Ring Around the Sun

by Clifford D. Simak

  He got out of the car and walked through the drooping front gate up to the porch. Climbing the stairs, he walked along the porch and saw how the floor boards had rotted.

  He stood where they had stood, the two of them, and first had known their love would last forever and he tried to catch that moment of the past and it was not there. There had been too much time, too much sun and wind, and it was there no longer, although the ache of it was there. He tried to remember how the meadows and the fields and yard had looked from the porch, with the white moonlight shattering on the whiteness of the columns, and how the roses had filled the air with the distilled sunshine of their scent. He knew these things, but he could not feel or see them.

  On the slope behind the house were the barns, still painted white, although not so white as they once had been. Beyond the barns the ground sloped down and there stretched out before him the valley they had walked that last time he had seen her.

  It had been an enchanted valley, he remembered, with apple blossoms and the song of lark.

  It had been enchanted once. It had not been the second time. But what about the third?

  He told himself that he was crazy, that he was chasing rainbow ends, but even as he told himself, he was walking down the slope, down past the barns and on into the valley.

  At the head of it he stopped and looked at it and it was not enchanted, but he remembered it, as he had remembered the moonlight on the columns — the columns had still been there, and the valley still was there and the trees were where he had known they'd be and the creek still trickled down the meadows that flanked it on each side.

  He tried to go back, and could not, but went on walking down the valley. He saw the crab apple thickets, with the blossoms fallen now, and once a lark soared out of the grass and flew into the sky.

  Finally he turned back: it was the same as it had been that second time. The third visit, after all, had been the same as the second. It had been she who had turned this prosaic valley into an enchanted place. It had been, after all, an enchantment of the spirit.

  Twice he had walked in enchanted places, twice in his life he had stepped out of old familiar earth.

  Twice. Once by the virtue of a girl and the love between them. Once again because of a spinning top.

  No, the top had been the first.

  Yes, the top — Now, wait a minute! Now, not so fast!

  You're wrong, Vickers. It wouldn't be that way.

  You crazy fool, what are you running for?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE manager of the dime store, when Vickers sought him out, seemed to understand.

  "You know," he said, "I understand just how you feel. I had a top like that myself when I was a kid, but they don't make them any more. I don't know why — they just don't, I guess. Got too many other high powered, new fangled kinds of toys. But there's nothing like a top."

  "Especially those big ones," said Vickers. "The ones with the handle on them and you pumped them on the floor and they whistled."

  "I remember them," the manager said. "Had one myself when I was a kid. Sat and played with it for hours, just watching it."

  "Watching where the stripes went?"

  "I don't recall I worried much about where the stripes might go. I just sat and watched it spin and listened to it whistle."

  "I used to worry about where they went. You know how it is. They travel round and then they disappear, somewhere near the top."

  "Tell me," asked the manager. "Where _do_ they go?"

  "I don't know," Vickers admitted.

  "There's another dime store down the street a block or two," the manager said. "Carries a lot of junky stuff, but they might have a top like that left over."

  "Thanks," said Vickers.

  "You might ask at the hardware store across the street, too. They carry quite a stock of toys, but I suppose they got them put away down in the basement. They only get them out at

  Christmas time."

  The man at the hardware store said he knew what Vickers wanted, but he hadn't seen one for years. The other dime store didn't have one, either. No, said the girl, chewing gum and nervously thrusting a pencil back and forth into the wad of hair above her ear, no, she didn't know where he might get one. She'd never heard of one. There were a lot of other things here if he wanted to get something for a little boy. Like those toy rockets or these — He went out on the sidewalk, watching the late afternoon crowd of shoppers in the little Midwestern town. There were women in print dresses and other women in sleek business suits and there were high school kids just out of class and businessmen out for a cup of coffee before they settled down to clean up the odds and ends of the day before they left for home. Up the street he saw a crowd of loafers gathered around his own car, parked in front of the first dime store. It was time, he thought, to feed that parking meter.

  He reached into his pocket, looking for another dime, and he had one — a dime, a quarter and a nickel. The sight of the coins in his hand made him wonder about the money in his billfold, so he took it out and flipped it open and saw that all that he had left were two dollar bills.

  Since he couldn't go back to Cliffwood, not right away at least, he had no place to call his home. He'd need money for lodging for the night and for meals and for gasoline to put into the car — but more than that, more than anything, he was in need of a singing top that had colored stripes painted on its belly.

  He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, thinking about the top, arguing with himself, with all of his logical being telling him that he must be wrong about it. It is _not_ wrong, said the illogic within him. It _will_ work. It had worked once before, when he was a child, before Pa had taken the top away from him.

  What would have happened to him if the top had not been taken and hidden away from him? He wondered if he would have gone again and again, once he had found the way, back into that fairyland and what might have happened there, who and what he might have met and what he would have found in the house hidden in the grove. For he would have gone to the house, he knew, after a time. Having watched it long enough and grown accustomed to it, he would have followed the path across the grove and gone up to the door and knocked.

