The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 6 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Judith Merril

  “Hard or soft?” she asked.

  “Hard,” I said casually, feeling very woman-of-the-world-ish, dining out—well, practically—and for breakfast, too! I watched Mrs. Klevity spoon the fat over the egg, her hair swinging stiffly forward when she peered. Once it even dabbled briefly in the fat, but she didn’t notice and, as it swung back, it made a little shiny curve on her cheek.

  “Aren’t you afraid of the fire?” I asked as she turned away from the stove with the frying pan. “What if you caught on fire?”

  “I did once.” She slid the egg out onto my plate. “See?” She brushed her hair back on the left side and I could see the mottled pucker of a large old scar. “It was before I got used to Here,” she said, making Here more than the house, it seemed to me.

  “That’s awful,” I said, hesitating with my fork.

  “Go ahead and eat,” she said. “Your egg will get cold.” She turned back to the stove and I hesitated a minute more. Meals at a table you were supposed to ask a blessing, but … I ducked my head quickly and had a mouthful of egg before my soundless amen was finished.

  After breakfast I hurried back to our house, my lunch-money dime clutched securely, my stomach not quite sure it liked fried eggs so early in the morning. Mom was ready to leave, her shopping bag in one hand, Danna swinging from the other, singing one of her baby songs. She liked the day nursery.

  “I won’t be back until late tonight,” Mom said. “There’s a quarter in the corner of the dresser drawer. You get supper for the kids and try to clean up this messy place. We don’t have to be pigs just because we live in a place like this.”

  “Okay, Mom.” I struggled with a snarl in my hair, the pulling making my eyes water. “Where you working today?” I spoke over the clatter in the other room where the kids were getting ready for school.

  She sighed, weary before the day began. “I have three places today, but the last is Mrs. Paddington.” Her face lightened. Mrs. Paddington sometimes paid a little extra or gave Mom discarded clothes or left-over food she didn’t want. She was nice.

  “You get along all right with Mrs. Klevity?” asked Mom as she checked her shopping bag for her work shoes.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But she’s funny. She looks under the bed before she goes to bed.”

  Mom smiled. “I’ve heard of people like that, but it’s usually old maids they’re talking about.”

  “But, Mom, nothing coulda got in. She locked the door after I got there.”

  “People who look under beds don’t always think straight,” she said. “Besides, maybe she’d like to find something under there.”

  “But she’s got a husband,” I cried after her as she herded Danna across the court.

  “There are other things to look for besides husbands,” she called back.

  “Anna wants a husband! Anna wants a husband.” Deet and LaNell were dancing around me, teasing me sing-song. Kathy smiled slowly behind them.

  “Shut up,” I said. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about. Go on to school.”

  “It’s too early,” said Deet, digging his bare toes in the dust of the front yard. “Teacher says we get there too early.”

  “Then stay here and start cleaning house,” I said.

  They left in a hurry. After they were gone, Deet’s feet reminded me I’d better wash my own feet before I went to school. So I got a washpan of water from the tap in the middle of the court and, sitting on the side of the bed, I eased my feet into the icy water. I scrubbed with the hard, gray, abrasive soap we used and wiped quickly on the tattered towel. I threw the water out the door and watched it run like dust-covered snakes across the hard-packed front yard.

  I went back to put my shoes on and get my sweater. I looked at the bed. I got down on my stomach and peered under. Other things to look for. There was a familiar huddle of cardboard cartons we kept things in and the familiar dust fluffs and one green sock LaNell had lost last week, but nothing else.

  I dusted my front off. I tied my lunch-money dime in the corner of a handkerchief and, putting my sweater on, left for school.

  I peered out into the windy wet semi-twilight. “Do I have to?”

  “You said you would,” said Mom. “Keep your promises. You should have gone before this. She’s probably been waiting for you.”

  “I wanted to see what you brought from Mrs. Paddington’s.” LaNell and Kathy were playing in the corner with a lavender hug-me-tight and a hat with green grapes on it. Deet was rolling an orange on the floor, softening it, preliminary to poking a hole in it to suck the juice out.

  “She cleaned a trunk out today,” said Mom. “Mostly old things that belonged to her mother, but these two coats are nice and heavy. They’ll be good covers tonight. It’s going to be cold. Someday when I get time, I’ll cut them up and make quilts.” She sighed. Time was what she never had enough of. “Better take a newspaper to hold over you head.”

  “Oh, Mom!” I huddled into my sweater. “It isn’t raining now. I’d feel silly!”

  “Well, then, scoot!” she said, her hand pressing my shoulder warmly, briefly.

  I scooted, skimming quickly the flood of light from our doorway, and splishing through the shallow run-off stream that swept across the court. There was a sudden wild swirl of wind and a vindictive splatter of heavy, cold raindrops that swept me, exhilarated, the rest of the way to Mrs. Klevity’s house and under the shallow little roof that was just big enough to cover the back step. I knocked quickly, brushing my disordered hair back from my eyes. The door swung open and I was in the shadowy, warm kitchen, almost in Mrs. Klevity’s arms.

