“Come, Brynhild,” said André, with his lucent smile, “pet her.”
Brynhild shrank back. How could she touch those leprous, fleshy leaves, that flower-face as unnatural as a vampire’s? Trembling, she reached out her little hand to the bleached foliage.
Quick as a streak of lightning, the daggers struck at her, viciously, inflicting a long, bleeding scratch on her hand. The girl screamed and fell into André’s arms.
“Darling!” groaned the young man, bending over her solicitously. “I never thought—”
Brynhild buried her golden curls against his shoulder.
“André!” she sobbed. “I can’t endure it. That monster—it hates me.” Her voice rose hysterically. “Why did you create it?”
“Hush!” He spoke sternly. “She never would have scratched you if she hadn’t sensed that you are an enemy.”
“You’re mad!” She broke from his arms and raised her beautiful face angrily. “This vile monster has gone to your head. Now, as always, you prefer your unnatural flowers to me.”
Her white skirt flashed through the open door and on out between the flowery tangle beyond. He followed her, calling a contrite apology. When he caught her and again held her fast in his arms, they were both breathless.
“Pardonne-moi!” he pleaded, his thin, spiritual face full of penitence. “But, Brynhild, I’d give half my life if you’d love plants as I do.”
And with his hand pressing hers, he told her, in his peculiarly quiet voice, of the supreme joy that can be had from a sympathetic understanding of Nature’s strange ways.
“Man has a connection with plant life,” he said, “which all scientists will some day concede. Naturalists already agree that there is no real dividing line between the lowest forms of plant and animal life. And what is man but the highest animal?”
He had grown excited, as he always did when discussing plants. His sensitive face glowed with earnestness.
“Who can say,” he continued, “how close is the kinship between animals and the carnivorous plants that devour meat? White Lady is not the only plant that has voluntary motion; nor is she the only one that senses instantly the presence of the destroyer.” He looked at her intently. “Some of our commonest garden plants have eye-cells in the epidermis of leaves and stalks—eyes that have lenses and are sensitive to light. White Lady is the result of careful cross-breedings that have developed the most humanlike traits found throughout plant life. Oh, Brynhild!” He held her hand against his cheek. “If you could only understand, dear! You would not be shocked that my White Lady is more than an animal plant; that the exquisite, lovely thing has intelligence!”
A long shiver ran through the girl’s slender body.
“It is wrong to bring such a monstrosity into existence, André!”
“No!” His eyes filmed with tears. “My only sin is that I developed just one. Had I developed two, White Lady would not now be the loneliest living thing in existence.” He flushed as he spoke.
Sudden horrible understanding gripped Brynhild, understanding so overwhelming that she swayed dizzily.
“That monster—it loves you, André! It loves you as a dog loves its master.”
He stroked the gleaming gold of her hair, all alive under the sunlight.
“Don’t go near it again, dear one,” he soothed. “There might be real danger for you. Now there! Mother is calling us to breakfast. Be happy and smiling, won’t you?” He tilted up her chin and kissed her gently.
At the breakfast table, Madame Fournier was very much disturbed; André took nothing except milk, into which he dissolved a pinkish pellet.
“No coffee this morning, son?” asked the mother, anxiously.
André flushed. “No, mother; just milk.”
“Why, André!” protested Brynhild. “You scarcely eat enough to live. I watched you last night. You actually shivered over the lettuce mother made you eat. Don’t you feel well?”
“Excellent. Remember that I drink quantities of milk.”
After breakfast, Madame Fournier drew Brynhild aside.
“I’m uneasy,” she said. “André is becoming fanatical in his love for growing things. Think of it! He says he can hear his lettuce cry out when he cuts into it.”
“A year ago,” shivered Brynhild, “I’d have called that nerves; but now that I’ve seen that monstrous White Lady thing—” She put her hands over her eyes.
* * * *
No more that day did Brynhild go near White Lady. That night, while the island slept, she sat by her window and enjoyed the splendor of the moon-bathed panorama. Dimly, from the enchanted flowery reaches, came stealing the wild music of White Lady. With the first note, Brynhild stiffened, but, as the seductive sounds sent their sorcery through her, she listened with increasing delight, forgetful of her horror of the morning. Within a few moments, she was reaching for her dressing gown.
Following where White Lady’s music pulled her, Brynhild stepped lightly through the thick leafage, exalted as though she were blown along by a jubilant wind.
André’s strange world of flowers was like the inside of a giant pearl, for the Caribbean moon, riding full and low, had bleached the island to a luminous whiteness. From the pale hypnosis above and from the honeyed breaths that trembled over the flowers, she drew a new kinship with Nature. There was solemn joy in knowing that the same mysterious force called life which animated her own young body also sent the sap flowing through the plants about her.
Every growing thing on the island seemed to respond to the beauty of the night as happily as she. On all sides, flower-faces that seemed delirious with the joy of living lifted to the white radiance above.
The beauty of the world, then, did not exist for man’s sole enjoyment.
Perhaps there was truth in André’s contention that plants, with their partially developed consciousness, respond with more delicate delight than cultivated man to such elemental joys as the beauty of moonlight and the soft kisses of the night wind.
