The Green Man

by Michael Bedard

  The book slipped from her hands and fell quietly to the floor.

  34

  O looked through the window at the restaurant clock. It was almost six o’clock. She was going to be in serious trouble. That worried her a lot more than the bump on the back of her head and the dull ache that went with it. She tried to concoct a plausible-sounding story as she hurried along the street, knowing full well Emily would instantly see through it and suspect she had been with Rimbaud.

  As she came in sight of the shop, something struck her as odd. The sign in the window had been flipped to CLOSED, but the blind hadn’t been pulled and the bargain bins hadn’t been taken in. The weekend paper, which normally came before four, was wedged in the mail slot.

  Emily must have closed the shop early – and hurriedly. O had left shortly after noon. Rimbaud must have come by a little later. When he discovered she wasn’t there, he would have left and made his way back to the ravine. The sight of them both taking off would have set Emily’s antennae quivering. She was strange, but she was no fool. Could she possibly have followed Rimbaud? Somehow O couldn’t picture her aunt slinking along the streets after him. But where was she, then?

  O hadn’t bothered to take her keys with her when she left the shop. She banged on the door now and rang the upstairs bell, hoping Emily was up in the flat. But why had she closed in such a hurry? Had she been taken ill? Had all the stress surrounding this day triggered another attack?

  Her stomach knotted into a tight ball. She stood back and looked up at the blank upper windows, then pounded on the door so loudly that a couple passing on the other side of the street stopped to stare.

  Suddenly, she had an idea. Dashing down the side of the building, she flung open the back gate and took the fire escape stairs two at a time. As she came up onto the deck, she saw Psycho sunning herself on one of the dingy plastic chairs. The cat had come out through the window O was praying she’d inadvertently left open. They both made a mad dash for it now.

  She flung the window wide and clambered in. “Emily!” she cried as she raced through her room and down the flight of stairs to the kitchen. “Emily!” She hurried through the living room, then down the hall to her aunt’s bedroom. The clothes Emily had been wearing earlier were draped over a chair, and her hat and handbag were gone from the hook on the closet door. Her workroom was locked from the outside.

  O hurried back along the hall. She opened the door leading to the shop and started down the stairs, hoping to find some clue as to where Emily had disappeared. Psycho sped down before her.

  Mallarmé sat hunched on the stairs, his plaid shawl draped over his shoulders, his pen poised over a scrap of closely written manuscript on his knees. She sidestepped him on her way down. He glanced up briefly, as if he had felt a ghost walk over his grave.

  Ghosts had claimed the empty shop. Timid Miss Dickinson flitted out of sight as O appeared. In the back room, Pound was slumped on the couch, his legs crossed, his hand running over his furrowed brow, deep in thought. A Chinese text lay open on his lap. With his free hand he stroked Psycho, who had jumped up on the couch beside him and studied O warily as she stood in the doorway.

  Borges, the blind Argentinean poet who had recently become a presence in the shop, was up the ladder in the front room, looking for something. His face was pressed close to the spines of the books, for his eyesight, though restored in death, was dim.

  O let them be. They had become part of the place – like the lizards that crawl on the walls in tropical climes. If you didn’t mind them, they didn’t mind you.

  She maneuvered through the narrow gap in the bunker of books that was the desk at the Green Man. The Rolodex was sitting by the phone, opened to Lenora Linton’s name. But why? Lenora Linton was supposed to have moved by now. Could Emily possibly have gone to the Linton house?

  As she walked back up the stairs to the flat, the phone rang. She hurried to the living room to get it, hoping it might be Emily. It was Isaac Steiner.

  “Is your aunt home, O?” he asked.

  “No, I’m afraid she’s out at the moment.”

  “I wonder if you could give her a message for me? It’s about Lenora Linton. I told her I’d see what I could find out about her. Now, this is rather curious. It seems that Lenora Linton died a little over a year ago.”

  “What?”

