by John Farris
Bovard grabbed his handkerchief and sneezed; the incense bothered him.
"I know you've been here almost two weeks, but at your age we can't take chances. Try to be patient, Alexandra."
She almost smiled again. He was young, earnest, impressed with himself. He knew so much, and so little. A living being was an assemblage, not a unity. One of the first things the masters had taught her. She could live within herself for weeks, perfectly content, her senses detached, scarcely in touch with the world. She had an enigma to think about. They were many known laws of nature and as many yet unknown. She had lived a long time, traveled in and out of the body. Answers would come. Perhaps they would be surprising. Alexandra doubted it. She had already sensed, in passing, the true nature of the young man, his sought-after identity.
Only one thing had to be decided, and as soon as possible.
Could anything be done about him?
Chapter 14
On the night of the twenty-second Tom and Barry decorated the family Christmas tree, a few days late this year because of Barry's preoccupation with John Doe. Dal had promised to be there and wasn't. Barry simmered with resentment but didn't express it; her father would only defend Dal.
By eight thirty the work was almost done. Decorating had taken almost four hours. The tree by the front windows in the family room was huge—nearly eight feet to the star on top—and their ornaments were antiques—handcrafted beauties, exceptionally fragile.
Earlier they had taken time off to watch both the CBS and NBC newscasts. The networks had run stories about the young man, with film clips from the press conference.
"I don't want you to get your hopes up," Tom said when they discussed the impact that the publicity might have. "I remember the big circus fire in forty-four, over in Hartford. There were seven thousand people in that tent when the fire started. A hundred sixty-eight people died. One of them was a little girl. She might have died of smoke inhalation or been trampled in the panic. Anyway, the body wasn't claimed. There were pictures of her in all the papers, even the newsreels. But not one person in the entire country came forward to identify her. To this day she's still unknown."
Barry scowled. "That's a terrible story. And it's Christmas, Dad."
They turned out the lights in the family room and admired the tree by firelight. A little after nine Barry heard a car in the drive; she went to the windows.
"Dal has somebody with him."
Dal came in reeking of wassail, eyes stewed to a pulp. He was singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." His companion was leggy, with Oriental eyes heavily made up and bold front teeth when she smiled. She wore coral-colored cowboy boots with silver and gold butterflies on them.
"Oh, your tree looks terrific!" the girl said.
"Dad, Barry, this is, uh, JoJo."
"Hi!"
Dal wrapped an arm around his sister. "Barry, let's go to a party. There's this party we're all going to."
Barry sidestepped him. "No, thanks. Wish I could."
Dal helped himself to Bushmill's from the drink cabinet. His hands shook. His eyes swarmed. JoJo stood with hands clasped at her waist gazing up at some of the ornaments on the tree.
"These are precious."
Dal squinted at his father through amber and crystal."Having one, Dad?"
"Just finished mine—you go ahead." Tom took his pipe out and glanced at Barry, who had her chin up and was staring at a blank space on one wall, perhaps wondering if Dal's head, suitably mounted, would fit there. Dal swung around to her exuberantly.
"Come on, Barry—you need a little fun in your life. You're so uptight these days I don't recognize you."
"Is that a fact?"
"I can get you a real cute date," JoJo said.
Barry shrugged; her smile was closer to a wince.
"I need to wash my hair. Then I thought I'd go back to the hospital for a little while."
Dal tried to embrace her again. "Barry, I am here to save you from yourself. We're all going out and having a good time, and that's the last word on the subject."
"You're fine the way you are," JoJo assured Barry.
"Dal, I'm just not in the mood." Dal stood back appraisingly and raised his glass to his lips. Barry said softly, "I don't think I could catch up to you anyway."
Dal belched unbecomingly. JoJo looked concerned rather than offended. Dal's complexion was blotchy, and he hadn't shaved well that morning. Barry wondered how long it would be before he fell on his face and stayed that way for the next forty-eight hours. Merry merry Christmas.
"You'd rather go sit and talk to John Doe? That's the next worst thing to talking to pigeons in the park. Turning yourself into a little old bag lady."
