by Drew Ford
“See?” Silvia gasped. “Give me a hand, Rick. It’s heavy. Hardwood and brass—and metal lined. It’s hand-stained and polished. And the carving—see the carving! Isn’t it beautiful?”
“What is it?” Rick demanded huskily.
“It’s my cocoon,” Silvia said simply. She settled down in a contented heap on the floor, and rested her head happily against the polished oak coffin.
Rick grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to her feet. “You can’t sit with that coffin, down here in the basement with—” He broke off. “What’s the matter?”
Silvia’s face was twisting with pain. She backed away from him and put her finger quickly to her mouth. “I cut myself—when you pulled me up—on a nail or something.” A thin trickle of blood oozed down her fingers. She groped in her pocket for a handkerchief.
“Let me see it.” He moved toward her, but she avoided him. “Is it bad?” he demanded.
“Stay away from me,” Silvia whispered.
“What’s wrong? Let me see it!”
“Rick,” Silvia said in a low, intense voice, “get some water and adhesive tape. As quickly as possible.” She was trying to keep down her rising terror. “I have to stop the bleeding.”
“Upstairs?” He moved awkwardly away. “It doesn’t look too bad. Why don’t you . . .”
“Hurry.” The girl’s voice was suddenly bleak with fear. “Rick, hurry.”
Confused, he ran a few steps.
Silvia’s terror poured after him. “No, it’s too late,” she called thinly. “Don’t come back—keep away from me. It’s my own fault. I trained them to come. Keep away! I’m sorry, Rick. Oh—” Her voice was lost to him, as the wall of the basement burst and shattered. A cloud of luminous white forced its way through and blazed out into the basement.
It was Silvia they were after. She ran a few hesitant steps toward Rick, halted uncertainly, then the white mass of bodies and wings settled around her. She shrieked once. Then a violent explosion blasted the basement into a shimmering dance of furnace heat.
He was thrown to the floor. The cement was hot and dry—the whole basement crackled with heat. Windows shattered as pulsing white shapes pushed out again. Smoke and flames licked up the walls. The ceiling sagged and rained plaster down.
Rick struggled to his feet. The furious activity was dying away. The basement was a littered chaos. All surfaces were scorched black, seared and crusted with smoking ash. Splintered wood, torn cloth and broken concrete were strewn everywhere. The furnace and washing machine were in ruins. The elaborate pumping and refrigeration system—now a glittering mass of slag. One whole wall had been twisted aside. Plaster was rubbled over everything.
Silvia was a twisted heap, arms and legs doubled grotesquely. Shriveled, carbonized remains of fire-scorched ash, settling in a vague mound. What had been left behind were charred fragments, a brittle burned-out husk.
It was a dark night, cold and intense. A few stars glittered like ice from above his head. A faint, dank wind stirred through the dripping calla lilies and whipped gravel up in a frigid mist along the path between the black roses. He crouched for a long time, listening and watching. Behind the cedars, the big house loomed against the sky. At the bottom of the slope a few cars slithered along the highway. Otherwise, there was no sound. Ahead of him jutted the squat outline of the porcelain trough and the pipe that had carried blood from the refrigerator in the basement. The trough was empty and dry, except for a few leaves that had fallen in it.
Rick took a deep breath of thin night air and held it. Then he got stiffly to his feet. He scanned the sky, but saw no movement. They were there, though, watching and waiting—dim shadows, echoing into the legendary past, a line of god-figures.
He picked up the heavy gallon drums, dragged them to the trough and poured blood from a New Jersey abattoir, cheap-grade steer refuse, thick and clotted. It splashed against his clothes and he backed away nervously. But nothing stirred in the air above. The garden was silent, drenched with night fog and darkness.
He stood beside the trough, waiting and wondering if they were coming. They had come for Silvia, not merely for the blood. Without her there was no attraction but the raw food. He carried the empty metal cans over to the bushes and kicked them down the slope. He searched his pockets carefully, to make sure there was no metal on him.
