The Anything Box

by Зенна Гендерсон

  The rain was slanting icy wires now that stabbed his face and cut through

  his wet jacket. He stood on the rough foot bridge across the creek and leaned

  over the handrail, feeling the ragged bark pressing against his stomach. He

  held his clenched fists up before his face and stared at them.

  "This is it," he thought. "Our last chance—My last chance." Then he bent

  his head down over his hands, feeling the bite of his thumb joints into his

  forehead. "O God, make it true—make it true!"

  The he loosed the hand that held the hook, tapped the soggy wad of Kleenex

  to make sure it was still there and lowered it cautiously toward the roaring,

  brawling creek, still swollen from the afternoon sun on hillside snow. He

  rotated the ball slowly, letting the line out. He gasped as the hook touched

  the water and he felt the current catch it and sweep it downstream. He yelled

  to the roaring, rain-drenched darkness, "I believe! I believe!" And the limp,

  tattered line in his hand snapped taut, pulling until it cut into the flesh of

  his palm. It strained downstream, and as he looked, it took on a weird

  fluorescent glow, and skipping on the black edge of the next downstream curve,

  the hook and bait were vivid with the same glowing.

  Crae played out more of the line to ease the pressure on his palm. The line

  was as tight and strong as piano wire between his fingers.

  Time stopped for Crae as he leaned against the rail watching the bobbing

  light on the end of the line— waiting and waiting wondering if the Grunder was

  coming, if it could taste Ellena's tears across the world. Rain dripped from

  the end of his nose and whispered down past his ears.

  Then out of the darkness and waiting, lightning licked across the sky and

  thunder thudded in giant, bone-jarring steps down from the top of Baldy. Crae

  winced as sudden vivid light played around him again, perilously close. But no

  thunder followed and he opened his eyes to a blade of light slicing cleanly

  through the foot bridge from side to side. Crae bit his lower lip as the light

  resolved itself into a dazzling fin that split the waters, slit the willows

  and sliced through the boulders at the bend of the creek and disappeared.

  "The Grunder!" he called out hoarsely and unreeled the last of his line,

  stumbling to the end of the bridge to follow in blind pursuit through the

  darkness. As his feet splashed in the icy waters, the Grunder lifted in a high

  arching leap beyond the far willows. Crae slid rattling down the creek bank

  onto one knee. The swift current swung him off balance and twisted him so that

  his back was to the stream, and he felt the line slip through his fingers.

  Desperately, he jerked around and lunged for the escaping line, the surge of

  the waters pushing him face down into the shallow stream. With a gurgling sob,

  he surfaced and snatched the last turn of the winding strip from where it had

  snagged on the stub of a water-soaked log.

  He pulled himself up onto the soggy bank, strangling, spewing water,blinking to clear his eyes. Soaked through, numbed by the cold water and theicy wind, with shaking hands he fashioned a loop in the end of the line andsecured it around his left wrist, his eyes flicking from loop to line, makingsure the hook and bait were still there. He started cautiously downstream,slipping and sliding through the muck, jarring into holes, tripping on rises,intent on keeping his bait in sight. A willow branch lashed across his eyesand blinded him. While he blinked away involuntary tears, trying to clear thedazzle that blurred his sight, the Grunder swept back upstream, passing soclose that Crae could see the stainless steel gleam of overlapping scales,

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  serrated and jagged, that swept cleanly down its wide sides to a gossamer tailand up to a blind-looking head with its wide band of brilliant blue,glittering like glass beads, masking its face from side to side where eyesshould have been. Below the glitters was its open maw, ringed about withflickering points of scarlet.

  Crae squatted down in the mud, staring after the Grunder, lost, bewilderedand scared. He clasped his hands to steady the bobbing steel-like ribbon ofline that gouged into his wrist and jerked his whole arm. Was the Grundergone? Had he lost his last chance? He ducked his head to shelter his face fromthe drenching downpour that seethed on the water loud enough to be heard abovethe roar of a dozen small falls.