"Dal—"
He ignored the warning tone, giving her a big savage grin. "Heard you, uh, had to grab hold of his peepee and point it in the right direction to teach him to—"
Barry turned and nailed him with a straight jab, knocking his glasses askew. The drink in his hand went flying. JoJo gasped. Dal staggered but didn't fall. Tom caught him. Blood and snot dripped from Dal's left nostril.
"Of all the stupid, cruel, vicious things to say!" Barry raged.
"Oh, he's bleeding!"
Barry rounded on JoJo. "Listen, you. When Brennans fight it's Brennan business. Why don't you go outside and slip on the ice?"
"That'll be just about enough out of you, Barry!" Tom wasn't particularly upset by the shot she had taken at Dal, feeling that it was well deserved, but he hadn't brought her up to be rude to guests. Barry turned instantly to JoJo.
"I'm sorry," she muttered, her lips white.
Dal took his bent glasses off and daubed his nose with a handkerchief. He glared at his sister.
"You're obsessed with that guy. Come on, JoJo, let's get out of here."
Holding the handkerchief to his nose, he sullenly escorted his date from the house. Barry twisted away from her father.
"Okay, okay, I know! I made an ass of myself."
"Don't tell me."
She nodded, close to tears. She ran to the foyer and opened the door Dal had slammed, calling him.
"Dal!''
He turned from helping JoJo into the Mercedes. Barry ran outside and sprawled into his arms, sobbing.
"I don't know what's wrong . . . I'm jumping on everybody . . . I'm sorry . . ."
"Barry, I just don't like what's happening to you. Why're you so on edge—what's this guy doing to you?"
"Nothing! It's just—Christmas, and he doesn't know who he is. Dal, I apologized. Give me a break."
She touched his nose cautiously. It was swollen and blue. He smiled wryly.
"Oh, God, I really hurt you!"
"I'll live."
"Still invited?" Barry asked meekly, and gave JoJo a shy glance.
"Sure you are," Dal said. "Grab your coat."
Barry flew back into the house, looked at her face in the powder room mirror, made emergency repairs, and took a ski vest from the foyer closet.
"Barry?" Tom said from the doorway. "You drive."
With his glasses needing repair Dal couldn't see anyway. He crouched in the back of the coupe, giving directions to the party. Barry made a determined effort to be chatty with JoJo, who had been born in Manila and worked as a bilingual secretary for an import-export firm in Manhattan. By the time they reached Pound Ridge Barry had convinced herself she was out to have a hell of a good time.
The house on Butternut Lane was a country estate, an old Colonial with a broad flagged terrace in back that overlooked a covered swimming pool and several miles of forested valley. The party room was crowded, stifling, weed-infested. She had a couple of Scotches right away, then met a boy named Egon who was a foreign student at Yale, from Hungary or someplace, very good-looking and with a wonderful opinion of himself. He wasn't that hard to take, and he wanted to jump her bones ten minutes after they met. It was fun to relax a little and let the flattery roll over her, but casual sex wasn't on her agenda. As soon as she had him convince
d of that, Egon excused himself politely and went beaver shooting elsewhere. Barry had a fourth Scotch, then took a hit on Dal's reefer when she located him propped up in a corner with a death grip on JoJo. His eyes were crossing and his knees were all but gone—it was just a matter of time for Dal. His nose was still swollen and looked like it hurt—she felt lousy about it. The heavy-metal music was anti-holiday and ultimately depressing. Eventually Barry went outside on the terrace.
She'd been drinking since she was fourteen and had a curious capacity. There were times when a glass of mild white wine was enough to knock her over. At other times, in a more complex mood, she could absorb up to half a bottle of Scotch, if she took it wisely and didn't bolt it down, and never feel a thing. Right now she was sharply, perhaps disappointingly sober, but with a stuffed-up head.
A full moon over frozen hills was echoed by the white round globes of a lighting fixture attached to one corner of the house. Barry stayed in the lee of the house, out of a knifing wind, exhaling plumes of vapor. How do I find thee tonight, my charmer? Hash Old Bedlam broke bosh about our headsh?