  He wondered if anyone else had ever watched a spinning top and walked into fairyland. And he wondered, if they had, what had happened to them.

  The dime store manager had not done it, he was sure, for the dime store manager had said that he had never wondered where the stripes might go. He had just sat and watched and listened to the whistle.

  He wondered why he, of all men, should find the way. And he wondered if the enchanted valley might not have been a part of fairyland as well and if somehow the girl and he might not have walked through another unseen gate. For surely the valley that he remembered was not the valley he had walked that morning.

  There was only one way to find out, and that was to get a top.

  A top, he thought. Somewhere, some place, somehow, I must find one.

  But, of course, he had a top! Even while he frantically sought for one, he already had one. The handle would have to be straightened and it might need a bit of oil to clear away the rust and it would have to be painted.

  More than likely it would be better than any other he could get, for it would be the original top that had sent him through before — and it pleased him to think that it might have certain special qualities, a certain mystic function no other top might have.

  He was glad that he had thought of it, lying there, forgotten for the second time, in the glove compartment where he had tossed it after finding it again.

  He walked up the street to the hardware store.

  "I want some paint," said Vickers. "The brightest, glossiest paint you have. Red and green and yellow. And some little brushes to put it on with."

  He figured, from the way the man looked at him, that he thought he was insane.

  "What are you going to do, Jay?"

  "I don't know. Just stay hid out, I guess."

&n
bsp; "Why didn't you call me right away?" demanded Ann. "What are you way out West for? You should have come straight to New York. New York is the swellest place there is for someone to hide out. You might at least have called me."

  "Now, wait a minute," Vickers said. "I called you, didn't I?"

  "Sure. You called me because you're broke and want me to wire some money and you —»

  "I haven't asked for any money yet."

  "You will."

  "Yes," he said, "I'm afraid I will."

  "Aren't you interested in why I was trying to get hold of you?"

  "Mildly," said Vickers. "Because you don't want me to get out from under your thumb. No agent wants their best author to get from under —»

  "Jay Vickers," said Ann, "some day I'm going to crucify you and hang you up along the roadside as a warning."

  "I would make a most pathetic Christ. You couldn't choose a better man."

  "I'm calling you," said Ann, "because Crawford's practically frantic. The sky's the limit. I mentioned a fantastic figure and he didn't even shiver."

  "I thought we disposed of Mr. Crawford," Vickers said.

  "You don't dispose of Crawford," said Ann. Then she paused and silence hummed along the wires.

  "Ann," said Vickers. "Ann, what's the trouble?"

  Her voice was calm, but strained. "Crawford is a badly frightened man. I've never seen a man so thoroughly frightened. He came to me. Imagine that! I didn't go to him. He came into my office, puffing and panting and I was afraid I didn't have a chair in the place strong enough to hold him. But you remember that old oak one over in the corner, that old hunk over in the corner? It was one of the first sticks of furniture I ever bought for my office and I kept it as a sentimental piece. Well, it did the trick."

  "What trick?"

  "It held him," said Ann, triumphantly. "He'd have simply crushed anything else in the place. You remember what a big man he is."

  "Gross," said Vickers. "That's the word you want."

  "He said, 'Where's Vickers? And I said, 'Why ask me, I don't keep a leash on Vickers. And he says, 'You're his agent, aren't you? And I said, 'Yes, the last time I heard, but Vickers is a very changeable sort of man, there's no telling about him. He says, 'I've got to have Vickers. And so I told him, 'Well, go get him, you'll find him around somewhere. He said, 'The sky's the limit, name any price you want to, make any terms you want."

  "The man's a crackpot," Vickers said.

  "There's nothing crackpot about the kind of money he's offering."

  "How do you know he's got the money?"

  "Well. I don't know. Not for sure, that is. But he must have."

  "Speaking of money," Vickers said. "Have you got a loose hundred lying around? Or fifty, even?"

  "I can get it."

  "Wire it here, right away. I'll pay you back."

  "All right, I'll do it right away," she said. "It isn't the first time I've bailed you out and I don't imagine it will be the last. But will you tell me one thing?"

  "What's that?"

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to conduct an experiment," said Vickers.

  "An experiment?"

  "An exercise in the occult."

  "What are you talking about? You don't know anything about the occult. You're about as mystic as a block of wood."

  "I know," said Vickers.

  "Please tell me," she said. "What are you going to do?"

  "As soon as I get through talking to you," said Vickers, "I'm going to do some painting."

  "A house?"

  "No, a top."

  "The top of what?"

  "Not the top of anything. A top. A toy kids play with. You spin it on the floor."

  "Now listen to me," she said. "You cut out this playing around and come home to Ann."

  "After the experiment," said Vickers.

  "Tell me about it, Jay."

  "I'm going to try to get into fairyland."

  "Quit talking foolish."

  "I did it once before. Twice before."

  "Listen, Jay, this business is serious. Crawford is scared and so am I. And there's this lynching business, too."

  "Send me the money," Vickers said.

