The Magic Meadow

by Alexander Key

  There was no mistaking the urgency in her voice. He had no idea what was troubling her, but he knew every minute must be important. She had Charlie Pill all ready for him, and the next laundry bag was thrust into his arm on the instant. “Get going!” she said tensely.

  He did his best to speed it up, but the second trip took much longer than the first. It was a quarter to four when he returned. As he reached for the small hand to his right, Nurse Jackson thrust the third laundry bag upon him. “I’ve switched the girls,” she told him quickly, giving the clock an anxious glance. “I don’t want Princess waiting out in that sun till I get there. She’s had far too much of it already.”

  He didn’t waste time telling her that the sun had vanished under a great black cloud. He closed his eyes, told Lily Rose to concentrate, and strained to get the two of them away from Belleview.

  It was much harder this time. And they were in for a bad shock when they reached the meadow, for they were greeted by thunder and the sudden fierce slash of rain. It was icy, driving rain, and they were immediately soaked. Lily Rose cried out in fright, and he scrambled to help Diz Dobie open up the blankets so the others could huddle together under them.

  He was dripping wet and chilled through when he finally landed back in his bed. The hands of the clock showed it was almost five.

  “It’s storming over there!” he burst out to Nurse Jackson. “You’d better come next and get the gang up to that house. They—they’re in an awful spot now!”

  “Oh, dear God!” The nurse threw a blanket over him, and cast a stricken look at Princess. “Honey, there’s no help for it. I’ll have to go. Just be brave, and Brick will be back for you in a little while.” Then she caught up one of the bags and took her place on the empty bed to the left.

  Brick glanced to the right and saw Princess watching him, lower lip clenched tight between her teeth. Her small pointed face, usually so white, was surprisingly pink from the sun. Her eyes were tragic.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I’ll give it the gun and be back before you know it!”

  He clasped Nurse Jackson’s strong hand and concentrated on the meadow. The minutes ticked by and he strained and tried to force it, giving it all he had, but nothing happened. Dark fear rose in him.

  He could feel the fear in Nurse Jackson now, but when she spoke her voice was calm. “Brick,” she said quietly, “you’re tired. Rest a while. When you’re ready, let me know. Then we’ll give it the old double whammy. That ought to do it!”

  It was with a sudden sinking sensation that he realized what was wrong. Nurse Jackson was a big, strong woman, and probably weighed as much as any three of them. It would take a double whammy, or whatever, to move her.

  Brick rested and gathered his forces. It was daylight outside when he finally said, “Let’s go!”

  This time, with a supreme effort, they went.

  And abruptly, with the change, they were in the gloom of storm and pouring rain.

  For a moment Brick was too spent to move. Then he made out, on his right, clinging together in a miserable huddle under soaked blankets, the dim forms that were Lily Rose, Charlie, and Diz Dobie. At the sight of them, Nurse Jackson gave a cry of dismay and sprang to her feet.

  “Brick, where’s that house?”

  He sat up and pointed toward the vague line of woods across the meadow. “Over yonder—through those trees. And watch the door!” he called, as she caught Lily Rose up in her arms and began to run. “Don’t let it lock on you!”

  “Get back to Princess!” she flung to him over her shoulder. “Hurry—before it’s too late!”

  He still had no idea what was wrong, but the urgency in her voice was plain. He flung aside the dripping blanket that covered him—it was the one she’d thrown over him in the ward, and by some miracle it had clung to him—and closed his eyes against the chilling downpour.

  At the moment it seemed impossible to find the energy to return. But the thought of Princess, alone in the ward and in some unimaginable danger, was enough to summon forces he did not know he possessed. It took a while to bring those forces to a working pitch, then abruptly the storm about him faded, and again he was back in Belleview.

  He turned instantly to the bed on his right, expecting to see Princess waiting. Shock held him rigid. Her bed was empty.

  It was a frightened and despairing cry of protest, coming from somewhere in the corridor, that jerked him about, trembling. He couldn’t make out what she said, but there was no mistaking that high plaintive voice. Someone was taking Princess away.