She was sure of this when she saw White Lady.
The mysterious woman-flower was moon-mad. The roof of the bower, built to shade partially, cut off the moon which was directly above, but White Lady had curved her stem so that her face reached the light.
The music that throbbed from the rubbing arms was so rapturous that Brynhild felt her senses reel. She threw herself upon the grassy ground directly in front of the cage.
Instantly the music ceased, and the monstrous blossom withdrew to the shadows, where it stood tall and straight on its rigid stem, spectral in its veil and cadaverous foliage. Brynhild was prepared for the hideous discord that she had heard in the morning, but from the shadows came such low, enticing harmonies, sweet as the breathings of a wind harp, that she drew closer. The nearer she approached, the dimmer came the music, until the horrible thought came to her that White Lady was enticing her within the cage.
Pressing her hands over her ears, she fled, frightened with the paralyzing fear of the unknown.
The next morning, when she told André, he caught her in his arms and cried out:
“Keep away from her! As you value your life, keep away. She has intelligence, but no conscience—no pity for what she hates.”
“But, André!” She searched his ascetic face closely. “Will you let such a thing live? Shan’t you cut it down?”
“Cut down my White Lady, the supreme achievement of my life?” He looked as though he thought her insane.
“Not even though it hates me, André? Not even though it is trying to destroy me?”
“But I warned you to keep away. Wouldn’t you—wouldn’t any human being have a right to fight an enemy? You are her enemy, and she knows it.”
The dispute ended with Brynhild in tears, but with André as firm as ever about not cutting down his unnatura
l creation.
* * * *
Brynhild was jealous, jealous of a flower, and her jealousy increased with the passing of time. Whenever she heard the seductive song of White Lady, elemental hate surged in her heart. She wanted to destroy it, to tear apart those thick, white leaves, to crush that singular woman-face under her heel.
She was afraid to go too close to the screen cage, but sometimes she stole near enough for a good glimpse of the flower. Always she was delighted to see the rage of the horrible thing, and, at a safe distance, laughed at the shrieking dissonance that the flower’s striking daggers made. At times, when she approached the cage, White Lady merely stiffened, and then Brynhild knew that it watched her as a cat watches a mouse. André had told her that the invisible eyes in the leaves and stem were very highly developed.
It gave Brynhild unholy delight to know that her very presence was torment to this human flower that seemed to adore André. As though the thing could understand, she would stand at a safe distance and tell how André loved her, and of the wedding which was only three weeks distant. Once, after a scene like this, White Lady lunged at her so viciously with her daggers that Brynhild was barely able to escape.
And the girl knew that, sooner or later, one would succumb to the other.
“It shall be that bête blanche,” vowed Brynhild, quoting the name that Madame Fournier had given the plant.
* * * *
As the days passed, André grew thinner, whiter, more spiritual. He was absolutely unlike the brown young athlete with whom Brynhild had fallen in love, two years ago, in Bermuda.
“It’s the way he eats,” moaned his mother. “How can a strong man who works live on little else than milk? What are we to do, Brynhild? He is killing himself. Sometimes I even wonder if his mind is not going.” She began to cry softly. “Did you notice him in the rain yesterday?”
“No. Tell me.”
“He walked around as in a dream, with his white face held up toward the dripping sky. When I went to him and asked him to come in, he refused. He told me to leave him alone, because he had found the mood in which he could react to the cool rain just as a plant. He’s doing something mysterious to make himself as much as possible like things that grow in the ground.”
“It’s that White Lady!” said Brynhild bitterly. “Constant brooding over a monster like that will unhinge anyone’s mind. The horrible freak is getting on my nerves, too. I do silly things.” She blushed, thinking of her own scenes with the strange plant.
“We’ll have to watch him, Brynhild.”
Brynhild did watch, and thereby brought greater suffering to herself, for her surveillance revealed that he not only spent much of the day with White Lady, but that he often went to the plant at night.
Much of his passion for herself had died. His love seemed to have ascended to a spiritual plane which was ethereal in its purity and tenderness. He spoke no more of their approaching marriage, seemed almost to have forgotten it.
When the two were alone, he frequently turned the conversation to morbid subjects.
“Death is beautiful in a land of flowers like this,” he told her. “Isn’t it a happy thought, Brynhild, to know that when you are put into the warm, sweet earth, your body resolves into its chemical elements and again reaches up to the light in leaf and stalk and fragrant bloom?”
* * * *
One night, when the forgotten wedding was only a week off, André fainted. After he had responded to the frantic ministrations of his mother and Brynhild, he turned his great, dark eyes pleadingly to them and gasped:
“I want you both to make me a promise.”
“What, son?” asked the mother.
“That when I’m dead, you’ll bury me, not too deep, under my White Lady.” His tired lids fluttered down. “Oh, mother! To think of the roots of that sweet creature reaching down, down for me and resurrecting my atoms to a newer and sweeter life.”
“André, darling! Don’t! You’re breaking our hearts!”
“But will you promise?”
“Yes! Oh, God—help me!”