Over the years, Silvia had nourished their habit of coming. Now she was on the other side. Did that mean they wouldn’t come? Somewhere in the damp bushes something rustled. An animal or a bird?
In the trough the blood glistened, heavy and dull, like old lead. It was their time to come, but nothing stirred the great trees above. He picked out the rows of nodding black roses, the gravel path down which he and Silvia had run—violently, he shut out the recent memory of her flashing eyes and deep red lips. The highway beyond the slope—the empty, deserted garden—the silent house in which her family huddled and waited. After a time, there was a dull, swishing sound. He tensed, but it was only a diesel truck lumbering along the highway, headlights blazing.
He stood grimly, his feet apart, his heels dug into the soft black ground. He wasn’t leaving. He was staying there until they came. He wanted her back—at any cost.
Overhead, foggy webs of moisture drifted across the moon. The sky was a vast barren plain, without life or warmth. The deathly cold of deep space, away from suns and living things. He gazed up until his neck ached. Cold stars, sliding in and out of the matted layer of fog. Was there anything else? Didn’t they want to come, or weren’t they interested in him? It had been Silvia who had interested them—now they had her.
Behind him there was a movement without sound. He sensed it and started to turn, but suddenly, on all sides, the trees and undergrowth shifted. Like cardboard props they wavered and ran together, blended dully in the night shadows. Something moved through them, rapidly, silently, then was gone.
They had come. He could feel them. They had shut off their power and flame. Cold, indifferent statues, rising among the trees, dwarfing the cedars—remote from him and his world, attracted by curiosity and mild habit.
“Silvia,” he said clearly. “Which are you?”
There was no response. Perhaps she wasn’t among them. He felt foolish. A vague flicker of white drifted past the trough, hovered momentarily and then went on without stopping. The air above the trough vibrated, then died into immobility, as another giant inspected briefly and withdrew.
Panic breathed through him. They were leaving again, receding back into their own world. The trough had been rejected; they weren’t interested.
“Wait,” he muttered thickly.
Some of the white shadows lingered. He approached them slowly, wary of their flickering immensity. If one of them touched him, he would sizzle briefly and puff into a dark heap of ash. A few feet away he halted.
“You know what I want,” he said. “I want her back. She shouldn’t have been taken yet.”
Silence.
“You were too greedy,” he said. “You did the wrong thing. She was going to come over to you, eventually. She had it all worked out.”
The dark fog rustled. Among the trees the flickering shapes stirred and pulsed, responsive to his voice. “True,” came a detached, impersonal sound. The sound drifted around him, from tree to tree, without location or direction. It was swept off by the night wind to die into dim echoes. Relief settled over him. They had paused—they were aware of him—listening to what he had to say.
“You think it’s right?” he demanded. “She had a long life here. We were going to marry, have children.”
There was no answer, but he was conscious of a growing tension. He listened intently, but he couldn’t make out anything. Presently he realized a struggle was taking place, a conflict among them. The tension grew—more shapes flickered—the clouds, the icy stars, were obscured by the vast presence swelling around him.
“Rick!” A voice spoke close by. Wavering, drifting back into the dim regions of the
trees and dripping plants. He could hardly hear it—the words were gone as soon as they were spoken. “Rick—help me get back.”
“Where are you?” He couldn’t locate her. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice was wild with bewilderment and pain. “I don’t understand. Something went wrong. They must have thought I—wanted to come right away. I didn’t!”
“I know,” Rick said. “It was an accident.”
“They were waiting. The cocoon, the trough—but it was too soon.” Her terror came across to him, from the vague distances of another universe. “Rick, I’ve changed my mind. I want to come back.”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
“I know. Rick, time is different on this side. I’ve been gone so long—your world seems to creep along. It’s been years, hasn’t it?”
“One week,” Rick said.