  “So whoever your aunt has been doing business with, it certainly isn’t Lenora Linton.… Hello? Hello?”

  But O had dropped the receiver and was making a mad dash for the door.

  It took Emily a moment to realize where she was when she woke up. The fire had died down to a few pale flames amid the glowing ghosts of logs, and the room had filled with shadows. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was getting on to eight o’clock. She ought to have been home long ago. O would be wondering where she was. She began to gather up her things.

  Her eye fell on the books she had spread over the table. The sight of them filled her with longing. What could have happened to Miss Linton? She noticed that the little book she had been reading before she fell asleep had fallen to the floor.

  She picked it up and thumbed through it once again. It had a strange allure. It would take nothing for her to slip it into her handbag. Miss Linton would never notice its absence and, besides, it would soon be hers.

  She pushed the thought from her mind but, as she picked up her handbag, she found herself unaccountably releasing the clasp and reaching for the little gem. No sooner was it in her hand than she heard a noise at the door.

  She dropped the book as if it had caught fire, and the thought passed through her mind that she had somehow been observed. Simultaneously, the handle of the door turned, and a wedge of light lit the wall as it opened. Into the room came Lenora Linton, carrying a candle in a pewter holder.

  “Forgive me, Miss Endicott, you must have thought I’d forgotten you. There are so many things to be settled before I leave tonight. My mind is all awhirl. And now it appears the power has been turned off. We’ll muddle through somehow.”

  She went to the table and put down the candle. With a regal sweep of her hand, she motioned Emily to a chair. “Do sit down,” she said and breathed a deep sigh as she settled herself. “Ah, that’s better. This is far too much running about for an old bird like me.”

  Looking at the dying fire, she ambled over to give it a poke. The embers settled, and flames sprang up with a whoosh.

  “I presume you’ve had an opportunity to examine the collection again.”

  “Yes,” said Emily. It seemed that the older woman was looking pointedly at her handbag.

  “And is everything in order?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Fine. Then perhaps we can attend to the business at hand.”

  “Of course.” Emily reached for her handbag, opened it – and froze. For tucked in among her things was the little book. But how?

  “Is something wrong, Miss Endicott?”

  “No, nothing at all. I just realized, I … I forgot to bring a pen.” As she rummaged through the bag for her checkbook, she was careful to hold it close, so that Miss Linton could not see in.

  “No, here it is, after all.” She took the checkbook and pen from the bag and closed it carefully.

  Miss Linton fixed her with an intense look, her lips curling slightly in the hint of a smile. Emily felt as tremulous as the flame that danced atop the candle. She opened the checkbook and uncapped the pen.

  “Shall I make it out to you?” she asked.

  “That would be fine.”

  “And the amount?”

  “Shall we say five percent off the figure we discussed earlier – for the inconvenience I’ve caused you?”

  “That’s most generous.” She was aware of Miss Linton leaning forward in her chair to watch her as she wrote out the check and signed her name. From somewhere in the depths of the house came a scurrying sound. She looked up at Miss Linton, her face pale in the candlelight.

  “You’ve forgotte
n something,” said the older woman.

  Emily gave her a puzzled look.

  “The date,” said Miss Linton, smiling. “You’ve forgotten the date, my dear.”

  35

  O tried to remember the twists and turns they’d taken the day she went to the Linton house with Emily. But one street looked exactly like the next. The sun was setting, and lights were going on in the houses she passed. People were settling down after dinner, satisfied and sleepy at the end of a long day. The ghostly glow of TV screens flickered on the walls of rooms like cold fire.

  And here she was, hurrying along these winding streets in search of a house different in kind from all the others. But where was it? She struggled to pierce the shroud of panic that had settled over her, to recall some street name, some landmark, something.

  You’re being ridiculous, the sensible voice in her head told her. This story is pure fiction. She wished Rimbaud was here with her now. For all his strangeness – and he was truly the strangest person she’d ever met – he would understand why she had to find this house, why the sight of the sun scraping the tops of the trees woke such terror in her.

