Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  “I like that, young man,” Bess said.

  “I told you it would be worth the ride,” Charmian said.

  “You know,” Jack said, “I ought to come up here with a kite. This would be a perfect place for kite flying this time of year.”

  “It would,” Charmian said. “Why haven’t we thought of it before?”

  “We could pack a lunch,” Jack said, “and fly kites all day, fly them up into clouds just like those up there. Wouldn’t that be a sight, to see a kite just sink and disappear into one of those clouds?”

  “And maybe come out again on the other side,” Charmian said.

  “How about fly in an airplane through one of those clouds?” I asked.

  “Oh,” Jack said, “now you’re talking real adventure! Yes! Yes! Can you imagine it? To fly up there amongst those clouds?”

  “They have airplanes now that can do just that,” I said. “They have them equipped with gyroscopes. You could fly through that cloud— if you had the nerve.”

  “We’d have the nerve,” Jack said. “We ought to do it. We ought to get a plane and do it!”

  “I just like to look at the clouds from here,” Bess said. “What’s the difference? One side of a cloud looks the same as another.”

  “How do you know?” Jack asked. “Have you ever seen the top side of a cloud? Have you ever flown up there with the birds?”

  “I don’t want to fly up there with the birds,” Bess said. “I want to stay right here where I am, on the ground.”

  “I want to fly up there with the birds,” Jack said. “What’s it like, Houdini? What’s it like up there with the birds?”

  “It’s complete freedom,” I said, “complete power, with the knowledge that you can lose that power any second.”

  “Damned delicious!” Jack cried. “Isn’t that just damned delicious?” Jack asked Charmian.

  Charmian nodded, grinning.

  “We ought to hire a plane,” Charmian said.

  “I bet we could get Art Smith to give us a ride,” Jack said.

  “I’m sure you could,” I said.

  “That is, if we can tear him away from the fair,” Jack said. “Oh, well, it is just one of those things we must put down to do, if we can ever find the time to do it!”

  All of us continued to look out upon the mountainside and valley. Each of us fell into a kind of reverie, each of us seeing something out there in that immensity that touched only upon our own thoughts. The wind kept whipping by us, and now the first puffs of fog came rolling across our view, and then long arms of hazy air slipped in front of our faces, and that air carried the scent of salt from the sea.

  “I could sit here for hours just watching this grand review,” Jack said, “but there is so much more to show you. Charmian, why don’t you take Bess on along the ridge trail? I want to take Houdini back down the mountain.”

  Jack turned in his saddle to look directly at Charmian.

  “I want to show him Wolf House,” Jack said.

  Charmian nodded solemnly. Then she turned to Bess smiling.

  “Come on,” Charmian said, “there is much more to see up here. Much more to do. We’ll find our own games— better than their’s!”

  “Ours are better!” Jack said.

  “No!” Charmian said. “Ours are!”

  And then Charmian reined her horse around, and brought it up on its hind legs. Her horse kicked his forelegs into the air, and then came back down on all fours.

  “Show off!” Jack cried.

  “Big brag!” Charmian cried back. “Come on, Bess, we’ll show ‘em! We can have our secrets too! Come on!”

  Bess looked over at Charmian, then to me, then back to Charmian again. She reluctantly reined her horse around and followed Charmian along the trail.

  “Take the dogs with you!” Jack called out.

  “Come on, Possum!” Charmian called. “Come on, boy! This way!”

  Possum’s ears perked up, and he ran after Charmian on her horse. Bobby shot off into the grass toward Possum. Jack and I sat astride our horses watching Charmian and Bess ascend even higher along the side of the mountain along a trail with the dogs running after them.

  “Bess doesn’t know a thing about MJ-Seven,” Jack said.

  “No,” I said. “Nobody in my family has an inkling about it except my brothers Dash and Leo. They know a little, but not much.”

  “Secrets,” Jack said. “Secrets are a burden, aren’t they?”