“It was their fault. You don’t blame me, do you? They know they did the wrong thing. Those who did it have been punished, but that doesn’t help me.” Misery and panic distorted her voice so he could hardly understand her. “How can I come back?”
“Don’t they know?”
“They say it can’t be done.” Her voice trembled. “They say they destroyed the clay part—it was incinerated. There’s nothing for me to go back to.”
Rick took a deep breath. “Make them find some other way. It’s up to them. Don’t they have the power? They took you over too soon—they must send you back. It’s their responsibility.”
The white shapes shifted uneasily. The conflict rose sharply; they couldn’t agree. Rick warily moved back a few paces.
“They say it’s dangerous.” Silvia’s voice came from no particular spot. “They say it was attempted once.” She tried to control her voice. “The nexus between this world and yours is unstable. There are vast amounts of free-floating energy. The power we—on this side—have isn’t really our own. It’s a universal energy, tapped and controlled.”
“Why can’t they . . .”
“This is a higher continuum. There’s a natural process of energy from lower to higher regions. But the reverse process is risky. The blood—it’s a sort of guide to follow—a bright marker.”
“Like moths around a light bulb,” Rick said bitterly.
“If they send me back and something went wrong—” She broke off and then continued, “If they make a mistake, I might be lost between the two regions. I might be absorbed by the free energy. It seems to be partly alive. It’s not understood. Remember Prometheus and the fire . . .”
“I see,” Rick said, as calmly as he could.
“Darling, if they try to send me back, I’ll have to find some shape to enter. You see, I don’t exactly have a shape any more. There’s no real material form on this side. What you see, the wings and the whiteness, are not really there. If I succeeded to make the trip back to your side . . .”
“You’d have to mold something,” Rick said.
“I’d have to take something there—something of clay. I’d have to enter it and reshape it. As He did a long time ago, when the original form was put on your world.”
“If they did it once, they can do it again.”
“The One who did that is gone. He passed on upward.” There was unhappy irony in her voice. “There are regions beyond this. The ladder doesn’t stop here. Nobody knows where it ends, it just seems to keep on going up and up. World after world.”
“Who decides about you?” Rick demanded.
“It’s up to me,” Slivia said faintly. “They say, if I want to take the chance, they’ll try it.”
“What do you think you’ll do?” he asked.
“I’m afraid. What if something goes wrong? You haven’t seen it, the region between. The possibilities there are incredible—they terrify me. He was the only one with enough courage. Everyone else has been afraid.”
“It was their fault. They have to take responsibility.”
“They know that.” Silvia hesitated miserably. “Rick, darling, please tell me what to do.”
“Come back!”
Silence. Then her voice, thin and pathetic. “All right, Rick. If you think that’s the right thing.”
“It is,” he said firmly. He forced his mind not to think, not to picture or imagine anything. He had to have her back. “Tell them to get started now. Tell them—”
A deafening crack of heat burst in front of him. He was lifted up and tossed into a flaming sea of pure energy. They were leaving and the scalding lake of sheer power bellowed and thundered around him. For a split-second, he thought he glimpsed Silvia, her hands reaching imploringly toward him.
Then the fire cooled and he lay blinded in dripping, night-moistened darkness. Alone in the silence.
Walter Everett was helping him up. “You damn fool!” he was saying, again and again. “You shouldn’t have brought them back. They’ve got enough from us.”
Then he was in the big, warm living room. Mrs. Everett stood silently in front of him, her face hard and expressionless. The two daughters hovered anxiously around him, fluttering and curious, eyes wide with morbid fascination.
“I’ll be all right,” Rick muttered. His clothing was charred and blackened. He rubbed black ash from his face. Bits of dried grass stuck to his hair—they had seared a circle around him as they’d ascended. He lay back against the couch and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Betty Lou Everett was forcing a glass of water into his hand.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“You should never have gone out there,” Walter Everett repeated. “Why? Why’d you do it? You know what happened to her. You want the same thing to happen to you?”
