Searchers After Horror

by S. T. Joshi

  “I’m sure that she doesn’t. Come, now, dear—put the glasses away. Or don’t you want to help me?” The child lunged forward, snatching at the bowl. “Elaine!” Miranda stepped in her way, gently pushing aside the eager hands. “If you won’t do as I say, Elaine, you’ll have to stop helping me. I’ve a lot of things to do, and your putting away the glasses will be just as kind as your drying that bowl. You might get me a fresh towel, if you’d like.”

  “I want the bowl!” Elaine insisted sullenly. Miranda shook her head and resumed her work, ignoring the child, who wailed,

  “All right for you then—you’ll see!” She marched out of the kitchen. Presently she returned, sobbing poignantly, her mother behind her.

  “Miranda Ford, what do you mean by striking my child?” As Miranda turned in surprise, Edna jerked her daughter protectively close. “Now don’t deny it! And don’t call my baby a liar! Whatever she did, I don’t imagine it was bad enough to call for your hitting her.” She stepped forward belligerently, tugging at Miranda’s towel. “Here. Give me that! I’ll finish your work. Goodness knows, you’re as bad as a child yourself. You can’t be left alone one teeny minute without getting yourself in trouble!”

  Her eyes challenged her sister to speak, but Miranda merely relinquished the towel, took off her apron, hung it up, and went out on the back porch. Edna glared after her, then swung her gaze on her daughter. “Stop that bellowing, Elaine: Did you hear me? Else I’ll give you something that’ll really make you cry!”

  After a time, Edna stepped out on the back porch. “Randy are you out there?” she called. “It’s almost time for me and Ralph to go!” But there was no reply, so she hurried out, letting the door clatter shut, and searched the yard. She stopped, shocked, at the sight of Miranda embracing the oak.

  “Why, Miranda Ford!” she gasped. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Miranda stepped back guiltily from the tree. Edna glanced sharply at the neighboring houses. “What do you suppose the people will think?”

  Miranda was rigid, pale, unable to speak in her fright.

  “Why”—Edna muttered—”why, you were kissing that tree! Have you gone out of your mind?” She hurried to her sister, roughly took one of her hands and jerked her toward the house.

  “N-no,” Miranda stumbled. “I was feeling sad, and it was comforting to have something to put my arms around.”

  Edna scowled up at the leafy branches, like a mother damning her daughter’s unworthy suitor. “You won’t get much comfort out of a tree. You’ll just get the people around here thinking you’re insane, and reporting you to the authorities— that’s all!”

  “Yes, Edna,” Miranda conceded humbly.

  Miranda finished tucking Elaine into bed. She bent and kissed the little girl’s forehead. “Good night, Elaine.”

  The child did not answer. Miranda said again, “Good night.” As she snapped off the light and started through the doorway, Elaine sat up.

  “When’s my mama coming home?”

  “I don’t know just when, but she won’t be gone very long. Don’t worry. Just lie back and sleep.”

  “I want to sit up and wait for Mama to come home.”

  “No, darling. You ought to be very tired. I am—I’m going to bed myself in a few minutes.” Miranda returned to the child’s bed, pressed the child back on the pillow, and smoothed the covers. “Go to sleep now like a good little girl.”

  Elaine was silent, but the atmosphere quivered with the intensity of her resentment. Miranda stepped softly over the threshold and downstairs. Elaine sat up again, waited a moment, then dropped off her bed and tiptoed to the door. She hesitated, peering out into the hall, then slipped out, following her aunt.

  From the kitchen door she watched Miranda open the icebox, pour out a glass of milk, close the refrigerator door, and walk out on the back porch. Elaine skulked after her.

  She saw Miranda go across the grass to the oak and kneel before it. She heard the hiss of milk being poured on the ground, and Miranda’s murmur, “Accept my sacrifice, O Tree—!”

  At the breakfast table, Miranda was sober, her eyes flinching from Edna’s. But Elaine was lively. Ralph had gone to work, and Junior had finished eating and been excused.

  “Elaine, sit still!” Edna shouted. “Your wiggling around is enough to drive me frantic! Randy, what’s the matter with you? Still sulking about last night?”

