“Something was down there ... and is moving up ... something convolved
and gray. Some Thing....”
Now they heard me. And in the stillness of their mouths I heard their
bodies rise, and move across the floor, take place beside me. I saw on
either side of me their eyes, peering with mine into the silent night.
The gray light Thing was flowing up the mountain. It had a simple
motion up the slope, simple and straight. Within itself it had
another motion, intricate and convolved. In its gray translucence,
forms swarmed and writhed upon themselves: contorted, funneling, in
permutation. But they were held to a unity of interaction, making
them simply one in their approach, like the bewildered parts of some
body disarrayed by magic, that writhed and twisted to fall back into
measure.
The Thing was a penetrant glow within the night, tracing the night of
the slope, tracing the night of the sky. The writhing parts of the
Thing writhed closer, moved more sluggish, densened, grew white: a
white form merged from the chaotic whirl. The Thing was almost abreast
us. It was solid. It was the form, translucent and still with a
vaporous glow about it, of a youth.
He moves up toward us. The amorphous maze from which he has condensed
is now an aura. He moves up from the right, he crosses the front vision
of our eyes. He is very near, bearing leftward toward the house, yet
slantwise so that he will not touch our room.
A youth, straight, rhythmic, with his profile sharp and his mouth a
shadow in the white of his face, and his eye an impalpable fire. His
hair is a tangle of shadows like the last embers in a hearth. Now he is
white, dazzlingly crystalline, across the black of the night, across
the gaze of our eyes!
He passes bearing toward the left. He disappears.
Mildred speaks:
“He has gone into the other room.”
And all of us, not knowing how we know, know she speaks the truth.
We turn about and see each other, and rejoice seeing ourselves so
palpable in the warm, shut room.
“He is in the other room.”
“The hall is long, and the door is shut that leads into the other room.”
My mother moves to the door. As she puts her hand on the key she
shudders. It is a terrible thing for me to see the lovely and proud
flesh of my mother broken in a shudder. But she turns the key. She
moves, as if blown by a wind, back to among us.
“Now it is locked,” she says.
We are solid and warm in the room that is locked.... Mildred is looking
at me; I feel her eyes, and do not want to meet them.
I am afraid to meet them.--Mildred, what now is in your eyes as in
your voice that sent me to spy on the night?
Sudden, from the silence, they all speak ... all save Mildred and me.
“Well, we have locked the door,” my mother says.
“What have we seen?” says father. “I have heard no one say what we have
seen. We have seen nothing.”
“Let’s get back,” says Mr. Fayn, “to our game.”
“These phenomena,” warns Doctor Stein, “are beyond our grasp. Doubtless
because they are the mere reflections of perfectly clear phenomena. We
try to grasp the reflections, and of course we fail.”
They are cool and calm, and determined.
“Well--whatever--we have locked the door.”
Philip is passionate. He has forgotten all else. He is alone with his
love.
“Mildred,” I hear him call. I turn, and I meet Mildred’s eyes at last.
Philip’s hands clasp her wrists that are tender like the stems of a
long flower. Her face is close to his, her body is close to his: but
her eyes touch mine.
“Mildred, my love--Mildred!” murmurs Philip. Her wrists lie in his
hands and her face is near his lips. But her eyes are steadfast on me.
“In the other room?” I ask, as if corroborating.
Her eyes do not move. I nod. And I say:
“I am going to the other room, to see.”
Philip’s hands do not stir in their tender clasp. But my mother, who
was once more seated, jumps to her feet.
“No!”
“Why?” ... The others merely turn and look.
“What folly!”
“And what for?”
Mildred’s eyes are on my eyes. I am happy. Her eyes do not know that
Philip’s hands are on her hands. I want only her eyes. Her face is
white in its gold maze of curls.
I pass her. I turn the key of the door back in the lock. I face about
with my hand upon the doorknob.
--Why do they let me go so easily?
For they have not protested more. Their will is shallow: quickly they
are at the end of their will. Mother’s thoughts steal back to her easy
chair and to her cigarette and to her badinage with Doctor Stein.
Father has pulled two huge cigars from his case which he claps shut:
he offers one to Mr. Fayn who takes it. In Philip’s eyes, there is a
growing gayety of promise as he looks at the milkwarm skin of Mildred.
The hurt of their shallow will moves me to lightness. It is as if,
in asserting for myself the inconsequence of what I am to do, their
negative permission will become less cold and cruel.
“I’ll not be long,” I say: my voice sounds high. “I’ll be back ...
never fear ... I’ll be back.”
Mildred’s eyes for the first time leave mine as if my words released
them. She looks at Philip. She is very close to him, and her face
upturns to his. Her little breasts alert in the green sheer of her gown
are very close to Philip. Her smile flowers near him. She whispers, and
they turn away from me....
I open the door. The light from the room tongues into the dark distance
and is lost. I look back. Mother and Doctor Stein are chatting, she
takes his cigarette and lights her own from it. Father beside Mr. Fayn
suggests a play of the cards. Mildred and Philip are side by side: her
guitar lies at her feet.
--They have forgotten me?