Great mischief

by Pinckney, Josephine, 1895-1957

  "But what's its great value to you then?" cried Timothy jumping up and walking about the room. "It must be very precious for you to be flaunting it here!"

  "Well, if you must know, it's an amulet—of saint's toes. A witch doctor gave it to me to ward off worldly temptations. I wear them to keep me from forgetting that I belong to another order and have a power that this dallying with you, my duck, almost makes me lose sight of." She pulled him down beside her and kissed him, half laughing, half loving.

  Timothy pushed her away violently, all his jealousy of her other life frothing up in him—that mysterious, knowing life from which he was shut out.

  "It seems to me, my dear Lucy, that the time has come for you to tell me a little more about yourself. Surely you can trust me, surely I have a right to know how you spend your time when you're away from me."

  Lucy brushed aside his question. "Right? You have no right to question me about my life. We just belong to different orders of beings, and you knew that from the start."

  Timothy resumed his walking, "But that's what I don't understand. What order do I belong to—the good or the bad, the Saved or the Damned? It's hellishly awkward not to know. If I'm Saved, somebody ought to tell me—if I'm Damned, I belong to your people, and I might as well have the fun of belonging. Besides, Lucy! I hate whatever divides me from you!" And throwing himself down on the sofa, he covered her with despairing kisses.

  His honest passion moved her. She returned his caresses and said fondly, "Does it matter so much to you —that you should belong with me?"

  "Nothing else matters."

  "Well, I'll see what can be done, darling. You can't get into Satan's presence any more easily than into Heaven, you know. But I think you're almost ready to come over to us ... if he finds you worthy there may be an opening among the werewolves, hobgoblins, or bull-beggars—I'll have to inquire."

  "I'd rather be an alchemist," Timothy objected; "it's a more dignified calling."

  "You'll have to be content with small beginnings, I imagine. First of all, he will have to grant you an interview."

  Timothy was in transports. "Will I really come to see him at last? And the throne of Satan! Oh, Lucy, Lucy! When can we go?"

  "Have patience, my would-be wizard," she said, biting his ear. But she was sweeter and more loving to him than ever before.

  When she left him she said, "I won't come asrain for a while. The moon is waxing now, there are places I have to go in the evenings."

  "Lucy! Don't abandon me—"

  Smiling, she tied on her shawl. "Wait," she said and, bending her head toward his, laid her finger softly on his lips.

  Part Three

  TIMOTHY passed the following days in a lather of impatience. He trotted to the Library and read furiously to distract his mind from the tension that mounted in him. He delved into accounts of early religions and the writings of saints and philosophers, but in his hasty mood he found them rather repetitious. Furthermore, his present way of life made their strict asceticism repellent, and he turned again to the Bible for its resplendent sinners. He did not have the temerity to own a Bible, but he assumed that the publishers of Heaven could not object to his reading it at the Library. With the aid of a concordance he looked up all references to the throne of Satan, the throne of Iniquity, Beelzebub, familiar spirits, and took notes—wishing to be well armed with congenial conversation when the great day should come.

  In the course of this research he came across the lines that had given him his start in life, as he now thought of it: "I know where thou dwellest, even where Satan's throne is," and learned to his surprise that there was more of the verse—a lot about martyrdom stoically endured, which altered the meaning and was quite malapropos as far as he was concerned. For he had endured his martyrdom from habit and conformity, not stoicism. . . . He sat back in his chair, stuck out his long black-trousered legs, and gazed dismally at his toes. Had he read a little further that night—had he understood the Word differently—what would the outcome have been? Are our profoundest beliefs, the courses of our lives, bent by such accidents? He drew a long shuddering sigh, then sat up so suddenly his chair screeched on the floor— But of course not! The Spirit had stopped his moving finger there, at the place significant for him. The more he thought about it, the clearer the guiding hand became.

