When someone else sat at the table he didn't look at her. He had to glance up at last, because she was staring. What was the matter with her, was he on show? Often in groups he felt alien, but he'd never felt more of a freak than here. His large-boned arms huddled protectively around him, his gawky legs drew up.
But she was smiling. Her stare was wide-eyed, innocent, if somehow odd. 'I haven't seen you before,' she said. 'What's your name?'
'Michael.' It sounded like phlegm; he cleared his throat. 'Michael. What's yours?'
'June.' She made a face as though it tasted like medicine.
'Nothing wrong with that.' Her hint of dissatisfaction with herself had emboldened him.
'You haven't moved here, have you? Are you visiting?'
There was something strange about her: about her eyes, about the way she seemed to search for questions. 'My parents have a caravan,' he said. 'We're in the Pine Dunes Caravanserai. We docked just last week.'
'Yeah.' She drew the word out like a sigh. 'Like a ship. That must be fantastic. I wish I had that.
Just to be able to see new things all the time, new places. The only way you can see new things here is taking acid. I'm tripping now.'
His eyebrows lifted slightly; his faint smile shrugged.
'That's what I mean,' she said, smiling. 'These people here would be really shocked. They're so provincial. You aren't.'
In fact he hadn't been sure how to react. The pupils of her eyes were expanding and contracting rapidly, independently of each other. But her small face was attractive, her small body had large firm breasts.
'I saw the moon dancing before,' she said. 'I'm beginning to come down now. I thought I'd like to look at people. You wouldn't know I was tripping, would you? I can control it when I want to.'
She wasn't really talking to him, he thought; she just wanted an audience to trip to. He'd heard things about LSD. 'Aren't you afraid of starting to trip when you don't mean to?'
'Flashbacks, you mean. I never have them. I shouldn't like that.' She gazed at his scepticism.
'There's no need to be afraid of drugs,' she said. 'All sorts of people used to trip. Witches used to.
Look, it tells you about it in here.'
She fumbled a book out of her handbag; she seemed to have difficulty in wielding her fingers.
Witchcraft in England. 'You can have that,' she said. 'Have you got a job?'
It took him a moment to realize that she'd changed the subject. 'No,' he said. 'I haven't left school long. I had to have extra school because of all the moving. I'm twenty. I expect I'll get a job soon. I think we're staying here.'
'That could a good job,' she said, pointing at a notice behind the bar: TRAINEE BARMAN
REQUIRED. 'I think they want to get rid of that guy there. People don't like him. I know a lot of people would come here if they got someone friendly like you.'
Was it just her trip talking? Two girls said good-bye to a group, and came over. 'We're going now, June. See you shortly.'
'Right. Hey, this is Michael.'
'Nice to meet you, Michael.'
'Hope we'll see you again.'
Perhaps they might. These people didn't seem so bad after all. He drank his beer and bought another, wincing at the price and gazing at the job notice. June refused a drink: 'It's a downer.' They talked about his travels, her dissatisfactions, and her lack of cash to pay for moving. When he had to leave she said, 'I'm glad I met you. I like you.' And she called after him, 'If you got that job I'd come here.'
Darkness blinded him. It was heavy on him, and moved. It was more than darkness: it was flesh.
Beneath him and around him and above him, somnolent bodies crawled blindly. They were huge; so was he. As they shifted incessantly he heard sounds of mud or flesh.
He was shifting too. It was more than restlessness. His whole body felt unstable; he couldn't make out his own form - whenever he seemed to perceive it, it changed. His mind was unstable too; it felt too full, of alien chunks that ground harshly together. Memories or fantasies floated vaguely through him. Stone circles. Honeycombed mountains; glimmering faces like a cluster of bubbles in a cave mouth. Enormous dreaming eyes beneath stone and sea. A labyrinth of thorns. His own face.
But why was his own face only a memory?
He woke. Dawn suffocated him like grey gas; he lay panting. It was all right. It hadn't been his own face that he'd seemed to remember in the dream. His body hadn't grown huge. His large bones were still lanky. But there was a huge figure, nonetheless. It loomed above him at the window, its spread of face staring down at him.
