by Matt Ruff
“It was Pearl who ran off with Mr. Winthrop’s son. Mr. Winthrop knew they’d been getting together and didn’t care, but the thought of them living as man and wife, that was a horse of another color. He gathered up the rest of us and demanded to know where they’d gone off to. He promised Pearl wouldn’t be harmed, but we all knew that was a lie and no one spoke up. So Mr. Winthrop called in some men from his lodge and they bundled us into cars and drove us out of the city.
“I thought they were taking us into the woods to torture us. That’s how my brother Roy died, in Kentucky. But Mr. Winthrop had something else in mind. He brought us to the hilltop and took us into that bunker or waystation or whatever you call it, and opened a portal to this world. Herded us through it and set us on this rock. Then he made us go there.” She pointed out the window at the observatory. “Made us look through the telescope at this smudge of light on the edge of infinity. ‘That’s the Milky Way,’ he said. ‘Earth is there, along with everyone and everything you’ve ever known or loved. It’s so far away, if you tried to walk back from here, the stars would all burn out before you even made a start. God Himself would die of old age before you made it home.’
“Well, we were all good and scared by that point. I could see Mr. Slade, in particular, was anxious to share what little he knew about Pearl and Mr. Winthrop’s son. But Mr. Winthrop had laid some sort of enchantment on us, to keep us from acting up while he frightened us. Mr. Slade wanted to talk, but he couldn’t. None of us could. Not without Mr. Winthrop’s leave. ‘I know you’re ready to cooperate now,’ Mr. Winthrop said. ‘But I think some of you might still have it in mind to mislead me. And since you’ve already wasted enough of my time, I’m going to leave you here to stew for a few days first.’
“I wondered about that. For a man who didn’t want his time wasted, it seemed like a complicated way of going about things. He could have just tortured us. But I suppose a planet is like any other vanity: not worth having if you don’t take every chance to show it off.
“So he left us here. To stew. But meanwhile something must have happened in Chicago, because he never came back to finish questioning us. Nobody else came, either.”
“When was this?” Hippolyta asked.
“Nineteen thirty-five,” said Ida. “July the eighteenth, that’s the day Mr. Winthrop brought us here . . . You happen to know what date he died?”
Hippolyta shook her head. “I know it was a long time ago. But I don’t know exactly when, or how.”
“I can guess at the how. If it happened the way I think it did, Mr. Braithwhite must have done him in.” Ida watched Hippolyta carefully as she said this, but Hippolyta had never heard the name Braithwhite before. “Samuel Braithwhite,” Ida continued after a moment. “He and Mr. Winthrop were partners, in what business I couldn’t say exactly. But then something soured between them, and by that summer they were feuding. I suppose it was the distraction of the feud that let Pearl and Mr. Winthrop’s son slip away like they did. I remember, about a week before they ran off, I overheard Mr. Winthrop on the phone, talking about banishing Mr. Braithwhite. ‘Banish,’ that’s the word he used . . . Thinking about that later, it occurred to me that maybe he meant to bring Mr. Braithwhite here, to trap him, and that maybe that was the real reason he’d brought us here.” She smiled grimly. “White man’s exile, complete with servants . . . But if that was Mr. Winthrop’s plan, Mr. Braithwhite must have gotten the better of him. I suppose Pearl got the better of him too, you want to think of it that way.” She looked down at the table, her smile fading until only grimness remained. “I hope it was worth it. I truly do.” Then she shrugged away the thought and looked up again. “What year is it now? Nineteen fifty-four?”
“Yes,” Hippolyta said.
“November?”
“December. The twenty-first.”
“December twenty-first!” Ida said. “I’ll have to redo my figures . . . We kept a careful count of the days,” she explained. “But this world doesn’t turn as fast as Mother Earth. High noon to high noon is closer to twenty-five hours here. And I’m pretty good at math, but fractions always trip me up.” She shook her head and sighed, then broke out in a smile—a happy one, this time—as another thought struck her. “December twenty-first, almost Christmas. Mary would’ve liked that.” Hippolyta said nothing to this, but Ida saw the question in her eyes. “It’s all right. You can ask me.”
So Hippolyta did: “What happened to Mary? And the others?”
