How had they done all this so fast? How had they had so many offspring so quickly?
Greetings. Welcome.
I looked down to see a large one bowing to me from the floor. I didn’t know if it was the original one or not, but I was glad to see it still wasn’t any bigger than a gerbil. None of them were; I hoped that meant that they were their full adult size and wouldn’t get any bigger.
Greetings, I thought at it and bowed my head, too.
You did your job well yesterday, nervous system, it told me. That is what has made all of this possible. Good thing, too! Now we are whole, three-in-one.
This thing you built. What is it? It’s ... beautiful.
You speak very well. You are very intelligent, it flattered me. Of course, we do not perceive our home as you do, through waves of light. But we can sense its future beauty also.
But how did you do it so fast? How did you have enough time to build this and also have so many babies?
Foreigners! it complained, not so flattering now. Can’t you understand the way things work? You are the nervous system. We asked the Lord through you, and it granted our request to give us the slowdown.
“Huh?” I said aloud. I didn’t know what it was talking about. It was also not as easy to understand as before because there was so much more background noise now, like a kind of constant, fluctuating, high-pitched whistle. It must be the mental pitch of the sonar all the creatures were using to get around. It wasn’t very loud, but it was distracting.
And then I sensed unusual movement and looked up high. The creatures near the top were scrawnier than the ones lower down, I noticed, and their color was blotchy —they looked unhealthy. A very large number of these were all rushing up one small ladder at the same time, right at the top. The ladder was trembling, the entire structure swaying wildly, dangerously now. Hey! I thought. Wait! Maybe you should—
The ladder shuddered and then broke in two. All the creatures on it, and the broken ladder, plummeted to the ground, tearing the structure on the way down. When the creatures splatted on the floor, they lay still, the torn fibers above them swaying slowly.
There was a sound like an alarm in my head. The fallen creatures were quickly surrounded by others who, slowly for them, carried the bodies away someplace behind the box where I couldn’t see them.
Very terrible, oh, very terrible! the large one near me was saying, and I was almost aware of emotion in its voice. Very many workers gone! And now all we gained from the slowdown is lost. Why has the Lord done this to us?
Yeah, but ... the ladder wasn’t strong enough for so many. They should have been more careful, taken precautions.
It ignored my advice. We must dance! We must do special ceremony! You will watch and see everything in the waves of light. And then you will convey everything to the Lord. It makes the Lord very happy for us to dance to it. After that, it will help us more after our disaster. Come! It rubbed its little arms together. Others began to gather around it. They now had little pieces of the foil substance tucked into the ridges in their heads, like funny hats.
Wouldn’t it be better to just make stronger ladders? I suggested .
Do not disturb us now. Watch, remember, and convey. You are the nervous system.
For about five minutes they pranced around in a circle, stopping often to bow deeply. At the end they all removed their little foil hats and put them in a pile on the floor. Take these offerings to the Lord, one of them instructed me. Convey our ritual to it. Tell it about our disaster and ask it to help—to make deeper slowdown so we can repair our population and finish our home in time. We know it needs our home. But remind it gently. Be polite! Go! Hurry!
It wasn’t being polite. I didn’t like the way it was ordering me around, and I wished it could at least say please.
And it picked up the thought, without me even trying to project it. Okay, okay, we thank you very much, came the sensation in my head. Now you can go.
I hurried upstairs.
In my closet I bowed to the clicking propeller. I placed the little pieces of foil in the center of it. I concentrated on the images of the disaster and the ritual in the basement. I thanked it very much and said they needed more help, a deeper “slowdown.” I was beginning to think I understood what the word meant, impossible as it seemed. I stood there and waited to see what it would do with the pieces of foil.
Again, there was a gust of wind, even though no window was open. But this time the pieces of foil didn’t fall into the tendrils. They were blown forcefully up into the air and landed outside the box on the closet floor. The offerings were rejected.
And then my vision blurred for an instant, and when it cleared, I saw four babies of the basement creatures, one on each blade of the propeller. My vision blurred again, and then the babies were gone. The message was clear.
The pieces of foil weren’t enough anymore.
CHAPTER NINE
I went back downstairs slowly, shivering a little. I had been afraid of the clock from the first moment I saw it, and it just kept getting more sinister. Why did it want their offspring?
Creepy as they were, I almost felt sorry for the little creatures downstairs now. They worshiped this thing, they called it Lord, they gave it gifts. And look how it responded.
When I walked into the root cellar they were already standing there, stunned. The buzz of their brains and of their sonar had come almost to a complete stop. They had taken the information from my brain already.
Then the sonar buzz began again. They all turned and pointed their ridged heads up, toward the top level of the grid structure.
I put my hand to my mouth as a sudden fight broke out among the scrawny, blotchy ones at the top of the structure. The babies rose up on their back legs, scrabbling furiously at each other with their front ones, slashing with their jaws. The structure trembled; I was afraid more were going to fall off.
In a minute or two the fight was over. Slowly, the four losing babies from the highest level began climbing down. The accident had happened near the top, too; the ones who had died then were also the scrawnier, blotched ones.
