UNEARTHLY

by John Farris

  The leprechaun was replaced by a gangling man with a long nose who stood peering at the hill of the faeries. Alexandra, glancing at Barry through a slit in the curtains, admired her dexterity as she manipulated props and, seemingly, all ten fingers at once.

  "Now there was a man named Jemmy Rilehan who thought he could outsmart the faeries and take away all the gold he knew was stored in their enchanted hill." On the wall Jemmy Rilehan sidled closer to the realm of faerie. "He discovered the entrance by walking nine times around the hill in the light of the full moon. A door was opened to him, and the brilliant lights of the kingdom shone forth." Barry approximated this mystical effect by allowing glimmers of the light beam through her cupped hands. "He heard the voices of the faeries bidding him enter."

  A boy who remembered the dimensions of Jemmy Rilehan and the enchanted hill, as Barry had projected them, said, "Wasn't he too big?"

  "That's right." She reproduced Jemmy Rilehan, this time on all fours. "He had to crawl along on his hands and knees through a passageway, like this. But once he was inside, he found a wonderful palace, with the king and queen of the faeries at one end of a long table around which hundreds of other faeries were eating and drinking." She created Jemmy Rilehan in profile, his head turning this way and that. "They were all so beautiful his eyes were dazzled. He'd never even dreamt of such beautiful jewels and fabulous dresses. They offered him food and drink—but Jemmy knew that to touch anything he was offered meant he would be enslaved. Yet there was one thing he couldn't resist for long: their music. And so they lured him to the dance. And once he began to dance in a faerie ring, the faeries showed their true selves to him—"

  A remarkable thing was happening, as Barry launched into the climax of her tale. Alexandra looked alertly at her. Barry's hands gradually fell still in her lap. As she spoke she gazed at the source of light, the blinding pip of the projector bulb. The crude images she had heretofore projected with her hands, of the leprechaun and Jemmy Rilehan, gave way to elaborate full figures dancing in a ring that took in all of the wall. Then the shapes began to change—into horned goatmen and hunchback goblins, banshees and werewolves, all prancing around poor cowering Jemmy Rilehan. The piping, fiddling music reached a crescendo. The children were enthralled, as was Alexandra, who had been a few places and seen some sights in her time, but nothing quite like this.

  Chapter 16

  "I'm sure I'll be allowed to leave the hospital tomorrow," Alexandra said over coffee in the cafeteria. "I've been free of fever for nearly twenty-four hours."

  "Where do you live?" Barry asked her.

  "The Kinbote estate."

  "You're a neighbor!"

  "Oh, I don't own it. I'm only related to them through marriage. My late husband and I spent our last years together at a Buddhist retreat near Saranac Lake, where we pursued our studies. When he died, I must admit I was lonely, and I found the prospect of more of those endlessly severe winters unappealing. The present heirs of the estate were kind enough to allow me the use of a cottage on their property."

  "How long have you been living at Kinbote?"

  "Not quite a year. I've seen your father occasionally, with his sketchbook, walking across the hills. I thought to introduce myself, but I didn't want to intrude. I respect his need for solitude as much as I respect his artistry. Do you paint?"

  "I used to. But I don't have any talent for it."' Barry opened a tin of aspirin she had bought and swallowed two of them with coffee. She was pale to the roots of her hair, and her eyes were bloodshot.

  "Your own talent is no less remarkable than his. A visionary talent—as natural, as undisciplined, as the wind. It may be unique."

  "'You mean the shadow show?" Barry smiled deprecatingly. "It's something I've always been able to do. What I'm thinking, others see. But I don't like to do it very often. Gives me a hangover."

  "Perhaps you should begin to think of how to control your talent."

  "Why? It doesn't do any harm."

  "Nor does the wind—until it acquires the force of a cyclone. I know something of that myself. I am not superstitious, nor do I have a belief in the occult. In Tibet I was taught that the universe is merely an idea, a wish, a need fulfilled by a cosmic imagination, the exceptional energy of the power of thought. It is a powerful unconscious energy that produces 'reality' as we know it; yet each of us has the singular, latent ability to influence, even alter, reality within our spheres. Much as you entertained your audience today. What if your shadow creations had suddenly come leaping off the wall into the midst of those spellbound children?"