  Miranda raised troubled eyes, but could not rely.

  “I know what’s the matter,” Elaine fairly sang. “Last night Aunt Randy was acting funny over by the big oak tree, so I smashed all her plants on the back porch, that’s what’s the matter!”

  “You what?” Edna stared, stupefied, at her daughter. Then her right hand’s knuckles whirred through the air and cracked over her daughter’s mouth. Elaine was too stung by the pain to cry. Edna glared at her for an instant, then drove her attention to Miranda. “What were you doing by the oak tree?”

  The kitchen clock clattered loudly, like the sound of a robot’s running feet.

  Elaine’s upper lip was bruised, a drop of blood on it. She said, “She was kneeling in front of the tree like we do when we say our prayers at Sunday School, and she poured the milk and talked to the tree like it could hear that she was saying—” Edna’s eyes interrogated Miranda’s. “Well?” Miranda nodded, abashed.

  “Elaine, you can run along,” Edna said bruskly. Elaine’s eyes narrowed. Then she pushed back her chair and crept from the kitchen, peering back, frightened.

  Edna’s voice was without expression. “Why did you do it?”

  Miranda put out her palm in a gesture equivalent to a shrug.

  Edna asked coldly, “Were you worshipping the tree?”

  Miranda considered, then nodded. Suddenly she brightened. “It understands me, Edna! I know it sounds peculiar, but it seems to understand—”

  Edna sneered. “You’re crazy!” The thought fascinated her.

  Miranda leaned forward eagerly. “No! Listen! In the old days, there were the druids. I’ve read about them. They worshipped the trees, too. And in old France, all the women gave offerings to the trees! I know that my plants can feel. That’s why I feel so bad. Elaine tried to kill then—to murder them!—but I can transplant them and save them—”

  Edna’s face was frozen in its derision. “You’re—crazy—”

  Miranda murmured urgently, “There are plants that catch flies and eat them! There are sensitive plants that jerk away if you touch them! After all, we’re no more different from plants than we are from birds—our construction is different—but birds can understand us—”

  Edna mocked, “But birds can move. Trees can’t.”

  “How do we know they can’t? Have you ever heard of anyone who has really tried to communicate with trees, studying them and proving that they can’t respond?”

  “All I know,” Edna said, “is that my own sister has gone crazy. I’m going to tell Ralph about this. I think that maybe you ought to be sent away some place. You’re a danger to the welfare of my children—”

  Miranda was terrified. “Edna, please try to understand!”

  “I do understand—that you’ve gone completely out of your mind!”

  “Edna—if I promise never to go to the tree again—?”

  Edna surveyed her, tingling with cold pleasure. “I’ll think it over,” she said slowly, and smiled. “Yes—I’ll think it over.”

  Her chair scraped away from the table, as she arose, Miranda watching her, trembling with worry. At the threshold, Edna looked back disdainfully.

  “Ralph probably saw this side in you, though I never suspected it. No wonder he didn’t marry you!” she gloated.

  “He didn’t marry me, because I had to take care of Mother!” Miranda’s voice quavered. She blinked tears from her eyes. “I loved him too much to think of any other man. All I had was Mother and my flowers. Edna—don’
t be so unkind—”

  She could not repress her sobs. She laid her arms on the table and hid her face on them, her shoulders shaking with grief. Edna scanned her indifferently, then walked out.

  The sound of hammering drummed from the oak. Junior and two neighbor boys were up in it, building a penthouse. “Gi’ me that board!”

  “Le’ go! It’s my board! I brought it!”

  Miranda straightened up from her basket of wet clothes. She ducked under a sagging line of wash and peered up at the tree.

  “Gi’ me some more nails!” Junior ordered one of his playmates.

  Miranda glanced anxiously toward the house, then hurried under the tree. She shaded her eyes with a palm, peeping up. “Junior!”

  He glanced down. “What?”

  “Must you pound nails into that poor tree? Can’t you make the boards hold just as well by using rope?”

  “I haven’t got no rope.”

  “I can find some for you.”

  Junior was almost tearful with fury. “I won’t use it if you do! Can’t I even build my own house without you poking your ugly old nose in?”

