But what about the unearthly creatures, you ask? The zombies, the calibans, the witches, the ghosts? I reply that we do not know what they are doing here, and it is not my intention to try to elucidate the cosmic scheme that placed them. I am only trying to deal in simple logic here. The village and its conditions by any standard are not so bad. Not for unearthly creatures, if that’s what zombies and calibans are. Perhaps they are a sort of way station on their way to somewhere else, life by life, place by place. Is this the cosmic scheme? How would I know?
I told Tom to keep the new people at the station if they arrived before I got back. Then I went home, put on my stout hiking boots, took my walking stick, and set out to find Rosamund.
All this time I was wondering how she could have gotten out of bed and left the house without waking me up. I am normally a light sleeper, I always have an ear open for sounds of distress from the townspeople. I am always ready to get out and save them from what would usually be their own foolishness.
Now I walked down the road toward the communal cornfield. There was someone standing there. I saw it was the scarecrow.
When Rosamund came to our village, it had been winter. Snow lay on the ground and on the branches of the trees. There were icicles hanging from the eaves. Horses moved slowly, and you could see their breath. There was frost on the pumpkins.
Overhead, the skies were leaden gray, punctuated by dark clouds when storms swept in. Day and night, an icy wind blew in from the north.
Some days the skies would lighten, a hint of sun would appear, and the villagers would think that winter was over at last. But always, next day, the skies darkened again, the angry storm clouds returned, the north wind piped up, and winter was still here.
When Rosamund came, the change was evident the very next day. The skies lightened, patches of blue appeared. The north wind veered to the west. Little green plants began to thrust their way out of the snow cover, and the snow itself began to melt. Day after day the climate grew milder and fairer, and each day there was more sun.
Although Rosamund was a beautiful woman, she was much more than that. I saw from the start that she was something special. I spent time with her, I courted her in my fashion, which was neglectful but persistent. I provided for her comfort to the best of my abilities, and overwhelmed her with my attentions. Given what she found in the village, it is no wonder that she chose me, and that we were married.
Those were good days in the village. Life was, if not positively good, at least not entirely bad.
And now she had disappeared.
I came up to the scarecrow, set on his pole, his arms flapping in the breeze.
“Good morning, Edward,” I said. “Have you seen Rosamund?”
He couldn’t speak, of course. But he could indicate. One of his boneless arms, guided by a salient impulse from the quick West wind, pointed in the direction of the witches’ house, over toward the Mountain.
“Thank you, Edward.”
We are quite punctilious here in our speech. Although Edward was a scarecrow with no brains at all, he was also an indicator of recent events, and, when you spoke to him politely, he was willing to point the way. Just because he has no discernible personality was no reason to treat him as if he didn’t exist.
I continued toward the witches’ house, and I was thinking, not for the first time, that the region in which I live is a strange realm. There are mountains and marshes and moors, and all are haunted by something or some things. And you can’t get away from here to some place different. You can hike across the mountains, come down into a distant valley, and it’s just the same as the one you left. Oh, there are minor differences—some regions have smaller mountains, some bigger. Some have more marsh than forest, and others have other differences. But they all have the essentials—the same regions, the same people, the same problems, the same deaths.
In these other towns, however, you don’t have a person who corresponds to me and who fills my role. The other villages don’t have leaders. I have visited five of them, and they all contain masterless men and women, with no leader or ruler to look out for them, to help them. And they don’t help each other.
I could expand my rule, to these other towns. But why should I? This one village gives me enough trouble, and has the same potentiality for pleasure as the others.
What are we doing here? Most of the villagers are not what you’d call good people. They raven, they kill, they are merciless in their hungers. But what about me? Here I am, and I have appointed myself guardian over these people. But why did someone or something put me here in the first place? I am not one of the undead, I am not a ghoul, and I am not a victim. So what am I doing here?
The answer I get is not forthcoming. Any way I look at it, I am either here to punish or to be punished. Since I don’t know the answer, sometimes I do the one and sometimes the other.
I went along the trail through the woods that led to the witches’ house. Rosamund might have spent the night with the witch. There was no reason for it, but it was possible.
The faint trail through the woods led me through tall trees with intertwining branches, and twisted twigs that coiled around each other like dead men’s fingers. The sun, coming out from behind clouds, and shining through the innumerable spider webs that covered the topmost layer of forest’s branches, suffused the place with a sort of pearly opalescence. I didn’t see any spiders, though. I’ve heard that some of the larger spiders hunt songbirds. I have no objection to that. The spiders belong here, too. Let nature do what it needs to do. We who are people know more than to guide ourselves by nature’s practices.
I had to pass through the swamp on my way to the witches’ house. The swamp lies all about the forest, and even coexists with a part of it. The waters of the swamp are gluey, and they have a stagnant smell. It is filled with the bodies of dead men. The crowns of their heads just break the surface of the water. With a little agility, you can step from head to head, and scarcely get your feet wet.
