by Andre Norton
Marcy did not protest as Jill half expected. Instead she nodded. “That's right. My father—he worked on the Project, too, that's how come we live here. When they closed down the big base and said no more space flights, well, we moved here with the colonel, and Dr. Wilson, and the Pierces. Look here—”
She pushed past Jill and swept away some of the foliage. Behind those trailing, yellowish leaves, was a board planted on a firm stake in the ground; on it, very faint lettering.
“You read that?” Marcy stabbed a finger at the words.
“Sure I can read!” Jill studied the almost lost lines. “It says, ‘Desirable Lakeside Residence.”’
“And that's what all this was!” Marcy answered. “Once— years and years ago—people paid lots of money for this land—land beside a lake. Of course, that was before all the fish, and turtles and alligators and things died off, and the water was all full of weeds. You can hardly tell where the lake was any more—come on—I'll show you!”
Jill eyed the mass of rusty green doubtfully. But Marcy hooked back an armful to show an opening beyond. And, at that moment, Ulysses came to life in flowing movement and disappeared through it. Fastening her respirator to her belt, Jill followed.
It was like going through a tunnel, but the walls of this tunnel were alive, not concrete. She put out a hand timidly now and then to touch fingertips to leaves, springy branches, all the parts of Outside. Then they were out of the tunnel, before them what seemed to be a smooth green surface some distance below where they now stood. However, as she studied it, Jill could see there were brown patches which the green did not cover and which looked liquid.
This was very different from any lake in a picture, but then everything was different now from pictures. Old people kept talking about how it was when they were young, saying, yes, the pictures were right. But sometimes Jill wondered if they were not just trying to remember it and getting the pictures mixed up with what they wanted to believe. Perhaps the pictures were stories which were never true, even long ago.
Marcy shaded her eyes with her hand, stared out across the green-brown surface.
“That's funny—”
“What's funny?”
“Seems like there is more water showing today—like the weeds are gone. Maybe it's so poisoned now even the old weeds can't live in it.” She picked up a stick from the ground by her feet, and then lay full length to reach over and plunge the end of it into the thick mass below, dragging it back and forth.
Ulysses appeared again. Not up with them, but below. Jill could see him crouched on a slime-edged stone. His head was forward as he stared into the weeds, as if he could see something the girls could not.
“Hey!” Marcy braced herself up on her elbows. “Did you see that?”
“What?”
“When I poked this old stick in right here"—she leaned forward to demonstrate—"something moved away—along there!” She used the stick as a pointer. “Watch Ulysses, he must have seen it too!”
The cat's tail swept back and forth; he was clearly gazing in the direction Marcy indicated.
“You said all the fish, the turtles and things are dead.” Jill edged back. Once there had been snakes, too. Were the snakes dead?
“Sure are. My dad says nothing could live in this old lake! But something did move away. Let's see—” She wormed her way along, striking at the leaves below, cutting swaths through them, leaving the growth tattered. But, though they both watched intently, there were no more signs of anything which might or might not be fleeing the lashing branch.
“Bug—a big bug?” suggested Jill as Marcy rolled back, dropping the stick.
“Sure would be a big one.” Marcy sounded unconvinced. “You going to live here—all the time?”
Jill began to twist at her respirator again. “I guess so.”
“What's it like up North, in the bad country?”
Jill looked about her a little desperately. Outside was so different, how could she tell Marcy about Inside? She did not even want to remember those last black days.
“They—they cut down on our block quota,” she said in a rush. “Two of the big breathers burned out. People were all jammed together in the part where the conditioners still worked. But there were too many. They—they took old Mr. Evans away and Mrs. Evans, too. Daddy—somehow he got a message to Uncle Shaw, and he sent for me. But Daddy couldn't come. He is one of the maintainers, and they aren't allowed even to leave their own sections for fear something will happen and the breathers break down.”
Marcy was watching her narrowly.
“I bet you're glad to be here.”
“I don't know—it's all so different, it's Outside.” Now Jill looked around her wildly. That stone where she had sat, from it she could turn around and see the house. From here—now all she could see were bushes. Where was the house—?
She got to her feet, shaking with the cold inside her.
“Please"—somehow she got out that plea—"where's the house? Which way did we come to get here?” Inside was safe—
“You frightened? Nothing to be frightened of. Just trees and things. And Ulysses, but he's a friend. He's a smart cat, understands a lot you say. If he could only talk now—” Marcy leaned over and called:
“Ulysses, you come on up. Nothing to catch down there, no use your pretending there is.”
Jill was still shaking a little. But Marcy's relaxation was soothing. And she wanted to see the cat close again. Perhaps he would let her pet him.
Again that black head pushed through the brush and Ulysses, stopping once to lick at his shoulder, came to join them.
“He's half Siamese,” Marcy announced as if that made him even more special. “His mother is Min-Hoy. My mother had her since a little kitten. She's old now and doesn't go out much. Listen, you got a cat'”
Jill shook her head. “They don't allow them—nothing that uses up air, people have to have it all. I never saw one before, except in pictures.”
“Well, suppose I let you have half of Ulysses—”
“Half?”
