But Geoffrey Porkle's pudgy form was already a frozen statue of stupefaction in the grip of that eerie force between the tripods, and then, with a gentle, pop, he was gone. And that's when I stepped forward and shoved the distracted Courtland right after him.
Caught off guard, he had only an instant to turn his malevolently contorted face toward mine, his lips forming a curse. Then he vanished.
An instant later, the house did the same, and I was dropping down about five feet to the ground. My landing was cushioned by soft grass, and when I looked about there was nothing left of Porkle's house but the two gadgets on their tripods, lying on the velvet lawn. I went over to them, but their humming had ceased. I lifted one and shook it. A rasping tinkle inside it told me that something had gone bust in the crash. However they'd functioned, they were beyond it now.
And there went my last chance of locating Susan.
Still dazed from the fall and my narrow escape, I got back to my car—the driveway was gone with the house, leaving my car in the midst of an open lawn—and drove wearily back homeward. I felt lost, and sick. I was completely out of schemes, now. No matter how I tried, my mind could supply no solution to the problem. Susan and her family were lost, and there didn't seem to be much anyone could do about it.
Porkle and Courtland were likewise lost, but that in itself was a small loss. I could only hope that whatever they'd become translated into in Drendon would not be as menacing to Susan as their Earth counterparts had been.
If only there were someone I could tell, someone who'd believe me despite the way the facts looked. But the only one I'd ever felt that close to was Susan. And she already knew more of Drendon than I did.
It was only as I rolled the car back into my driveway that I heard the shrill gurgle and growl from within the house, and remembered Annabel, Garson and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was busily rendering—maybe ‘rending’ is a better word—Old Man River, at a pitch that made William Warfield's seem like a soprano.
As I tiptoed into the kitchen and once more let myself into my study, I had a momentary pang of regret about the callousness with which I'd shoved Courtland smack out of this world. “Well,” I said to myself, sagging wearily against the paneling of the door to the living room (awaiting the climax of Elizabeth's number, unable to forge the smile of required enjoyment on my face if I emerged while she was still at it), “it was him or me!"
Stubbornly trying to reinforce my decision with a jut of my lower lip, my English background came to mind, and I automatically self-corrected, “That is, ‘he or I.’”
Out of the darkness behind me, a voice asked, “What's the difference?"
"A pronominal object of the verb ‘to be’ always remains in the nominative case, rather than the objective because—” I frowned. By all rights, I should have been completely alone in my study. I had the only key to either door, and they'd both been locked while I was gone.
"Because what?” the voice prompted.
"Because ‘to be’ expresses an equality rather than a result,” I said, slowly turning around. I saw no one, what with the blinds being down. I reached out a hand for the light switch, intensely curious...
"No, please!” said the voice.
For the first time, and with a sudden quiver in my stomach, I noted that it was a female voice. A rather pretty one. “Why not?” I asked.
"Because,” said the voice, “I have no clothes on."
"You're joking,” I replied, knowing somehow that she wasn't. My forehead went clammy at the thought, when I considered that my boss and Annabel were just beyond the door. The sturdy oak door suddenly assumed all the protective qualities of sawdust to my shaken mind.
"Well,” said the voice, “dramatizing, maybe. But I'm certainly not clothed by your standards."
"You leave my standards out of this,” I snapped. “Where do you get off prying into my standards?"
"I mean people's standards in this era.” The voice had changed location, and now seemed to come from the vicinity of my unseen leather armchair.
"This-this era?” I asked, groping toward the chair.
"Yes,” came the reply from the bookcase, halfway across the room.
I began to feel irritated. “Stop moving around like that!"
"I have to,” said the soft, thrilling voice, “or you'll catch me.” Her logic was beyond dispute.
"Well,” I said, disgruntled, “if-if you'll stand still, I'll stand still."
"All right. But if you move, I move."
I nodded, then grunted at the foolishness of nodding into the dark, and seated myself carefully in the armchair. The situation was without precedent in my life. I wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Or even if to proceed.
"Now then.” I snapped on my lighter, going through the motions of i
gniting my cigarette, but actually trying to pierce the gloom by the dancing flame of the wick. “What are you doing here dressed like that? Or perhaps I should say not dressed like that?"
"Right now, I'm observing you from the bookcase."
"In the dark?” I almost ignited the end of my nose. I hurriedly thrust the lighter into my pocket. Smoking could wait.
"Why not?” said the voice, and then the speaker laughed, and I suddenly found myself a boy again, on a hot day in July, running barefoot through warm grass toward a glittering cold creek. Then I was back again.
"Laugh again,” I said.
"All right,” said the voice. “Say something funny."
"I don't know anything funny,” I admitted sadly.
"That's funny enough,” said the voice, laughing again.
Once more I was on my way through the grass to the creek. And back again. “That's the damnedest thing. You won't believe this, but when you laugh it's as if—"
"You're out on the countryside, right?"
"Uh, yes,” I said, surprised. “Does this always happen when people hear you laugh?"
"Retention of childhood memories. Called nostalgia. You remember hearing me laugh as a child, and whatever you were doing at the time, it comes back when I laugh again. Simple.” I frowned, growing apprehensive. “See here, now, are you someone I knew as a child?” My slowly forming image of a curvy cutie was fading into oblivion. After all, she might be twice my age. I hated older women with girlish voices. Especially alone in the dark with me. Not dressed according to my standards. “Honestly!” Exasperation colored her words. “I never saw you before in my life. When I say me, I mean we, but really mean me as a profession rather than as a person."
"Profession?” I choked. This had dire associations in my mind; more so with Annabel and Garson in the next room. I was cold all over. “What is your profession?"
"I'm a wood nymph,” tinkled the voice.
CHAPTER 3
I CONFESS I sat quite still for a long moment, thinking this over. Then I said slowly, still quite dizzy, “You're a wood nymph. Like in the stories? Young, beautiful, diaphanous gown, hair like the color of autumn leaves, and all that?"