Mrs. Prye's voice startled her. It was raucous, the words slurred, as if she had failed to put her teeth in before making a hasty appearance. Barry looked up, at one of the round globes. The medium's head was lolling, her wig ridiculously askew. Barry was struck by another notion—one that made her smile incredulously. "Don't I get any time off for good behavior?" she asked in mock despair.
But thou hash not been good! That ish something we both know—and only I understand.
"Mrs. Prye, you're drunk," Barry remonstrated.
The medium giggled, delighted with her debauchery. "Don't you think you should go sober up?"
Firstly, I would tell newsh of your departed mother mosht gratifying newsh to be sure. She is a princesh now, of the Daoine Sidh, the Magic People.
Barry's lips felt numb from the cold; she shuddered. "I know that. From the day she left us, I knew where mother must have gone."
She ish more beautiful than the tearsh of God. But her own eyes are brazen from weeping, lamenting the foolishness of her daughter.
"What do you mean? I haven't done anything!"
I'll warrant you've already done more than the mind of man can comprehend. But before foolish becomesh wicked, you have the power to stop. Do not trifle too long.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Barry said hostilely.
I have a prophecy for you, my poor sulky. You enjoy my prophecies, don't you?
"You're getting to be a bore, Mrs. Prye."
This time the medium's voice was clearer; her eyes regarded Barry unwinkingly despite the fact that her image had begun to evanesce at the edges.
The eye must lie
The heart deceive
Until in the month of Midsummer's Eve
The truth pours out
In a rain of blood:
What thought has engender'd
Need never surrender.
It was some time before Barry was aware that a sliding glass door had opened behind her. She had a crick in her neck from looking up. She saw JoJo standing a few feet away. The wind tore through the arborvitae at the edge of the veranda, and the tall trees made slashing shadows on the expanse of blank wall between the girls.
"Somebody said you came out here," JoJo explained, clasping her hands bowl-like at the belt line as if she were begging alms. "Dal passed out and I don't know what to do with him."
"Time he went home," Barry said, her voice hoarse. JoJo looked around, big-eyed. "Who were you talking to? I don't see anybody."
"Well, there was somebody," Barry said furiously. "I don't talk to myself."
Chapter 15
Inquiries regarding John Doe began the evening of the twenty-second after the newsbreak on television; by the day after Christmas the hospital's telephone lines were overburdened. In five days they logged more than six hundred calls, many of them collect.
A young woman who spoke in a hushed voice said that she was phoning from Balmer's Gap, North Carolina, and identified herself as the recording secretary for the Fellowship of the Supernal Ark. John Doe, she said, was really Ra-Mel, a member of their commune. It was very important that he be returned to Balmer's Gap at once. Main Sequence had been initiated, and Ra-Mel's group was due to depart New Year's Eve for a planetary system deep in a remote asterism of the Milky Way.
A wealthy woman who did not discuss kinship offered to pay his medical bills, but she wanted, him removed without delay to a wing of her mansion in Palm Beach, no questions asked.
An elderly irate gentleman claimed to have been mugged by John Doe in the vicinity of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago three months ago, and he said he was notifying the FBI.
A paraplegic teenager in Bemidji, Minnesota, wanted to start a John Doe fan club.
Maisie de Hart, a professional mud wrestler in Manhattan Beach, California, admitted that she couldn't vouch for his present identity, but maintained that in a past life in Marblehead, Massachusetts, she and John Doe had been pilloried by the community for adultery.
Several parties informed hospital authorities that they were organizing prayer vigils to facilitate the speedy return of his memory. John Doe received a kind message from a member of the Belgian royal family who had also been briefly amnesiac in her youth. Representatives of three talk show hosts inquired about his availability.
Journalistic freebooters of all kinds were thick as thieves around the hospital; Barry took to arriving in borrowed cars, wearing disguises. Security guards were permanently assigned to the second floor.