  Rebounding from this shock and its implications, he vexed himself with trying to imagine what it would be like down there, and he longed to ask Lucy what was the proper deportment for such an audience, and whether or not to wear his oxblood vest. But Lucy, good as her word, came near him neither by day nor by night. He took to skulking in a little abandoned churchyard opposite her house to watch for her comings and goings, but if she went night-traveling, his eyes had no skill to see her. Still, these surroundings soothed him; the moon came there, peaked at first, then growing companionably plump; by its swelling light he could see the grassy hummocks and their eloquent headstones, and the tall pondering trees. Timothy pondered also, on mortality, on the cobweb between death and life, between fantasy and reality. He began to think he heard faint stirrings underground from those dead men, dried and packed away like herrings. Men who had been lovers, no doubt, like himself and had watched, solitary, a light in a window; who might even have lolled like him, wrapped in a dark cloak, on a lichened slab. He feared them a little, too, and luxuriated in his fear; when a snarling beetle bumped into him he started, his blood leapt in a tremor of sepulchral pleasure. He passed long hours thus, staunching his longing for Lucy, assuaging that plague of lovers—doubt when the beloved does not come. He steeped himself in a dreaming passion and went home as shriveled and black as a tea leaf.

  When at last one evening he saw Lucy slipping through his garden, he halted transfixed by the window. All his blood tingled in his veins; then it stirred painfully and began to course again. By the time she had mounted the steps and come into the hall, he had covered his expectancy with calm. He kissed her quite naturally—his mind, he found, was clearer and more rational than in many weeks. They sat in the study for a while and talked about the garden and how Partridge's Hirsutus was selling, and it was all so much within the bounds of the usual that when she smiled at him and said, "What do you say to a little excursion?" he felt only a faint incredulity.

  Lucy got up and went along the shelves selecting a jar, a bottle, here and there. She had brought other necessities, he observed, in her basket, and taking his arm, she went upstairs with him to his room. Timothy opened the shutters and together they looked out; the moon glinted on the eaves, and little hissings and scratchings came from among the dormers beyond their range of vision.

  "They are there waiting for us," said Lucy; "you will have an escort on your aerial tour." And she looked deep into his eyes, he did not know whether with love or menace or something new, immediately to be experienced.

  They drew back into the room. By the pale glare of the moonlight on the floor Timothy saw her take off her dress, and, looking tiny in her short chemise, begin to rub herself with unguents from the jars. The pupils of her eyes grew large, the irises glassy blue. Now and then she nibbled a leaf or a root. He could faintly see her flesh reddening and her hair turning tawny as it lifted along her back. His own flesh was creeping and behaving quite strangely, but he was in for it now. He felt a stab of oblique joy at finding Sinkinda before him again.

  "So it comes about that we ride side by side this evening, dear Timothy." She held out a little brazen vessel that shone in. the faint light. "This one comes first—but do take off your absurd sack suit; it's too cumbersome for night-traveling, and as for that horse collar—"

  Timothy stripped himself to his undershirt and long cotton drawers, but these he clung to from a last-ditch propriety. He boldly scooped the ointment from the jar and rubbed it on his face, arms, and legs. Immediately he felt a sharp burning and prickling through his body. Stramonium, he thought automatically, and continued to rub it on in spite of its painful effects. Mixed with frogs and newts,
no doubt—Pulv. amphibiae, eh? But what of it. Sinkinda was holding out otlier jars and vials; he rubbed and nibbled hardily; the juice of one of them was particularly sharp and corrosive, his vision became blurred, and he thought he recognized solanum. Of course, if we gorm ourselves up with drugs that produce hallucinations and general vascular excitement—, he said to himself a little peevishly, for his skin was on fire. But he did not speak aloud, knowing that this apothecary's mood was out of place, and besides he was beginning to feel very queer indeed. All his flesh seemed loose and soluble; it had no more weight than a sponge, and his hair was standing erect on his head.

  "Come!" exclaimed Sinkinda, seizing his hand, and with the simplest grace she started up the chimney,

  Timothy tried to copy her fluid movements and went after her. Thanks to his distinguished narrowness, he rose quite easily through the vent, and in a twinkling they stood side by side on the ridgepole of the house. From such an eminence they had an unparalleled outlook. The sky was a noble blue; the silver orb filled the visible and capacious world with a fine sharp dust that crusted the harbor, the white piazzas of the sleeping town, the tiles at their feet. It was a night to make the solidest citizen fly off the ground, and Timothy's heart blew like a feather to be out with Sinkinda and the othei spirits whom he now saw flying between him and the moon.

