Nothing happened during the rest of the day. We went back, together
and separately, several times during the daylight hours and during the
early hours of the night. For a wonder, nobody had leaked anything to
the newspapers, and for what it was worth, we had the show to
ourselves.
"Perhaps tomorrow," Aunt Mattie said around midnight, as we left the
field for the last time. "Perhaps they must rest."
"I could use some of that," I said with a yawn.
"Yes, Hapland," she agreed. "We must conserve our strength. Heaven
knows what may be required of us on the morrow."
Did she feel something, too? It was so strong, how could she help it?
And yet, the monster had not looked into her eye.
I didn't expect to sleep well, but I fooled myself. I was quite sure I
hadn't more than closed my eyes when I was roused by another excited
rapping on my bedroom door and again the butler rushed in without
ceremony.
"Look, Master Hapland," he shouted in a near falsetto.
He pulled so hard on my drapes they swept back from my windows like a
stage curtain--and I looked.
To the very limit of our grounds in the distance, but not beyond, the
trees, the shrubs, the drives and walkways, the lawns and ponds, all
were covered with a two foot thick blanket of glistening salt.
"And the monsters are gone," the butler was saying. "And I must go to
your aunt."
"So must I," I said, and grabbed up a robe.
As I ran, overtook him, passed him, from all over the house I could
hear excited outcries, wonder, amazement, anger, fear from the
servants. I finished the length of my wing, sprinted through the main
body of the house, and down the hallway of her wing to the door of her
suite. I didn't need to knock, someone had left it open.
Her own personal maid, I saw, as I ran past the little alcove into the
sitting room. The maid was standing beside Aunt Mattie, wringing her
hands and crying. The drapes here, too, were swept full back, and
through the windows I could see the collection, the highly prized,
wondrous collection of flora, all covered in salt.
Aunt Mattie stood there, without support, looking at it. When I came
up to her there were tears in her eyes and glistening streaks on her
wrinkled cheeks.
"Why?" she asked. It was very quietly spoken.
By now the butler had made the trip, and came into the room. I turned
to him.
"If we hurry," I said. "A good deal of the collection is enclosed
under plastic domes. If we don't wet the salt, and if we hurry and
have it scraped away from the buildings it won't poison the ground
inside them. We can save most of the collection that way."
"No, Master Hapland," he said, and shook his head. "The salt is inside
the buildings, just as much as here. A gardener shouted it at me as I
passed."
Aunt Mattie's closed fist came up to her lips, and then dropped again.
That was all.
"Why, Hapland?" she asked again. "Evil for good? Why?"
I motioned the maid and butler to leave--and take with them the
cluster of servants around the door in the hall. I took Aunt Mattie
over to her favorite chair, the one where she could sit and look out
at her collection; no point in pretending the salt wasn't there. I sat
down at her feet, the way I used to when I was ten years old. I looked
out at the salt, too. It was everywhere. Every inch of our grounds was
covered with it, to poison the earth so that nothing could grow in it.
It would take years to restore the grounds, and many more years to
restore the collection.
"Try to understand, Aunt Mattie," I said. "Not only what I say, but
all the implications of it. They didn't return evil for good. Let's
see it from what might have been their point of view. They live on a
world of salt, an antiseptic world. We went there, and you intended
good. You told them that our code was to do unto others as we would
have them do unto us.
"They returned our visit, and what did they find? What kind of a
pestilent horror did we live in? Bare ground, teeming with life,
billions of life forms in every cubic foot of ground beneath our feet.
Above the ground, too. Raw, growing life all around us, towering over
us.
"If they were doomed to live in such a world, they would want it
covered in salt, to kill all the life, make it antiseptic. They owed
nothing to the rest of Earth, but they owed this kindness to you. They
did unto others, as they would have others do unto them."
"I never realized--I was sure I couldn't be.... I've built my life
around it," she said.
"I know," I said with a regretful sigh. "So many people have."
And yet, I still wonder if it might not have happened at all--if I
hadn't winked. I wonder if that pesty psychiatrist has been right, all
along?