What looked like a real break occurred on the morning after Christmas, when Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Umber arrived, dead tired after driving straight through from their farm in western Iowa.
Wallace was wearing a tight, wrinkled, out-of-style suit that fitted him like a pair of longjohns, and a florid tie with a knot the size of his fist. His wife, Cis, clutched a summer straw purse filled with photos of Wally junior, who had disappeared from their home a little over two years ago at the age of seventeen.
The boy in the photos was uncannily like John Doe. Jacobs, the hospital administrator, spent almost an hour talking to them, gradually delving into young Wally's medical and dental history. He had had measles and mumps, was vaccinated like every other preschool child in the state of Iowa, and had suffered a badly broken ankle when he was eleven. His teeth were far from perfect. Jacobs regretfully had to deny them the opportunity to see John Doe, who owned flawless teeth and had no vaccination mark on his left arm. The Umbers were brokenhearted and bitter.
"We'll take him!" Cis cried. "We'll take him anyway if nobody wants him!"
On the second floor Alexandra Chatellaine manipulated her body temperature according to whim, distressing her physician. She used the time she gained before discharge to strike up a friendship with Barry, observed John Doe closely, and meditated. Barry was fascinated by Alexandra's colorful pilgrim's life and her knowledge of the mysticism of Tibet. She confessed to the lama a lifelong interest in faerie, the lore of the supernatural and inexplicable that her mother had passed on to her.
Faeries, Alexandra told her, also played an important role in Lamaism They were called, in Sanskirt, dâkini, had a motherly air about them, and functioned as teachers of secret, ancient doctrines. They, often appeared in the shape of aged women, but with a signal distinction: they had bright red or green eyes.
"Like mine," Alexandra said with a conspiratorial wink and a smile.
At the hospital Barry had run into Blighty Mouse, who functioned on several good-works committees. Blighty urged the girl to find the time to put on a shadow show for those unfortunate kids stuck in the pediatrics wing over the holidays. They'd had Santa Claus and carolers and now they were bored silly, with nothing to look forward to.
Barry brought from home her slide projector, a cassette recorder, and a bag of props, and invited Alexandra to sneak away to pediatrics to see the show.
She hung
a makeshift curtain in the lounge of the children's wing, focused her projector to throw a beam of light on a blank wall, and darkened the room as much as she could. The beam shone through a gap in the blankets she was using for the curtain. A dozen kids from four to twelve years of age walked or were wheeled in. Barry sat behind the curtain and just to the left of her projector, where she could place her hands in front of the light. Alexandra took a seat by the door. The nurses who had seen one of Barry's shows before also took time to be on hand; some came from other floors of the hospital.
Barry turned on the recorder. It played wistful Irish airs as she narrated her, story, at first making shadow images adroitly with her fingers and hands and such props as paper cutouts, feathers, and twigs.
"This is a legend my mother told me, when I was eight or nine. I've never forgotten. Do any of you know where faeries live?"
A boy wearing a hip cast mumbled an answer. "Could you repeat that? I don't think we all heard."In the woods."
"That's right; most of them do, although some live on islands in the sea or even under the sea. But the faerie troop I'm going to tell you about lived deep in the woods inside an enchanted hill on top of which thorn trees grew. Now, in Ireland, most country people know that a hill crowned with thorns is a sure sign of faerie kingdom. And if they're wise they avoid such places, especially at night when the faeries are having their revels. . . ."
"What's that?" a girl asked, and giggled. They were all intently watching the hill and high thorn tree Barry had made for them on the wall.
"Oh, it's like a party, or a picnic, where there's lots of music and dancing. Faeries love to have a good time Leprechauns too."
The hill vanished and, almost instantly, a slouchbellied, big-eared leprechaun, wearing a pointed cap with a feather in it, appeared on the wall.
"And sometimes they invite ordinary people like you and me to their revels. But that can be dangerous. Do you know why?" Barry paused; no one had an opinion. "Because the faeries will cast a spell on a human, if he's not careful. And then he must dance with them until he falls down dead, or turns into a very old man."