Black Wings Part 11

David J. Schow

David J. Schow began publis.h.i.+ng short stories in RodSerling's The Twilight Zone magazine in the 1980s. His firstnovel, The Kill Riff The Kill Riff (Tor), appeared in 1988. (Tor), appeared in 1988. In 1990 he published three books: the novel In 1990 he published three books: the novel The Shaft The Shaft (Macdonald) andthe story collections (Macdonald) andthe story collections Seeing Red Seeing Red (Tor) and (Tor) and Lost Angels Lost Angels (NewAmerican Library/Onyx). He has gone on to publish severalfurther collections- (NewAmerican Library/Onyx). He has gone on to publish severalfurther collections-Black Leather Required (Ziesing, 1994), (Ziesing, 1994),Crypt Orchids (Subterranean Press, 1998), (Subterranean Press, 1998), Eye Eye (Subterranean Press, 2001), (Subterranean Press, 2001), Zombie Jam Zombie Jam (Subterranean Press, 2005),and (Subterranean Press, 2005),and Havoc Swims Jaded Havoc Swims Jaded (Subterranean Press, 2006), and thenovels (Subterranean Press, 2006), and thenovels Bullets of Rain Bullets of Rain (Morrow, 2003), and (Morrow, 2003), and Rock BreaksScissors Cut Rock BreaksScissors Cut (Subterranean Press, 2003). Schow is also the author of (Subterranean Press, 2003). Schow is also the author of The Outer Limits Companion The Outer Limits Companion (Ace, 1986; rev. ed.GNP Crescendo Records, 1999) and the editor of the anthology (Ace, 1986; rev. ed.GNP Crescendo Records, 1999) and the editor of the anthologySilver Scream (Dark Harvest, 1988). (Dark Harvest, 1988).

*ou will forgive me if my recollections of Denker seem fragmented. I do know that his n.o.bel Prize was rescinded; that seemed unfair to me, but at the same time I understand the thinking behind it, the dull necessity of the counter-arguments, all the disparate points of view that had to swim together into a public accord in an attempt to salve the outrage.

It used to be held as common superst.i.tion that if you paint an interior door in your home with a certain kind of paint, the door might open into another time. The paint was lead-based and longprohibited. In 1934, there were doors like this all over the place. The doors generally had to be facing south. People have forgotten this now.

Chinese horticulturalists discovered that dead pets, buried in a specific pattern around the entryways to houses and gardens, not only seemed to restrict access by spirits, but lengthen daylight by as much as half an hour. Type of animal, number of burials, interment pattern, and even the s.e.xual history of the pet owner all seemed to have modulating effects.

I cite these stories as examples among thousands-the kind of revelations that seem to defy not only physical laws thought to be immutable, but logic itself.

Nevertheless, they took Langford Meyer Denker's n.o.bel Prize away from him. They-the big, faceless "they" responsible for everything-probably should not have. Denker made the discovery and fathered the breakthrough. "They" claimed Denker cheated; that is, he did not play by strict rules of science. But there are no such things as rules in science; merely observations that are regularly displaced by new, more consolidated observations.

Some said that the dimensional warp door Denker created was real, that it worked. Others held that it was a flashy deception; sleight-of-hand rather than science. Still others maintained that Denker's demonstration was inconclusive. By the time the furor settled, all of them said Denker had cheated. Denker had used the book.

Denker's machine was a gigantic, Gothic clockwork; an Expressionist maze of gears, liquid reservoirs, lasers, and lenses. Lathed bra.s.s bins held clumps of humid earth. Common stones were vised by hydraulics in that peculiar way you can squeeze an egg between your palms with all your might and not break it. Particle-emitters were gloved in ancient lead. Imagine a medieval clepsydra wirelessly married to countless yottabytes of computing power and stage-managed by a designer who had been seduced by every mad scientist movie ever made. The containment chamber was made of pitted bronze shot through with rods of chemically pure gla.s.s; it weighed several tons and was completely non-aerodynamic, yet Denker claimed that once the whole package was transposed into a realm where earthly physics were irrelevant its properties recombined according to perverse rules to render the device as safe as a pressurized bathysphere or commercial s.p.a.ce capsule.

Of course the earliest naysayers called him mad.

I remind you at this point in the story that without a totally arbitrary baseline of normalcy, "insanity" is not possible. (It has been said that normalcy is the majority's form of lunacy, which I suppose explains Christianity.) Colors can drive people mad. It follows that there are spectra yet unknown to us, flavors and timbres that might catalyze our air, our light, in new and unpredictable ways. "Sounds that were not wholly sounds"-that sort of thing. The scientific community's rebuke of Denker was a denial of the most commonplace protocols of experimentation, but by that time the point was to demonize the man, not disprove the theory.

