The Anything Box Part 9

"Why sure," said Ma. "She sh.e.l.ls peas real good when I get her started."

"Yeah." I felt my spine crinkle, remembering once when I was little. I saton the porch and pa.s.sed the peapods to Aunt Daid. I was remembering how, afterI ran out of peas, her withered old hands had kept reaching and taking and sh.e.l.ling and throwing away with nothing but emptiness in them.

"And she tears rug rags good. And she can pull weeds if nothing else isgrowing where they are."

"Why-" I started-and stopped.

"Why do we keep her?" asked Ma. "She doesn't die. She's alive. What shouldwe do? She's no trouble. Not much, anyway."

"Put her in a home somewhere," I suggested.

"She's in a home now," said Ma, spooning up for Aunt Daid. And we don't have to put out cash for her and no telling what'd happen to her."

"What is this walking business anyway? Walking where?"

"Down hollow," said Pa, cutting a quarter of a cherry pie. "Down to theoak-" he drew a deep breath and let it out- "and back again."

"Why down there?" I asked. "Hollow's full of weeds and mosquitoes. Besidesit's-it's-"

"Spooky," said Ma, smiling at me.

"Well, yes, spooky," I said. "There's always a quiet down there when thewind's blowing everywhere else, or else a wind when everything's still. Whydown there?"

"There's where she wants to walk," said Pa. "You walk her down there."

"Well." I stood up, "Let's get it over with. Come on, Aunt Daid."

"She ain't ready yet," said Ma. "She won't go till she's ready."

"Well, Pa, why can't you walk her then?" I asked. "You did it once-"

"Once is enough," said Pa, his face shut and still. "It's your job thistime. You be here when you're needed. It's a family duty. Them fish willwait."

"Okay, okay," I said. "But at least tell me what the deal is. It soundslike a lot of hogwash to me."

There wasn't much to tell. Aunt Daid was a family heirloom, like, but Panever heard exactly who she was to the family. She had always been likethis-just as old and so dried up she wasn't even repulsive. I guess it's onlywhen there's enough juice for rotting that a body is repulsive and Aunt Daidwas years and years past that. That must be why the sight of her wet tonguejarred me.

Seems like once in every twenty-thirty years, Aunt Daid gets an awfulcraving to go walking. And always someone has to go with her. A man. She won'tgo with a woman. And the man comes back changed.

"You can't help being changed," said Pa, "when your eyes look on thingsyour mind can't-" Pa swallowed.

"Only time there was any real trouble with Aunt Daid," said Pa, "was whenthe family came west. That was back in your great-great-grampa's time. Theyleft the old place and came out here in covered wagons and Aunt Daid didn'teven notice until time for her to walk again. Then she got violent.Great-grampa tried to walk her down the road, but she dragged him all over theplace, coursing like a hunting dog that's lost the trail only with her eyesblind-like, all through the dark. Great-grampa finally brought her back almostat sunrise. He was pert nigh a broken man, what with cuts and bruises andscratches -and walking Aunt Daid. She'd finally settled on down hollow."

"What does she walk for?" I asked. "What goes on?" "You'll see, son," saidPa. "Words wouldn't tell anything, but you'll see."

That evening Aunt Daid covered her face again with her hands. Later shestood up by herself, teetering by her chair a minute, one withered old handpawing at the air, till Ma, with a look at Pa, set her down again.

All next day Aunt Daid was quiet, but come evening she got restless. Shewent to the door three or four times, just waiting there like a puppy askingto go out, but after my heart had started pounding and I had hurried to herand opened the door, she just waved her face blindly at the darkness outsideand went back to her chair.

Next night was the same until along about ten o'clock, just as Ma wasthinking of putting Aunt Daid to bed. First thing we knew, Aunt Daid was by the door again, her feet tramping up and down impatiently, her dry hands whispering over the door.

"It's time," said Pa quiet-like, and I got all cold inside.