A stout twelve-foot-high double fence stretched across the width of the promontory where it joined the cliff. This barrier, Hippolyta guessed, was not so much booby-trapped as flat-out lethal, the red light on the control box just inside the gates a cyclopean eye vowing doom to would-be trespassers.
In the open space between the fence and the cottage four crosses had been erected. They were made from branches bound with lengths of some fibrous stuff like palm fronds or strips of sawgrass. Three of the crosses had been driven directly into the thin layer of sandy soil that covered the ridge; the fourth was set on a cairn of stones that was large enough to contain an actual body.
“That’s Mary,” Ida said of the cairn. “Gordon we buried at sea, and none of us could bring ourselves to handle what was left of James.
“James was the first to go. Mr. Winthrop warned us that the beach was dangerous, but James thought that was just to scare us. He said there had to be a way to open the portal from this side. Our second day here, he was down on the sand looking, when Scylla got him.”
“Scylla?” said Hippolyta.
“Gordon was next,” Ida went on. “On day 34. After the shock of what happened to James wore off, he got fidgety. He wanted to explore, out there.” She gestured at the pale trees lining the cliff. “He’d go out each morning for an hour or three. At first he brought back souvenirs: stones, bits of wood, these strange flowers one time. Mr. Slade put an end to the souvenirs—he said we couldn’t know what might be deadly to pick up—but he couldn’t get Gordon to stay put.
“Then one day Gordon didn’t come back. It was getting late afternoon and I decided we’d better go look for him. Mr. Slade refused to go. Mary didn’t want to go either, but she was afraid to be left alone with Mr. Slade, so she came with me. We picked up Gordon’s trail and tracked him a couple miles down that way, to a part of the cliff that juts out right over the water.
“We found him lying on his back, next to this . . . nest, I guess. He was dead for sure, but the critter that killed him looked like it might still be alive, and it was wrapped around his head like a caul.
“We didn’t want to leave him like that, but even if we’d found the strength to carry him back here, we knew Mr. Slade wouldn’t let us through the fence with him. So Mary and I said a prayer, and then I grabbed Gordon’s wrists and she grabbed his ankles and we tossed him off the cliff into the ocean.
“We came back and told Mr. Slade that Gordon was dead. Mr. Slade got hysterical, screaming about how he didn’t deserve to be in this fix and enough was enough. ‘From now on,’ he said, ‘we’re just going to sit tight and wait for Mr. Winthrop. And when he gets back, you’re going to tell him where his son and that bitch went. If I have to help him beat it out of you, I will.’
“Well, he didn’t scare me. He was a little man—even Mary could have whipped him in a fair fight. But I knew we’d have to take care just the same. We’d all begun to suspect that Mr. Winthrop might not be coming back, and I could see if Mr. Slade ever completely lost hope, he’d be in to murder us in our sleep. So I watched Mary’s back and she watched mine, and we went on like that through day 87.
“Day 88 a storm blew in. We’d had showers and squalls before, but this was different: black cloud, sheets of rain, booming thunder. The manual said the house was proof against lightning despite being metal, but we were all on edge.
“For dinner that night, Mary decided to play the lottery. She got Mr. Slade to pick the number. I guess she was hoping if it was something nice, he’d take it as God’s grace
and be a bit less unpleasant.
“But it wasn’t nice.” Ida shuddered at the memory. “Mary had dialed up some foul dishes before, but this was the first one that was still moving.” She clenched the fingers of one hand as though gripping an object the size of a plum. “They were grubs. Fat, white, hairy things. Killed my appetite. Mary’s, too—she’d try a bite of almost anything, but not that.
“Mr. Slade, though . . . He started laughing. He laughed the way a man laughs when he finally grasps that hell is a real place—the way my brother laughed, the night he died. He picked up one of those grubs, and bit into it, and chewed with his mouth open, laughing all the while . . .
“Then he stood up, so quick he knocked his chair over, and picked up the pan to throw it. I think he meant to dump it on one of us, but he couldn’t decide whether he hated me or Mary more, so he threw it between us and scattered those vile things all over the floor. That got me mad—I knew who was going to get stuck with the cleanup—so I jumped up too, ready to wrestle Mr. Slade to the ground. But he didn’t come at me. He went over to the window and stood there with his back to us.