  The question was casual—no severity in her tone; there were crinkles around Alexandra's eyes and her expression, as always, was both watchful and kind. Barry was appalled by the notion.

  "That couldn't happen!"

  "Because neither you nor they desired it."

  They sat silently for nearly a minute. Alexandra was conditioned to silence, to contemplation. Barry was not. Eventually she forced a smile.

  "I must have—taken an idea of aspirin, instead of real aspirin. My headache's worse."

  Alexandra said sympathetically, "I only wished to plant a seed in your mind—the seed of caution."

  Barry was on the verge of telling her all about Mrs. Prye, but she didn't know how to go about it without sounding a little bit looney, particularly with the way Mrs. Prye had been acting lately.

  "I—I don't think I'm going to give any more shadow shows."

  "I've upset you. I'm sorry."

  "No. That's . . . okay. I've just never met anyone quite like you. You've done so much, been so many places—"

  "I have knowledge to share, if you're interested. Perhaps you may find a way to use me to your advantage."

  "We'll have you over," Barry said. "Soon. That's a promise." But even as she spoke, avoiding Alexandra's eyes, Barry knew she hadn't meant it. She was afraid—not of Alexandra, exactly, but of something. She felt, for the first time since she was a child, freakish and guilty, and it was much worse now because her mother was no longer around to protect her from such feelings and soothe her fears.

  Chapter 17

  On New Year's Eve he spoke for the first time to Barry.

  She had smuggled a bottle of champagne, iced, onto the floor, although on this particular evening no one paid much attention to regulations. The TV screen conveyed the customary pandemonium associated with the fade away minutes of a year haunted as always by misdeeds and failures of the human spirit. Get it behind us, they cheered in Times Square and at celebrity-sprinkled parties across the country. Bury the old whore. While Barry struggled with the plastic cork in the bottle, the young man opened the top drawer of the dresser and took out a package awkwardly wrapped in leftover Christmas paper. The cork shot out with a tremendous pop and ricocheted from wall to ceiling to floor. Barry got some of the foaming champagne into a glass and tasted it, then turned and looked quizzically at him. There was an odd suavity about his manner. He kept one hand behind his back.

  "What are you doing?"

  He held out the red foil package to her with a flourish. He must have seen a character on one of his soaps do the same thing, Barry realized, but she was touched.

  "Oh, a present!"

  "For Barry. For you." He just came out with it. There was something robot-like in the way he spoke, but also there was a slight appealing hesitation, not quite a stammer. Barry stared at him in awe for several seconds, then burst out crying.

  He had constructed, from dried orange peel and seeds and bits of cotton and other odds and ends available to him, a caricature of nurse Mayo.

  Barry showed it proudly to everyone, and the next afternoon she said to Dr. Edwards, "He doesn't belong in the hospital anymore. He's not 'a psychiatric case,' is he?"

  "Barry, we're still not in a position to be totally sure of that."

  "Well, he's not dangerous! He's bright and perceptive and gentle. And he's starting to talk! He needs to be around people more, not shut up in a hospital room. I'll
bet I can teach him to read again."

  "You're just out of high school and not really qualified—"

  "You said yourself he wouldn't have improved so fast if it wasn't for all the time I've spent with him!"

  If he stays at our house I'll be able to do twice as much. I know you still have a lot of tests you want to run—"

  "They can be arranged for him on an out-patient basis," Edwards conceded. He picked at a spot of dried catsup on his Phi Beta Kappa key. Then he sat back in his squeaking swivel chair, laced his hands behind his head, and looked at the ceiling.

  "Have you talked to your dad?"

  "Not yet."' She smiled winningly. "I thought you'd be a tougher nut to crack."

  "I do have some reservations about this. But there's no doubt you've played an important role in his recovery so far. That counts for a lot. Have Mr. Brennan give me a call when you've discussed your plan with him."