"But it's blacker'n pitch tonight," I protested. "It's as dark as theinside of a cat. No moon."

Aunt Daid whimpered. I nearly dropped. It was the first sound I'd everheard from her.

"It's time," said Pa again, his face bleak. "Walk her, son. And, Paul-bringher back."

"Down hollow's bad enough by day," I said, watching, half sick, as AuntDaid spread her skinny arms out against the door, her face pushed up against.i.t hard, her saggy black dress looking like spilled ink dripped down, "but ona moonless night-"

"Walk her somewhere else, then," said Pa, his voice getting thin. "If youcan. But get going, son, and don't come back without her."

And I was outside, feeling the s.h.i.+fting of Aunt Daid's hand bones inside myhand as she set off through the dark, dragging me along with her, scared halfto death, wondering if the rustling I heard was her skin or her clothes,wondering on the edge of screaming where she was dragging me to-what she wasdragging me to.

I tried to head her off from down hollow, steering her toward the lane orthe road or across lots or out into the pasture, but it was like being a dogon a leash. I went my way the length of our two arms, then I went her way.Finally I gave up and let her drag me, my eyes opened to aching, trying to seein the dark so heavy that only a less dark showed where the sky was. Therewasn't a sound except the thud of our feet in the dust and a thin straininghiss that was Aunt Daid's breath and a gulping gasp that was mine. I'd'vecried if I hadn't been so scared.

Aunt Daid stopped so quick that I plowed into her, breathing in a suddenpuff of a smell like a stack of old newspapers that have been a long time in adusty shed. And there we stood, so close I could touch her but I couldn't evensee a glimmer of her face in the darkness that was so thick it seemed like thewhole night had poured itself down into the hollow. But between one blink andanother, I could see Aunt Daid. Not because there was any more light, butbecause my eyes seemed to get more seeing to them.

She was yawning-a soft little yawn that she covered with a quick hand-andthen she laughed. My throat squeezed my breath. The yawn and the hand movementand the laugh were all young and graceful and-and beautiful-but the hand andthe face were still withered-up old Aunt Daid.

"I'm waking up." The voice sent s.h.i.+vers up me-pleasure s.h.i.+vers. "I'm wakingup," said Aunt Daid again, her soft, light voice surprised and delighted. "AndI know I'm waking up!"

She held her hands up and looked at them. "They look so horribly real," shemarveled. "Don't they?"

She held them out to me and in my surprise I croaked, "Yeah, they sure do."

At the sound of my voice, she jerked all over and got s.h.i.+mmery all aroundthe edges.

"He said," she whispered, her lips firming and coloring as she talked, "hesaid if ever I could know in my dream that I was just dreaming, I'd be on theway to a cure. I know this is the same recurrent nightmare. I know I'm asleep,but I'm talking to one of the creatures-" she looked at me a minute "-one ofthe people in my dream. And he's talking to me-for the first time!"

Aunt Daid was changing. Her face was filling out and her eyes widening, herbody was straining at the old black dress that wasn't saggy any more. Before Icould draw a breath, the old dress rustled to the ground and Aunt Daid-I meanshe was standing there, light rippling around her like silk-a light that castno shadows nor even flickered on the tangled growth in the hollow.

It seemed to me that I could see into that light, farther than any humaneyes ought to see, and all at once the world that had always been absolutebedrock to me became a s.h.i.+mmering edge of something, a path between places or a brief stopping place. And the wonder that was the existence of mankindwasn't unique any more.

"Oh, if only I am cured!" she cried. "If only I don't ever have to gothrough this nightmare again!" She lifted her arms and drew herself up into aslim growing exclamation point.

"For the first time I really know I'm dreaming," she said. "And I know thisisn't real!" Her feet danced across the hollow and she took both my numbhands. "You aren't real, are you?" she asked. "None of this is, is it? Allthis ugly, old, dragging-" She put her arms around me and hugged me tight.

