The Magic Meadow

by Alexander Key

  “What’s fat pine?” he asked, eyeing the blankets curiously.

  “Pitch pine—pine with the resin in it. We used to burn it down South when I was a kid. And we used to go to a turpentine still and get buckets of resin chips—just like those in the fireplace—to start the wood on a chilly morning. Honestly, I could almost believe—but no, that’s impossible.” She showed him the blankets. “Brick, look what I found! I can hardly believe it.”

  “They’re really something! Where—”

  “That big chest under the window is full of them. And there are mattresses on the bunks, glory be.” She paused and glanced at her wristwatch. “H’mm. Almost ten o’clock. That’s ten in the morning back at Belleview—but it’s after bedtime here. Almost twelve hours difference. It’s not easy to get adjusted to a different time, but I’m ready to start right now.”

  She turned to the others and said, “I’ve found dry blankets for everybody, so let’s turn in. We’ll straighten up this mess in the morning.”

  Brick awoke soon after daylight and stared about him uncertainly, almost in fear. For a moment he hardly knew where he was. He was so accustomed to the sounds of Belleview, with the never-ending grind of traffic in the street, that the present quiet made it seem that all the world had suddenly come to a halt. Then he heard birds singing outside, and at the same time he became aware of a heavenly aroma of cooking that was beyond anything in his experience.

  Sitting up, he saw that the fire had been rebuilt in the fireplace, and that the damp clothing had been picked up and arranged over benches to dry. The heavenly aroma came from the alcove to the left of the chimney, where Nurse Jackson was cooking something over a small stove. Everyone else seemed to be asleep.

  Brick wrapped his blanket about him and actually managed to walk to the hearth without having to rest. In spite of the uncertainties of their situation, he was so happy for a moment that he felt like singing. Hated Belleview was forever behind them, and they were starting a new life in a strange and wonderful place where everything was different.…

  Then abruptly came the memory of the unknown creature he had glimpsed beyond the door last night. His spirits sank a little. They sank even more when he saw Nurse Jackson’s face. He realized many things must be troubling her, but he hesitated to ask about them.

  “That sure smells good!” he began. “What are you cooking?”

  “Johnnycakes,” she said quietly. “Anything smells good when you’re hungry. I found some cornmeal in a jar, and a little cooking oil in a bottle. I had to mix the meal with water, but it’s hot food, which we need, and it’ll taste fine with molasses. I found some of that in another bottle.”

  She explained that she had packed sandwiches wrapped in plastic into all the bags, but that these would have to be saved till later, and possibly rationed. “I’ll pick some strawberries when I get to it,” she went on. “But I’m not about to go out there till I find me a big stick.”

  She chuckled as she spoke, but it did not hide her uneasiness. “This is the craziest place,” she said next. “I just can’t figure it. Take this stove. It’s electric and it works fine, but I do believe it’s handmade. And the bathrooms, if you want to call them that. They’re out back—girls to the left, boys to the right. There’s running water—but it flows through bamboo pipes. And the wash bowls—they’re hollowed out of rock!”

  He was staring at her in amazement when she jolted him by saying, “Brick, Charlie Pill was sick all night, and now he’s got a high fever. I don’t know what in the world to do. I can’t find my bag anywhere, and all the medicines are packed in it.”

  Fright stabbed through him. He swallowed. Charlie wasn’t strong anyway, and being caught so long in the cold rain must have been too much.

  “Maybe you left the bag outside last night,” he suggested. “Everything was in such a jam, what with the storm and all.…”

  She shook her head. “No, I went out first thing this morning to hunt for it. The blankets and the wheelchair are there, but not the bag. I can’t remember what I did with it. We were in such a rush, and Miss Preedy upset me so.…”

  “What happened?”