They are of the lowest class, came a direct voice inside my head. Naturally it is from the lowest class that victims come.
I didn’t project my thoughts directly, but it still knew what I was thinking. Unfair? I do not understand why you are worrying about that. That is what the lower classes are for—sacrifice, obligation. Their lives aren’t worth much. You can carry them now. They are ready to be taken to the Lord. They offer themselves.
I realized then, belatedly, that in order to get them upstairs I was going to have to touch them. So far I had managed to avoid that. Wait a minute. Do they really have to give up their lives? What if you just didn’t do what the Lord asked?
I was shaken by a silent howl of rage and horror at this suggestion. The clock was all-powerful; it could not be disobeyed.
Gritting my teeth, I lifted my hands to where the four infants were waiting at the edge, at about the level of my shoulders. Moving their heads back and forth, two of them crawled onto my left, two onto my right hand. They weighed hardly anything; the touch of their legs was like the brush of a feather. I was relieved that they were not sticky or slimy. I moved with them toward the door.
And then I was struck by exactly what it was I was doing. I turned back. I won’t do this! I won’t take them up there to that thing. I don’t want to have anything to do with—
Suddenly the creatures in my hands were painfully stinging me. Reflexively I tried to shake them off. They wouldn’t fall off, glued to my hands.
What they are doing is involuntary; they don’t want to go either. Their bodies are doing it because you are not fulfilling your function. The pain will stop when you get going.
I protested mentally, still shaking my hands. The pain got worse.
You are the nervous system. The combined voices of the whole group were very powerful.
I stamped my foot in outrage. The pain got
even worse. Furious, I turned and started for the door again. The pain stopped instantly.
Halfway up from the basement the mental sensations from the others faded, and I could distinguish the impulses from the ones I carried. They were terrified, and feeling it made me wonder what I could do. I began to climb more slowly.
The creatures weren’t glued to my hands anymore. Each pair was pressing their heads together, their front legs extended in a clumsy embrace. They were trying to comfort each other! I felt the beginnings of tears behind my eyes.
I quickly knelt, my hands on the floor. Run away! Now! Before—
They were glued to my hands again, stinging me.
When I reached my room, I heard the click of the clock dial moving a notch. Was there a self-satisfied, gloating tone to it?
Like a robot, I walked into the closet. I deposited one of the little creatures on each propeller blade, my tears welling up now. I started to turn away.
But I couldn’t. I had to watch. I was too curious not to.
They stood there on the propellers, fear radiating from them like waves of heat from a summer pavement. And the clock waited. It clicked, and clicked again. The propellers jerked a tiny bit. The four creatures were trembling now. And still nothing happened.
Was the clock enjoying this?
Then a tendril slowly detached from the side of the box and draped itself over the edge of the nearest propeller. Its movement so gradual that it was barely perceptible, it snaked toward the little waiting creature, which was shaking so violently now it could barely stand. Its fear was a wail inside my head. But it didn’t back away. It stood firm when the root reached it. The tendrils separated, then wrapped themselves around it. And slowly, slowly squeezed. When I heard a cracking sound, I turned away. In my mind I felt the stab of broken carapace piercing the flesh.
It took a long time to die; the clock made sure of that. And so did the other three. Tears streamed down my face from the mental shadow of their pain. And I swore I would never do this again, no matter what.
I looked back at the clock as soon as the last one was gone. The propellers jerked, the dial clicked, and clicked again, and then again. The clock was speeding up, no doubt about that; it was going a lot faster now.
I stepped away from the closet, feeling sick. I turned to start downstairs. I glanced out the window as I went past. And then I spun back and stared.
The cars were moving even more slowly than they had been earlier this afternoon, when I was with Henry. And as I watched, it was as though they were all gradually putting on their brakes at exactly the same rate. Slower and slower, until you had to stare and look at them in relation to a tree to be sure they were moving at all. The pedestrians had become lifelike statues.
I was clenching my teeth, my hand pulling at my lip. How could this be happening? I hurried away from the window, then turned back and looked again. Finally I rushed out of the room and down the stairs.
A terrible thought was spinning around my brain. Was the clock doing this to time because of the offering I had carried out, as the nervous system—as the messenger? Was it my fault?
Like me, my friends in the basement weren’t frozen. My brain fizzled with their patterns as they raced up and down their shaking, unstable grid, repairing the damage that had been done and adding new sections. Like spiders, they spun the construction material out of their own bodies. Was it digested rock?
Be careful! If you don’t watch it, you’ll have another accident!
We must hurry. We need more room. And the Lord wishes us to complete construction as soon as possible. That is why the Lord has graciously made such a powerful slowdown.
I didn’t want to watch, afraid every instant that there would be another disaster. I turned off the light and hurried upstairs. As I reached the top, I glanced at my watch. It was 4:25. Only five minutes had gone by since I had last looked at it, outside the house with Henry, though it felt more like an hour to me. I had to stare at it for a very long time before the second hand moved.
