The Cauldron

by Jean Rabe

  She shook her head, her frown angry again. “No sooner did I get a plate of toast and some coffee than you left. I wanted to wait for the rest of my meal, believe me, I did, but I couldn’t. It was all I could do to toss a five on the table—I know what it’s like to be a waitress and get stiffed—before I blanked out altogether and the next thing I knew, I was out there in the parking lot.” She grimaced. “And I started asking you for a ride, which I didn’t want but which seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess! Just like when I got off the bus when I didn’t want to.”

  “Okay. So I drove you downtown and dropped you off. Then what?”

  Jerrah gave him a wan smile. “Besides being scared, I was starving. I walked away from your car—god, that was work, it was like walking through a foot of wet concrete or something, but it let up after a while. And I spotted a Wendy’s and I went inside and ordered the works. Pancakes, sausage, eggs, coffee—” She snorted. “I ate less there than I did at the Embers.”

  As if remembering that she had been hungry, she picked up one of the last two slices of pizza and bit into it. “Hardly had a chance to take my stuff back to a table and sit down before I was out of there. Then bingo! This time, a real blank! The next thing I knew, I was in the library and there you were. End of story, unless you’ve got an explanation.”

  The thing in the fog? he wondered but shook his head. “Sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Didn’t figure you would. And I definitely don’t have any explanation for you.” She tried another bite of the pizza but sighed and put the slice back down. Gulping down the last of her glass of water, she stood up.

  “So, thanks,” she said. “For the food, anyway, if not the evil eye.” She picked up her knapsack, threw her shoulders back. “Maybe on a full stomach I’ll have the strength to walk away from it. Which way’s your car?”

  Carl pointed.

  “Okay. You go that way, I’ll go the other. Good luck with your head.”

  “Good luck with yours,” Carl replied.

  She hiked the knapsack onto her shoulders and stalked away with her mouth set in a determined line. Carl, unsure whether he wanted her to succeed, started for his car. He had almost reached it when he heard someone running clumsily behind him. He covered the last few steps, leaned against the car with his eyes shut, and waited.

  “God,” Jerrah’s voice said, near his left shoulder. “Oh, dear God.”

  Carl opened his eyes. Jerrah stood a yard away. She looked angry enough to kill an elephant with her bare hands. Tears glistened as they trailed down her cheeks.

  “What now?” he asked.

  She scraped at the tears with the flat of her hand. “Damn! I wish I could get mad without crying!” She shook her head so hard her hair stood out like petals. “Maybe it’s this stupid town. Maybe there’s something funny here, something weird going on. I mean, your problem is in Morgantown and my problem is in Morgantown, so even if they don’t have anything to do with each other, maybe if we just got the hell out, both of us—”

  Worth a try, he thought. At this point, anything was worth a try.

  “Worth a try,” he said aloud. Unlocking the car and holding the door open for her, he wondered just how long a reach the thing in the fog had.

  And what it wanted …

  ***

  Chapter 19

  North or south out of the city? It didn’t really matter Carl decided, just so he got out … escaped … and managed to drop Jerrah off in the process. She both intrigued him and made him uneasy, like an annoying itch he couldn’t quite reach to scratch, and he hoped that whatever had caused her to follow him would soon send her in another direction. He’d happily stop and let her out, just like the bus driver had, and he could go back to only worrying about himself.

  Stop it, he admonished. I should be sympathetic. She’s troubled. Mentally ill? And just how sane am I?

  He followed the road he was already pointed down and tried to look only at the pavement ahead. Despite his efforts, he caught glimpses of the businesses lining the street—places that seemed at the same time familiar and foreign. He resisted the urge to park and investigate a hole-in-the wall thrift shop where he seemed to remember ordering cherry Cokes—the real kind with syrup dripped in—when the place was called Duff-Duff’s. He idly wondered if an old phone book would have a listing for Duff-Duff’s.