  Chapter 18

  Tom and Dal were aware it was coming, and when Barry brought up the matter of John Doe at dinner, they were united in their adamancy.

  "Give me one good reason," Barry said grimly.

  "We don't just live here, Barry, we work here," Dal said. "At least I'm trying to get back to work, and I don't need any distractions right now."

  "He won't bother you."

  "Maybe John Doe won't, but what about all the reporters trailing after him?"

  "They've sort of lost interest," Barry told him.

  "There was a piece on the news just last night."

  "Dal, just because you can't work and you're miserable doesn't mean you have to make everybody else miserable. This is my house as much as it is yours. Dad? Dad?"

  "Barry, I haven't said much up to now. I've been hoping you'd get over this—"

  "Get over what? I'm just trying to help another human being who needs me. I think that's a decent human impulse. You're both so self-centered you can't see beyond the tips of your paintbrushes. It's disgusting." She started to cry. "What do you want from me, Dad? Why don't you like him? What's he ever done to you, or anybody? I ran him down, and it's because of me he's the way he is. God, be reasonable."

  Tom looked at Dal, who said, "We think you're overdoing the guilt, Barry."

  "Well, who did you ever give a damn about in your whole life? It's one girl after another with you. Fuck 'em and forget 'em, right, Dal? I happen to have a little more regard for people and their feelings." She got up, knocking her chair over. "The least you could do is try it for a week. A week! Is that too much to ask? Can't you stand having him here for one week? He hates the hospital. What good does it do having him locked up with sick people all of the time?"

  "Barry, climb off your high horse," Tom advised.

  "Am I a member of this family or not? Don't treat me like I'm ten years old! I'm inviting a friend home for a few days, that's all."

  "I think," Tom sad softly, "you just may be asking for trouble."

  "Don't give in to her," Dal said to his father.

  "Dal, damn you, shut up!" Barry yelled.

  "How would you like a swift kick in the ass, kiddo?"

  "Both of you shut up," Tom said furiously. While Dal and Barry glared at each other, he sat thinking, still not liking it. He turned his eyes on Barry.

  "What do you mean, trouble?" she asked him. "He is not mentally deficient, if that's what you're thinking. Dr. Edwards can tell you that. He's been tested and tested. He has a wonderful mind! He never stops learning. Are you saying he might murder us in our beds or something?"

  "Jesus, there she goes," Dal said despairingly. "Well, are you? Are you scared he's dangerous? Of all the ridiculous—"

  "Barry, I'm not scared of anything," Tom said. He hesitated. "Maybe you're right. We get a little bit too much to ourselves out here, too self-absorbed. So—sit down, will you."

  Barry picked up her chair and sat in it. She wiped a last tear and began to smile expectantly. Tom smiled back. Dal laced his hands behind his head and bit his tongue.

  "I don't want to be that way, Dad. Not anymore. I know what I've been like since Ned died—dreary as hell. It got to where I couldn't even stand my own company. This is something positive I can do. I can help someone else instead of brooding my life away."

  "I guess we could take a shot at it," Tom said after a while, and Barry lunged across the table to give his cheek a peck.

  "Dr. Edwards wants you to call him right away," she said. Then she glanced soberly at Dal, not wanting to lord it over him, though she was bursting inside. He stared back, shrugged slightly.

  "Beat you at Pac-Man," Barry said.

  "That'll be the day."

  "Thanks for trying, Dal. You'll like him when you get to know him, I promise."

  "We'll see," he said.

  Chapter 19

  On an afternoon of the first week in January John Doe was discharged from the hospital. Barry drove him to the farm in the station wagon. On impulse she stopped at the covered bridge. There had been a fresh snowfall for New Year's. This day was cold and clear, a dry cold that hurt the sinuses and burned the throat. The snow squelched beneath their boots as they walked beside the cleared road.

  "This is where it happened," she told him.

  He looked back at the bridge, the ruled oblique shadow on the snow banks. His eyes were inquisitive. They stopped at Barry's face.