  If she didn’t find the house before the dark settled in, she would have little chance of finding it at all. But she mustn’t think like that, she told herself, as she hurried down yet another street. There was something familiar about this one – that house set back on the hill, the striped awnings over the windows.

  And then she saw it – the duct-taped taillight, the faded STOP THE WAR sticker on the bumper. She stopped dead, and then approached the car slowly, as if it might scurry off like Psycho if it saw her. She peered in the window. Backseat strewn with papers, statue of the Virgin stuck to the dashboard, ashtray once again pulled into service. This was Emily’s car, all right.

  She straightened and looked down the street. Emily wasn’t blind. She knew her car was – different. She would have parked it a little way from the Linton house and walked. Up ahead, a side street branched off. She ran up to it, and there it was – the little cul-de-sac she’d been searching for.

  From the opposite end, the Linton house looked back at her. It was a creepy enough old house in the daylight. Now, in the dying light, it looked downright forbidding. She moved cautiously along the street, approaching the place as she might a strange dog. The neighboring house on this side of the street had disappeared. A slack plastic fence had been thrown up around the property across from it. The house-eating monster was sitting in that yard now, its iron jaws gaping, its dull sleep filled with dreams of broken brick and plaster, splintered wood and glass.

  She stopped in front of the Linton house, suddenly full of doubt. The house looked empty. For a crazy moment, in the unsure light, she thought she saw boards in the upper windows, as if the building were deserted. Two large crows lifted off from a nearby tree in a sudden flurry of wings, making a slow circle in the sky. As they settled on the roof of the old house, the vision vanished, and she saw a dim light flickering in the turret room.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the gate and started up the walk. The ground felt uncertain under her, as if the pavement had heaved. She jumped as the gate slapped closed behind her.

  She brought the heavy brass knocker down twice against the door and heard it echo inside. She waited, then rapped on the door again. Bending down, she lifted the flap on the mail slot and peered in at the empty hall and the dim staircase winding off to the upper floors.

  Beside the porch, a bay window protruded from the front room of the house. She cupped her hands to the glass and looked in. Simultaneously, on the other side, a chalk-white face pressed against the glass and peered into her eyes. Gasping, she jumped back, then realized it was just her reflection. Hurrying off the porch, she headed down the driveway to the back of the house, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  The face in the window lingered a moment, looking out on the falling dark, then drifted from the glass and was swallowed up in the shadows of the room.

  “You’ve forgotten the date,” said Miss Linton.

  Suddenly Emily realized she had forgotten – forgotten it was August 8. Her pen was poised over the paper. She could feel the old woman’s eyes intent upon her. Thoughts raced helter-skelter through her mind. She could tear up the check, say she’d changed her mind, and leave the house immediately.

  And achieve what? Throw away her chance to reap the rewards of years of work? Let go of an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime? She looked down at the books on the table and the surrounding shelves, then over at Miss Linton – and signed the date.

  “Splendid. Then it’s all settled.”

  “I think I’ll pack up a few of these books now,” said Emily. “My car is just around the corner. If you’ll leave a key with me, I’ll come back with a van to collect the rest tomorrow.”

  Miss Linton nodded. She stood watching as Emily packed the books on the table into one of the cardboard boxes, and then lit the way with the candle as they proceeded cautiously down the steep stairs and along the dim hall. The box of books was much heavier than Emily had imagined. She strained to keep hold of it.

  The candle threw weird shadows on the wall as they descended the stairs to the ground floor. Halfway down, a sharp pain surged down Emily’s left arm. Another hit her squarely in the chest. As it knifed through her, she thought, This is it. This is the big one. She cried out.

  At the foot of the stairs, Lenora Linton slowly turned to face her. But, in the act of turning, she was transformed. It was as if her shadow had detached itself from the wall and taken on flesh. She grew and stretched. Her gray hair went dark as night. Her dress became a suit of black. And the face that swung to meet Emily’s terrified gaze belonged to the figure that had haunted her dreams.

