Moon Mirror (7 page)

There was no more screaming and Aunt Abby took her into bed with her so after a while Jill did sleep. When she went for breakfast, Uncle Shaw was in his usual place. Nobody said anything about what had happened in the night and she felt she must not ask. It was not until she met Marcy that she heard the story.

“Beeny Williams,” Marcy reported, “clean out of his head and running down the road yelling demons were going to get him. My father had to knock him out. They're taking him in town to a doctor.” She stopped and looked sidewise at Jill in an odd kind of way as if she were in two minds whether to say something or not. Then she asked abruptly:

“Jill, do you ever dream about—well, some queer things?”

“What kind of things?” Everyone had scary dreams.

“Well, like being in a green place and moving around—not like walking, but sort of flying. Or being away from that green place and wanting a lot to get back.”

Jill shook her head. “You dream like that?”

“Sometimes—only usually you never remember the dreams plain when you wake up, but these you do. It seems to be important. Oh, stuff!” She threw up her hands. “Dad says to stay away from the lake. Seems Beeny went wading in a piece of it last night, might be he got some sort of poison. But all those Williamses are crazy. I don't see how wading in the lake could do anything to him. Dad didn't say we couldn't walk around it, let's go see—”

They took the familiar way through the tunnel. Jill blinked in the very bright sun. Then she blinked again.

“Marcy, there's a lot more water showing! See—there and there! Perhaps your dad is right, could be something killing off the weeds.”

“Sure true. Ulysses,” she called to the cat crouched on the stone below, “you come away from there, could be you might catch something bad.”

However Ulysses did not so much as twitch an ear this time in response—nor did he come. Marcy threatened to climb down and get him, but Jill pointed out that the bank was crumbling and she might land in the forbidden lake.

They left the cat and worked their way along the shore, coming close to a derelict house well embowered in the skeletons of dead creepers and feebler shoots of new ones.

“Spooky,” Marcy commented. “Looks like a place where things could hide and jump out—”

“Who used to live there, I wonder?”

“Dr. Wilson. He was at the Cape, too. And he walked on the moon—”

“Dr. Morgan Wilson.” Jill nodded. “I remember.”

“He was the worst upset when they closed down the Project ‘cause he was right in the middle of an experiment. Tried to bring his stuff along here and work on it, but he didn't have any more money from the government and nobody would listen to him. He never got over feeling bad about it. One night he just up and walked out into the lake—just like that!” Marcy waved a hand. “They never found him until the next morning. And you know what—he took a treasure with him—and it was never found.”

“A treasure—what?”

“Well, he had these moon rocks he was using in his experiment. He'd picked them up himself. My dad said they used to keep them in cases where people could go and see them. But after New York and Chicago and Los Angeles all went dead in the Breakdown and there was no going to the moon any more—nor money to spend except for breathers and fighting the poison and all—nobody cared what became of a lot of old rocks. So these were lost in the lake.”

“What did they look like?”

“Oh, I guess like any old rock. They were just treasures because they came from another world.”

They turned back then for they were faced with a palmetto thicket which they could not penetrate. It was a lot hotter and Jill began to think of indoors and the slight cool one could find by just getting out of the sun.

“Come on home with me,” she urged. “We can have some lemonade and Aunt Abby gave me a big old catalogue—we can pick out what we'd like to buy if they still had the store and we had any money.”

Wish buying was usually a way to spend a rainy day, but it might also fill up a hot one.

“Okay.”

So they were installed on Jill's bed shortly, turning the limp pages of the catalogue and rather listlessly making choices, when there was a scratching at the outside door just beyond the entrance to Jill's bedroom.

“Hey"—Marcy sat up—"it's Ulysses—and he's carrying something—I'll let him in.”

She was away before Jill could move and the black cat flashed into the room and under Jill's bed as if he feared his find would be taken from him. They could hear him growling softly and both girls hung over the side trying to look, finally rolling off on the floor.

