He drew away and went back to the door. She saw the shadow and caught out at his shirt.
“It’s the women,” he said.
Her fingers jerked his arm.
“Don’t make a noise. Here.” ~
She began to pull him toward the stairs. Morally he felt himself being pulled all ways, by the women, for he sympathized with them; by the girl, whom he felt he loved; and yet a third way by the bantering voice of Bassington in blooming contempt, for John Brunt was about to run
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away again. As if his life of escaping had not been enough,
in death he was no different.
“What’s the matter?” she whispered urgently. “Come on!” As they went up the stairs he looked back. He could see down through the big semicircle of the fanlight over the main door. He stopped her. Through the dirty glass he could see them moving. There seemed to be four, gathered together. Two went off in different directions, and as two remained his first guess was right.
“It’s the four,” he whispered. “It’s all right. I know them. It’s no good running—”
As he watched the two came back to the waiting pair. They stayed in a group, and then walked away.
“Why are you so frightened?” he said, pressing her arm against him.
“They’re witches,” she said. “You know, don’t you?”
“Why be frightened of them?”
“Because they’ll take you away.”
He hesitated in surprise.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “They won’t. Let’s go. They’ve gone from out there.”
“They’re probably looking for us {ound the house,” she said fearfully. “They know we’re here!” She stifled a little, nervous laugh. “Come on out the back. I know the way.” “By God, so do I!” he said aloud in surprise. This was exactly what Helen Murphy had said. They had run helter- skelter down the long passage to the kitchen, tripping and stumbling, gasping and laughing to stop their fear. Then suddenly there had been a blaze of light overhead, in front and behind. The voice of Bassington: “Stop, you young devils! Stop there!” So they had stopped. And as they had turned back to the great figure of retribution, their young eyes had met, and John Brunt had the thought again that had passed in their glance: “You’re me and I’m you and we’re going to be beaten together, thank goodness, not alone!”
He pulled back without noticing it, as if the roar of the outraged Bassington dinned in his ears again. She turned to him in the gloom and he saw her eyes reflect the starlight through a window behind him.
“What’s the matter?” she gasped.
“You’re Helen!” he said urgently. “You are Helen!”
She let her breath go in a nervous little laugh.
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“But you know I am, love. You know!”
‘You remember me, don’t you?”
She drew a breath, trying to understand. “You know how some people you feel you’ve known all your life? Like that. When you came in the kitchen. It’s funny—”
“No it isn’t! You see, it’s all happening again. You’ve been here before with me. You must know you have. How do you think that all of a sudden—out of all the people—you can know one like that and know that your life and theirs is the same one?”
“I don’t know,” she said breathlessly. ‘You talk so funny sometimes, love. Let’s go out of here! It’s haunted!” Her voice went suddenly high.
“Of course it’s haunted. It’s haunted with you and me. We were caught here before, can’t you feel that7”
“We shall be caught now!”
He grabbed her and held her tightly to him.
“Yes, you know, don’t you? You know it’s got to happen all over again. It keeps on. Over and over again. I meet you, and love you and then you go. And all my life I’m looking and looking and I can’t find what you took away with you. Don’t you understand? Bassington wasn’t right. I wasn’t escaping. I wasn’t running away. I was searching, trying to find what you took away. Trying to find something that only you had. Nobody else could give it. They hadn’t got it. They haven’t got it now. I thought it must be there, somewhere, this side of the world or the other. But it wasn’t. It was here in this village, where you made it, where you created it and left it. That’s why I’ve had to come back. My life started here, and you made my life and then went away. And there wasn’t any me after that. It wasn’t me. I tried to find what was missing, but it wasn’t there without you. That’s why they’ve sent me back. I can’t go into Heaven—only half of me. That’s the thing that isn’t possible. I didn’t know. I’m beginning to know now.”
She was crying against his shoulder.
“You make me so sad,” she whispered. “Don’t make me sad.”
He pressed her to him so tightly she stopped talking and looked up at him startled, her face streaked with silver tears.
“You don’t understand, Helen.”
"Just now, when you were just cuddling me on the box
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and not saying anything. That was fun because I love you, and I’m not sad—”
“But how do you know?” he said. He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her away, searching the glistening stars in her wet tears. “How do you know that you love me, after only a few hours?”
“You know,” she said very softly. “You just know.” “It’s because it’s happened before,” he said.
“No, it’s just natural. You have a feeling that someday somebody’s going to come and—that’ll be it. I didn’t know it—not right away. It sort of gradually came on me as I was sitting there, and when I saw you come in again, and went out to get a drink and weren’t frightened—didn’t sort of care—I began to get the feeling. Now I’m sure.” “But don’t you feel it’s happened before?”
“I don’t know.” She looked away. “Don’t make me sad.” “But why should you be sad?”
“I don’t know that either!” Her voice was suddenly small, and angry. “Look, love, let’s get out of here!”