  “She caught me taking the medicines we needed from the drug locker. I was packing them in my bag. She was going to have me arrested, and there just wasn’t time to argue with her. So I tied her up, slapped some adhesive tape across her mouth to keep her from screaming, and locked her in the linen closet. I knew she’d be found soon enough.…”

  Ordinarily the picture of Miss Preedy bound and gagged would have delighted him, but she had caused too much trouble, and had almost succeeded in breaking up their group. Now Charlie Pill could die. It was all too close for laughter.

  He told Nurse Jackson about Miss Preedy and the policeman, then said, “I’ll bet anything you left your bag in Ward Nine.”

  “I won’t bet. I’m scared to death you’re right.”

  Brick looked away and swallowed hard. He’d thought Belleview was forever behind him. The last thing he wanted was to go back, but as he thought of Charlie Pill he knew it would have to be done. And the sooner the better.

  6

  SEARCH

  They talked it over quickly. Nurse Jackson didn’t want him to go to Belleview again—for some reason she was very uneasy about it—yet she was forced to agree that it was the only thing to do. Everything in the bag was important. Aside from her extra clothes, there were matches, a flashlight, a mending kit, some packages of dried food, a set of kitchen knives, and the priceless medicines.

  The others were still asleep when he stretched out on his bunk again and closed his eyes. He’d dressed in sneakers, a pair of jeans, and an old flannel shirt that had come out of Donations, and Nurse Jackson had made him eat two of the johnnycakes for breakfast. They were wonderful with the tangy molasses, and he could have eaten more, but he quickly squelched his appetite when he realized how little food there was for six people.

  In spite of being rested, it seemed to take a lot more effort to get away this time, possibly because he hated so much to leave. The last thing he heard was Charlie Pill in the next bunk, for in the past few minutes Charlie had begun to mutter to himself with rising fever. Then abruptly everything faded.

  He landed with a crash in the cold dark of Belleview.

  Brick was too dazed for a while to comprehend what had happened. Though he remained conscious, it seemed that he kept sliding away to the edge of blackness, then pain would jerk him back—pain in his head, in his back, in his elbows. Finally the blackness receded, and the pain in his head settled down to a throbbing ache. The rest of him hurt whenever he tried to move.

  Gradually it came to him that he was lying on Ward Nine’s hard cement floor. He hadn’t missed his bed, for there were no beds left in the ward—he could tell that by the vague light that came through the windows and through the open door to the corridor. He had, he reasoned finally, arrived at the exact spot where his bed had been, and from there he’d dropped to the floor.

  Slowly, carefully, he forced himself to sit up. Nothing seemed to be broken—except possibly his head. That ached like fury. Then he realized this was no time to be worrying about his hurts. He had come here to find the lost bag, and he’d better get it and leave as soon as possible.

  The bag wasn’t in Ward Nine. Even in the near-dark he could tell that. Since he’d been here last, twelve or more hours ago, everything in the ward had been removed except for the old clock between the windows.

  He was almost certain the bag had been left near his bed. Then the men who had taken everything out must have moved it. What would they have done with it?

  Brick put his hands to his throbbing head and tried to think. By this time, he remembered, all the patients in Belleview were supposed to have been carted away to the new hospital. But would they have hauled off the old beds and equipment at the same time?

  He tried to stand up, failed, then began crawling doggedly toward the corridor.

  At the doorway he stoppe
d and peered worriedly about while he listened. It was dark to the left, but a light was burning near the turn on the right where the service rooms and the elevator were located. The building had the feel of emptiness, but he could hear slow footsteps somewhere in the distance. They seemed to be going away.

  Then he caught his breath as he made out the cabinets and the dismantled beds that had been taken from Ward Nine. They were stacked at the turn of the corridor, ready to be carried down in the elevator in the morning. Surely the lost bag would be somewhere near.

  In his eagerness he got to his feet and went reeling down the corridor, one hand touching the wall for support. He was almost at the stacked equipment when he lost his balance. He reached out wildly and clutched the nearest thing within reach, which happened to be the head of one of the beds. Several others were leaning against it, and the rollers were still on them. His weight was enough to send them moving out from the wall, and suddenly they fell down with a resounding bang and clatter that seemed loud enough to have been heard all over that part of the city.