  “Oh!” I backed up, laughing breathlessly. “The wind blew—”

  “I was afraid you weren’t coming.” She turned away to the stove. “I fixed some hot cocoa.”

  I sat cuddling the warm cup in my hands, savoring the chocolate sip by sip. She had made it with milk instead of water, and it tasted rich and wonderful. But Mrs. Klevity was sharing my thoughts with the cocoa. In that brief moment when I had been so close to her, I had looked deep into her dim eyes and was feeling a vast astonishment. The dimness was only on top. Underneath—underneath—

  I took another sip of cocoa. Her eyes—almost I could have walked into them, it seemed like. Slip past the gray film, run down the shiny bright corridor, into the live young sparkle at the far end.

  I looked deep into my cup of cocoa. Were all grownups like that? If you could get behind their eyes, were they different, too? Behind Mom’s eyes, was there a corridor leading back to youth and sparkle?

  I finished the cocoa drowsily. It was still early, but the rain was drumming on the roof and it was the kind of night you curl up to if you’re warm and fed. Sometimes you feel thin and cold on such nights, but I was feeling curl-uppy. So I groped under the bed for the paper bag that had my jammas in it. I couldn’t find it.

  “I swept today,” said Mrs. Klevity, coming back from some far country of her thoughts. “I musta pushed it farther under the bed.”

  I got down on my hands and knees and peered under the bed. “Ooo!” I said. “What’s shiny?”

  Something snatched me away from the bed and flung me to one side. By the time I had gathered myself up off the floor and was rubbing a banged elbow, Mrs. Klevity’s bulk was pressed against the bed, her head under it.

  “Hey!” I cried indignantly, and then remembered I wasn’t at home. I heard an odd whimpering sob and then Mrs. Klevity backed slowly away, still kneeling on the floor.

  “Only the lock on the suitcase,” she said. “Here’s your jammas.” She handed me the bag and ponderously pulled herself upright again.

  We went silently to bed after she had limped around and checked the house, even under the bed again. I heard that odd breathy whisper of a prayer and lay awake, trying to add up something shiny and the odd eyes and the whispering sob. Finally I shrugged in the dark and wondered what I’d pick for funny when I grew up. All grownups had some kind of funny.

  The next night
Mrs. Klevity couldn’t get down on her knees to look under the bed. She’d hurt herself when she plumped down on the floor after yanking me away from the bed.

  “You’ll have to look for me tonight,” she said slowly, nursing her knees. “Look good. Oh, Anna, look good!”

  I looked as good as I could, not knowing what I was looking for.

  “It should be under the bed,” she said, her palms tight on her knees as she rocked back and forth. “But you can’t be sure. It might miss completely.”

  “What might?” I asked, hunkering down by the bed.

  She turned her face blindly toward me. “The way out,” she said. “The way back again—”

  “Back again?” I pressed my check to the floor again. “Well, I don’t see anything. Only dark and suitcases.”

  “Nothing bright? Nothing? Nothing—” She tried to lay her face on her knees, but she was too unbendy to manage it, so she put her hands over her face instead. Grownups aren’t supposed to cry. She didn’t quite, but her hands looked wet when she reached for the clock to wind it.

  I lay in the dark, one strand of her hair tickling my hand where it lay on the pillow. Maybe she was crazy. I felt a thrill of terror fan out on my spine. I carefully moved my hand from under the lock of hair. How can you find a way out under a bed? I’d be glad when Mr. Klevity got home, eggs or no eggs, dime or no dime.

  Somewhere in the darkness of the night, I was suddenly swimming to wakefulness, not knowing what was waking me but feeling that Mrs. Klevity was awake too.

  “Anna.” Her voice was small and light and silver. “Anna—”

  “Hummm?” I murmured, my voice still drowsy.

  “Anna, have you ever been away from home?” I turned toward her, trying in the dark to make sure it was Mrs. Klevity. She sounded so different.

  “Yes,” I said. “Once I visited Aunt Katie at Rocky Butte for a week.”

  “Anna.” I don’t know whether she was even hearing my answers; her voice was almost a chant, “Anna, have you ever been in prison?”

  “No! Of course not!” I recoiled indignantly. “You have to be awful bad to be in prison.”

  “Oh, no. Oh, no!” she sighed. “Not jail, Anna. Prison, prison. The weight of the flesh—bound about—”

  “Oh,” I said, smoothing my hands across my eyes. She was talking to a something deep in me that never got talked to, that hardly even had words. “Like when the wind blows the clouds across the moon and the grass whispers along the road and all the trees pull like balloons at their trunks and one star comes out and says ‘Come’ and the ground says ‘Stay’ and part of you tries to go and it hurts—” I could feel the slender roundness of my ribs under my pressing hands. “And it hurts—”

  “Oh, Anna, Anna!” The soft, light voice broke. “You feel that way and you belong Here. You won’t ever—”

  The voice stopped and Mrs. Klevity rolled over. Her next words came thickly, as though a gray film were over them as over her eyes. “Are you awake, Anna? Go to sleep, child. Morning isn’t yet.”