  5

  THE LOST BAG

  Brick’s first impulse, which he obeyed without thinking, was to scramble out of bed and dash for the corridor. He didn’t know how he was going to get that far and reach Princess in time, but it had to be done, no matter what happened or what the cost.

  His unsteady feet managed to take him as far as Diz Dobie’s old bed, then his rubbery legs gave way, and he started to fall. Instinctively he grabbed for the bed, but he was falling in the wrong direction, and his clawing fingers caught only the cotton spread that covered it. He tugged at it wildly, and succeeded only in jerking it free. Yet it broke his fall and saved him from possible injury on the concrete floor.

  His rain-soaked pajamas were clinging to him, and he was shaking with cold. While he looked desperately around, hoping to see a wheelchair he could use, he clutched the bedcover about him and then began crawling to the door. He was still yards away from it when he heard Princess cry out again.

  Brick scrambled frantically ahead, yelling with all the power of his lungs, “Stop! Stop! Don’t take her away! Stop!”

  The turn of the corridor was in sight when he heard quick footsteps approaching. Suddenly Miss Preedy, who should have been off duty by now, appeared in the doorway. Behind her loomed a policeman.

  “What’s going on in here?” she demanded. “Where have you been? What are you doing on the floor?”

  “It’s Princess—they’re taking her away! Please don’t let them,” he begged. “Please!”

  “Shut up!” Miss Preedy snapped. “They’re taking her away because I ordered it.” Then, in a voice that shook with fury, “Where’s that thieving black woman?”

  Brick gaped at her. “Nurse Jackson is no thief!”

  “She’s a thief and worse! I caught her stealing clothes and valuable drugs, and she assaulted me. I’ve ordered her arrest. Where is she?”

  “She—she’s gone,” Brick faltered, and looked imploringly at the policeman. “Please, won’t you help me?”

  The policeman ignored Miss Preedy’s demand to search the rest of the building. “Is it proper to leave a patient lying on the floor like this?” He stooped quickly, scowling, and said, “What’s wrong, young feller?” Then he exclaimed, “Say, your head’s wet, and your face is red. Have you got some kind of fever?”

  At the word “fever,” Miss Preedy turned quickly and stared down at him. Her eyes widened, and she gasped.

  Brick bit his tongue so he wouldn’t even think of sunburn, which he knew no one would believe anyway, and an electric chain reaction skipped through his mind with a speed and logic that would have shamed any computer.

  Abruptly he cried, “Stop Princess! She’s got it too! It’s contagious—she’ll infect everybody! We—we’re supposed to be kept here … isolated….” He hesitated only a split second while he dredged up the worst thing he could think of, then blurted out, “Dr. Swartz said something about typhus.…”

  Brick didn’t know whether anything as terrible as typhus produced a flushed face or not, but he figured they wouldn’t be too well acquainted with it in Belleview either. At any rate, the dread word had the desired effect upon Miss Preedy, for she gave a stifled shriek like a strangling mouse and flew into the corridor.

  In a matter of seconds a white-jacketed, white-faced attendant hurriedly thrust a wheelchair containing a tearful pink-faced Princess into the ward, then turned and vanished. The policeman, muttering to him
self, took time to lift Brick to a bed, then hastened out, closing and locking the door behind him.

  “Oh, Brick!” Princess said in a voice that quavered, “I—I’m so glad to see you I could cry! How did you ever make them bring me back?”

  “Tell you later. We’ve gotta get going. Where’s your bag?”

  “Right here in the wheelchair. My feet are on it. I told the man it had all my things in it, and that—”

  “Can you wheel yourself close to me?” he interrupted. “Hurry!”

  But he had hardly spoken when he saw that it was impossible. She was swaddled in blankets, and was securely strapped into the chair. Nor was there space enough between the beds for the wheels to roll, for the policeman had put him on the center bed which had belonged to Charlie Pill. The quickest solution was to get back onto the floor and take off from there.