  Brick fell with them, and was lucky enough to go down on top of the heap without getting his arms caught between the pieces. Even so, he was so badly shaken that for long seconds he could not find the will to move.

  He was aroused by a man’s voice shouting, “Hey, Mike! What’s going on up there?”

  The sound of rapid footsteps in the opposite direction jerked Brick to his feet again. He tottered to the nearest door, knowing he had to find a hiding place, and quickly. The door was locked. Desperately he forced himself across the corridor to the only other door within reach. It opened to his touch and he collapsed inside.

  He thought his ragged breathing would give him away as someone pounded past in the corridor. With an unsteady hand he fumbled around in the dark, found the safety latch on the door, and turned it. It wouldn’t protect him for long if a careful search were made, for the lock could be opened from the outside with a key. If that happened, of course, he could escape by going back to the dandelion place. Only, there was the problem of the lost bag.…

  Somehow he just couldn’t go back without it.

  While part of him listened to the men moving about in the corridor, rattling doorknobs and searching, he tried to think of all the possible places where the bag could be.

  He hadn’t noticed it on the cabinets outside, or on the floor. Then, with a sudden sinking sensation, he remembered Miss Preedy. He felt a little sick. Miss Preedy must have discovered the bag when she returned to Ward Nine after the typhus scare. In that case he’d never see it again.

  Footsteps crossed the corridor and paused by his door. A hand turned the knob and shook it. A man said, “I don’t think it was a prowler, Joe. It was just those fool beds. They weren’t stacked right.”

  “Could be,” came the muttered reply. “But I’d watch it anyway. In this part of town they’ll steal the fillings out of your teeth if you sleep with your mouth open.”

  Brick waited. The men went on. Finally all he could hear was the eternal grind of the surrounding city.

  He got up on his knees and felt for the safety latch. Instead, his fingers touched the light switch on the wall to the left of it. He pressed it and discovered he was in a linen closet piled with baskets of odds and ends awaiting removal.

  On the floor, within reach of his hand, was a big laundry bag so tightly packed that it was almost beyond his strength to lift it. It took only seconds for his trembling fingers to determine that it was the one he had been searching for.

  Brick’s relief was so great that for a long happy minute, while he clasped the bag tightly and willed himself back to the dandelion place, his head stopped throbbing, and all his aches vanished.

  Then, gradually, as more minutes passed and the expected change did not come, his throbs and aches began again. In rising desperation he tried harder, and harder still, but with the increasing effort his pains increased until he could no longer endure them. He cried out in sudden agony and stopped trying.

  Maybe, if he remained perfectly quiet for a while and thought about nothing at all, his head would clear up. But it was no use. His head continued to throb, and the least effort made it worse.

  Now in place of desperation came a growing fear. Maybe he had lost his ability entirely. Maybe the fall had cracked his head, and had doomed him to stay in this hated city for the rest of his days. Now he would never know what it was like to live in a place where people didn’t use locks on doors, where there was no rumble of traffic, and where you could go out and get all the strawberries you wanted for the picking.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. He would never again see those who mattered the most to him—Princess and Nurse Jackson and Diz Dobie, and Lily Rose and poor Charlie Pill.…

  Tears flooded his eyes. He wiped them angrily. He could take it if he had to—but it didn’t seem right that someone like Charlie Pill should die because he, Brick, had received a crack on the head. Anyway, if a guy could do something as crazy and as complicated as teleporting, there was no reason why the same guy couldn’t do a simple thing like stopping a headache.

  He closed his eyes, told himself that he was going to sleep a while and that when he woke up his head would be healed and everything would be all right.

  Brick went to sleep almost instantly. When he awoke, which was very suddenly, there wasn’t time to even think about his head, for men were busy in the corridor, and someone was trying angrily to open his door.

  In quick alarm he clutched the laundry bag and wished himself back in the dandelion place.

  He was there almost in the next breath.