He woke, and had to grab the dark before he could find the light switch. He twisted himself to sit on the edge of the couch, legs tangled in the blankets, so as not to fall asleep again. Around him the trailer was fiat and bright, and empty. Beyond the ajar door of his parents' room he could see that their bed was smooth and deserted.
He was sure he'd had that dream before - the figure at the window. Somehow he associated it with a windmill, a childhood memory he couldn't locate. Had he been staying with his grandparents? The dream was fading in the light. He glanced at his clock: two in the morning. He didn't want to sleep again until the dream had gone.
He stood outside the trailer. A wind was rising; a loud whisper passed through the forest, unlit trailers rocked and creaked a little at their moorings; behind everything, vast and constant, the sea rushed vaguely. Scraps of cloud slid over the filling moon; light caught at them, but they slipped away. His parents hadn't taken the car. Where had they gone? Irrationally, he felt he knew, if only he could remember. Why did they go out at night so much?
A sound interrupted his musing. The wind carried it to him only to snatch it away. It seemed distant, and therefore must be loud. Did it contain words? Was something being violently ill, and trying to shout? The moon's light flapped between a procession of dark clouds. A drunk, no doubt, shouting incoherently. Michael gazed at the edge of the forest and wondered about his parents.
Light and wind shifted the foliage. Then he shrugged. He ought to be used to his parents' nocturnal behaviour by now.
He slammed the door. His dream was still clinging to him. There had been something odd about the head at the window, besides its size. Something about it had reminded him unpleasantly of a bubble. Hadn't that happened the first time he'd had the dream? But he was grinning at himself: never mind dreams, or his parents. Think of June.
She had been in the club almost every evening since he'd taken the job, a month ago. He had dithered for a week, then he'd returned and asked about the notice. Frowning, the barman had called the manager - to throw Michael out? But June had told them her parents knew Michael well. 'All right. We'll give you six weeks and see how you do.' The barman had trained him, always faintly snooty and quick to criticize. But the customers had begun to prefer Michael to serve them. They accepted him, and he found he could be friendly. He'd never felt less like an outsider.
So long as the manager didn't question June's parents. June had invited Michael to the cottage a couple of times. Her parents had been polite, cold, fascinated, contemptuous. He'd tried to fit his lanky legs beneath his chair, so that the flares of his trousers would cover up his boots - and all the while he'd felt superior to these people in some way, if only he could think of it. They aren't my kind of people either,' June had told him, walking to the club. 'When can we go to your caravan?'
He didn't know. He hadn't yet told his parents about her; the reaction to the news of his job hadn't been what he'd hoped. His mother had gazed at him sadly, and he'd felt she was holding more of her feelings hidden, as they all had to in the cramped trailer. 'Why don't you go to the city? They'll have better jobs there.' 'But I feel at home here.'
'That's right,' his father had said. 'That's right.' He'd stared at Michael strangely, with a kind of uneasy joy. Michael had felt oppressed, engulfed by the stare. Of course there was nothing wrong, his father had become uneasy on hearing of his son's first job, his firs
t step in the world, that was all.
'Can I borrow the car to get to the club?'
His father had become dogmatic at once; his shell had snapped tight. 'Not yet. You'll get the key soon enough.'
It hadn't seemed worth arguing. Though his parents rarely used the car at night, Michael was never given the key. Where did they go at night? 'When you're older' had never seemed much of an explanation. But surely their nocturnal excursions were more frequent now they'd docked at Pine Dunes? And why was his mother so anxious to persuade him to leave?
It didn't matter. Sometimes he was glad that they went out; it gave him a chance to be alone, the trailer seemed less cramped, he could breathe freely. He could relax, safe from the threat of his father's overwhelming presence. And if they hadn't gone out that night he would never have met June.