  Jerrah stared out the side window, expressionless face practically smashed against it, hands on the seatbelt, playing over the edges and catch, thumbs thumping as if marking time to a song which had an irregular beat. He hadn’t turned on the radio.

  What tied the two of them together? What beyond half-glimpsed memories that could well be the precipice of madness?

  Carl rolled down his window halfway to cut the smell of the pizza that lingered on his breath, or rather to add competing smells—a light trace of pollution from a scattering of other cars, a myriad of odors coming from a restaurant with an open door, something that smelled like burnt coffee.

  Where was he going?

  And how far would Jerrah go along with him?

  He absently recalled his favorite Bette Midler song, one about sailing away … going somewhere, anywhere. There was a line in there about the fog lifting. He shuddered and turned on the radio, found an oldies station and let it play softly. Jerrah continued to tap out a measure to whatever tune was running through her head.

  There was a doughy-faced woman on the corner in a tweed jacket with a purse the size of an overnight bag slung over her shoulder. She looked vaguely familiar. Margaret, he put a name to her. Again, he resisted the urge to pull over.

  Just get the hell out of this town.

  He’d almost managed that, but Carl felt a pull at the outskirts and turned down a gravel road that cut through farmland. He could see the highway running parallel in the distance, and noticed that Jerrah was looking at it, pointing now and mouthing something at him. He turned up the radio, the Stones blaring away and covering the sound of his tires crunching over the roadway. The countryside niggled at no memories, yet still he felt compelled to travel in this direction, his course taking him by a row of poplars that cast dappled shadows across the hood.

  “What are you doing?” Jerrah croaked. “The highway’s up there. See it? Where are you taking me?” The words had a worried tone, and yet her face remained the implacable mask, her eyes wooden.

  “I don’t know,” Carl said. “Yet,” he added.

  She squirmed, her thumbs tapping faster and her knees rubbing together like she had an urge to pee. But after a moment she settled down and again pressed her face to the window. Another woman might worry the he was going to kidnap her or take her into some empty field and assault her, Carl thought. Another woman might unfasten the seatbelt and leap out. He wasn’t going all that fast.

  Just how sane are we?

  He passed a beaten, weathered sign and could barely make out the words: Goseline Farm. And beneath it: Gun Dogs … the finest German Shorthair Pointers. There was an overgrown drive next to it, and the burnt and busted remains of a house, weeds twisted up around a rusty tireless tractor, part of a kennel standing behind it.

  Another mile, past a small farm that might have been a dairy, and he saw a twisting dirt road that looped up a low hill dotted with cherry and crabapple trees. A sign painted in blue and green proclaimed: Miller’s Haven. A second sign, a board that hung from twin chains beneath it, read: Fishing, Swimming, Boating.

  “I don’t want to go to the lake,” Jerrah said.

  He switched off the radio and rolled his window down the rest of the way. He heard birds singing and leaves rustling in the wind, the shush of his tires over the dirt. At the top of the rise the road widened and a resort came into view. There was something comfortable about it and the small blue lake beyond. From this perch he could also see the overpass in the distance; the highway wasn’t terribly far away, but he’d have to retrace his route to reach it. Jerrah gestured toward it.

  “Let’s get out
of here,” she said, her voice flat. “I thought you wanted out of Morgantown.”

  “Technically we are out,” Carl answered. “At the edge of it anyway.” He eased the car down the drive toward the house that also served as the lodge. A memory grew stronger.

  There was no real parking lot, so he stopped on a thin patch of grass next to the house and took a close look at the place. Two stories, the bottom covered with large river stones mortared together, with a sliding glass door opening on a flagstone patio. “Lodge” a piece of shellacked wood read just to the right of the frame. The second floor, the residence, was painted a dark barn red and had black shutters, one of them crooked. Empty flower boxes hung beneath windows.

  Jerrah said something to him, but he ignored her, hurrying out of the car and going to the lodge door, rapping once as a polite summons and entering without waiting for someone to answer.