  Then suddenly, without warning, he was jerked downstream by his left arm,scraping full length along the soggy bank until his shoulder snagged on astunted willow stump. He felt the muscles in his shoulder crack from thesudden stop. He wormed his way up until he could get hold of the line with hisright hand, then, twisting forward, he braced both feet against the stump andheaved. The line gave slightly. And then he was cowering beneath lifted armsas the Grunder jumped silently, its tail flailing the water to mist, its headshaking against the frail hook that was imbedded in its lower jaw.

  "Got it!" gasped Crae, "Got it!" That was the last rational thought Craehad for the next crashing eternity. Yanked by the leaping, twisting, fightingGrunder, upstream and downstream, sometimes on his feet, sometimes draggedfull length through the tangled under-brush, sometimes with the Grundercharging him head on, all fire and gleam and terror, other times with only thethread of light tenuously pointing the way the creature had gone, Crae had noworld but a whirling, breathless, pain-filled chaos that had no meaning orpoint beyond Hold on hold on hold on.

  Crae saw the bridge coming, but he could no more stop or dodge than arailway tunnel can dodge a train. With a crack that splintered into a flare oflight that shamed the Grunder in brilliance, Crae hit the bridge support.

  Crae peeled his cheek from the bed of ooze where it was cradled and lookedaround him blindly. His line was a limp curve over the edge of the bank. Heavywith despair, he lifted his hand and let it drop. The line tightened andtugged and went limp again. Crae scrambled to his feet. Was the Grunder gone?Or was it tired out, quiescent, waiting for him? He wound the line clumsilyaround his hand as he staggered to the creek and fell forward on the shelvingbank.

  Beneath him, rising and falling on the beat of the water, lay the Grunder,its white fire dimming and brightening as it sank and shallowed, the wide blueheadband as glittering, its mouth fringe as crimson and alive as the firsttime he saw it. Crae leaned over the bank and put a finger to the silveryscales of the creature. It didn't move beyond its up and down surge.

  "I have to stroke it," he thought. "Three times, three times the wrongway." He clamped his eyes tight against the sharply jagged gleam of everyseparate scale.

  Rip hell outa your hand first stroke, but three it's gotta be.

  "I could do it," he thought, "if it were still struggling. If I had tofight, I could do it. But in cold blood—!"

  He lay in the mud, feeling the hot burning of the sick thing inside him,feeling the upsurge of anger, the sudden sting of his hand against Ellena'sface, her soft throat under his thumbs again. An overwhelming wave ofrevulsion swept over him and he nearly gagged.

  "Go ahead and rip hell out!" he thought, leaning down over the bank. "Ripout the hell that was in it when I hit her!"

  With a full-armed sweep of his hand, he stroked the Grunder. He ground histeeth together tight enough to hold his scream down to an agonized gurgle asthe blinding, burning pain swept up his arm and hazed his whole body. He couldfeel the fire and agony lancing and cauterizing the purulence that had beenpoisoning him so long. Twice again his hand retraced the torture— and all the

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  accumulation of doubt and fear and uncertainty became one with the physicalpain
and shrieked out into the night.

  When he lifted his hand for the third time, the Grunder leaped. High abovehim, flailing brilliance against the invisible sky, a dark stain marking itfrom tail to head, the Grunder lifted and lifted as though taking to the air.And then, straightening the bowed brightness of its body, it plunged straightdown into the creek, churning the water to incandescence as it plunged,drenching Crae with sand-shot spray, raising a huge, impossible wave in theshallow creek. The wave poised and fell, flattening Crae, half senseless, intothe mud, his crimson hand dangling over the bank, the slow, red drops fallinginto the quieting water, a big, empty cleanness aching inside him.

  Dawn light was just beginning to dissolve the night when he staggered intocamp, tripping over the water buckets as he neared the tent. He stood swayingas the tent flap was flung open hastily. Ellena, haggard, red-eyed and wornplunged out into the early morning cold. She stood and looked at him standingawkwardly, his stiffening, lacerated hands held out, muddy water dripping fromhis every angle. Then she cried out and ran to him, hands outstretched, loveand compassion shining in her eyes.