Because of the wanderings of the trailer he had never had time for close friendships. He had felt more attached to this latest berth than to any person - until he'd met June. She was the first girl to arouse him. Her small slim body, her bright quick eyes, her handfuls of breast - he felt his body stirring as he thought of her.
For years he'd feared he was impotent. Once, in a village school, a boy had shown him an erotic novel. He'd read about the gasps of pleasure, the creaking of the bed. Gradually he'd realized why that troubled him. The walls of the trailer were thin; he could always hear his father snoring or wheezing, like a huge fish stranded on the shore of a dream. But he had never heard his parents copulating.
Their sexual impulse must have faded quickly, soon after he was born - as soon, he thought, as it had served its purpose. Would his own be as feeble? Would it work at all? Yes, he'd gasped over June, the first night her parents were out. 'I think it'd be good to make love on acid,' she'd said as they lay embraced. 'That way you really become one, united together.' But he thought he would be terrified to take LSD, even though what she'd said appealed deeply to him.
He wished she were here now. The trailer rocked; his parents' door swung creaking, imitated by the bathroom door, which often sprang open. He slammed them irritably. The dream of the bubbling head at the window - if that had been what was wrong with it was drifting away. Soon he'd sleep.
He picked up Witchcraft in England. It looked dull enough to help him sleep. And it was June's.
Naked witches danced about on the cover, and on many of the pages. They danced obscenely.
They danced lewdly. They chanted obscenely. And so on. They used poisonous drugs, such as belladonna. No doubt that had interested June. He leafed idly onward; his gaze flickered impatiently.
Suddenly he halted, at a name: Severnford. Now that was interesting. We can imagine, the book insisted, the witches rowing out to the island in the middle of the dark river, and committing unspeakable acts before the pallid stone in the moonlight; but Michael couldn't imagine anything of the kind, nor did he intend to try. Witches are still reputed to visit the island, the book told him before he interrupted it and riffled on. But a few pages later his gaze was caught again.
He stared at this new name. Then reluctantly he turned to the index. At once words stood out from the columns, eager to be seen. They slipped into his mind as if their slots had been ready for years. Exham. Whitminster. The Old Horns. Holihavan. Dilham. Severnford. His father had halted the trailer at all of them, and his parents had gone out at night.
He was still staring numbly at the list when the door snapped open. His father glanced sharply at him, then went into the bedroom. 'Come on,' he told Michael's mother, and sat heavily on the bed, which squealed. To Michael's bewildered mind his father's body seemed to spread as he sat down, like a dropped jelly. His mother sat obediently; her gaze dodged timidly, she looked pale and shrunken - by fear, Michael knew at once. 'Go to bed,' his father told him, raising one foot effortfully to kick the door shut. Almost until dawn Michael lay in the creaking unstable dark, thinking.
'You must have seen all sorts of places,' June said.
'We've seen a few,' said Michael's mother. Her eyes moved uneasily. She seemed nervously resentful, perhaps at being reminded of something she wanted desperately to forget. At last, as if she'd struggled and found courage, she managed to say, 'We may see a few more.'
'Oh, no we won't,' her husband said. He sat slumped on the couch, as though his body were a burden he'd had to drop there. Now that there were four people in the trailer he seemed to take up even more room; his presence overwhelmed all the spaces between them.
But Michael refused to be overwhelmed. He stared at his father. 'What made you choose the places we've lived?' he demanded.
'I had my reasons.'
'What reasons?'
'I'll tell you sometime. Not now, son. You don't want us arguing in front of your girl friend, do you?'
Into the embarrassed silence June said, 'I really envy you, being able to go everywhere.'
'You'd like to, would you?' Michael's mother said. 'Oh, yes. I'd love to see the world.'
His mother turned from the stove. 'You ought to. You're the right age for it. It wouldn't do Michael any harm, either.'
For a moment her eyes were less dull. Michael was glad: he'd thought she would approve of June's wanderlust - that was one reason why he'd given in to June's pleas. Then his father was speaking, and his mother dulled again.
'Best to stay where you're born,' his father told June. 'You won't find a better place than here. I know what I'm talking about.'