  "Right away."

  "I'll see you in a day or two."

  "Call me," she said. "Call me tomorrow."

  "I'll call you."

  "And, Jay… Take care of yourself. I don't know what you're up to, but take care of yourself."

  "I'll do that, too," said Vickers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  HE straightened the handle which spun the top and he polished the metal before marking off the spirals with a pencil and he borrowed a can of sewing machine oil and oiled up the spinning spiral on the handle so that it worked smoothly. Then he went about the painting.

  He wasn't much good at it, but he went about it doggedly. He carefully painted in the colors, red, then green, then yellow, and he hoped the colors were right, for he couldn't remember exactly what the colors had been. Although, probably it didn't make much difference what the colors were, just so they were bright and ran in a spiral.

  He got paint on his hands and on his clothes and on the chair he laid the top on and he spilled the can of red paint on the floor, but he picked it up real quick so that scarcely any of it ran out onto the carpeting.

  Finally the job was finished and it looked fairly good.

  He worried about whether it would be dry by morning, but he read the labels on the cans and labels said the paint was quick drying, so he was somewhat relieved.

  He was ready now, ready to see what he would find when he spun the top. It might be fairyland, and it might be nothing. Most likely it would be nothing. For more would go into it than the spinning of the top — the mind and the confidence and the pure simplicity of a child. And he didn't have that any longer.

  He went out and closed and locked the door behind him, then went down the stairs. The town and the hotel were too small to have elevators. Although not so small a town as the little village that had been «town» to him in his childhood days, that little village where they still sat out on the bench in front of the store and looked up at you with sidewise glances and asked you impudent, prying questions out of which to weave the fabric of long gossiping.

  He chuckled, thinking of what they'd say when the word got back to the little town, slowly, as news always gets back to a little town, of how he had fled from Cliffwood on the threat of being lynched.

  He could hear them talking now.

  "A sly one," they would say. "He always was a sly one and not up to any good. His Ma and Pa were real good people, though. Beats hell how a son sometimes turns out even when his Ma and Pa were honest people."

  He went through the lobby and out the door and into the street.

  He stopped at a diner and ordered a cup of coffee and the waitress said to him, "Nice night, isn't it."

  "Yes, it is," he said.

  "You want anything to go with that coffee, mister?"

  "No," said Vickers. "Just the coffee." He had money now — Ann had sent it quickly enough — but he found, not surprisingly, that he had no appetite, no desire at all for food.

  She moved on up the counter and wiped off imaginary spots with a cloth she carried in her hand.

  A top, he thought. Where did it tie in? He'd take the top to the house and spin it and would know once and for all if there were a fairyland — well, no, not exactly that. He'd know if he could get back into fairyland.

  And the house. Where did the house tie in?

  Or did either the house or the top tie in?

  And if they didn't tie in, why had Horton Flanders written:

  "Go back and travel the paths you walked in childhood. Maybe there you will find a thing you'll need — or something that is missing." He wished he could remember the exact words Flanders had used, but he could not.

  So he had come back and he had found a top and, more than that, he had remembered fairyland. And why, he asked h
imself, in all the years since he had been eight years old, had he never before recalIed that walk in fairyland?

  It had made a deep impression on him at the time, of that there was no doubt, for once he had remembered it had been as clear and sharp as if it had just happened.

  But something had made him forget it, some mental block, perhaps. Something had made him forget it. And something had made him know that the metal mouse had wanted to be trapped. And something had made him instinctively refuse Crawford's proposition. _Something_.

  The waitress came back down the counter and leaned on her elbow.

  "They're starting a new picture at the Grand tonight," said the girl. "I'd love to see it, but I can't get off."

  Vickers did not answer.

  "You like pictures, mister?" asked the girl.

  "I don't know," said Vickers. "I seldom go to them."

  Her face said she sympathized with anyone who didn't. "I just live for them," she said. "They're so natural."

  He looked up at her and saw that she wore the face of Everyone. It was the face of the two women who talked in the seat behind him on the bus; it was the face of Mrs. Leslie, saying to him, "Some of us are going to organize a Pretentionist Club…" It was the face of those who did not dare sit down and talk with themselves, the people who could not be alone a minute, the people who were tired without knowing they were tired and afraid without knowing that they were afraid.

  And, yes, it was the face of Mrs. Leslie's husband, crowding drink and women into a barren life. It was the grinding anxiety that had become commonplace, that sent people fleeing for psychological shelters against the bombs of uncertainty.

  Gaiety no longer was sufficient, cynicism had run out, and flippancy had never been more than a temporary shield. So now the people fled to the drug of pretense, identifying themselves with another life and another time and place — at the movie theater or on the television screen or in the Pretentionist movement. For so long as you were someone else you need not be yourself.

  He finished his coffee and went out into the quiet street.

  Overhead a jet flashed past, streaking low, the mutter of its tubes bouncing back against the walls. He watched its lights draw twin lines of fire over the night horizon, and then went for a walk.