With André restored and quiet in his room, Brynhild and Madame Fournier sought a secluded corner for their frantic grief.
“It can’t go on another day, daughter,” said the mother. “André will die before the wedding. We must destroy that bête blanche.”
“But, mother, wouldn’t that grieve him too much at this time?”
“Rather a few days’ grief than a grave under that monster.” Madame Fournier shuddered.
“Where is the ax, mother?” Brynhild’s face was as pale as her dress.
“I’ll do it, my dear. I’m an old woman and his mother. Perhaps it might be something like murder to kill that human thing, but I have a mother’s right.”
“No!” Brynhild’s voice was almost fierce. “I want to do it. White Lady hates me, and I hate her. Where is the ax?”
“Wait a little. It is early. One of the Negroes might see you.”
* * * *
And Brynhild waited until the night grew older and blacker, when she crept from the house with an ax and a flashlight. There was no moon tonight to guide her through the flowery mazes. A strong wind, coming from the sea, followed behind her like an animal sniffing her footprints. It pulled her skirts and her long, flowing sleeves and whipped her hair across her face.
She had the furtive feeling of one who plans a deed of blood and violence. In her mind she outlined what she must do. She would place the flashlight so that its light could fall upon White Lady. Then she would quickly unlatch the door and chop.
Never had White Lady been so beautiful. In the glow of the flashlight, she stood straight and silent in her waxy foliage, with the gossamer veil whipping around her airily and her dagger arms folded like a demure bride waiting for her bridegroom. Brynhild never knew what to expect from this unnatural creature, and its silence frightened her more than the wildest noise it had ever produced.
Before lifting the latch, Brynhild stood regarding it, horrified, trembling, pitying. White Lady was watching, too, and waiting.
The moment Brynhild opened the door and went inside, a scream like the piercing voice of a woman tore through the night. Again and again the awful shriek wailed from the scraping dagger arms, and Brynhild knew that it rode on the wind to the ears of listeners in the house beyond.
Her nerveless hands almost dropped the ax. How could she wield her weapon against that fleshy, human face—against a thing that could cry out like a woman?
But André’s burning eyes haunted her. She must, for his sake.
Grasping and raising the ax, she went forward, with the wind pushing at her body and snatching her hair over her eyes. The ax fell, with poor aim. It merely crashed through part of the foliage, which cracked with a sickening snap as of crushed bones.
One more dreadful shriek rent the night, a shriek of murder and of rapine; but before its shrill echoes died, another and less hideous woman-voice gave an agony cry.
It was Brynhild.
The wind, tampering with her clothes, had blown her long, loose sleeve against White Lady, where it caught or was grasped by one of the dagger arms. The other dagger arm lifted and plunged, lifted and plunged.
The girl was wild with pain and fright. Held fast as she was, she could scarcely use the ax to advantage, especially as she was forced to avoid the stabbing dagger.
The white veil fell from the thing’s head. Before Brynhild could again wield the ax, another dagger thrust found her body. Through the flesh of her left shoulder it cut this time, and she crumpled, half-fainting.
Even as she fell, she heard running feet. André’s voice called out:
“Brynhild!”
Instantly White Lady paused in her stabbing and sent forth another shriek of triumph. Then again the dagger plu
nged, and Brynhild felt the warm blood flow from her arm.
She never completely lost consciousness, and dimly she was aware of chopping blows made by another, and of her left arm coming away from its horrible mooring. She felt herself lifted and carried for several yards. She felt André’s rough, unshaved cheek against her own, and heard soft love words fall from the lips that bent to hers.
André laid her down carefully and shouted for help. Poor fellow! There had been a time when he could have carried her all around the island.
With a supreme effort, Brynhild opened her eyes. The flashlight was still where she had placed it, so that its round eye fell upon White Lady, or what was left of her. Now the plant was only a mass of crushed leaves and petals.
“Yes, I did it,” came André’s stern voice. “The bête blanche would have killed you, darling!” He kissed her hungrily. “I’ve been a beast, myself—and a fool. Forgive me!”
And later after Brynhild’s gaping wounds were dressed, she heard André say four simple words that filled her with delight.
“I am hungry, mother.”
CARILLON OF SKULLS by Lester del Rey and James H. Beard
Published under the pseudonym “Philip James” in Unknown Fantasy Fiction, February 1941.
Ann Muller ran a pale hand down the massive bole of the single oak, standing out in forsaken grandeur over the ruins of Lefferts Park, and gripped tightly on a shaggy outcropping of its bark. Through a hole in the tattered leaves overhead she saw angry clouds scudding across the sky and watched the last threads of the moon vanish, leaving the park a pit of sordid black. She shuddered and old words slipped through her teeth.
“How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me? My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
“Strange words from you, dearie.” The voice piped up from the blackness near her, ending in a cackling hiccup. A thin shaft of moonlight trickled down again, showing an old crone with dirty gray hair and the ragged shreds of former beauty still clinging to the reddened face. “Strange names you’re calling on this night, I’m thinking. Hee!”
The Fantasy MEGAPACK ® Page 28