  “My whole life is secrets,” I said.

  “Why, that’s true,” Jack said. “I just realize that right now. What is the very atmosphere of your existence is for me an exception, a new element. Just about everything I’ve ever done in my life has ended up in one of my books one way or another. Just about everything— until I made the acquaintance of Nikola Tesla.”

  “Yes,” I said. “The very name ‘Nikola Tesla’ is itself almost a secret now.”

  “A forgotten man,” Jack said, “and half a generation ago he was one of the most famous men on the planet. Isn’t it amazing how easily we men of fame can be forgotten?”

  “Fame is one of the most elusive things in this world,” I said.

  “More elusive than you,” Jack said. “Come on down the mountain. You must see this.”

  “Wolf House?” I asked.

  “That can wait,” Jack said. “This is something else— quite different. Something you need to see. Come on.”

  Jack reined his horse around and led him back down the trail into the forest. I turned my horse and followed Jack down. In a moment we were winding down the forest path again, immersed in shadows.

  “The Valley of the Moon,” Jack said to me, “do you know what that name really means, Houdini?”

  “No,” I said, “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me.”

  Jack and I had ridden a long distance down the mountainside, and had come to a gentle slope in the trail. We rode along slowly side by side as we talked.

  “Well,” Jack said, “it’s not just empty poetry; although that’s the way most people see it. A few of the old settlers around here know a little bit, but even they do not really understand the larger truth of the name. In my novel The Valley of the Moon I only hint that there is a deeper meaning to the name that designates this place.”

  Jack brought his horse off the trail into the grass and stopped in front of a gap between two trees. Beyond the gap we could see the valley spread out below us.

  “See across the valley there to the east,” Jack said. “See that range of mountains?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you see how the crest line of that range is so jagged, irregular, almost like teeth?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve noticed that before.”

  “It is a little clue,” Jack said. “If you were here at a certain time on a certain day of the year, you would see the moon rise over that range of mountains— rise up just about over there. And then, in a few minutes, you would see it set again— set behind that peak there. And then— in just a few minutes more— you would witness the moon rising again. It would rise just over there in that little declivity in the range.”

  “A moon that rises and sets and rises again all of an evening,” I said.

  “Precisely,” Jack said. “And then if you kept watching, you’d see the moon set again— and then very shortly it would rise for a third time.”

  “How is that possible?” I asked.

  “It’s an optical illusion,” Jack said. “The moon does not really set thrice of a night. It only looks as though it does. It is actually rising all the time, rising on a diagonal track in the sky, and as it reaches a certain point in its track, it passes behind one of those higher peaks and appears to be setting. As the moon continues on its track, it comes up above the higher crest of the mountain and gives the illusion of rising again.”

  “That’s quite an interesting natural curiosity,” I said.

  “Ah!” Jack said. “But it’s not natural!” />
  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “That jagged crest of mountains is not natural,” Jack said. “You see, this is where the old settlers’ knowledge of the matter comes to an end. They believe the illusion of the thrice setting moon to be a natural phenomenon. Anything further they dismiss as Indian superstition. They do not know that those jagged peaks were made long ago, carved long ago, carved with great precision by ancient hands belonging to a long-vanished civilization— the Elder Race.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “I know,” Jack said. “Believe me, I know. For one thing, I’ve been up along that crest, and, if one knows where to look, there are some very interesting tell-tale signs that the peaks along there were not formed by natural erosion. In places, the rock mass of the mountain has clearly been cut away, large masses of it cut away by some tremendous power. Most of the evidence for this massive engineering has been obscured by real surface erosion over many thousands of years. To the casual eye the mountaintop appears to be shaped naturally by wind and water. But it has not been. It has been massively engineered.”

  “How did you think to go up there on the crest and investigate its features?” I asked.

  “Ah,” Jack said, “that is where my story gets very interesting! Come on. Let me show you what I wanted you to see.”