I was panicking now. This was worse than any nightmare. Everything had almost stopped, except for me and the creatures. Would it ever start up again? Upstairs, I looked out the window. It was horrifying and disorienting, but addictive. I kept turning away, then looking back. I had never felt so helpless and alone.
But something was telling me that I wasn’t really alone, that there was another individual who probably had not slowed down like the rest of the world.
Henry! Henry had not been part of the sickly sluggishness of everything at school today. If he had been outside of the slowdown then, he would probably be outside of it now, too.
I raced to the phone and opened the phone book. But the first handful of pages I flipped tore out in slow motion, then hung in midair, rocking lazily back and forth as they took their time descending toward the floor. What was happening? Why were the pages disintegrating?
They weren’t disintegrating. It was just that I was moving so much faster than the rest of the world that I had accidentally ripped them. I had to be careful. As if handling an ancient manuscript, I very cautiously and delicately turned the pages until I found Henry’s number.
I lifted the receiver. The dial tone was not a tone, but a series of clearly separated rumbles. Would the phone even work? Gingerly, I touched the first button of Henry’s number, thinking about not pushing too fast or too hard. There was resistance at first. Then the button slowly, slowly sank down, as if into deep, dense mud. The vibrato tone of what was normally a beep lasted what seemed like five minutes.
It took forever to dial the number. And then I had to wait through the rings and the long silences between them, each one going on and on and on. It was like being put on hold, multiplied by a million. I was impatient to find out if Henry was experiencing all this. And I had to wait, wait, and wait in helpless frustration. Would he ever answer?
Then there was a clashing and rumbling, like a long, drawn-out roll of thunder. Ten minutes I waited through it, and finally there was a voice. “Hello?” Henry said, sounding very tentative.
“Henry, it’s me, Annie.”
“Annie ...” He waited for a moment. Then “Annie!” he shouted joyously. “I should have known! Because you saw it in school today, when it was a lot less than this. I’m not going crazy? It’s happening to you, too!”
I was too scared, and too excited that I was not alone, to think. “It’s not just happening to me, Henry,” I told him. “I think ... I did it.”
That was when it really hit me for sure: I had been part of what made this happen.
Henry hesitated. “Huh?”
“I gave the message that made the world stop. It’s because of the boxes. And I’m their messenger.”
“You mean that dream?” he said, confused and also skeptical.
“It’s not a dream.” Part of me knew I shouldn’t be telling him this, but the main part of me was out of control. “It’s real. I only said it was a dream. My uncle Marco, who’s always going to strange, secret places, left the boxes here and told me not to open them. But I did open them, and then the whole world went crazy. I’m as bad as Pandora! It’s all my fault.”
“Are you sure you ... know what you’re saying, Annie?” Henry said carefully, as though he were talking to a crazy person.
“Come over and see for yourself. We have plenty of time. Oodles and oodles of time.” I was on the verge of hysteria. “Aunt Ruth won’t be home for days at this rate.” I glanced at my watch. “Come over and see for—”
The second hand darted forward. And then, only a moment later, it shot forward again. It was quickly approaching 4:26.
“Okay, Annie, I’ll be right—”
“Wait a minute,” I said slowly. “Check it out, Henry. I think it’s stopping. Or, I mean, the world is starting again.”
Through the living room window I could see the cars uniformly inching forward, gradually accelerating.
“You’re right,” Henry breathed, awe in his voi
ce. “And it’s happening fast. But I still want to come over and see these boxes.”
“No. There isn’t time now. Aunt Ruth will be home in an hour,” I said.
Time was racing back to normal; I was flooded with guilt. It was bad enough that I had opened the boxes. Now I had made it even worse by telling somebody about them.
For my whole life, I had always done whatever people told me to do. Not until the last few days had I ever disobeyed anyone—Uncle Marco, my favorite person in the world. How was I ever going to undo what I had done?
“Henry,” I said. “Just, uh ... just forget I ever called you.”
“You can’t tell me something like that and expect me to forget it, Annie,” Henry said. “I have to see those boxes soon. There’s no way around it.”
“Not now, Henry,” I said. “Not now. See you tomorrow.” I hung up.
Cars were speeding by normally outside; clocks ticked away. Aunt Ruth would be home in an hour, and I’d have to act like nothing had happened. I started upstairs to try to prepare myself.
I heard the front door open. I turned around on the stairs.
Aunt Ruth waddled inside, carrying bundles. She looked up at me. Then she frowned. “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “You’re staring at me like I’m a ghost or something.”
I made an effort to sound calm, not panicky. I glanced at my watch. It was 4:30. “I just ... didn’t expect you home now.”
“Were you up to something?” She glanced quickly around, as if searching for evidence against me.
“No. I just ...” I didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t you remember anything? I told you I was taking off early today. I had to do some shopping. Probably a mistake—I bet the bank will be a mess when I go back in the morning. Can’t do without me for one afternoon. Anyway, I came back here now because I want to talk to Crutchley —in private.”
The Boxes Page 5