  The magician smiled up at her. “How good of you to come. The show is about to begin.” There was no movement of his mouth, no exhalation of breath, but the words resounded inside her, as though they’d been whispered from the bottom of a well.

  Pain seared through her chest, more pain than she had ever felt. She gasped, and the box slipped from her hands. Her hands flew to her chest, her legs folded under her, and she felt herself tumbling like a rag doll down the stairs.

  36

  She fell endlessly – through space, through time. It was as though a bottomless pit had opened under her. And all the while, a soothing, insistent voice kept repeating in her head:

  There’s nothing to fear, my child. Nothing at all to fear.

  Suddenly, she was no longer falling, neither had she landed. Instead, she lay suspended in the air. Her eyes were sealed as if she were asleep, but she was not. She could hear every word the magician spoke.

  “And now, my friends, you can see that our volunteer has ascended from the platform and sleeps peacefully in the air. I will pass this hoop, like so, along the length of her body to prove there are no wires or other hidden devices holding her aloft. Nothing but magic holds her here.”

  A sound of excited applause echoed through the room.

  “And now our gracious sleeper will once again descend to earth. On the count of three, she will awaken – and remember nothing.”

  She felt herself drift slowly down and come to rest on solid ground.

  “One. Two. Three,” said the magician and lightly clapped his hands. She opened her eyes and found herself lying on a makeshift stage in a large darkened room. A magician stood beside her, smiling. His face was pale, his lips red as blood, his eyes deep and mesmerizing. She seemed to know him somehow. He extended his hand and helped her to her feet.

  Seated on the floor before the stage, their faces ghostly in the glow of the gaslight, a group of children clapped excitedly. They were dressed in the fashion of a century ago. She looked down at herself and saw that she was dressed in the same way, a child among children.

  Panic washed over her. But the magician laid his hand gently on her arm, and instantly it passed. “Take a bow, young lady,” he said.

  S
he looked around the darkened room, dazed and disoriented, as if she had been wrenched from a deep sleep. Yes, she remembered now, she had been dreaming, and in the dream she had been carrying something. It had been very heavy – her arms still ached with it – and somehow she had stumbled and fallen.

  But it had only been a dream. His hand resting on her arm was like her mother’s, comforting her when some night terror woke her from sleep.

  “The young lady may take her seat again,” said the magician. “And for her kind assistance, the professor will present her with a copy of his little book.”

  The book he handed her was achingly familiar. She stood looking down at it, knowing she had seen it at some other time, in some other place. She had the gnawing sense that some larger reality had slipped from her grasp.

  They seemed to be in a room in a house, a large circular room that had been made over for a magic show. In the shadows, beyond the feeble reach of the gas lamps, she could see furniture pushed back against the wall. Her eyes lingered on a set of high-backed, red-velvet armchairs, ranged against the wall beside a large fireplace. She had the feeling she’d been in this room before.

  “Well, then,” said the magician, “since it seems the young lady wishes to remain onstage, perhaps we can enlist her aid with the final attraction of the evening.” From the rear of the stage, he wheeled forward the large brazier of burning coals that had stood glowing in the shadows like a beating heart since the beginning of the show.

  “Fire,” he said as he passed his hand over the brazier. Flames leapt from the live coals. “Truly, it is one of life’s great mysteries. So beautiful to behold; so dangerous to touch. The ancients believed the salamander could survive even in the midst of fire. And now, with the aid of magic, we shall do the same.”

  He suddenly plunged his hands into the brazier as if it were a basin of cool water. A gasp went up from the crowd. He picked up a glowing coal and popped it in his mouth, like a piece of candy. Turning to the awestruck audience, he plucked an oyster from the air and placed it on the coal in his mouth. It sizzled there for a few seconds and the shell opened. He reached in and took it out, along with the coal.