“Sure, like you take him some days, and me some. Ulysses” —she looked to the cat. “This is Jill Baylor, she never had a cat. You can be with her sometimes, can't you?”
Ulysses had been inspecting one paw intently. Now he looked first at Marcy as if he understood every word, and then turned his head to apply the same searching stare to Jill. She knelt and held out her hand.
“Ulysses—”
He came to her with the grave dignity of his species, sniffed at her fingers, then rubbed his head back and forth against her flesh, his silky soft fur like a caress.
“He likes you.” Marcy nodded briskly. “He'll give you half his time, just wait and see!”
"Jill!” a voice called from nearby.
Marcy stood up. “That's your aunt, you'd better go. Miss Abby's a great one for people being prompt.”
“I know. How—how do I go?”
Marcy guided her back through the green tunnel. Ulysses disappeared again. But Marcy stayed to where Aunt Abby stood under the roof overhang. Jill was already sure that her aunt liked that house a great deal better before Jill came to stay in it.
“Where have you been—? Oh, hello, Marcy. You can tell your mother the colonel got the jeep fixed and I'm going in to town later this afternoon, if she wants a shopping lift.”
“Yes, Mrs. Baylor.” Marcy was polite but she did not linger. There was no sign of Ulysses.
Nobody asked Jill concerning her adventures of the morning and she did not volunteer. She was uneasy with Aunt Abby; as for Uncle Shaw, she thought most of the time he did not even know she was there. Sometimes he seemed to come back from some far distance and talk to her as if she were a baby. But most of the time he was shut up at the other end of the house in a room Aunt Abby had warned her not to enter. What it contained she had no idea.
There were only four families now living by the lake, she was to discover. Marcy's, the Haddams, who were older and
seemed to spend most of their time working in a garden trying to raise things. Though Marcy reported most of the stuff died off before it ever got big or ripe enough to eat, but they kept on trying. Then there were the Williamses and they—Marcy warned her to stay away from them, even though Jill had no desire to explore Outside alone. The Williamses, Marcy reported, were dirt-mean, dirt-dirty, and wrong in the head. Which was enough to frighten Jill away from any contact.
But it was the Williamses who caused all the rumpus the night of the full moon.
Jill awakened out of sleep and sat up in her bed, her heart thumping, her body beginning to shake as she heard that awful screaming. It came from Outside, awakening all the suspicions her days with Marcy had lulled. Then she heard sounds in the house, Uncle Shaw's heavy tread, Aunt Abby's voice.
The generator was off again and they had had only lamps for a week. But she saw through the window the broad beam of a flashlight cut the night. Then she heard Marcy's father call from the road and saw a second flashlight.
There was another shriek and Jill cried out, too, in echo. The door opened on Aunt Abby, who went swiftly to the window, pulling it closed in spite of the heat.
“It's all right.” She sat down on the bed and took Jill's hands in hers. “Just some animal—”
But Jill knew better. There weren't many animals—Ulysses, Min-Hoy, the old mule the Haddams kept. Marcy had told her all the wild animals were gone.
There was no more screaming and Aunt Abby took her into bed with her so after a while Jill did sleep. When she went for breakfast, Uncle Shaw was in his usual place. Nobody said anything about what had happened in the night and she felt she must not ask. It was not until she met Marcy that she heard the story.
“Beeny Williams,” Marcy reported, “clean out of his head and running down the road yelling demons were going to get him. My father had to knock him out. They're taking him in town to a doctor.” She stopped and looked sidewise at Jill in an odd kind of way as if she were in two minds whether to say something or not. Then she asked abruptly:
“Jill, do you ever dream about—well, some queer things?”
“What kind of things?” Everyone had scary dreams.
“Well, like being in a green place and moving around—not like walking, but sort of flying. Or being away from that green place and wanting a lot to get back.”
Jill shook her head. “You dream like that?”
“Sometimes—only usually you never remember the dreams plain when you wake up, but these you do. It seems to be important. Oh, stuff!” She threw up her hands. “Dad says to stay away from the lake. Seems Beeny went wading in a piece of it last night, might be he got some sort of poison. But all those Williamses are crazy. I don't see how wading in the lake could do anything to him. Dad didn't say we couldn't walk around it, let's go see—”
They took the familiar way through the tunnel. Jill blinked in the very bright sun. Then she blinked again.
“Marcy, there's a lot more water showing! See—there and there! Perhaps your dad is right, could be something killing off the weeds.”
“Sure true. Ulysses,” she called to the cat crouched on the stone below, “you come away from there, could be you might catch something bad.”
However Ulysses did not so much as twitch an ear this time in response—nor did he come. Marcy threatened to climb down and get him, but Jill pointed out that the bank was crumbling and she might land in the forbidden lake.
They left the cat and worked their way along the shore, coming close to a derelict house well embowered in the skeletons of dead creepers and feebler shoots of new ones.
“Spooky,” Marcy commented. “Looks like a place where things could hide and jump out—”
“Who used to live there, I wonder?”
“Dr. Wilson. He was at the Cape, too. And he walked on the moon—”
“Dr. Morgan Wilson.” Jill nodded. “I remember.”