  “It’s not this mountain range?” I asked.

  “Oh no,” Jack said. “That is only part of it. Come on.”

  Jack turned his horse back on to the trail. I followed him on my horse, came up beside him, and we continued on down the slope of the mountain.

  “I’m going to show you something few people have ever seen,” Jack said. “I discovered it when I first purchased this section of land. When I came upon it, I was absolutely amazed. Something told me to keep it to myself. I kept it to myself. I’m now very glad I kept it to myself.”

  “What is it, Jack?” I asked. “Tell me!”

  “You’ll see soon enough,” Jack said. “I’ll tell you this much: it bears directly upon your situation now— you as Houdini Number One. By the way, how is your neck?”

  “Still kind of stiff,” I said. “How does it bear upon my situation?”

  “Well,” Jack said, “I’ll just go ahead and tell you. What I’m going to show you is a time machine, an ancient time machine— or perhaps I should say I’m going to take you to the surface of the time machine.”

  “The surface?” I asked. “How big is this machine?”

  “I’m not really sure,” Jack said. “I don’t think any human knows exactly its complete dimensions. That’s all being investigated by MJ-Seven as we speak. I can tell you this much with certainty: it is at least several miles across; for you see, the machinery of this thing extends for miles underneath this mountain and out beneath Sonoma Valley to the eastern range I just showed you. I am told that it consists of a complex network of metal pipes and cylinders all centered upon a metal sphere two hundred feet in diameter.”

  “And this thing is actually a time machine?” I asked. “Are they sure about that?”

  “It appears to be both a kind of very sophisticated clock and a time machine,” Jack said. “Think about it: Any time machine would have to have some kind of clock as part of its workings, wouldn’t it? The clock and the time machine are all one integrated piece of engineering, miles in extent, and all buried under the earth here beneath our feet. All of it was designed to measure the vibrations of the earth, and perhaps effect a change in those vibrations in some way. Time itself is a vibration. Our very lives are nothing more than complex frequencies of vibrations. Perhaps there is some truth in astrology. My natural father was an astrologer quack— the leading astrologer quack in America. But perhaps there is some truth buried in his garbled charts of planetary declinations. Perhaps we are moved by cosmic forces without knowing it. Perhaps we in turn move and affect the cosmic forces! Perhaps life is no more than a mad dance, a domain of flux, wherein appearances in mighty tides ebb and flow, chained to the wheels of moons beyond our ken.”

  The trail before us narrowed and steepened. We went back down into the depths of the forest. Our horses gingerly felt their way down the sloping earth, and snorted and sneezed.

  “Whoa,” Jack said gently. “Easy there.”

  We continued down a winding path until finally the grade lessened, and the trail opened up again.

  I came up beside Jack once more.

  “Well,” I said, “I’ve thought about many of those things myself, believe it or not.”

  “Oh,” Jack said, “I believe it!”

  “Time is a most puzzling thing,” I said. “When I traveled to Mars with Nikola Tesla in 1893 we both lost and gained time.”

  “Yes,” Jack said. “I heard about that. In fact, what happened to you during your voyage to Mars is what made me reconsider my experiences in the Solomon Islands. I told Mr. Tesla about them, and he informed me that he had identified the area of the Solomon Islands as a variable time zone. Not only does the rate of time vary in that region of the earth, but so also does the force of gravity.”

  “I think time is very closely connected to destiny,” I said.

  “Oh,” Jack said, “certainly. It is intimately connected.”

  “Have you ever noticed patterns in your life?” I asked.

  “Patterns?” Jack asked. “I suppose. Just what do you mean?”

  “Like numerical patterns,” I said, “like certain numbers showing up for you all the time.”

  “Yes,” Jack said, “I think so. I think I see what you mean.”

  “For me, it’s the number thirteen,” I said. “I’ve encountered thirteens all throughout my life. They seem to almost follow me wherever I go. If I told anyone else this, they’d think I was crazy.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy,” Jack said.