“But we can’t, because it will happen—”
He turned and looked back to where Bassington had been, all those years ago. Where he had been Petra stood, watching, a black silhouette.
“Stop there!” she said.
-2
The Inspectors came to the inn at midnight, black-cloaked, silent. The manageress left in charge was swept aside by these women as they took command of the building, while others surrounded it in the darkness. Papers and records were taken ready for destruction, only some being wanted for evidence later. All that would be necessary was the evidence that the deviators were dead, killed by a righteous crowd of villagers incensed at finding witches in their midst. It was the usual method of stamping out treasonable activity, providing a strong lesson and unforgettable spectacle. It had been found that such demonstrations in the few Real Areas discouraged anti-government activity for long periods afterward.
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The search was carried into guest rooms, storerooms, service rooms, and even cupboards. Guests were turned out in their nightclothes to stand in the corridors, shivering, but not from chill. Hardly any words were spoken, once the inmates knew who the investigators were.
The Chief Inspector ruled in silence from the main hall, receiving negative reports from inside and outside the house.
The fat cook was brought in to her, hugging an old, patched nightgown round her as if the guards were trying to steal it. They urged her on to the carpet in front of the Chief Inspector. The cook’s eyes were bright with fear and defiance.
“You know something of a witch who came here today —a man?”
The black cow-like eyes went big. She shook her head violently.
“I’m not a witch!” she bleated suddenly. “I swear I’m not a witch! I swear it! I swear!”
“Of course you’re not,” said the Inspector. “You know it is treason, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes I know!” She started to shiver, all her fat body trembling like jelly, her lank black hair falling over her face as she hugged the old gown to her. Her podgy nose sparkled with sweat. “It isn’t a man! It’s them! It’s not a man at all! It’s them!”
The inn began to resound with noises, voices rose, nervously indignant at first, but changed to whining, then pleading. The shivery fat cook could hear beating upstairs and her own flesh began to smart. She knew what they would do to her. She had seen them look for a witch here when she was a girl. They had stripped a woman and beaten her in the square, and held another and burned her nipples with a smoldering stick.
The Inspector reached out and gripped a lapel of the old gown. The cook’s hands fell, the old gown gaped open, her jaw just dropped and her eyes, big as marbles, glazed over with horror. The Inspector shrugged and let go. She dropped on to her knees, a big, fat blubbering mass, praying to the Inspector who turned away.
“Just say what you know!” the Inspector snapped at her.
“I know where they went. I know where they went!” she screamed, groveling on the floor. “I’ll tell you, but don’t burn me. Don’t bum me!”
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3
Helen hung on to his arm, glaring at them as they gathered like shadows in the corridor. '
“Why did you come here?” Petra said.
“I wanted to see Bassington,” John Brunt said with challenging firmness.
“Bassington died years ago!” Margaret said, puzzled. “It’s in the files.”
“You must know he’s here,” John Brunt said. “Or did you make up a story that he haunted the place in order to keep people out of here?”
“There has always been trouble here,” Petra said. “It had to be shut down because of that. Is Bassington dead and alive—like you?”
“I wish—” He broke off.
There came a sudden battering at the main door. It thumped and beat on the still air, echoing, as if the knocks were imps running up and down the corridors, calling out into the shadows, making the beetles run scuttering over the dust of the bare boards. For a moment the knocking ceased and then the old bells in the kitchen began to jangle and groan, dancing on lame rusty springs in the black night, calling out, showering dust and rust from their idiot mouths. The bells began to resonate, their own chimes echoing in other empty heads until it seemed a dozen bells were mixed in a confused clangor.
“What is it?” Jo said in alarm.
The bells went on jangling, and the knocker began to clack and bang again and beyond the door they heard someone calling, the voice dimmed by the noise and the thickness of the door.
“Open the door!” Petra said.
She and the others turned and went quickly into the hall. Helen and John Brunt went after them. Margaret opened the door quickly. A sprawling shadow stood there, crouching with his hand out, not understanding how the knocker had been taken from his grasp. Held up momentarily by rust
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the knocker now fell back with a crash, and the man reeled
aside against the door post.
“Jesus Christ!” he said brokenly.
The jangling of the bells echoed still as Petra went to the old man. John could see his white collar in the darkness. It was the old clergyman, shaking as he peered in at them, probably seeing nothing but blackness and confusion.
“Petra, Petra,” he said, his voice creaking with exhaustion and shivering terror. “The Inspectors have come.” He gasped. “The inn. The cook has told them—told them—you are witches. Oh God. She has told them—you are here. They— they are coming. You must—must come away—”
“The Inspectors!”
John saw the woman’s teeth flash in the dim light, as if she snarled.
“Come—my church,” the old man gasped. “They will not —touch you there.”
“But after—?” Petra said.