My hands tingled to the icy fire of her back and my breath was tangled inthe heavy silvery gleam of her hair.

"Bless you for being unreal!" she said. "And may I never dream you again!"

And there I was, all alone in the dark hollow, staring at hands I couldn'tsee, trying to see the ice and fire that still tingled on my fingertips. Itook a deep shuddery breath and stopped to grope for Aunt Daid's dress thatcaught at my feet. Fear melted my knees and they wouldn't straighten up again.I could feel terror knocking at my brain and I knew as soon as it could breakthrough I'd go screaming up the hollow like a crazy man, squeezing the blackdress like a rattlesnake in my hands. But I heard Pa saying, "Bring her back,"and I thought, "All my grampas saw it, too. All of them brought her back. It'shappened before." And I crouched there, squinching my eyes tight shut, holdingmy breath, my fingers digging into my palms, clutching the dress.

It might have been a minute, it might have been an hour, or a lifetimebefore the dress stirred in my hands. My knees jerked me upright and I droppedthe dress like a live coal.

She was there again, her eyes dreaming-shut, her hair swinging like thestart of music, her face like every tender thing a heart could ever know. Thenher eyes opened slowly and she looked around her.

"Oh, no!" she cried, the back of her hand m.u.f.fling her words. "Not again!Not after all this time! I thought I was over it!"

And I had her crying in my arms-all that wonderfulness against me. All thatsoftness and sorrow.

But she pulled away and looked up at me. "Well, I'll say it again so Iwon't forget it," she said, her tears slipping from her face and glitteringdown through the dark. "And this time it'll work. This is only a dream. My ownspecial nightmare. This will surely be the last one. I have just this onenight to live through and never again, never again. You are my dream-this isall a dream-" Her hands touched the wrinkles that started across her forehead. The old black dress was creeping like a devouring snake up her and her fleshwas sagging away before it as it crept. Her hair was dwindling and tarnis.h.i.+ngout of its silvery s.h.i.+ning, her eyes shrinking and blanking out.

"No, no!" I cried, sick to the marrow to see Aunt Daid coming back over allthat wonder. I rubbed my hand over her face to erase the lines that werecracking across it, but the skin under my fingers stiffened and crumpled andstiffened and hardened, and before I could wipe the feel of dried oldness fromthe palm of my hand, all of Aunt Daid was there and the hollow was fading asmy eyes lost their seeing.

I felt the drag and snag of weeds and briars as I brought Aunt Daid back-asobbing Aunt Daid, tottering and weak. I finally had to carry her, allmatch-sticky and musty in my arms.

As I struggled up out of the hollow that was stirring behind me in a windthat left the rest of the world silent, I heard singing in my head, Life isbut a dream . . . Life is but a dream. But before I stumbled blindly into theblare of light from the kitchen door, I shook the sobbing bundle of bones inmy arms-the withered coc.o.o.n, the wrinkled seed of such a flowering-andwhispered, "Wake up, Aunt Daid! Wake up, you!"

The Subst.i.tute

"But I tell you, Mr. Bennett, he's disrupting my whole room! We've got to dosomething!" Miss Amberly's thin, cla.s.sroom-grimed fingers brushed back thestrand of soft brown hair that habitually escaped from her otherwise neatlydisciplined waves.

Mr. Bennett, twiddling a pencil between his fingers, wondered, as hesometimes did at ten-after-four of a weekday, if being a princ.i.p.al was a signof achievement or of softening of the brain, and quite irrelevantly, how MissAmberly would look with all of her hair softly loose around her face.

"What has he done now, Miss Amberly? I mean other than just be himself?"