  "Crae! Honey! Where have you been? What happened to you?"

  And Crae stained both her shoulders as his hands closed painfully over themas he half whispered, "I caught him. I caught the Grunder—everything's allright—everything—"

  She stroked his tired and swollen face, anxiety in her eyes. "Oh, Crae—Inearly went crazy with fear. I thought—" she shook her head and tears ofgladness formed in her eyes "—but you're safe. That's all that matters. Crae—"

  He buried his face in the softness of her hair. He felt sure. For the first time he felt really sure. "Yes, dear?"

  "Crae—about what I said—I'm sorry—I didn't mean it, oh, I couldn't livewithout you—"

  Gladness swelled within him. He pushed her gently from him and looked intoher tear-streaked face. "Ellena —let's go home—"

  She nodded, smiling. "All right, Crae, we’ll go home— But first we’ll havea good breakfast."

  He laughed, a healthy, hearty laugh. "We’ll do even better than that! We’llstop by at the camp of our four visitors. They owe us both a good meal for thedrinks!"

  Her eyes glowed at his words. "Oh, Crae—you really mean it? You're not—"

  He shook his head. "Never again, honey. Never."

  The porch of the Murmuring Pines Store and Station was empty as Craestopped the car there at noon. Crae turned to Ellena with a grin. "Be back ina minute, honey, gotta see a man about a fish."

  Crae left the car, walked up the steps and pushed open the screen door. Askinny, teen-age girl in faded Levis put down her comic book and got off ahigh stool behind a counter. "Help you, mister?"

  "I'm looking for Eli," he said. "The old feller that was out on the porchabout two weeks ago when I stopped by here. Old Eli, he called himself."

  "Oh, Eli," said the girl. "He's off again."

  "Off? He's gone away?" asked Crae.

  "Well, yes, but that isn't what I meant exactly," said the girl. "You see,Eli is kinda touched. Ever once in a while he goes clear off his rocker. Youmusta talked to him when this last spell was starting to work on him. Theytook him back to State Hospital a coupla days later. Something you wanted?"

  "He told me about a fish," said Crae tentatively.

  "Hoh!" the girl laughed shortly, "The Grunder. Yeah. That's one way we cantell he's getting bad again. He starts on that Grunder stuff."

  Crae felt as though he'd taken a step that wasn't there. "Where'd he getthe story?"

  "Well, I don't know what story he told you," said the girl. "No tellingwhere he got the Grunder idea, though. He's had it ever since I can remember.

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  It's only when he gets to believing it that we know it's time to start

  watching him. If he didn't believe—"

  If he didn't believe. Crae turned to the door. "Well, thanks," he said, "I

  hope he gets well soon." The screen door slammed shut behind him. He didn't

  hear it. He was hearing the sound of water smashing over rocks, surging

  against the creek banks. Then the sound faded, and the sun was bright around

  him.

  "Crae! Is everything all right?"

  It was Ellena calling to him from the car. He took a deep breath of the

  clean, crisp air. Then he waved to her. "Everything's fine!" he called, and in

  two steps, cleared the porch and was on his way to the car.

  Things

  Viat came back from the camp of the Strangers, his crest shorn, the devi

  ripped from his jacket, his mouth slack and drooling and his eyes empty. He

  sat for a day in the sun of the coveti center, not even noticing when the

  eager children gathered and asked questions in their piping little voices.

  When the evening shadow touched him, Viat staggered to his feet and took two

  steps and was dead.

  The mother came then, since the body was from her and could never be alien,

  and since the emptiness that was not Viat had flown from his eyes. She signed

  him dead by pinning on his torn jacket the kiom—the kiom she had fashioned the

  day he was born, since to be born is to begin to die. He had not yet given his

  heart, so the kiom was still hers to bestow. She left the pelu softly alight

  in the middle of the kiom because Viat had died beloved. He who dies beloved

  walks straight and strong on the path to the Hidden Ones by the light of the

  pelu. Be the pelu removed, he must wander forever, groping in the darkness of

  the unlighted kiom.

