Norton, Andre - Anthology
Read Norton, Andre - Anthology Online
Authors: Baleful Beasts (and Eerie Creatures) (v1.0)
BALEFUL BEASTS AND EERIE CREATURES
Contents
ANDRE NORTON
Recently there have
been many changes in our ways of thinking about the unknown. In a world which
gives serious consideration to the investigation of the existence of the Loch
Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and the Abominable Snowman, monsters are no longer just
a part of superstition.
Things once labeled
"magic" are known to be "wild talents" which some of us do
actually possess—even if they cannot yet be controlled.
Fear, however,
remains perhaps the oldest and strongest emotion known to mankind. And that
fact has not changed. It is ever at his back, touching him on the shoulder, ready,
lurking about the corner to confront him.
We are fascinated by
fear—as long as we can keep it under control, our servant rather than our
master. Why do so many of us enjoy reading ghost or terror tales? Because therein
fear is chained upon the printed page so we are safe and yet can savor the
excitement it raises in us.
Some years ago I
attended a writers' conference where there was a discussion of what made up
fear. One writer stated that her idea of a truly horrifying experience would be
to walk out of one's door in the morning, only to discover that the rosebush
planted to the right, now stood on the left. Distortion of the everyday
provoked, in her, fear carried to a fine art.
I must admit that I have a taste for the
eerie,
therefore I welcomed the lucky chance of being able
to read the stories in this collection. Who does not relish a shiver or two?
The impact of any story depends upon two
things: the ability of the writer to create believable characters and
background, and the reader to be aroused in turn when some emotion of his own
is awakened. The collection of "Baleful Beasts" herein presented is
still extraordinary enough, in spite of our present preoccupation with such
material, to raise more than a chill along the reader's backbone.
Here the "rosebush" theme of the
accepted and familiar becoming the menacing is used to splendid effect with
careful and delicate plotting and evocation of atmosphere in two tales—Ms.
Butler's truly malicious monkey, and Ms. Ritchie's evil in a box brought in an
everyday fashion by the delivery man. Personally I shall distrust all calico
monkeys and unexplained boxes from now on.
Ms.
Gessner
returns
to old legends for inspiration, as does Mr. Land. But the
Yamadan
of the Amerindian tales is quite different from the creature that the hero in
"Monster Blood" sees in action and is able to combat because he does
know his legends.
"
Tigger
,"
"You Are What You Eat," and "To Face
A
Monster" deal with alien surprises either on this world or another under
exploration, in which creatures utterly beyond our knowledge are the menaces.
One delights in the 10 unquenchable
Tigger
, a
Terran
hero wearing fur instead of a space suit, while the
strangers of Ms.
Bednarz
and Mr.
Rathjen
are formidable enough to provide those who must deal with them a hard battle.
In "Spell of the Spirit Stones," Ms.
Wellman returns to one of the oldest legends—that of the
werebeast
,
human and animal in one. But this tale is set in a background springing from
the magic and beliefs of a people unknown to most Americans.
We enjoy being just a little frightened as
long, of course, as the ghost and the monster remain only the products of
gifted imaginations. This collection will provide stimulation for that part of
us. It is shivery and strange, and perhaps not to be taken just before bedtime.
But read it by daylight and enjoy it as much as I have done.
Monkey
BEVERLY BUTLER
Molly might not have
been so angry if it hadn't been raining, but it seemed like the height of
unfairness for her mother to drag her away from her favorite television program
and send her out in the rotten weather to fetch Jason home from his tea party
with Mrs.
Welles
. Just because her little brother was
too dumb to know when it was suppertime, and Mrs.
Welles
was too old-fashioned to have a telephone,
Molly had to suffer.
"It's not
raining that hard," her mother said, handing her a slicker and a pair of
rain boots. "And the fresh air will be better for you than that witch
show. I don't like all
this
interest of yours in magic and witchcraft, anyway. The first thing you
know, you'll start believing all that nonsense is true."
"I could believe
Mrs.
Welles
is a witch," Molly said.
"She's probably
fattening Jason up for the kill, like in 'Hansel and Gretel.' Why else would an
old lady like that invite a seven-year-old in for chocolate and cookies?"
"Now that's enough of that talk. Mrs.