'You should try living where I do. It'd kill your head in no time.'
'Mike feels at home here. That's right, isn't it, son? You tell her.'
'I like it here,' Michael said. Words blocked his throat. 'I mean, I met you,' he hawked at June.
His mother chopped vegetables: chop, chop, chop the sound was harsh, trapped within the metal walls. 'Can I do anything?' June said.
'No, thank you. It's all right,' she said indifferently. She hadn't accepted June yet, after all.
'If you're so keen on seeing the world,' his father demanded, 'what's stopping you?'
'I can't afford it, not yet. I work in a boutique, I'm saving the money I'd have spent on clothes.
And then I can't drive. I'd need to go with someone who can.'
'Good luck to you. But I don't see Mikey going with you.'
Well, ask me! Michael shouted at her, gagged (by his unsureness: she mightn't have had him in mind at all). But she only said, 'When I travel I'm going to have things from everywhere.'
'I've got some,' he said. 'I've kept some things.' He carried the cardboard box to her, and displayed his souvenirs. 'You can have them if you like,' he said impulsively; if she accepted he would be more sure of her. 'The flashlight only needs batteries.'
But she pushed the plastic faces aside, and picked up the ring. 'I like that,' she said, turning it so that its colours spilled slowly over one another, merging and separating. She whispered, 'It's like tripping.
''There you are. I'm giving it to you.'
His father stared at the ring, then a smile spread his mouth. 'Yes, you give her that. It's as good as an engagement, that ring.'
Michael slid the ring on to her finger before she could change her mind; she had begun to look embarrassed. 'It's lovely,' she said. 'Have we time for Mike to take me for a walk before dinner?'
'You can stay out for an hour if you like,' his mother said, then anxiously: 'Go down to the beach.
You might get lost in the woods, in the fog.'
The fog was ambiguous: perhaps thinning, perhaps gathering again. Inside a caravan a radio sang Christmas carols. A sharp-edged bronze sun hung close to the sea. Sea and fog had merged, and might be advancing over the beach. June took Michael's hand as they climbed the slithering dunes.
'I just wanted to come out to talk,' she explained.
So had he. He wanted to tell her what he'd discovered. That was his main reason for. inviting her: he needed her support in confronting his parents, he would be too disturbed to confront them alone -
he'd n
eeded it earlier when he'd tried to interrogate his father.. But what could he tell her? I've found out my parents are witches?
'You know that book you lent me-'
'No, I didn't really want to talk,' she said. 'There were just too many bad vibes in there. I'll be all right, we'll go back soon. But they're strange, your parents, aren't they? I didn't realize your father was so heavy.'
'He used to be like me. He's been getting fatter for the last few months.' After a pause he voiced his worst secret fear: 'I hope I never get like him.'
'You'll have to get lots of exercise. Let's walk as far as the point.'
Ahead along the beach, the grey that lay stretched on the sea was land, not fog. They trudged towards it. Sand splashed from his boots; June slid, and gripped his hand. He strained to tell her what he'd found out, but each phrase he prepared sounded more absurd: his voice echoed hollowly, closed into his mind. He'd tell her - but not today. He relaxed, and felt enormously relieved; he enjoyed her hand small in his. 'I like fog,' she said. 'There are always surprises in it.'
The bronze sun paced them, sinking. The sea shifted restlessly, muffled. To their left, above the dunes, trees were a fiat mass of prickly fog. They were nearly at the point now. It pulled free of the grey, darkening and sharpening. It looked safe enough for them to climb the path.
But when they reached the top it seemed hardly worth the effort. A drab patch of beach and dunes, an indistinct fragment of sea scattered with glitterings of dull brass, surrounded them in a soft unstable frame of fog. Otherwise the view was featureless, except for a tree growing beside the far dunes. Was it a tree? Its branches seemed too straight, its trunk too thick. Suddenly troubled, Michael picked his way over the point as far as he dared. The fog withdrew a little. It wasn't a tree.
It was a windmill.
New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Page 26