“Lightning flashed. Mr. Slade started laughing again. ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘My God, thank God, there’s a light on the beach!’ Mary and I went over to look but you couldn’t see two feet in that storm. ‘Just wait,’ Mr. Slade said, and the lightning came again, and still there was nothing. But Mr. Slade was out of his mind by then. ‘I’m going home,’ he said. ‘You can stay here and die, I’m going home now.’
“He went out into the storm. We didn’t try to stop him. It wasn’t Christian, but all I could think in that moment was good riddance. Lightning came again and I caught one last glimpse of him, starting down the stairs to the beach. Then he was gone.
“Mary helped me clean up and went to bed. I sat up all night, watching to see if Mr. Slade would come back. But morning came and there was no more sign of him.
“And then it was just the two of us. Enduring.” Ida leaned forward to place a hand on the cairn. “We got on OK. We always had. And it’s not so bad here, if you’re careful not to get killed. I used to tease Mary—she’s originally from Savannah, and she always wanted a house by the ocean. ‘Got your wish,’ I’d say. She’d get so mad: ‘It’s just like home. The beach is right there and I’m not allowed to go swimming.’” Ida laughed and patted the cairn again. “She had chest pains, though. All that weird food, it wasn’t good for her heart, and she was nervous a lot of the time, worried that Jesus wouldn’t be able to find her here.
“But He did, finally. Day 4,932, that’s the morning Mary didn’t wake up.” Ida looked at Hippolyta. “Nineteen forty-nine, I want to say June twenty-sixth though I guess that’s wrong.”
“Five years ago,” Hippolyta said. “And you’ve been alone since then?”
“Better me than her,” Ida said. “Alone never bothered me much. I can still talk to Mary all I want to; Jesus and my brother, too. And I’ve got Mr. Winthrop’s observatory to keep myself occupied.” She grinned. “I’m sure he didn’t intend that. But it’s got its own manual and a book for recording observations, and I’ve made good use of both of them over the years.”
She looked at Hippolyta again, her expression both assessing and conspiratorial.
“So,” she said. “Would you like to see my telescope?”
The galaxy had begun to set, the lowest of its arms dipping like an oar beneath the ocean horizon.
“The Drowning Octopus,” Ida said, as they walked towards the end of the promontory. “That’s what Mr. Winthrop called it in his notes. Said it was ‘blue-shifted,’ which means it’s coming this way. I didn’t tell Mary that, though. I knew she’d only worry.”
“What about this star system?” Hippolyta asked. “Is it one star, or more? Does this planet have any moons? How many other planets are there?”
“There’s one sun,” Ida told her. “It’s brighter than Earth’s. One moon, too, but smaller and farther away. As for planets, there’s four others Mr. Winthrop knew about. Six, now.”
“You discovered two planets?”
“Winthrop was on the trail of the fifth one,” Ida said. “I used his notes to find it. Named it Ida, to spite him. The sixth one, though—Pearl—she was all mine. She’s up now,” Ida added, pointing back at the sky above the cliff. “She’s got her own little moon you can spy through the telescope. Should be able to see it tonight.”
They reached the dome. Ida had her hand on the observatory door when she suddenly turned and looked down at the beach, and cursed.
“What’s wrong?” said Hippolyta, but even as she spoke she saw it too: Down on the sand beside the glowing portal, another light had appeared, a kerosene lamp carried by one of a pair of white men dressed for Wisconsin winter. The lantern-bearer was looking in their direction, but with the lamp flame shining in his eyes, Hippolyta doubted he could see more than a vague silhouette of the promontory. Meanwhile his companion, armed with a rifle, was gazing at Winthrop’s Octopus as if he meant to shoot it down.
Hippolyta met Ida’s accusing stare. “They aren’t with me,” she said.
“Just be still and keep your voice down,” Ida told her.
“What if they come up the stairs?” Hippolyta whispered. “Do you need to—”
“They aren’t going to make it to the stairs. Scylla’s on to them.”
Scylla: The boulder, Hippolyta realized. While she and Ida had been visiting, the boulder had moved down the beach and now rested no more than twenty feet from the portal. Closer up, it looked more like a giant cannonball than a rock.