Miss Amberly flushed and crossed her ankles, her feet pushed back under thechair. "I know I'm always bothering you about him, but Mr. Bennett, he's thefirst student in all my teaching career that I haven't been able to reach. Iheard about him from the other teachers as he came up through the grades, butI thought . . . Well, a child can get a reputation, and if each teacherexpects it of him, he can live up to it good or bad. When you put him in mycla.s.s this fall, I was quite confident that I'd be able to get through tohim-somehow." She flushed again. "I don't mean to sound conceited."

"I know," Mr. Bennett pried the eraser out of the pencil and tried to pus.h.i.+t back in. "I've always depended on you to help straighten out problemchildren. In fact I won't deny that I've deliberately given you more than yourshare, because you do have a knack with them. That's why I thought that Keeley. . ." He tapped the pencil against his lower lip and then absently tried towiden the metal eraser band with his teeth. The metal split and bruisedagainst his upper lip. He rubbed a thumb across his mouth and put the pencildown.

"So the new desk didn't work?"

"You ought to see it! It's worse than the old one-ink marks, gum, wax, oldwire!" Miss Amberly's voice was hot with indignation. "He has no pride toappeal to. Besides that, the child isn't normal, Mr. Bennett. We shouldn'thave him in cla.s.s with the others!"

"Hasn't he been doing any work at all?" Bennett's quiet voice broke in.

"Practically none. Here. I brought today's papers to show you. Hisspelling. I gave him fourth grade words since he barely reads on that leveland would be lost completely on seventh grade words. Look, beecuss. That'sbecause, liby. That's library. Well, just look at it!"

Bennett took the dirty, tattered piece of paper and tried to decipher thewords. "Pretty poor showing," he murmured. "What's this on the bottom. Vector,Mare Imbrium, velocity. Hm, fourth grade spelling?"

"Of course not!" said Miss Amberly, exasperation sharpening her voice."That's what makes me so blistering mad. He can't spell cat twice the sameway, but he can spend all spelling period writing down nonsense like that. Itproves he's got something behind that empty look on his face. And that makesme madder. Stupidity I can make allowances for, but a child who can andwon't-!"

The slam of a door down the emptying hall was an echoing period to heroutburst.

"Well!" Bennett slid down in his chair and locked his fingers around onebent knee. "So you think he really has brains? Mrs. Ensign a.s.sured me lastyear that he was a low-grade moron, incapable of learning."

"Look." Miss Amberly pushed another crumpled exhibit across the desk. "Hisarithmetic. Fifth grade problems. Two and two is two. Every subtractionproblem added-wrong. Every division problem with stars for answers. But lookhere. Multiplication with three numbers top and bottom. All the answers therewithout benefit of intermediate steps-and every one of them right!"

"Co-operation?" Bennett's eyebrows lifted.

"No. Positively not. I stood and watched him do them. Watched him make amess of the others and when he got to the multiplication, he grinned that engaging grin he has occasionally and wrote out the answers as fast as hecould read the problems. Tomorrow he won't be able to multiply three and oneand get a right answer! He skipped the fractions. Just sat and doodled thesefunny eights lying on their sides and all these quadratic equation-lookingthings that have no sense."

"Odd," said Bennett. Then he laid the papers aside. "But was it somethingbesides his school work today? Is he getting out of hand disciplinewiseagain?"

"Of course, he's always a bad influence on the other children," said MissAmberly. "He won't work and I can't keep him in every recess and every lunchhour. He might be able to take it, but I can't. Anyway, lately he's begun tobe quite impudent. That isn't the problem either. I don't think he realizeshow impudent he sounds. But this afternoon he-well, I thought he was going tohit me." Miss Amberly s.h.i.+vered in recollection, clasping her hands.

"Hit you?" Bennett jerked upright, the chair complaining loudly. "Hit you?"

"I thought so," she nodded, twisting her hands. "And I'm afraid the otherchildren-"

"What happened?"

"Well, you remember, we just gave him that brand new desk last week, hopingthat it would give him a feeling of importance and foster some sort of pridein him to make him want to keep it clean and unmarred. I was frankly verydisappointed in his reaction-and almost scared. I didn't tell you when ithappened." The faint flush returned to her thin face. "I-I-the others think Irun to you too much and . . ." Her voice fluttered and died.