“Never mind after!” Jo said savagely. “Let’s do what he says now! If they catch us here, there’s no hope.”
“Where are they now?” the waitress asked in a tiny voice, edging on a scream.
“At the inn. They will not hurry perhaps—” The old man gasped. “But you must come—now.”
Margaret turned and gripped John Brunt’s arm.
“Do you know what he means?” she said.
“I think so.” Margaret let go.
“Oh God, is the man there?” The old man peered blindly in. “It is he they came for! They asked the cook—she said— you too!”
“Get to the church, love!” Helen whispered urgently. Her fear was evident but she was firm, quick, ready to act. “He’s right! Get to the church!”
“But why? What do they do, these—Inspectors? They can only question—”
Petra cut in.
“They’re political managers. They can do what they like. They can kill you. They can make an example of you to the rest. To try and make sure that people are so frightened by what they see they will never risk going against them. They kill you in ways that will make sure nobody who sees will ever forget. I’ve seen them—” Her voice stopped in a sudden wave of weakness.
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“But that’s back in the Middle Ages!” he cried. “They can’t—”
“Get to the church, love. You don’t understand!”
The old man stumbled down the steps and turned away, his big broken shoes scuffing the gravel. The women followed him in a ragged group, Petra stopping sometimes to look toward the village and listen. John Brunt came after, holding Helen’s arm tightly to his side. He dropped back, stopped.
“Go on!” she said in alarm.
“We can’t,” he said. If you go there they’ll think you’re one of them.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “They’ll say that anyway. When they come they get everybody that spoke to them even. They’d know about me. Come on, love.”
They went on through the dark countryside, following shadows.
He kept thinking what Bassington had said: “Can you be killed again?”
If he could, what would happen? Wouldn’t the whole thing fail? Wouldn’t Packard’s slim hold on him be severed? There was an experiment that had to be stopped. What was it? The explosion.
Why was it suddenly so unimportant?
“Do you think that in life you keep doing the same things over and over again,” he said, “and that no matter what you do you can’t change it?”
“Of course you’ve got to do things over and over again, love. You couldn’t do something new every day. Come on, love. Don’t lose them!”
She doesn’t understand, he thought. I don’t understand either. Perhaps she said just what I said. It’s the way she sees it. She sees it in days; I see it in centuries. What’s the difference? Nothing. It goes on in a cycle. You keep doing the same thing, day after day, after year, after decade, after century, after millennium, and people die off this world and come to life on another and live the same and die the same and it goes on and on in a cycle that never changes, and sometimes you realize you have done it all before and sometimes it seems new. But it’s all only what it seems. There isn’t anything else. And how does that make anything worse, or even different? It’s never been any other way. It’s only seemed all the time. So how can it be saved by anybody, anything?
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“Don’t make me sad—thinking,” she whispered, and jogged his arm. “Catch up with them, love.”
Blackout, yes. But the world would die just the same, that way or another way.
No, he must not think that because he wanted to stay with Helen. Just because he did not want to lose her again. But he had to. He had to go back. Packard would reach out for him and all this world would end as if it had never existed.
The night was split horizontally, a black sea with the small peaks of moving shadows against a thin glow of the starlit sky. They were like the heads of beasts bobbing against the light. Behind them P
eter stood in the darkness, watching them safely away. Then he went in at the yawning door of the old house and pointed an aged generator torch ahead of him. As it whirred the beam struck out up the stairs, into the rooms, leading his way as he searched rapidly for the evidence he knew now must be there. Evidence that would get rid of the management of the inn once and for all, and leave the way clear for a more stable political agent, himself. He slapped a handful of pills into his mouth to quell the rising excitement in him and went on through the house, the torch whirring in his nervous hand. In the distance he heard shouting. It began as an isolated calling, then answers doubled the sound, then others joined in, querying, and strident shouting answered. The calling was multiplied and began to echo in the empty night. He could hear beating on wooden doors, and then the sharp cries, “Witches found. Everyone out! Witches found!” Short screams of fear and excitement followed the drummings on the doors. Lights began to prick out in the darkness of the village.
“Come on! Come on, for Christ’s sake!” The old priest’s voice was cracked and shaking with fear. John heard him crashing and stumbling against the hedge at the side of the path.
Escape! Escape! John could hear Bassington’s taunts like a whisper on the still night air.
He felt the weeds tearing at his legs as they went in file through the reeling churchyard. The old stones leered in the gloom, knowing it all. Beyond the inn the sky was beginning to burn with a strange yellow glow, a light that wavered and moved, fading and brightening.
He heard Petra’s voice.
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“The torches! It's like it was before!”
The priest ran into the dark maw of the church, his old, cracked voice bawling to God. The shadows crowded in after him. On the threshold John stopped.
“You can’t!” he said. “They’ll know—”
“It won’t make any difference, love. I tell you. It won’t make any difference. Come on!”
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