“He was the worst upset when they closed down the Project ‘cause he was right in the middle of an experiment. Tried to bring his stuff along here and work on it, but he didn't have any more money from the government and nobody would listen to him. He never got over feeling bad about it. One night he just up and walked out into the lake—just like that!” Marcy waved a hand. “They never found him until the next morning. And you know what—he took a treasure with him—and it was never found.”
“A treasure—what?”
“Well, he had these moon rocks he was using in his experiment. He'd picked them up himself. My dad said they used to keep them in cases where people could go and see them. But after New York and Chicago and Los Angeles all went dead in the Breakdown and there was no going to the moon any more—nor money to spend except for breathers and fighting the poison and all—nobody cared what became of a lot of old rocks. So these were lost in the lake.”
“What did they look like?”
“Oh, I guess like any old rock. They were just treasures because they came from another world.”
They turned back then for they were faced with a palmetto thicket which they could not penetrate. It was a lot hotter and Jill began to think of indoors and the slight cool one could find by just getting out of the sun.
“Come on home with me,” she urged. “We can have some lemonade and Aunt Abby gave me a big old catalogue—we can pick out what we'd like to buy if they still had the store and we had any money.”
Wish buying was usually a way to spend a rainy day, but it might also fill up a hot one.
“Okay.”
So they were installed on Jill's bed shortly, turning the limp pages of the catalogue and rather listlessly making choices, when there was a scratching at the outside door just beyond the entrance to Jill's bedroom.
“Hey"—Marcy sat up—"it's Ulysses—and he's carrying something—I'll let him in.”
She was away before Jill could move and the black cat flashed into the room and under Jill's bed as if he feared his find would be taken from him. They could hear him growling softly and both girls hung over the side trying to look, finally rolling off on the floor.
“What you got, cat?” demanded Marcy. “Let's see now—”
But though Ulysses was crouched growling, and he had certainly had something in his mouth when Marcy let him in, there was nothing at all except his own black form now to be seen.
“What did he do with it?”
“I don't know.” Marcy was as surprised as Jill. “What was it anyhow?”
But when they compared notes they discovered that neither of them had seen it clearly enough to guess. Jill went for the big flashlight always kept on the table in the hall. She flashed the beam back and forth under, where it shone on Ulysses’ sleek person, but showed nothing else at all.
“Got away,” Marcy said.
“But if it's in the room somewhere, whatever it is—” Jill did not like the thought of a released something here—especially a something which she could not identify.
“We'll keep Ulysses here. If it comes out, he'll get it. He's just waiting. You shut the door so it can't get out in the hall, and he'll catch it again.”
But it was not long before Ulysses apparently gave up all thoughts of hunting and jumped up to sprawl at sleepy ease on the bed. When it came time for Marcy to leave Jill had a plea.
“Marcy, you said Ulysses is half mine, let him stay here tonight. If that—that thing is loose in here, I don't want it on me. Maybe he can catch it again.”
“Okay, if he'll stay. Will you, Ulysses?”
He raised his head, yawned and settled back.
“Looks like he chooses so. But if he makes a fuss in the night, you'll have to let him out quick. He yells if you don't—real loud.”
Ulysses showed no desire to go out in the early evening. Jill brought in some of his food, which Marcy had delivered, and a tin pie plate full of water. He opened his eyes sleepily, looked at her offering and yawned again. Flashlight in hand, she once more made the rounds of the room, forcing hersel
f to lie on her stomach and look under the bed. But she could see nothing at all. What had Ulysses brought in? Or had they been mistaken and only thought he had something?
A little reluctantly Jill crawled into bed, dropping the edge of the sheet over Ulysses. She did not know how Aunt Abby would accept this addition to the household, even if it were temporary, and she did not want to explain. Aunt Abby certainly would not accept with anything but alarm the fact that Ulysses had brought in something and loosed it in Jill's room.
Aunt Abby came and took away the lamp and Ulysses cooperated nicely by not announcing his presence by either voice or movement under the end of sheet. But Jill fought sleep. She had a fear which slowly became real horror, of waking to find something perhaps right on her pillow.
Ulysses was stretched beside her. Now he laid one paw across her leg as if he knew exactly how she felt and wanted to reassure her, both of his presence and the fact he was on guard. She began to relax.
She—she was not in bed at all! She was back in a sealed apartment but the breather had failed, she could not breathe— her respirator—the door—she must get out—away where she could breathe! She must! Jill threw herself at the wall. There were no doors—no vents! If she pounded would some one hear?
Then it was dark and she was back in the room, sitting up in bed. A small throaty sound—that was Ulysses. He had moved to the edge of the bed, was crouched there—looking down at the floor. Jill was sweating, shaking with the fear of that dream, it must have been a dream—
But she was awake and still she felt it—that she could hardly breathe, that she must get out—back—back to—
It was as if she could see it right before her like a picture on the wall—the lake—the almost dead lake!
But she did not want—she did—she must—
Thoroughly frightened, Jill rocked back and forth. She did not want to go to the lake, not now. Of course, she didn't! What was the matter with her?