  “I’ll give you an example,” I said, “so you’ll know that I’m not exaggerating. This was the first time I started noticing the thirteens: In 1907 I made a handcuffed bridge jump in Pittsburgh. I made that jump on March 13th of that year. The day before I made the jump, I sent a cable to my brother Dash who was in Europe at the time. The charges for that cable came to exactly thirteen dollars. That very same day I received exactly thirteen letters in the mail. I switched rooms at my hotel and my new room number was twenty-six. Twenty-six is divisible by thirteen. Oh— and those letters I got in the mail? They were from thirteen different people challenging me to new escapes. Even the license plate of the automobile that drove me to the bridge jump had numbers that added up to thirteen. You see, by the time I got to the bridge jump the next day I had really started noticing the thirteens. At my jump, a camera man was there to take a motion picture of it. He had exactly thirteen thousand feet of film in his camera. See what I mean?”

  “I see what you mean,” Jack said.

  “And that’s not all,” I said. “When I made that jump off the bridge, and went into the water— when I came back up to the surface I nearly battered my brains out against the bottom of a boat. I would’ve probably been killed, but I had been thinking about all those thirteens and I had been extra careful. I was alert under the water, and even as I started to hit that boat, I moved a little to one side, and I think that saved me. So what do you think? Do you think there’s something to all those thirteens? Or am I just superstitious?”

  “I think there’s something to all those thirteens,” Jack replied, “but what that something is— I couldn’t begin to tell you.”

  Now we came upon another grassy clearing, at the center of which stood a circular grove of giant oaks. Beyond the oaks the fringe of forest resumed down below a steep slope, revealing the valley below and the jagged range of mountains beyond it.

  Jack and I rode toward the giant oaks and reached a little clearing at their center. Here, I was met with a most curious sight: A sharp outcropping of rock rose up out of the earth, an outcropping of pure granite, and its top seemed to be carved into the sculpture of something like an
anvil— or an altar.

  We rode up to this big outcropping which towered over us by perhaps some twenty-five feet, stopped in front of it, and then slowly led our horses around it in a large circle. As our horses walked this circuit, and as I studied this rock, I was mindful of the Bell that I had encountered on the floor of the Pacific, and how I had made my circular march around it the night before last.

  Jack stopped his horse as we rounded the rock on its other side, and dismounted, and then led his horse to one of the smaller oaks and tied his horse’s reins to a low-arching branch. I nudged my horse over to where Jack had his, and got off of mine, and also tied my horse to that same low branch. Then Jack and I slowly walked over to the base of the big rock and stopped and stood in front if it.

  “We’re standing on the top of the time machine,” Jack said. “This is the place from which the Valley of the Moon takes its name. The native Indians say this was once the meeting place of the gods. Their word for it was ‘Sonoma’— ‘Valley of the Moon.’ This granite outcropping was carved thousands of years ago. It is from here that the phenomenon of the thrice setting moon can be most precisely observed.”

  “What do you think this is?” I asked, looking up at the rock which rose in rounded steps to a pinnacle that formed into that anvil shape.

  “It is some kind of doorway,” Jack said, “a crossroads in time, a place where time may split in many directions, many destinies— a doorway opening on to perhaps a thousand worlds— or perhaps an infinity of worlds.”

  I walked up to the rock and began climbing its series of steps that led in a semi-spiral to its top. I got to the top, the flat anvil shape, and placed my hands on it. I felt a tingling sensation coming up through the palms of my hand.

  “Do you feel it?” Jack asked from the ground.

  “A tingling,” I said.

  “Stand up on the flat of the rock,” Jack said, “and extend your arms out at right angles.”

  I climbed up on the anvil shape and stood up and extended my arms out into the air. I immediately felt warmth on the inside of my lower legs and a tingling in my feet.

  “Feel it?” Jack asked, looking up at me.