  “But Junior, dear—” She extended an apologetic hand. He studied her for a moment, his eyes murderous. Then he dragged on a plank, balancing on a low limb, and reached down to steady it.

  “Why don’t you go away and mind your own business?” he fleered. “Nobody wants you around here, anyway!” His two companions had ceased their activities and sat, relishing the intercourse.

  “Well, Junior, I merely thought—” She smiled foolishly, winking sudden tears.

  “I don’t care a damn what you think!” the boy furthered vehemently. “You had t’ go and tell on me, that I was playin’ hookey, and I didn’t get my allowance for a whole week! I’m not a-scared ‘f you! Why don’t you go away and get yourself a husband or somethin’? Why don’t y’ leave me alone, anyhow? I never asked y’ t’ come an’ snitch on me!”

  Miranda’s smile was fainter, her voice uncertain. “But Junior, dear, I had to tell your mother that you stayed away from school. You don’t realize it now, but later on you’ll be sorry that you didn’t learn all that you could at school—”

  “Aw, nuts!” He felt in his pocket for nails. “That’s ol’ woman stuff! That’s what they all say! Tryin’ to make y’ go to school! You get the hell out ‘f here—and tell my mother I told you that, too, why don’t you?”

  Miranda turned hurriedly, and started away. The boy hammered loudly, challengingly. There was a sharp crackling. The limb on which Junior was sitting bent down, broke clean. The boy screamed, his eyes wide as he fell, clawing the air.

  Miranda whirled and saw him strike the ground, rebounding from the fallen branch. He lay on his back, his hands clutching his middle, his mouth open, groaning.

  From up in the tree, the faces of the other two boys stared, white and unbelieving.

  Miranda sat in her room, the old rocking chair creaking under her, her hands folded on her lap. She stared with the intensity of a blind person. Edna stamped back and forth, her voice raised to a shriek.

  “Well, it’ll probably make you glad to hear that my poor boy will limp for the rest of his life—thanks to you! If you hadn’t been arguing with him, he’d have been paying more attention to what he was doing, and this would never have happened. You’ll either have to get out and take your chances at finding a job, Miranda, or live off charity, and that’s flat! If nothing else, you can go into service as a domestic.” She whirled upon her apathetic sister. “Did you hear me? Answer me! Did you hear me?”

  But Miranda did not move. She might have been a waxen effigy.

  Outside a gust of wind sighed through the oak. Edna stamped over to the window. “I wish we owned that lot! We’d have that tree chopped down! Every time I look at poor Junior, I think of you and that damned pet tree of yours—and him lame for the rest of his life!” She pounded to and fro, repeating her words, goading herself into hysteria. Miranda sat listening, wooden.

  At last Edna was silent, spent. Her face averted from her sister’s, she slipped from the room and downstairs.

  Miranda still sat motionless. She seemed barely to breathe. The breeze stirred the tree outside, and as though a voice had called, she turned her head to the window. She stood, and walked over to the pane, pressed against it, looking out. The blown branches beckoned her . . .

  In the morning, Edna climbed the attic steps with a breakfast tray. “Randy! Randy, darling! Are you awake yet?” She pushed open the door. “When you didn’t come down, I thought— Randy!” She laid the tray with a crash down on the battered bureau, and stared around, bewildered. The bed was neatly made. The closet door was open, and all its contents were missing. A note lay on the seat of the rocking chair, bright against dark. Edna snatched it up, read it.

  Forgetting the tray, she raced from the room, thudding down the steps. “Ralph! Ralph!”

  “What’s the matter, Mama?” Elaine’s head peeped from her mother’s room, her cheeks frosty with powder.

  Edna halted as suddenly as though she had collided with an invisible wall. “Has your daddy gone to work?”

  “Yes, Mama.” Then Elaine raised a hand to the powder on her cheeks; she pulled back her head discreetly.

  But Edna was without interest in the child. She hurried down to the front hall, through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen. No, Miranda was not in any of them. Was she outside?

  Edna lifted a curtain and peeped through glass to the oak. What were those things underneath the tree? She frowned. They looked like suit cases—

  She rushed outside. Yes, here was Miranda’s Gladstone bag, and the pasteboard overnight luggage. She opened them: they had been packed.