The man with the rifle had noticed it too. He approached it, switching his gun to one hand and making a fist of the other, as though intending to rap on the side of the black sphere, which was as tall as he was. But he was still more than an arm’s length away when the sphere suddenly burst open like an orange turning inside out, dark rind splitting to reveal a wriggling white pulp. Dozens of pale tentacles shot out, wrapping around the man’s limbs, torso, neck, and head, and yanking him forward to be swallowed whole before he could cry out. By the time his companion realized something was wrong and turned around, the sphere had closed up again.
The lantern-bearer held his lamp up high and called out a name. Thinking his friend had gone home to Wisconsin, he stepped to the portal and peered at the control room. Hippolyta almost shouted a warning but Ida grabbed her wrist and hissed, “Be still.” Then the man hoisted his lamp again and started for the sphere.
Scylla was slower on the draw this time. The man actually had time to turn and run. The tentacles that reached for him were thick ropy things that squirmed over the sand and seized his ankles, slamming him facedown on the beach.
He screamed as Scylla reeled him in—a desperate, plaintive cry that echoed off the cliff. Then the sphere snapped shut, cutting off the sound and sending an object like a mossy stone tumbling down to the water. The oil from the lamp, which had been smashed by a pinwheeling arm, continued to burn for another moment.
Then all was peaceful once more, the beach’s dark stillness disturbed only by surf, starlight, and the soft glow of the portal back to Earth.
“You need to leave,” Ida said.
Back inside the cottage, Ida slid the leftover manna, pan, foil, and all, into a slot beneath the counter marked MATTER RECYCLE. “I expect there’ll be other men coming after those first two,” she said. “Before they get here you have to go back and shut the door. Throw away the key.” She fed the Survey—and T. Hiram’s celestial address—into the slot as well.
“I’m not going back down on that beach,” Hippolyta said, and then blinked, stunned by her own words, what it would mean if she really couldn’t go back. Horace, she thought.
“Scylla’s had her supper,” Ida said. “If it goes the way it did with James, she’ll wander off now and be sick awhile. We don’t digest well.” She rinsed her hands in the sink and held them up to a wall-mounted blower to dry them. “I’ll walk you down, make sure you g
et through the portal OK.”
“You’re not coming back with me?”
The blower shut off, but Ida remained facing the wall. “You have a child?” she said.
“Yes.”
“You love her?”
“Him,” Hippolyta said. “Yes.”
“Then you should understand. I’d like to see Pearl again, find out what’s become of her. If Hiram Winthrop were dead dead, I might risk it. But if he’s still looking for his son from beyond the grave, I need to keep my distance.”
“But Winthrop knows where you are.”
“He knows where he left me,” Ida said, turning around. “He won’t know I’m still here unless you tell him. He might send someone else, I suppose, but if you’re the best he could manage in nineteen years, I should be fine for whatever time I’ve got left. It’s my planet, now.
“Or it will be,” she added, giving Hippolyta a look she didn’t care for, “once you’re gone.”
Ida vanished for several minutes into the back of the cottage, returning with Hippolyta’s coat and a worn canvas shoulder bag. “I’m going to keep your revolver,” she said. “In case I get other visitors.” Hippolyta made no objection but felt a tingle of unease settle between her shoulder blades when Ida indicated she should lead the way.
They descended the stairs. As predicted, Scylla had moved off, becoming a barely discernible speck in the distance. Still Hippolyta was wary, stepping onto the beach as she would onto a minefield.
They made it to the portal without being eaten. Ida reached into the bag and brought out a parting gift for Hippolyta: a gray metal box about five inches on a side, its hinged lid secured with strips of sawgrass. “For your silence,” Ida said.
Hippolyta felt that uneasy tingle again. She thought: You didn’t know Christmas was coming, but you just happened to have a present lying around? Who for? “It’s all right,” she told Ida. “You don’t need to bribe me.”
“Take it,” Ida insisted, shoving the box into her hands. It was heavy for its size, and whatever was inside must have been snugly packed—as Hippolyta fumbled to hold on to it, she could feel no telltale shifting of contents. “Don’t open it now,” Ida said. “After. Once you’ve shut the portal and got rid of the key and are safe away . . . You’ll understand.”