Welles
has had a lot of tragedy in her life, and if Jason
reminds her of one of her youngsters who died so long ago, there's no harm in
letting him help her relive her memories. I want you to be respectful toward
her."
Molly yanked the plastic rain boots over her
shoes. "I hardly ever even see her. She never gave me even a stick of
stale gum. It's Jason who gets all the favors."
"She is odd," her mother conceded,
"but you have to remember that she's very old, too. She probably doesn't
realize you'd care about candy and gum and comics at your age. You look pretty
grown up for twelve, you know."
That wasn't true, and Molly knew it. She was
small for her age and had more than once been mistaken for younger than she
was. Anyway, it wasn't the candy and gum and cookies she cared so much about—it
was the unfairness. She and Jason were the only children on this road.
According to the real estate man, there had been no children in the
neighborhood for some twenty years. So it wasn't as if Mrs.
Welles
had singled Jason out from among dozens to be her pet. Besides, it was Jason
who got all the favors from everyone. And Molly was always expected to act her
age and not care and go sloshing out in the rain on errands nobody else wanted
to do. It wasn't fair.
She ran most of the short distance to Mrs.
Welles's
house, her head bent against the rain and her
fists clenched in her pockets. Jason let her in, acting as if he lived there.
"Don't come on the carpet all wet," he told her. "Stay on the
mat."
Molly stuck her tongue out at him and raised
her eyes in swift innocence as Mrs.
Welles
appeared
from the kitchen. From the top shelf of the bookcase a plump rag figure grinned
down on her with a mouth of red yarn. Molly's interest was captured at once.
"Is that a doll?
Or a monkey?
H
Or
what?"
Mrs.
Welles
turned.
"Oh, that's Patches. He started out as an ordinary toy monkey, but he wore
out so fast that I finally had to make him a new skin out of pieces from the
clothes of all the children who ever played with him."
She lifted the creature from the shelf and
brought it to Molly for examination. It really was a monkey made of patches.
One paw was red, the other a pink candy stripe, and its tail was a long tube of
faded denim. Tufts of brown yarn stood out around a face that looked like it
might once have been a white stocking. The eyes above the red grin were round
black buttons, and a collar of little brass bells jingled around its neck.
"He's taken care of quite a few children
in his time," Mrs.
Welles
said, smoothing a
triangle of blue gingham that formed the monkey's left shoulder. "The
children come and the children go, don't
they
,
Patches? That's what keeps us young."
Molly touched a flower-sprigged hind foot.
"What a lot of different cloth. I'd sit and look at him all day if I had
him." She wasn't sure herself if she were wishing or hinting.
"I wouldn't," Jason said. He slid
both hands around the monkey's middle, ignoring the fact that Molly was holding
it. "I'd play with him."
"Jason," Molly protested, tightening
her grip. She glanced up at Mrs.
Welles
for
confirmation that he had been given no permission to take possession.
"Would you, dear?" Mrs.
Welles's
blue-veined fingers removed the monkey from both
children and held him up at a tantalizing height. She tilted her head to smile
into the white stocking face, and the reflected light of a lamp shot sparks of
fire from her spectacles. "He'd like you, I'm sure. It would
freshen
him up a lot to go home with you." For one
delightful moment Molly thought Mrs.
Welles
was about
to give the monkey to her. She put it instead into is Jason's hands.
I don't care, Molly told herself fiercely. She
said it aloud to Jason when they got outside and Mrs.
Welles's
door was shut behind them. "I don't care. I saw him first, and she showed
him to me first, so he ought to be mine if I want him. But I don't."
"Yes you do." Jason patted the bulge
where the monkey was zipped inside his jacket and pranced ahead of her through
a puddle. "But you can't have him because she gave him to me. She's my
friend."
"She's not a friend. She's a witch.
A mean, spiteful, two-faced old witch.
She hates children,
but she needs fresh blood from them every once in a while to keep alive,"
Molly said, stretching her stride to catch up with him.
"You shut up," Jason yelled at her.
"You're a witch."
"No, I'm not, but I can tell one when I
see one." Molly was inventing easily now, almost as if she were telling a
story she had always known. "And that monkey's not a monkey, either. He's
her creature that she sends out to gobble up children for her. Every patch on
his body is from the clothes of a child he has gotten rid of for her, starting
with her own. Just you wait. Tonight at midnight—"
Jason broke into a run. "You shut up, I
said. I'll tell Mama and Daddy what you're saying, and you'll be sorry. You
shut up."