  And what were these lying beside them? Miranda’s clothes—hat, dress, shoes, stockings, even underwear! As though Miranda had doffed then to go swimming—

  Edna covertly eyed the neighboring houses. No one was watching. She gathered the garments into a bundle which she stuffed under an arm, then grasped the handles of the bags and carried them into the house.

  She cried into the telephone, “Hello, Ralph? Randy’s gone!” Elaine stood by, silent and wondering. “No, I mean that Randy’s left us! I went up to her room this morning, and she wasn’t there! She left us a note—it sounds pretty desperate. I’m afraid she may have done something awful to herself. Should I read it to you?”

  She was excited by her sad importance. The note was the sort that unhappy people usually leave. Miranda had realized that she was a burden, and so she was going away. They would never be troubled by her again, and please, please forgive her.

  “Oh, Ralph, where could she have gone? Suppose she never comes back? What will all of our friends say? My own dear sister running away from our house, when I loved and needed her so! She shouldn’t have taken what I said so hard! I was just all wrought up by poor Junior’s suffering and the doctor’s bill. I hardly knew what I was saying—”

  Snow was falling, large slow flakes like milkweed seeds. Edna hugged herself for warmth as she waited on the front porch while Ralph searched the mail box.

  “Nothing?” she asked. He shook his head, hurrying up the steps. Her eyes swung to the oak, naked and black against the snow.

  “There’s Miranda’s tree. Every time I see it, I think of her. I wonder what’s happened to her.” She stared at the tree, not seeing it. “I sometimes think that she’s dead.”

  Ralph slid an arm around her. “She’s probably all right.”

  Edna was grateful for his kindness. “But why haven’t we had any letters from her, or anything? Oh, I don’t really care so much; if I were sure that she’s dead, I wouldn’t mind too much. I really believe she was crazy. It’s the not knowing what happened to her that worries me. I keep on telling myself that I drove her out and that somewhere she’s miserable and blaming me for it all—I only wish there was something that
I could do!”

  Summer had come again. The hot air was spicy with the scent of roses. Edna lay on the sofa in a sleeveless dress, her hair brushed loosely back from her perspiring forehead, her face glistening from heat. She held a book over her eyes, and one hand traveled continuously from a sack of chocolates to her mouth and back. The floor lamp’s flare was unkind to her.

  Ralph laid down his newspaper and stood up. “Where y’ goin’?” Edna frankly discarded the book for the candy.

  Her husband was gaunt, his eyes tortured. “Just out in the yard.”

  “Oh.” She dismissed him from her consciousness.

  Ralph went out to the front porch. The hot air was heavy with moisture. The chirring and creaking of insects quivered through the night like a goblin orchestra tuning up. The moon was a lightless red disk low in the west.

  Houses and trees were velvet black cutouts against the grey-paper sky and the silver filings of stars. Ralph stepped down from the porch and kicked through the wet grass, lifting his head to follow the brief meteoric flight of a firefly.

  A woman was bending over the roses! She was touching them as if they were responsive things, whispering plaintively to then as if wheedling favors from them. Her body was misty with a wan glow, and wherever her hands caressed the flowers, a trace of the luminosity lingered. Her voice was the faint sigh of a restless breeze, none of her words distinguishable.

  She was like what Miranda had been many years before—a small, slim girl. She was stark naked, beautiful in her freshness and vigor of youth. Her long hair floated around her as though it were weightless, or as though she were under water and lazy currents were playing with it.

  She turned her head, saw the man. For a moment her eyes explored his, utterly without recognition; they were larger than he remembered Miranda’s, wistful, tender, and yet mocking— as emotionally enigmatic as the stars.

  Something about Ralph perplexed her. She frowned, her radiance fading. As though against her will, her arms lifted yearningly toward him, and she smiled temptingly. He could neither move nor speak.

  A breeze rustled the oak. The glorious woman cocked her head, as though heeding an urgent call. She sighed, regretfully shook her head at Ralph, and lowered her arms. Leaning forward, she floated past him on a strong, unseen tide, her light dimming until she had merged with the shadows.