  They seemed to be both male and female, and from them came a high random sound of singing. Two or three whistled down and alighted on the ridgepole— a youth whose jaws had a long wolfish angle, a girl in a skirt of snakeskin, translucent and crackling, and an indeterminate creature with one curly horn.

  They shrieked to Sinkinda, whose eyes, turned on the moon, glowed cool like an animal s Then they all, Timothy joining in, took hands along the ridgepole and began to repeat a charm; Ab-gab-hur-huz . . . Ab-gab-hur-huz. Timothy repeated it after them, though at first it made him think of the backs of the Encyclopedia in the bookcase at home; but when he had said it often enough it gathered magic. Suddenly the werewolf threw his head back and howled, "I'm for the air!" They all held their arms up. "Ride high!" they cried together, and flinging loose one another's hands, they slid down the steep roof and took off into the dusty moonshine.

  Slowly Timothy swung his arms back for the leap-only pride gave him the final push. He shot down the slope, the gentle upturn of the bell-shaped roof lifted him slightly at the edge, a helpful start. When he felt the roof no longer under him he began to flap and kick furiously; the dark trees below rushed at him then swerved away, he found he had banked and was going up again. Little gray creatures darted over and under him and rattled him frightfully; but he saw Sinkinda, maned like a comet, shooting ahead, and he pumped after her for all he was worth.

  When he had got used to the rushing noise in his ears he began to notice a sound that seemed to come out of the moon, a vibrato that thrummed all through his body. It lifted him, relaxed his tight muscles, and dissolved his fear. He looked down and saw the town laid out in fiat, subaqueous hues, the rounded treetops soft with sleep pressing against the pale columns and the tiny dark windows. Only the steeples stood up alert from the lightly rocking waters; far sunken chimes hinted at wakefulness there. He could imagine St. Michael's holding its grave nightly colloquy with St. Philip's, giving out as the elder spire the law and the prophets, while St. Philip's answered with a sulky one-eyed stare of its steeple light. The earth voices, the human habitations, fell down as he mounted, and now only the bright light shrilled on the sea, joining the sound of singing in the air.

  They were flying high in a great company; and meeting a cloud bank in the west, they dived through like dolphins and came out on a wide floor as if they had changed worlds. The stars, red, yellow, and blue, swung in a circle, making sharp and delicate patterns; he glanced up and found himself looking straight into the eye of the demon star, Algol, trailed by its dark follower. His companions shouted a salutation and began to weave a freakish Maypole dance about their own delegate In the starry host. Timothy lost all sense of direction, but he didn't care now whether the poles kept their places or not. He began to flap in long dignified strokes, trying to fly like a heron; he banked gracefully to the strong puffs of wind and headed up, his legs trailing. A hag swooped by him black as a bat, screeching with laughter, but he didn't allow this discourtesy to shake his self-confidence.

  After a while he noticed that the others were forming in a downward spiral, and he tagged along, keeping as close to Sinkinda as his clumsy technique permitted. Gradually they approached the radiant cloudy floor again—"Like miles and miles of puffed muslin," he said, imagining that the simile was his own.

  He suddenly thought of Will—little did that old buffalo guess when he recommended a voyage, a change of scene . . . Blissfully they plunged through the clouds, a delicious tingling bathed their limbs. On the nether side all was dark, they went down rapidly, the earth formed in the void, trees and water separated, each taking its own shape. Just above the treetops they flew round three times, making the magic circle, Timothy supposed—and immediately he saw a building among the thick branches, a steep-pitched roof beset with sharp finials and a short wooden belfry. The demons ahead were already settling and entering the high-pointed arch of a double doorway from which came a stream of solemn light.

  "Is this a church?" cried Timothy, scandalized, and, thrusting his feet out before him, he backed air hard with his arms.

  "Don't be a fool!" Sinkinda swished past him. "Our architects like the ecclesiastical style, too. Stop dawdling now—and keep close to me."

  Timothy, morally upset, made a rough landing but kept his feet and followed Sinkinda under the arch, which was edged with elaborately cut wooden trim. They crossed a vaulted porch and entered the great hall from which the light streamed.