  So she pinned the kiom and wailed him dead.

  There was a gathering together after Viat was given back to the earth.

  Backs were bent against the sun, and the coveti thought together for a

  morning. When the sun pointed itself into their eyes, they shaded them with

  their open palms and spoke together.

  "The Strangers have wrought an evil thing with us." Dobi patted the dust

  before him. "Because of them, Viat is not. He came not back from the camp.

  Only his body came, breathing until it knew he would not return to it."

  "And yet, it may be that the Strangers are not evil. They came to us in

  peace. Even, they brought their craft down on barrenness instead of scorching

  our fields." Deci's eyes were eager on the sky. His blood was hot with the

  wonder of a craft dropping out of the clouds, bearing strangers. "Perhaps

  there was no need for us to move the coveti."

  "True, true," nodded Dobi. "They may not be of themselves evil, but it may

  be that the breath of them is death to us, or perhaps the falling of their

  shadows or the silent things that walk invisible from their friendly hands. It

  is best that we go not to the camp again. Neither should we permit them to

  find the coveti."

  "Cry them not forbidden, yet!" cried Deci, his crest rippling. "We know

  them not. To taboo them now would not be fair. They may come bearing gifts

  …"

  "For gifts given, something always is taken. We have no wish to exchange

  our young men for a look at the Strangers." Dobi furrowed the dust with his

  fingers and smoothed away the furrows as Viat had been smoothed away.

  "And yet," Veti's soft voice came clearly as her blue crest caught the

  breeze, "it may be that they will have knowledge for us that we have not.

  Never have we taken craft into the clouds and back."

  "Yes, yes!" Deci's eyes embraced Veti, who held his heart. "They must have

  much knowledge, many gifts for us."

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  "The gift of knowledge is welcome," said
Tefu in his low rumble. "But gifts

  in the hands have fangs and bonds."

  "The old words!" cried Deci. "The old ways do not hold when new ways

  arrive!"

  "True," nodded Dobi. "If the new is truly a way and not a whirlwind or a

  trail that goes no place. But to judge without facts is to judge in error. I

  will go to the strangers."

  "And I." Tefu's voice stirred like soft thunder. "And I? And I?" Deci's

  words tumbled on themselves and the dust stirred with his hurried rising.

  "Young—" muttered Tefu.

  "Young eyes to notice what old eyes might miss," said Dobi. "Our path is

  yours." His crest rippled as he nodded to Deci.

  "Deci!" Veti's voice was shaken by the unknown. "Come not again as Viat

  came. The heart you bear with you is not your own."

  "I will come again," cried Deci, "to fill your hands with wonders and

  delights." He gave each of her cupped palms a kiss to hold against his return.

  Time is not hours and days, or the slanting and shortening of shadows. Time

  is a held breath and a listening ear.

  Time incredible passed before the ripple through the grass, the rustle

  through reeds, the sudden sound of footsteps where it seemed no footsteps

  could be. The rocks seemed to part to let them through.

  Dobi led, limping, slow of foot, flattened of crest, his eyes hidden in the

  shadow of his bent head. Then came Tefu, like one newly blind, groping,

  reaching, bumping, reeling until he huddled against the familiar rocks in the

  fading sunlight.

  "Deci?" cried Veti, parting the crowd with her cry. "Deci?"

  "He came not with us," said Dobi. "He watched us go." "Willingly?" Veti's

  hands clenched over the memory of his mouth. "Willingly? Or was there force?"

  "Willingly?" The eyes that Tefu turned to Veti saw her not. They looked

  within at hidden things. "Force? He stayed. There were no bonds about him." He

  touched a wondering finger to one eye and then the other. "Open," he rumbled.