  As usual he had brought himself to the familiar spot that he had used so often, and he didn’t seem to have an ache in the world. The wheelchair was still where he’d seen it last, but he hardly noticed it. Something seemed wrong.

  It took him a few seconds to figure it out, then he realized it was the sun. It was still bright daylight here when it should have been dark. At least, he’d expected it to be dark, for wasn’t it morning back at Belleview? Hadn’t he slept through the night there, and weren’t the men he’d heard just coming to work? He could have been mistaken, but that was the feeling he’d had. And with twelve hours difference in time …

  Then he forgot the sun’s peculiarities as happy cries from across the brook drew him to his feet. Nurse Jackson, evidently out picking strawberries, had just sighted him. Near her, with baskets in their hands, were Lily Rose and Diz Dobie.

  Brick tugged the heavy laundry bag into the wheelchair, and pushed it down to the brook and over to the other side. As the others crowded about him, bursting with questions, he asked about Charlie Pill.

  “Oh, he’s ever so much better,” Lily Rose said quickly. “Nurse found some leaves and roots and made a tea—”

  “I was desperate,” said Nurse Jackson. “When you didn’t come back, I knew something had to be done fast. Then I remembered a tea my old granny used to make out of mullein leaves and dogwood root. Brick, I didn’t have an idea in the world that I’d find those things growing here, but I did. And in sight of the door! Honestly, this is the strangest place. I could almost believe—” She shook her head. “Anyway, we’ve been taking turns picking berries and watching for you. Brick, what happened?”

  He told them about it while they returned to the building. The sun was getting low, and Nurse Jackson seemed in a hurry to get back. She took over the wheelchair and made Lily Rose, whose legs were failing, ride in it with the laundry bag. As she pressed forward, her uneasy eyes kept studying the shadows. Diz Dobie stumbled silently behind her, unsteady on his feet but helped along by a crutchlike stick that had been fashioned, Brick suspected, mainly as a weapon.

  Princess, watching from the door, squealed a greeting to him as they approached, and Nurse Jackson asked, “Did you see anything while we were gone?”

  “Seven more deer!” Princess told her, eyes big. “They streaked by so fast I could hardly count them, and went off into the woods
yonder.” She pointed.

  “Did you see what was after them?”

  Princess shook her head, and Nurse Jackson said, “Brick, that makes twenty-five deer we’ve seen today, all of them on the run. Something’s chasing them. From now on, I don’t think any of us had better leave the place alone, and we should all carry weapons.”

  For Brick it was a very sobering return. Not that the place lost any of its early magic by the knowledge that unknown dangers were all about them. But it did mean they’d have to be extremely careful until they were strong enough to take care of themselves and knew far more than they did about this baffling and incredible country.

  That evening, after a frugal meal of one sandwich apiece and a double handful of plain strawberries, they sat around the fire to talk over the future. Charlie Pill was too weak to be up, but on his insistence they bundled him into the wheelchair and made him comfortable by the hearth.

  Somehow, just being able to sit before an open fire made a doubtful future a lot easier to face. Until they came here, Brick knew, not one of them had ever had that magical experience. And with the wonder of the fire was the great miracle of being able to use bodies again that had long been useless. Of course it would be many days before they all could get about like normal people, but at the moment it was better than a movie to watch the delighted expression on Charlie Pill’s face while he toasted his shins and wiggled his skinny white toes. For a long time Charlie had forgotten that he even had toes. Now even the pain he used to have in his frail arms and shoulders seemed to have vanished.

  “There’s just enough cornmeal left for another batch of johnnycakes,” Nurse Jackson was saying. “And we can stretch the sandwiches till tomorrow night. After that, well, there’re the beans in my bag, and that dried stuff up there.…” She indicated the corn and the onions hanging from the beams overhead.

  “What about all the things growing out yonder?” Brick asked, pointing toward the rear window. Beyond it was a small field enclosed by the high fence. With so many deer around, the reason for the fence was suddenly obvious.