"Not at all," he rea.s.sured her, taking up the pencil again and eying itintently as he rolled it between his fingers. "A good administrator must keepin close touch with his teachers. Go on."

"Oh, yes. Well, when he walked in and saw his new desk, he ran over to itand groped down the side of it, then he said, 'Where is it?' and whirled on melike a wildcat. 'Where's my desk?'

"I told him this was to be his desk now. That the old one was too messy. Heacted as if he didn't even hear me.

" 'Where's all my stuff?' and he was actually shaking, with his eyesblazing at me. I told him we had put his books and things in the desk. Heyanked the drawer clear out onto the floor and pawed through the books. Thenhe must have found something because he relaxed all at once. He put whateverit was in his pocket and put the drawer back in the desk. I asked him how heliked it and he said 'Okay' with his face as empty..."

Miss Amberly tucked her hair back again.

"It didn't do any good-giving him a new desk, I mean. You should see itnow."

"What's this about his trying to hit you this afternoon?"

"He didn't really try to," said Miss Amberly. "But he did act like he wasgoing to. Anyway, he raised his fist and-well, the children thought he wasgoing to. They were shocked. So it must have been obvious.

"He was putting the English work books on my desk, so I could grade today's.e.xercise. I was getting the art supplies from the cupboard just in back of hisdesk. It just made me sick to see how he's marked it all up with ink and stuckgum and stuff on it I noticed some of the ink was still wet, so I wiped it offwith a Kleenex. And the first thing I knew, he was standing over me-he's sotall!" She s.h.i.+vered. "And he had his fist lifted up. 'Leave it alone!' heshouted at me. 'You messed it up good once already. Leave it alone, can'tyou!"

"I just looked at him and said, 'Keeley!' and he sat down, still muttering.

"Mr. Bennett, he looked crazy when he came at me. And he's so big now. I'mafraid for the other children. If he ever hurt one of them-" She pressed aKleenex to her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said brokenly. And two tears slidfurtively down from her closed eyes.

"Now, now," muttered Bennett, terribly embarra.s.sed, hoping no one would come in, and quite irrelevantly, wondering how it would seem to lift MissAmberly's chin and wipe her tears away himself.

"I'm afraid there isn't much we can do about Keeley," he said, looking outthe window at the ragged vine that swayed in the wind. "By law he has to be inschool until he is sixteen. Until he actually does something criminal ornearly so, the juvenile division can't take a hand.

"You know his background, of course, living in a cardboard shack downbetween Tent Town and the dump, with that withered old-is it aunt orgrandmother?"

"I don't know," Miss Amberly's voice was very crisp and decisive tocontradict her late emotion. "Keeley doesn't seem to know either. He calls herAunt sometimes, but I doubt if they're even related. People down there thinkshe's a witch. The time we tried to get some of them to testify that he was aneglected child and should become a ward of the court, not a one would say aword against her. She has them all terrified. After all, what would she do ifhe were taken away from her? She's past cotton picking age. Keeley can do thatmuch and he actually supports her along with his ADC check from the Welfare.We did manage to get that for him."

"So-what can't be cured must be endured." Bennett felt a Friday yawn comingon and stood up briskly. "This desk business. Let's go see it. I'm curiousabout what makes him mark it all up. He hasn't done any carving on it, hashe?"

"No," said Miss Amberly, leading the way out of the office. "No. All heseems to do is draw ink lines all over it, and stick blobs of stuff around. Itseems almost to be a fetish or a compulsion of some kind. It's only developedover the last two or three years. It isn't that he likes art. He doesn't likeanything."

"Isn't there a subject he's responded to at all? If we could get a wedge inanywhere . . ." said Bennett as they rounded the deserted corner of thebuilding.