A portal to another universe different from our own perceived reality? Something that functioned so far out there that what we thought of as our physical laws seemed irrelevant? Fine.

A glimpse into the unutterable? Also fine.

But Denker had used the book. Not fine.

I ask you to stop right now and consider the purpose of a book that was never intended to be read. never intended to be read. What is the point? What is the point?

Consider this: You take an ordinary bible, which credits supernatural forces for all the bloodshed and horror in the world. They still make people swear on this book in courts of law; its symbolism has become part of ritual.

Denker's book was no mere opposite pole or gainsaying counter-dogma, although many people tried to discredit it that way. That's an irony: the arrogance to a.s.sume you can neutralize something that will not be denied.

Where Denker found the book, if he ever truly possessed it, I do not know.

Scholars claimed the book was a repository of forbidden knowledge, therefore much sought or shunned through millennia. Bait for fanatics. A grail for obsessives; a self-destructive prize for the foolhardy. Unless it was akin to a key or a storage battery-a necessary link in a logic chain-it was still a dead end, because in the end (as one story went) you wound up dead too. Denker's philologists rapidly proved that trickle-down translations of the book (about 400 years' worth) were virtually worthless because there was no way to reconcile different languages to the concept of the unnameable. Latin held many of the book's conceits in polar opposition to the Greek interpretation, and so on. In many ways the book was like a tesseract, partially unfolded into a yetundiscovered realm.

But Denker did not stop at etymology. His scheme advantaged the top skim of curious geniuses all over the world. He used crypto experts to translate partial photo plates from Arabic-an iteration long thought lost forever. No one ever saw more than an eighth of a full page. Then he used colloquialists to defang the language piecemeal, in order to render down the simple sense of highly convoluted and frequently unp.r.o.nounceable arcana. The resultant text was presented to a hand-picked and highly elite international group preselected by Denker for the interests he knew he could arouse.

When he had exhausted one scholar, Denker moved to the next, and you have probably already heard the story about how Rademacher Asylum gradually filled up with his depleted former colleagues.

These were not dazzled hayseeds or the easily swoggled rustics of a fictive Red America, nor were they the deluded zealotry of one improbable religion or other. These were minds capable of the most labyrinthine extrapolations-the first, second, and third strings of p.a.w.ns to fall to Denker's inquiry.

Denker followed his instincts, and in the hope of discovering an anti-linear correlation presented his findings to a physicist who was then in the grip of Alzheimer's. He consulted South Seas tribal elders with no word for "insane" in their lexicon. Then philosophers, wizards, the deranged and the disenfranchised. With a brilliant kind of counter-intuitiveness, he allowed children to interpret some of his findings. Then autistics. The man with Alzheimer's was said to have "lost his mind completely" prior to his death. But as I've told you, the mad are always safe to expose. The mad enjoy hermetic protections unavailable to the mentalities that judge them unfit for normal human congress. "Normal humans" were the last thing Denker wanted.

Darwin pondered natural selection for twenty years before going into print; Denker did not have that kind of leisure. Our science these days is compet.i.tive; cutthroat; the Sixties-era model of the s.p.a.ce Race has overrun all rational strategy. There are very few scientific rock stars and most of our millionaires are invisible. Resources may be accessed at the fierce cost of corporate sponsors.h.i.+p, which often mandates blood sacrifice or the occasional bitterly humbling obeisance: while the former can be a mental snap point, the latter is often a more serious derailment of any kind of exploratory enthusiasm, crus.h.i.+ng instinct and logic into the box of fast, visible progress. Expediency becomes cardinal. This was the bind in which Denker found himself, in both senses-he embraced the delirious possibilities of risk and, using stress as a motivator, discovered his own interior limitations.

Coleridge wrote that "we do not feel horror because we are haunted by a sphinx, we dream a sphinx in order to explain the horror that we feel." Borges, after Coleridge, wrote, "If that is true, how might a mere chronicling of its forms transmit the stupor, the exultation, the alarms, the dread, and the joy that wove together that night's dream?" This was in essence the chicken and-egg riddle that governed Denker's inquiries. Possessed of a fanciful mind, he did not believe the most transporting inspirations to be reduceable to mere mathematical schemata, yet that was the task set before him. Others had failed. Replacements waited hungrily. More tempting, to Denker, was that capacity which Apollonius Rhodius coined as "the poetics of uncertainty," itself reducible to the twentieth-century argot of doing a wrong thing for the right reason.