“What you got, cat?” demanded Marcy. “Let's see now—”

But though Ulysses was crouched growling, and he had certainly had something in his mouth when Marcy let him in, there was nothing at all except his own black form now to be seen.

“What did he do with it?”

“I don't know.” Marcy was as surprised as Jill. “What was it anyhow?”

But when they compared notes they discovered that neither of them had seen it clearly enough to guess. Jill went for the big flashlight always kept on the table in the hall. She flashed the beam back and forth under, where it shone on Ulysses’ sleek person, but showed nothing else at all.

“Got away,” Marcy said.

“But if it's in the room somewhere, whatever it is—” Jill did not like the thought of a released something here—especially a something which she could not identify.

“We'll keep Ulysses here. If it comes out, he'll get it. He's just waiting. You shut the door so it can't get out in the hall, and he'll catch it again.”

But it was not long before Ulysses apparently gave up all thoughts of hunting and jumped up to sprawl at sleepy ease on the bed. When it came time for Marcy to leave Jill had a plea.

“Marcy, you said Ulysses is half mine, let him stay here tonight. If that—that thing is loose in here, I don't want it on me. Maybe he can catch it again.”

“Okay, if he'll stay. Will you, Ulysses?”

He raised his head, yawned and settled back.

“Looks like he chooses so. But if he makes a fuss in the night, you'll have to let him out quick. He yells if you don't—real loud.”

Ulysses showed no desire to go out in the early evening. Jill brought in some of his food, which Marcy had delivered, and a tin pie plate full of water. He opened his eyes sleepily, looked at
her offering and yawned again. Flashlight in hand, she once more made the rounds of the room, forcing herself to lie on her stomach and look under the bed. But she could see nothing at all. What
had
Ulysses brought in? Or had they been mistaken and only thought he had something?

A little reluctantly Jill crawled into bed, dropping the edge of the sheet over Ulysses. She did not know how Aunt Abby would accept this addition to the household, even if it were temporary, and she did not want to explain. Aunt Abby certainly would not accept with anything but alarm the fact that Ulysses had brought in something and loosed it in Jill's room.

Aunt Abby came and took away the lamp and Ulysses cooperated nicely by not announcing his presence by either voice or movement under the end of sheet. But Jill fought sleep. She had a fear which slowly became real horror, of waking to find
something
perhaps right on her pillow.

Ulysses was stretched beside her. Now he laid one paw across her leg as if he knew exactly how she felt and wanted to reassure her, both of his presence and the fact he was on guard. She began to relax.

She—she was not in bed at all! She was back in a sealed apartment but the breather had failed, she could not breathe— her respirator—the door—she must get out—away where she could breathe! She must! Jill threw herself at the wall. There were no doors—no vents! If she pounded would some one hear?

Then it was dark and she was back in the room, sitting up in bed. A small throaty sound—that was Ulysses. He had moved to the edge of the bed, was crouched there—looking down at the floor. Jill was sweating, shaking with the fear of that dream, it must have been a dream—

But she was awake and still she felt it—that she could hardly breathe, that she must get out—back—back to—

It was as if she could see it right before her like a picture on the wall—the lake—the almost dead lake!

But she did not want—she did—she must—

Thoroughly frightened, Jill rocked back and forth. She did not want to go to the lake, not now. Of course, she didn't! What was the matter with her?

But all she could see was the lake. And, fast conquering her resistance, was the knowledge that she must get up—yes, right now—and go to the lake.

She was crying, so afraid of this thing which had taken over her will, was making her do what she shrank from, that she was shivering uncontrollably as she slid from the bed.

It was then that she saw the eyes!

At first they seemed only pricks of yellow down at floor level, where she had put the pan of water for Ulysses. But when they moved—!

Jill grabbed for the flashlight. Her hands were so slippery with sweat that she almost dropped it. Somehow she got it focused on the pan, pushed the button.

There was something squatting in the pan, slopping the water
out on the floor as it flopped back and forth, its movements growing wilder. But save for general outlines—she could hardly see it.