“I want her back,” Rick said quietly.
“Are you mad? You can’t get her back. She’s gone.” His lips twitched convulsively. “You saw her.”
Betty Lou was gazing at Rick intently. “What happened out there?” she demanded. “They came again, didn’t they?”
Rick got heavily to his feet and left the living room. In the kitchen he emptied the water in the sink and poured himself a drink. While he was leaning warily against the sink, Betty Lou appeared in the doorway.
“What do you want?” Rick demanded.
The girl’s thin face was flushed an unhealthy red. “I know something happened out there. You were feeding them, weren’t you?” She advanced toward him. “You’re trying to get her back?”
“That’s right,” Rick said.
Betty Lou giggled nervously. “But you can’t. She’s dead—her body’s been cremated—I saw it.” Her face worked excitedly. “Daddy always said that something bad would happen to her, and it did.” She leaned close to Rick. “She was a witch! She got what she deserved!”
“She’s coming back,” Rick said.
“No!” Panic stirred the girl’s drab features. “She can’t come back. She’s dead—like she always said—worm into butterfly—she’s a butterfly!”
“Go inside,” Rick said.
“You can’t order me around,” Betty Lou answered. Her voice rose hysterically. “This is my house. We don’t want you around here any more. Daddy’s going to tell you. He doesn’t want you and I don’t want you and my mother and sister . . .”
The change came without warning. Like a film gone dead, Betty Lou froze, her mouth half open, one arm raised, her words dead on her tongue. She was suspended, an instantly lifeless thing raised slightly off the floor, as if caught between two slides of glass. A vacant insect, without speech or sound, inert and hollow. Not dead, but abruptly thinned back to primordial inanimacy.
Into the captured shell filtered new potency and being. It settled over her, a rainbow of life that poured into place eagerly—like hot fluid—into every part of her. The girl stumbled and moaned; her body jerked violently and pitched against the wall. A china teacup tumbled from an overhead shelf and smashed on the floor. The girl retreated numbly, one hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with pain and shock.
“Oh!” she gasped.
“I cut myself.” She shook her head and gazed up mutely at him, appealing to him. “On a nail or something.”
“Silvia!” He caught hold of her and dragged her to her feet, away from the wall. It was her arm he gripped, warm and full and mature. Stunned gray eyes, brown hair, quivering breasts—she was now as she had been those last moments in the basement.
“Let’s see it,” he said. He tore her hand from her mouth and shakily examined her finger. There was no cut, only a thin white line rapidly dimming. “It’s all right, honey. You’re all right. There’s nothing wrong with you!”
“Rick, I was over there,” Her voice was husky and faint. “They came and dragged me across with them.” She shuddered violently. “Rick, am I actually back?”
He crushed her tight. “Completely back.”
“It was so long. I was over there a century. Endless ages. I thought—” Suddenly she pulled away. “Rick . . .”
“What is it?”
Silva’s face was wild with fear. “There’s something wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong. You’ve come back home and that’s all that matters.”
Silvia retreated from him. “But they took a living form, didn’t they? Not discarded clay. They don’t have the power, Rick. They altered His work instead.” Her voice rose in panic. “A mistake—they should have known better than to alter the balance. It’s unstable and none of them can control the . . .”
Rick blocked the doorway. “Stop talking like that!” he said fiercely. “It’s worth it—anything’s worth it. If they set things out of balance, it’s their own fault.”
“We can’t turn it back!” Her voice rose shrilly, thin and hard, like drawn wire. “We’ve set it in motion, started the waves lapping out. The balance He set up is altered.”
“Come on, darling,” Rick said. “Let’s go and sit in the living room with your family. You’ll feel better. You’ll have to try to recover from this.”
They approached the three seated figures, two on the couch, one in the straight chair by the fireplace. The figures sat motionless, their faces blank, their bodies limp and waxen, dulled forms that did not respond as the couple entered the room.