  He slid to the floor and scrambled over beside Princess. She managed to free a hand, and he clasped it quickly.

  “Concentrate!” he whispered. “Give it all you’ve got!”

  It didn’t help a bit to know that they were bound to be interrupted if he took too long at this. The terrible word he’d uttered would soon be all over Belleview, and then Dr. Swartz would be informed. They had to move fast—but he’d done so much fast moving in the last few hours that he was beginning to feel like a worn-out battery incapable of the slightest spark.

  Brick strained. The angry tap of approaching heels in the corridor gave his trembling powers a sudden jolt, and abruptly Belleview faded.

  It was such a wonderful relief to see bright stars overhead that for a while Brick was incapable of movement, nor did he mind the chill of the rain-soaked grass beneath him. The storm had passed. Now he could hear only the heightened music of the brook, and the curious and varied calls of the unknown creatures of the night.

  Then he realized that he still had a tight grip on Princess’ small hand. He glanced toward her. His eyes hadn’t yet become adjusted to the dark, and all he could make out was a vague blanket-wrapped shape huddled in the wheelchair.

  Suddenly he laughed. “Hey, can you beat that! I brought the wheelchair too! Well, that’s one thing we won’t need over here.”

  “I sure hope not,” Princess said earnestly. “Brick, where is everybody?”

  He sat upright, shivering, and peered about while he clutched a little closer to him the bedcover he had pulled around him in the ward. Then he made out the sodden blankets a few yards away on the grass.

  “Looks like Nurse Jackson has taken them all up to the house. Don’t worry. She’ll be back here looking for us in a little while.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried. I’m just so happy and thankful to be here, I—I could sit here for hours and hours! That was absolutely the awfullest moment when they were taking me away.…” She gave a little sigh, then asked curiously, “Brick, what in the world did you do to make them bring me back?”

  Before he could explain, he heard Nurse Jackson calling anxiously to him from somewhere in the darkness across the meadow. He gave an answering cry, and presently he could make out her dim figure approaching.

  “Am I glad you’re here!” she told them thankfully. “I’ve really been worried. That Miss Preedy almost ruined everything.… Now I can’t find my flashlight, or even a box of matches. And I’m practically blind in the dark.” Then she exclaimed, “Princess! What are you doing in a wheelchair?”

  Brick said, “They were taking her away when I got back. Golly, if both of us hadn’t been a little sunburned …”

  “What’s sunburn got to do with it?”

  He told her about Miss Preedy’s coming with a policeman, and how the policeman had mistaken his sunburn for some kind of a fever. “So I just told them it was typhus,” he said, “and that Princess had it too. Boy, did they bring her back in a hurry!”

  “Typhus!” Nurse Jackson gasped, then roared with laughter. “Typhus! Great day in the morning!”

  She stooped and began to fumble with the straps on the wheelchair. “I can’t push this thing through the woods,” she admitted. “Not in the dark. Princess, you’ll have to ride piggyback and be my eyes. Brick, I’ll be back for you as soon as I can. We haven’t a light of any kind up there, or so much as a match to start a fire, so you can imagine what a crawly mess we’re in!”

  Though she had spoken as if the whole thing was a lark, Brick realized she was very much concerned. Even with lights, it wasn’t going to be any picnic for a while. Everybody except Princess had been soaked in the storm, and all their blankets and bags of clothes were wet—save, of course, the ones he’d brought over last. The chilly night made it a hundred times worse. If they could just manage to get a fire going in that fireplace …

  While he waited for Nurse Jackson to return, Brick shivered in his thin cover and tried to remember what it was like in that curious building he’d been trapped in. Surely the people who had built it wouldn’t have overlooked anything as important as lights. Could there have been a lantern overhead that he hadn’t noticed? Or lamps on the sides, perhaps? Or were the lights hidden?

  He decided they were hidden. In that case, wouldn’t the switch for them be in the usual place, just inside the entrance?