  "This is where it happened," he repeated, but clearly the words had no meaning for him. He waited patiently to hear what else she might have to say.

  Barry smiled sadly. "You just don't remember a thing, do you?"

  He also smiled. "I don't remember." Then something stirred in him, the smile disappeared. She sensed that he might be trying to express something, an original thought, not just mimic her. This was hard.

  "I want to remember."

  She nodded encouragingly.

  "You will. It's all going to come back to you—who you are, where you're from."

  Words came so fast they took his breath away. "Who I am. Who I am. Who am I? I don't have a name. I should have a name. Everyone has a name."

  She linked an arm with his, pressed close to him, the full weight of her assurance against his body.

  "So do you. It's coming. Just a little more time."

  The spare bedroom in the house was next to Barry's. They would share the bath. While she put his things away in an armoire, he looked carefully around the second floor. Tom and Dal were at work. Mrs. Aldrich was in the kitchen baking. He walked from one end of the upstairs hail to the other, looked at the tall pendulum clock, the framed sketches and photos of the family, a painting from Picasso's blue period. He went into Barry's room.

  She found him there by her bed, absorbed in the photograph of Ned Kramer.

  "I laid out your shaving gear in the bathroom. Your room gets a little cold at night—I'll have Mrs. Aldrich put an extra comforter on the bed."

  He looked at her, a question clear in his eyes.

  "Oh, that's—that was—a boy I— He was killed, in a hunting accident." Barry turned to the hall door, straightened a Mary Cassatt on the wall there, then took a deep breath for buoyancy, aware of an ordeal in the making. "Come on down—let's meet everybody."

  "Barry." He was looking at Ned's photo again.

  "Yes?"

  "He was killed. In a hunting accident." The young man's eyes were drawn tight in concentration. "Killed is—"

  "He's not with us anymore." The shock of it somehow failed to grip her as urgently as she'd come to anticipate. "He will never be with us again."

  "What happened to his name?"

  "I don't—oh, you mean—now that's a strange question." Barry was tempted to laugh it off, to take him by the hand and lead him from her room, where he was unnerving her. But if she was going to do him any good, if she hoped for a truly significant recovery, she couldn't let any question go unanswered, no matter how difficult the explanation might be.

  "His name—didn't die with him, you see. Names are immortal. They always belong to
a person, even if that person's dead—not here."

  She'd tried her best, but in line with his present analytical ability she had offered little more than a shadowy abstraction. He was tense, thinking, realizing that there was a contradiction; but he couldn't deal with it. He looked helplessly at Barry, with an expression of sorrow, a severe disappointment.

  "Why don't we see what's on television?" she suggested, and took him downstairs.

  She'd hoped to find her father returned from an afternoon's tramp, building up the fire in the family room while Meanness scratched and drooped by the hearth, but it was Dal she found in the dusky room, popping ice cubes deliberately into a glass, tension evident in his stance, in the way he held his head.

  Barry switched on a lamp and said to his back, "Hi, Dal—how was your day?"

  "So-so." He filled his glass nearly half full of whiskey and gave it a spritz. Barry opened the wood box.

  "Let's get a fire going in here! Want to go to the movies tonight? DeNiro."

  "Got a date. She's picking me up in a little while." He turned then and stared at John Doe.

  "Look who's here,"' Dal said in a nasal voice that cut across the grain of the mood Barry was trying desperately to construct.

  She raised her head smiling, and said to the young man, "This is my brother, Dal."

  "Hello," Dal said, drinking, staring rudely.

  "Hello."

  The young man held out his hand tentatively; after a moment's indecision Dal chose to ignore it. He turned back to the bar, oblivious of Barry's quick frown, and said, "Glass of wine, Barry?"

  "No, thanks."

  "Well, what about him?"

  Barry straightened; a chunk of kindling in one hand. She raised it deliberately, pitched it onto the grate.

  "I wouldn't know. He's our guest. So why don't you ask him if he'd like a drink?"