Molly ran after him. "You'll be sorry
when he bites you."
Jason dashed into their yard and slammed the
gate shut before she reached it. "If he bites me, he'll bite you, too.
Then you'll really be sorry."
But Molly wasn't sorry. She knew that by the
time she got the gate unlatched and could follow
him,
Jason would be in the house, telling how she had spoiled his monkey for him. So
what? That would not
unspoil
it for him—or for Mrs.
Welles
. She glanced back up the road to where Mrs.
Welles's
front windows were staring out into the dark 16
like two
unwinking
yellow eyes—watching her.
A queer prickle down her spine sent her
hurrying indoors. Jason was already eating his supper, and Molly's was waiting
on the table. She had forgotten that their parents were going out this evening
and that she and Jason were going to be alone for a few hours. "And I want
no more talk of witches and evil spells while Daddy and I are gone.
Understand?" her mother said, stopping Molly as she was about to sit down.
"You'll be scaring yourselves to the point where you don't know what's
real and what isn't. Anything can happen after that."
Again Molly felt her skin prickle under her
shirt. For a second she almost wished her parents were going out another night,
not this one. How could her mother be so certain what was real and what wasn't?
Molly had given witches scarcely a thought until she moved here where she
passed Mrs.
Welles's
house every day on the way to
and from school, but now they were on her mind all the time. Maybe Mrs.
Welles
actually was some sort of evil creature sending out
vibrations for Molly to pick up.
Molly thought about that while she ate, and
decided not to think of it anymore until her parents were home again. It was
not that she was scared exactly. She didn't think Jason was very scared,
either, the way he danced around the living room in his yellow pajamas, waving
the patchwork monkey at her after their parents left, chanting, "
Nya
,
nya
, he's mine."
"So take him to bed with you and be
quiet," Molly said when he had to pause for breath. "Nobody's going
to fight you for him. He's too ugly."
And the monkey truly was ugly. She was
surprised she hadn't noticed it before. The red yarn mouth was so long and so
thin that it looked as much like a snarl as a smile. And the unblinking button
eyes seemed to stare right at you no matter where you were in the room.
"I will take him to bed with me,"
Jason said.
"If I go.
But I'm not going. Not
until you do."
He could be stubborn when he wanted to be.
Molly chased him into his bedroom five times before she finally got him to
scramble under the covers and stay there. She waited outside his door for a
while, ready to catch him if he tried getting up again. When all had been quiet
for about ten minutes, she peeked inside. The light from the hall showed him
sound asleep, his cheek nestled in the pillow, and the old monkey tucked under
his chin.
Molly admitted to herself that he was a cute
little boy when he was asleep, and she could understand why an old lady like
Mrs.
Welles
could like giving him things. But that
didn't give Mrs.
Welles
any excuse for taking him
over as if he were her own, and it was no excuse for being so unfair.
Molly tiptoed downstairs. She was on the
bottom step when Jason yelled. Her anger at him came back in a flood. She spun
around on the step and shouted up at him, "You shut your mouth, Jason, and
go to sleep this instant."
"He bit me," Jason shouted back. His
voice quivered as if he were about to cry. "He bit me. Molly—"
Molly ran upstairs and switched on his bedroom
light. "Who bit you? You were having a dream."
"He did.
The
monkey."
Jason, sitting on the edge of the bed, fingered his neck.
He opened up the yellow collar of his pajamas to let her see a bright spot of
blood on his throat.
"That monkey couldn't bite you. Don't be
silly," Molly said. "I made that stuff up. That's not a bite, anyway.
It looks more like a scratch."
She picked up the monkey from the pillow.
Funny, he was heavier than she had thought.
A little bigger,
too.
She held him by his stiff, overstuffed arms and felt something
scratch her thumb. There in the end of each paw, almost hidden in the seam, was
a pin bent like a hook. Some child of years ago must have thought monkeys
should have claws and provided this one with them, is "You probably rolled
on him in your sleep and got stabbed," she said, showing the pins to
Jason. "Lie down again and forget about it. You'll live."