  The room beyond was shadowy, except for a patch of light coming in from the glass doors and reflecting on old tile thick with floor polish and laced with scuff marks. A pool table dominated the room, an old bumper model with olive green felt. A rack of cues hung on the wall next to a juke box filled with 45s—likely an antique, he mused. To his left was an alcove with a ping pong table that sported a sagging net, and a large white chest freezer that he knew was for vacationers to store the fish they caught. He padded over, his fingers dancing across the cool surface of the freezer.

  Had he sat on it? Used it like a bench to watch a ping pong match one summer evening? Had others sat here with him? Friends? Strangers? He remembered it doing double-duty as a bench.

  He drifted back to the main room and glanced up a staircase that led to the residence. He passed it and went to the pool table. Had he played games here? There was a slot for quarters—fifty cents a game. At the other end of the room was a bar with a half-dozen red vinyl covered stools in front of it, bottles on the shelf behind, up against the wall, along with a Hams Beer Light, the bear from the Land of Sky Blue Waters paddling in time with the minute hand. He stared at the bear, there was something important about a bear tugging at his memory.

  On the counter was one of those “drinking birds,” a toy-like contraption that constantly dipped its beak in a glass of water. There was a fireplace made from large field stones, the hearth a gaping black maw that smelled of char, a table for two sitting in front of it. There was just enough space between the bar and the table for two or three couples to dance.

  Had he danced here? He seemed to recall that. To the song “There’s a Kind of Hush.” The lyrics skittered through his head, and with them came the scent of a woman’s perfume mingled with the odor of cigarette smoke and beer.

  He shook his head, clearing memory cobwebs and replacing the odors with the scent of floor polish and air freshener. He heard a horn honk—his car. Jerrah was no doubt impatient to leave. He heard footfalls coming down the stairs and turned.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Ellen?” Carl said, his throat instantly dry. “Oh my God, Ellen.”

  She stared wide-eyed at him, emotions playing across her face—curiosity, surprise, worry … recognition?

  “Do I know you?” she asked.

  I think I know you, Carl thought … or knew you when you were younger. She was an old woman, mid-sixties, he placed her, based on the steel-gray of her hair, the paleness of her skin, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and her mouth, the skin that sagged slightly from her neck. She was tall, her face square rather than elongated, only a hint of makeup … maybe from yesterday that she hadn’t completely scrubbed off.

  She hesitated, and then reached over to turn on the lights—fluorescent ones, the largest of which hung over the pool table. Wearing short sleeves, a T-shirt that read Miller’s Haven above a dirt smudge, the skin of her arms flapped like she’d lost a good amount of weight. There was a slight stoop to her shoulders, and he remembered her being more robust.

  But the face….

  The horn honked again, three short blats then a sustained one. Ellen looked to the door and started toward it.

  “That’s my friend,” Carl said. His words stopped her. “She’s impatient.”

  He heard a car door slam, feet tromping. Jerrah appeared at the glass door and motioned for him, a cupped hand gesture. She ground the ball of her foot against the flagstone, and then pointed to the car.

  Carl shook his head.

  “Do I know you?” Ellen repeated.

  The face …

  Suddenly Carl recalled where he’d seen her before, looking out at him from a page of something he’d perused at the library … one of the yearbooks maybe … a newspaper article. He’d looked at so many things he couldn’t quite place it. But it was her, the face fleshier, eyes brighter, hair thicker and darker, curlier and cascading down her back. The picture he’d spotted had jarred him then, and in his mind’s eye he could still see her face. Had her name been under the picture? Was that why he knew she was Ellen?

  “I said, do I know you?”

  “I hope so,” Carl said. “Dear, God, I hope so.”

  Jerrah chose that moment to come inside, her usually stoic face tinged pink with ire. “Are we leaving Morgantown or not?” she asked.