  What a lofty building, thought Timothy. Like the Crystal Palace, only better. In the hall itself lancet windows of stained glass streamed with light, presumably artificial. The far wall was oval; against it a wide staircase swirled up to a gallery that ran around the hall some thirty feet above their heads. And above this still the shadowy cavity went up and up to the sharp angle of the roof. There a skylight, also of stained glass, was set in, through which the moon shone brightly and shot the hall and stair with jeweled colors.

  "Great heavens, but this is a handsome apartment," Timothy whispered to Sinkinda. "The Dev— that is, the Adversary—is a man of superlative taste, I should say."

  Sinkinda's eyebrows rounded. "The Adversary? Be careful of your terms, my dear man. From where you stand now, the Adversary is the Other One. Remember everything is relative, and don't make faux pas."

  "But what shall I call him?"'

  "That depends," said Sinkinda unsatisfactorily, and began to talk to old friends who crowded round to admire her, for all the world like Penny's coterie at the church door.

  Words, then, were even more tricky in Hell than at home. Timothy resolved to have as little to do with them as possible and gave his attention to the guests.

  The assemblage before him had a brilliant international flavor. Witches from all parts of the world, wizards of the North in pointed hats, dwarfs, giants, hobgoblins from all the islands in Time . . . they milled about the hall, roosted on the balcony rail above, or drifted up and down the staircase while the blue and red gleams shimmered on them as if the skylight itself were moving. Their long predatory fmgernails gave out a faint clashing sound, and as they made the turn of the staircase their eyes shone for a moment with the cold fauna gleam that denied both pity and rational argument.

  This noise is deafening, he said to himself, it's like receptions at home—and in answer to his thought a bellboy stood at his elbow with some tufts of cotton wool. Timothy put them in his ears, wondering how much he should tip the fellow. But he had no pocketbook, nor even a pocket, which solved the problem.

  At that moment he began to have a queer feeling. A young vampire had slipped up beside him, and some compass needle within him began to jump and run wild. He stood
stock-still and looked at her out of one eye like a rooster; then he shuddered with joy, because she had the romantic and sensual beauty that men invent in their dreams. She swung round and faced him and he thought she said. Come with me . . . but perhaps not, since the lissome swaying of her body as she began to move backward made words superfluous. Timothy followed her avidly, yet with nightmare dragging at his feet, for through his bewitchment he saw that her lips were vermilion and her curved nails like clots of blood. He didn't know whether he was angry or relieved when Sinkinda bore down on them, steam coming out of her nostrils, and snatched him bodily away.

  The vampire showed fight, and Timothy backed under the staircase until the ladies should settle their differences. They clawed each other swiftly, they threw back their heads and seemed to utter uninhibited screeches, but the cotton in his ears spared him this terrible sound. It was skillfully medicated, he observed, to shut out only offensive noises. I must find out this ingenious formula for the future—if I have a future, he thought.

  The fight was proceeding in a manner that offended his sense of sportsmanship, and he took advantage of Sinkinda's preoccupation to stroll off a little and do some sightseeing on his own.

  The first and most startling sight to confront him was himself; he stopped short, hypnotized. He was looking into a tall narrow mirror set between two windows and bonneted with rococo gilt. His undershirt and long drawers had collected a coating of soot in his trip up the chimney and had shrunk to fit him tightly like a ballet costume. His skin showed the dark stain he saw on all the others. It relieved him greatly to find that he had not dropped in on this assemblage in plain underwear; indeed, with his black suit, his pale flowing hair, his distinguished angularity, he looked quite fiendish, he thought, and very fine.

  He could have spent some time admiring his own appearance but Sinkinda, victrix, came up and appropriated the mirror. She produced a comb from her bosom and fluffed out her touseled bang, she backed off, studying herself with impassioned appraisal, she smoothed and plucked at her filmy skirt of long mauve petals. Advancing again she all but got into the mirror while she repaired from her pomatum jar three or four long gashes made by the vampire's nails. "Have you had a look around? I hope it lives up to your expectations. You earthlings are pretty exacting in your ideas of Hell."