Occasionally a head will roll around and try to bite you on the foot. A swift kick takes care of that. You don’t have to kick too hard—they get the idea at once, and anyhow, can feel no pain. Their vengeful volition must be checked, however, since it does themselves and others no good. That sort of behavior is not how I want to run my village.
Just before I reached the shore, a caliban came swimming up. He was shaking his head vehemently and pointing. The calibans, despite their urgent need to communicate, are unable to speak. They are the size of dwarves, physically indistinguishable from humans except that their tongues are too big for their mouths. Once I examined the body of one; his head was human-size, but his tongue could have belonged to a cow, and it was crammed too tightly in his mouth, impeding his breathing, which he didn’t need to do anyhow, since breathing, like eating, is one of those affectations from a previous existence that we still preserve when we can. But the calibans suffer from a condition we cannot treat. I have often wondered at the cruelty of whoever sent such creatures here, to this place where we have no medical facilities and no tradition of doctoring.
You never know what these caliban creatures are referring to, but I went in the direction he indicated. Sure enough, he had been directing me to a young suicide, lying face down in the marshy mud, her long hair streaming. It was not Rosamund, however. I recognized this woman as one of the recent arrivals—a skinny little thing, with peculiar, simple ways—not pretty enough find a mate, not smart enough to set up as a witch, not skilled enough to do anything beyond simple chores. I used to give her food from time to time to let her know she wasn’t alone; even though she was.
She’d had no friends, no children, no mate . . .And she had finally come to this. Despair can drive even the most phlegmatic among us to this final deed. This death would probably be for keeps, because, as far as I knew, she would never be brought back, never resuscitated, never reborn, suicide seems to be final.
I went on. Soon I was back on firm land, and a little wh
ile after that I was standing on the little pavestone walk which led to the witches’ house.
The house itself had been constructed on a craggy ledge just in front of the peak of the hill on which it sat. The house rose story by story into the mist-streaked sky, and its proportions were quaint, childlike, and sinister. Its narrow stories and excesses of gingerbread decoration as good as told you this place was unwholesome.
The witch came out on her third floor balcony.
“Rosamund? She was going to come by for a cup of tea and a chat. But she never came. Search the place if you like!”
I didn’t bother. But I would need to find out later how Rosamund and the witch had become friends. We villagers don’t associate with witches or any of the other supernatural and undead things that are also sent here. We pretend not to notice the demons and zombies, the dwarves and snow-giants. We are men, and where we come from, the existence of these creatures is not proven, so it would not be seemly to chat with them as though they were real.
Rosamund and the witch . . . I didn’t like it. Anybody here can do what they like, but I do require them to tell the truth. Rosamund hadn’t mentioned this rendezvous, and by omission had concealed it from me. I didn’t like that.
I continued down to the Haunted Meadows. A zombie was standing at its edge. He was very tall and skinny, dressed in torn rags, his skin leaden, with that vague unfocused look zombies have.
I asked him, “Have you seen Rosamund?”
He stared at me with his dead eyes, trying to make me out. They can do it if they try. There’s very little he could do about his interior blankness, but he managed to make sense of my words. I could almost feel his rotted brain working, and then a slow shaking of his head—no, he hadn’t seen her—and then he shambled off in the direction of the swamp. I have it on good authority that zombies gather in the swamp and hunt for toads, and other unclean things. I do not try to control them.
I stood there on the sodden ground and I tried to think where to look next. My own knowledge of the village and its surrounds, usually my secure possession, suddenly became vague and blurry. I knew I was experiencing stress, and it was coming out as loss of memory. Where had I not looked? Was there a Demon Walk going up the mountain, and if so, should I examine it? Was there a sacrificial cave just beyond the mountain’s peak? Or had I dreamed all that? Or made it up? I was unsure.
But there was one thing I knew: that I had to be at the train depot to greet the new arrivals.
I took the shortcut around the old Haunted House. The place was falling apart, and in the front yard I could see two ghosts, a man and a woman, and they were reclining in deck chairs, enjoying the sun. They were smiling at one another. I wondered if they were in a state of bliss, and how I might get there myself.
I turned past the Haunted House to the Train Depot at Town Square.
The train was just pulling in and the villagers had gathered. I put myself at the head of the welcoming delegation. The train halted in a paroxysm of black coal smoke. The conductors in their black uniforms and dark glasses let down the steps, and the new arrivals began coming off.
How forlorn and innocent they appeared. Women in ragged woolen shawls, men in old dark overcoats, all of them clutching suitcases. A child was carrying a bird cage almost as large as she was. A young man was holding a radio-tv set; he didn’t know yet that we don’t get any stations here.
When they were all on the platform, I addressed them.
“Welcome to the Village,” I said. “After I have spoken, you will be permitted to walk through the town. There are several unoccupied houses and apartments. The available houses have small square green signs in front of them. You may live in any house that’s not occupied. For those of you who can’t find a house, we have apartments. That big building opposite the Depot is an apartment building. People will be waiting there to help you find a vacant apartment. After you have moved in, come down to the Community Kitchen, which is the large red building on the other side of the tracks. We will serve you a welcoming dinner. Food is not strictly necessary here, but it is always a pleasure to eat it. Tomorrow, any one will point you to the Bulletin Board. There are posted jobs, and you are invited to take one. That’s all, and, again, welcome to the Village.”