“Breathe—I can't breathe!” Jill's hoarse whisper brought another small growl from Ulysses. But she could breathe, there was no smog here. This was a Clear Outside. What was the matter—?

It was not her—some door in her own mind seemed to open—it was the thing over there flopping in the pan—it couldn't breathe—had to have water—

Jill scuttled for the door, giving the pan and the flopper a wide berth. She laid the flashlight on the floor, slipped around the door and padded towards the kitchen. The cupboard was on the right, that was where she had seen the big kettle when Aunt Abby had talked about canning.

There was moonlight in the kitchen, enough to let her find the cupboard, bring out the kettle. Then—fill it—she worked as noiselessly as she could. Not too full or it would be too heavy for her to carry—

As it was, she slopped water over the edge all the way back to the bedroom. Now—

The floppings in the pan had almost stopped. Jill caught her breath at the feeling inside her—the thing was dying. Fighting her fear and repulsion, Jill somehow got across the room, snatched up the pan before she could let her horror of what it held affect her and tipped all its contents into the kettle. There was an alien touch against her fingers as it splashed in. But—she could hardly see it now!

She knelt by the kettle, took the torch and shone it into the depths.

It—it was like something made of glass! She could see the bulbous eyes, they were solid, and some other parts, but the rest seemed to melt right into the water.

Jill gave a small sound of relief. That compulsion which had held her to the creature's need was lifted. She was free.

She sat back on her heels by the kettle, still shining the torch at the thing. It had flopped about some at first, but now it was settled quietly at the bottom.

A sound out of the dark, Ulysses poked his head over the other side of the kettle to survey its inhabitant. He did not growl, and he stood so for only a moment or two before going to jump back on the bed with the air of one willing to return to sleep now that all the excitement was over.

For a time the thing was all right, Jill decided. She was more puzzled than alarmed now. Her acquaintance with things living Outside was so small, only through reading and what she had learned from Marcy and observation these past days. But how had the thing made her wake up, know what it had to have to live? She could not remember ever having known that things which were not people could think you into doing what they wanted.

When she was very little—the old fairy tale book which had been her mother's—a story about a frog who was really a prince. But that was only a story. Certainly this almost transparent thing would never have been a person!

It came from the lake, she was sure of that from the first
picture in her mind after she woke up. And it wanted to go back there.

Tonight?

Almost as if she had somehow involuntarily asked a question! A kind of urgency swept into her mind in answer. Yes—now— now! It was answering her as truly as if it had come to the surface of the water and shouted back at her.

To go out in the night? Jill cringed. She did not dare, she simply could not. Yet now the thing—it was doing as it had before—pushing her into taking it back.

Jill fought with all the strength of will she had. She could
not
go down to the lake now—

But she was gasping—the thing—it was making her feel again something of what if felt—its earlier agony had been only a little relieved by the bringing of the kettle. It had to be returned to the lake and soon.

Slowly Jill got up and began to dress. She was not even sure she could find the way by night. But the thing would give her no peace. At last, lugging the kettle with one hand, holding the flash in the other, she edged out into the night.

There were so many small sounds—different kinds of bugs maybe, and some birds. Before the bad times there had been animals—before the Cleanup when most everything requiring air men could use had been killed. Maybe—here in the Outside there were animals left.

Better not think of that! Water sloshing over the rim of the kettle at every step, Jill started on the straightest line possible for the lake. When she got behind the first screen of bushes she
turned on the flash and found the now familiar way. But she could not run as she wished, she had to go slowly to avoid a fall on this rough ground.

So she reached the bank of the lake. The moon shone so brightly she snapped off the flash. Then she was aware of movement—the edges of the thick banks of vegetation which had grown from the lake bottom to close over the water were in constant motion, a rippling. Portions of leaf and stem were torn away, floating out into the clear patches, where they went into violent agitation and were pulled completely under. But there was no sign of what was doing this.