  I heard the heavy sigh of her breathing as she slept. And finally I slept too, trying to visualize what Mrs. Klevity would look like if she looked like the silvery voice-in-the-dark.

  I sat savoring my egg the next morning, letting my thoughts slip in and out of my mind to the rhythm of my jaws. What a funny dream to have, to talk with a silver-voiced someone. To talk about the way blowing clouds and windy moonlight felt. But it wasn’t a dream! I paused with my fork raised. At least not my dream. But how can you tell? If you’re part of someone else’s dream, can it still be real for you?

  “Is something wrong with the egg?” Mrs. Klevity peered at me.

  “No—no—” I said, hastily snatching the bite on my fork. “Mrs. Klevity—”

  “Yes.” Her voice was thick and heavy-footed.

  “Why did you ask me about being in prison?”

  “Prison?” Mrs. Klevity blinked blindly. “Did I ask you about prison?”

  “Someone did—I thought—” I faltered, shyness shutting down on me again.

  “Dreams.” Mrs. Klevity stacked her knife and fork on her plate. “Dreams.”

  I wasn’t quite sure I was to be at Klevity’s the next evening. Mr. Klevity was supposed to get back sometime during the evening. But Mrs. Klevity welcomed me.

  “Don’t know when he’ll get home, “ she said. “Maybe not until morning. If he comes early, you can go home to sleep and I’ll give you your dime anyway.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, Mom’s teachings solidly behind me. “I couldn’t take it if I didn’t stay.”

  “A gift,” said Mrs. Klevity.

  We sat opposite one another until the silence stretched too thin for me to bear.

  “In olden times,” I said, snatching at the magic that drew stories from Mom, “when you were a little girl—”

  “When I was a girl—” Mrs. Klevity rubbed her knees with reflective hands. “The other Where. The other When.”

  “In olden times,” I persisted, “things were different then.”

  “Yes.” I settled down comfortably, recognizing the reminiscent tone of voice. “You do crazy things when you are young.” Mrs. Klevity leaned heavily on the table. “Things you have no business doing. You volunteer when you’re young.” I jerked as she lunged across the table and grabbed both my arms. “But I am young! Three years isn’t an eternity. I am young!”

  I twisted one arm free and pried at her steely fingers that clamped my other one.

  “Oh.” She let go. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  She pushed back the tousled brush of her hair.

  “Look,” she said, her voice was almost silver again. “Under all this—this grossness, I’m still me. I thought I could adjust to anything, but I had no idea that they’d put me in such—” She tugged at her sagging dress. “Not the clothes!” she cried. “Clothes you can take off. But this—” Her fingers dug into her heavy shoulder and I could see the bulge of flesh between them.

  “If I knew anything about the setup maybe I could locate it. Maybe I could call. Maybe—”

  Her shoulders sagged and her eyelids dropped down over her dull eyes.

  “It doesn’t make any sense to you,” she said, her voice heavy and thick again. “To you I’d be old even There. At the time it seemed like a perfect way to have an odd holiday and help out with research, too. But we got caught.”

  She began to count her fingers, mumbling to herself. “Three years There, but Here that’s—eight threes are—” She traced on the table with a blunt forefinger, her eyes close to the old, wornout cloth.

  “Mrs. Klevity,” My voice scared me in the silence, but I was feeling the same sort of upsurge that catches you sometimes when you’re playing-like and it gets so real. “Mrs. Klevity, if you’ve lost something, maybe I could look for it for you.”

  “You didn’t find it last night,” she said.

  “Find what?”

  She lumbered to her feet. “Let’s look again. Everywhere. They’d surely be able to locate the house.”

  “What are we looking for?” I asked, searching the portable oven.

  “You’ll know it when we see it,” she said.

  And we searched the whole house. Oh, such nice things! Blankets, not tattered and worn, and even an extra one they didn’t need. And towels with wash rags that matched—and weren’t rags. And uncracked dishes that matched! And glasses that weren’t jars. And books. And money. Crisp new-looking bills in the little box in the bottom drawer—pushed back under some extra pillow cases. And clothes—lots and lots of clothes. All too big for any of us, of course, but my practiced eye had already visualized this, that and the other cut down to dress us all like rich people.

  I sighed as we sat wearily looking at one another. Imagine having so much and still looking for something else! It was bedtime and all we had for our pains were dirty hands and tired backs.

  I scooted out to the bath house before I undressed. I gingerly was
hed the dirt off my hands under the cold of the shower and shook them dry on the way back to the house. Well, we had moved everything in the place, but nothing was what Mrs. Klevity looked for.

  Back in the bedroom, I groped under the bed for my jammas and again had to lie flat and burrow under the bed for the tattered bag. Our moving around had wedged it back between two cardboard cartons. I squirmed under farther and tried to ease it out after shoving the two cartons a little farther apart. The bag tore, spilling out my jammas, so I grasped them in the bend of my elbow and started to back out.