  When Nurse Jackson finally carried him to the building—she had the door carefully propped open with a fallen limb—he had her set him on his feet just within the doorway. While he clung to the casing with one hand, he felt over the adjoining stone wall with the other. But instead of anything resembling a switch, all his groping fingers encountered was a circular piece of carved wood. It seemed to be a decoration shaped like a cogged wheel.

  He was examining it, wondering if it had a moving part, when a small sound beyond the threshold made him turn his head.

  The faint light of the stars made it easier to see outside than in. Not six feet past the partially open door, the great dark shape of an animal loomed threateningly.

  As he stared at it in a sort of frozen horror, Brick was aware of all the former occupants of Ward Nine chattering in the blackness behind him, happy in spite of their misery, and trying to ignore the chill while they hunted through soaked bags in the hope of finding something dry to wear. He’d brought them here, and he couldn’t help feeling responsible for them.

  Somehow, quickly, that door had to be closed, and there was only one way to do it. He threw himself forward, reaching for the broken limb that propped it open. The limb was knocked aside. It fell in the direction of the dark shape crouched beyond it, and the thing sprang away and instantly vanished in the blackness of the trees.

  As Brick scrambled back into the room, the big door swung shut behind him and he heard the outer bolt snap into place.

  Nurse Jackson said anxiously, “Brick! What in the world happened?”

  “I—I saw something outside,” he told her. “So I closed the door.” He didn’t add that they were locked in now, and that getting out might be a problem. But at the moment that hardly seemed to matter.

  There were sudden uneasy questions from the others. But Princess said, “Oh, I’m sure it was that horse we saw. He wouldn’t hurt us. He’s just too beautiful.”

  Brick knew it wasn’t the horse, but he said nothing. There was no use frightening everyone by explaining that the thing he saw was more like a great cat, or possibly a wolf. For the first time he began to see a reason for the extraordinarily high fence on the opposite side of the building. He remembered that there was a door in the back wall to the right of the huge window; at night one could go out there without fear of being attacked. Probably the toilets and storage places were located in that area.

  Frowning, he pulled himself upright and began groping for the cogged wheel with his fingers. There was a movement in the dark behind him, and Nurse Jackson whispered, “Brick, that was no horse out there, was it?”

  “It sure wasn’t.”

  “Could it have been a dog?”

  “Maybe. But it was a mighty big one.”

  “Oh, lordy me! This place is
beginning to get me worried. I’d feel a lot better if we had a light.”

  “I think I’ve got it.”

  The cogged wheel, he’d suddenly discovered, turned—but it was to the left instead of to the right. As he moved it slowly, the blackness vanished and a rainbow of soft lights came on around the room. They glowed from a dozen hidden recesses and brightened as he turned the wheel. From the disorder on the floor came gasps of astonishment and delight.

  Brick crawled around to the fireplace and crouched before it, studying it thoughtfully. Somehow, they had to have a fire. He’d never built one in his life, but sticks and chips were already arranged for one here, and all he needed was a match.

  Would the people who used this place, who kept everything in such perfect order, have made preparations for a fire and yet left no means of lighting it?

  His glance traveled around the hearth, then swept the expanse of stonework rising above it. There was no mantelpiece, but over on the right was a small niche in the masonry. He crawled to it and reached inside. His hand came out with a small slender box made of brass.

  The thing opened the long way and disclosed a pencil-like object made of some heavy substance. The interior of the box was lined with a similar material, which was badly scratched.

  As Brick puzzled over the pencil, its purpose suddenly became clear. It was a lighter, for when he drew the point of it across the inside of the box, it burst into flame. Even the resinous chips in the fireplace seemed to possess a magic quality, for they flared up the moment he touched the lighter to them. Almost in a matter of seconds the fire that he had kindled became so hot that he was forced to move away from it.

  Nurse Jackson, appearing with a load of strange blankets in bright colors, paused suddenly and stared at the fire. “I declare!” she said in an odd voice. “Why, that’s fat pine burning—and hunks of resin!”