  “Technically, we’re outside the city,” Carl answered. “I told you that.” His eyes remained locked with Ellen’s.

  “But we’re annexing to the city next year,” Ellen said. “To broaden their tax base, get us better fire coverage.”

  Carl pictured the burnt-out house down the road.

  “Fine. So we’re out of Morgantown … technically … this year anyway,” Jerrah said. “How about we get farther out? The highway? How about we get to the highway?”

  Ellen’s eyes narrowed and she took a step closer to Carl, and then another; she hadn’t given Jerrah more than a cursory glance. She looked up and sucked in her lower lip.

  “Do you know me?” Carl asked.

  “You can’t be,” she said. “It’s not possible.”

  “What?”

  “John.”

  The word came out like an ancient whisper, but to Carl it was loud and thunderous, echoing through his head and tearing at the mental barriers mercilessly and painfully, intensifying the sourceless, aching lump that lay heavy in his throat.

  It was all he could do to keep from screaming.

  ***

  Chapter 20

  Navigator

  The navigator and the shipkeeper shared two secrets.

  The first: the navigator had noticed a vessel entering otherspace shortly after they’d set out on this mission. It had not taken much probing to feel the outline of the vessel, and then to sense the energy within.

  The ship was definitely not one of theirs. The energy signature that surrounded it, however, was known to them: their enemy, the Alzur.

  Melusine should know about it, the navigator thought, but not yet. Until she located their quarry, she should remain oblivious to the vessel that worked its way toward this shiny blue-green world they hovered above. Nothing should keep her from reclaiming Delphoros. The enemy was not as advanced, and so was not as fast or precise, their navigator—stolen, as all the Alzur navigators had been stolen from Elthoran ships—clearly not overly skilled regarding traveling in this dense section of otherspace. Clumsy and primitive, sluggish by comparison to this ship and to himself; the navigator could tell this by extending his senses through otherspace. Still, the enemy was determined.

  The Alzur ship would eventually get here.

  Alzur was a ringed planet in a system near Elthor’s. There were no direct planet-to-planet conflicts between them; that would be too risky for either civilized race. But the Alzurites had raided Elthor’s ships in the past, stealing navigators, and the Elthorans had retaliated, blasting the enemy ships from the stars … even though the abducted navigators were killed in the process.

  The races competed for resources when harvesting moons and nebulae, and the Alzurites had attacked a large Elthor settlement in a minin
g belt only two hundred years past. Elthor had gained revenge by destroying three Alzur expeditions in the otherspace of the Omicrom Velorum cluster. Alzur’s hostile activities since that time had been mild, the race learning its lesson. A peace had settled and a treaty was loosely in place. And now each world had only one working navigator.

  But the navigator did not like their presence here. It so bothered him that the fluid in his tank rippled like a stone had been skipped upon it.

  The navigator had impressed upon Melusine, as had the shipkeeper, a desire to work quickly to gain Delphoros. To tell her of the approaching foe would only stir panic, and rattling her senses might render her talents useless. Better to wait with the news until the last possible moment.

  Why had Alzur sent a ship toward this place?

  Coincidence?

  Had the enemy also detected the presence of the Bright One? Had they monitored the flashes in otherspace? Had they picked up the long-ago-sent distress signal? Were they trying to capture Delphoros to reinvigorate their space exploration activities?

  Did the reason matter?

  The navigator very much wanted to be done with all of this and be away from the Alzur ship and go home. He was old, and he yearned to touch the ground of his home world Elthor while he could appreciate it. With all of his being, he wished to be free of this liquid prison he’d so willingly—and in his youth with exuberant great abandon—put himself into. He had not hesitated to undergo the lung-altering treatments that allowed him to breathe the oxygen-laden nutrient liquid he floated in.

  That Melusine had walked upon the planet below—albeit in the form of another—in a busy city teaming with life and sounds and scents he would never perceive, gnawed at some part of him.