They clustered around me with many questions, but I told them they knew all they needed to know for the present.
It was then that I saw Amy. I didn’t know her name then, of course. Only that there was something special about her, something beautiful, a quality that reminded me of Rosamund, though it was difficult to say how. She didn’t look like Rosamund, who had been small and skinny with neat blonde hair, whereas Amy was on the ample side, with thick, curly dark hair. Nor were the features similar. But there was something . . .
“Miss,” I called out to her. “May I speak to you for a moment?”
“Of course. You are the one called Zanthias, are you not?”
“Yes. But how did you know?”
“Oh, you are known, even quite famous. They say you keep this village in good order. I am Amy. Is there something I can do for you?”
“You can help me find my wife, Rosamund, and give me a chance to get to know you better.”
“With pleasure.” She fell into step beside me.
Like Rosamund, she exuded a sense of aliveness and goodness; it seemed to me she lit up the place where she stood.
As we walked along, the sky grew still lighter, until it was entirely blue. The sun came out and shone strongly, even fiercely. Snow disappeared from the ground and was replaced by grass. I could even see the ice cap on the mountain shrink a bit. And when we came to the river, it was no longer fed by melting snow, and was now safe to cross.
I had a feeling as we walked along that all the natural creatures in the village, that is, all the human beings, must have noticed the change, though not being of a communicative turn of mind, they no doubt failed to discuss it with each other. But that didn’t matter, they all knew anyway.
And as for unnatural creatures, the ghouls and zombies, the chæimras, the calibans, the ghosts, the living dead in the swamp, well, I believe they were aware of it too. And no doubt they rejoiced in it to the extent their natures allowed.
We walked up the meadow covered with asphodel that led to Last Chance Mountain. Its peak, sheathed in ice, glittered high above us. We climbed steadily, but had to slow down once we reached the ice fields. Then we saw something colored a dirty white, striding purposefully across the field above us.
“What’s that?” Amy asked.
“A snow demon,” I said.
Something else moved, a dark brown shape higher on the mountain. “And that?”
“A yeti.”
“Are they dangerous?” Amy asked.
“Not unless you tease them,” I said.
“Are we going all the way to the top?” she asked.
I shook my head. “To a cave just below the top.”
“What is in the cave?”
“Rosamund, I fear.”
As we climbed to the cave I was thinking that if Rosamund was dead, as I now feared her to be, then this young Amy might make a good wife. I realized my thinking was doubtless premature, with Rosamund not yet proven dead. But I was not too shocked at my own thoughts. You get a bit cold and calculating when you’ve lived here long enough. You look out for what future you can have. I knew I was cold and calculating. Perhaps the village shaped me to that; but I suppose it’s possible I brought in the quality with me.
I observed Amy as we climbed the icy rock face. She was agile and strong, and uncomplaining. I wondered why she had sought me out at the beginning. But I was pretty sure I knew the answer. I had been the person in charge, the man who knew what everyone should do. And, although I try not to claim too much for myself, I was obviously the only decent man among them all, the biggest, the strongest, the brightest. Why shouldn’t she choose me?
We reached the entrance to the cave. This place had been used in the past for huma
n sacrifices to the gods of this place. Torsos and hip bones were scattered on the ground of the cave. It was bitterly cold. Further in, long slender stalactites hung from the cave’s room, and glittered in what light filtered through from the entrance.
As we moved into the cave, I felt a strange sense of exhilaration. Maybe it had something to do with the time of day. It was past sunset now, and the moon was coming up. Big and broad, it was the second night of the full moon. I glanced over my shoulder and saw it behind me just before I entered the cave. Amy seemed smaller as she scuttled in behind me. As we moved into the cave, crouched to pass beneath the stalactites, I felt the bones of my jaw shift, felt a lengthening movement in my forehead. My fingernails grew and narrowed and curled. I felt very good. But suddenly I remembered last night with Rosamund, and I was flooded with contrary emotions. Shame, for one, and sort of proud defiance for another. Shame at my own deeds, deeper shame at not remembering them now when the moon was full again; and also defiance at my own shame, And yet a part of me denied this knowledge and its implications, for I knew that most of the time I was a good man who helped others. What right, then, did the fates have to make me a werewolf?
I was starting to feel sorry for myself, and to feel a rage at that sorrow, and to feel a growing appetite rise in me. I looked around for Amy.
She had run ahead of me. She was standing now on the little altar. She was holding something in her hand—a piece of rope that went up to the cave’s ceiling.
“Do you see Rosamund now?” she shrieked at me. “She’s down in the pit there, where you tumbled her after killing her.”
I was shocked at her words, but somehow I had also been expecting them.
“It was her own fault,” I said. “She should never have left the house.”
“And spend the rest of her life wondering when you would tear her apart at full moon? Rosamund had more spirit than that. She came here to make her preparations for you. But you found her before she had a chance to defend herself.”
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