All this citation makes Denker sound stuffy or cloistered or pretentiously intellectual, so I need to give you an example of the man's humor. He referred to the book as his "ultra-tome-bo"-at once conflating the Spanish ultratumba ultratumba (literally, "from beyond the grave") with the Latin (literally, "from beyond the grave") with the Latin ultima Thule ultima Thule (i.e., "the northernmost part of the habitable ancient world")-thereby hinting with a wink that his quest aimed beyond both death and the world as we know it. Knew it, rather. (i.e., "the northernmost part of the habitable ancient world")-thereby hinting with a wink that his quest aimed beyond both death and the world as we know it. Knew it, rather.

(He further corrupted ultra ultra into into el otro-"the el otro-"the other." The other book, the other tomb. He was very witty as well as smart.) other." The other book, the other tomb. He was very witty as well as smart.) I hope you can follow this without too much trouble. Sometimes my memory itself is like a book with stuck-together pages; huge chunks of missing narrative followed by short sections of overdetail. If I have learned one thing, it is that harmonics are important. You may sense contradictions in some of what I am telling you, and I would urge you to look past them-try to see them with new eyes.

Denker's so-called scientific fraud was revealed when his device was taken from his stewards.h.i.+p and disa.s.sembled. The machinery held a bit of nuclear credibility, but the heart of the drive was an iron particle accelerator that resembled a World War Two-era sea mine, a heart fed by cables and hoses and fluid.

Empty inside.

Because Denker had removed his fundamental component- the book.

Having spent three-quarters of a billion dollars in corporate seed money and suffering the deep stresses of delivery-to-sched ule that such funds can mandate, Denker cheated the curve. Science failed him, but when he combined science with sorcery, he was able to give his backers what they thought they wanted. All he had to do then was word his interviews precisely enough to feature that hint of arched-eyebrow evasion as to method. Money was already coming at him from all sides.

Most people don't know exactly how an internal combustion engine functions, but they drive automobiles. In kind, Denker's device could transcend s.p.a.ce-time boundaries; the point was that it worked. Never mind that on the other side of the boundary might be a group of surly cosmic Vastators, or the displaced First G.o.ds of our entire existence, itching for a rematch now that we have evolved, devised technology, and gotten ourselves so d.a.m.ned civilized.

A long time ago, I used to have a lit-crit friend who was enchanted by the idea of haunts-in particular, living quarters in which resonant works of literature were conceived, the way that James M. Cain wrote Double Double Indemnity Indemnity while resident in his "Upside-Down House" in the Hollywood Hills. If it was true that the most dedicated writers "lived, ate, slept, drank and shat" their way through their most lasting works, might not some of that ectoplasmic effluvia generate a mood or lingering charge of unsettled energy, the sort of thing ordinary people might cla.s.sify as a ghost? while resident in his "Upside-Down House" in the Hollywood Hills. If it was true that the most dedicated writers "lived, ate, slept, drank and shat" their way through their most lasting works, might not some of that ectoplasmic effluvia generate a mood or lingering charge of unsettled energy, the sort of thing ordinary people might cla.s.sify as a ghost?

My interest was not in Denker's book. That seemed too risky. So I sought out the place where Denker's book was not so much written written as a.s.sembled, collated. as a.s.sembled, collated.

The locale, you might have guessed. It is dead now. The structures engird no whispers. The "charge" was long gone, if it ever existed. No negative energy. No ghosts.

Because it had all all gone into the book. gone into the book.

By then, naturally, the world was dealing with other problems. Disequilibration was, in many ways, the most predictable outcome.

Throughout history, certain individuals had sought to destroy the book, not realizing the futility of the attempt. In the state Denker used it, it could not be destroyed. It could only be discomponentialized-taken apart the same way it had been put together. Except now that it was whole, it could only be handled in certain limited ways, and none of those would permit its possible destruction. Again, as I have said-contradictions. Did Denker have the book, whole and entire, in a single place? We may never know. Thus, when I reference "the book," we are speaking of whatever grand a.s.sembly Denker managed, which stays in my mind as his true achievement.

One mishandling of the book caused peculiar incipient radiations-or new colors and sounds, if you will. Unfathomable byproducts and side-effects. This was one reason Denker insisted his c.u.mbersome bronze-and-cast-iron device had to be tested in outer s.p.a.ce.

This achieved two important goals: It removed the book briefly from the physical surface of the Earth, and it guaranteed Denker's deception would be a long time unraveling.

I saw in Denker's journals that he noted, early in the experiment, that animals were profoundly affected by the proximity of the book. Animals lack the ameliorative intellect by which humans justify insanity.

If one is inflexible and devoted to an illusion of normalcy- stability, permanence, reality-then the break is always harsher. The more rules there are to violate, the more violations there will be, because what we call reality is an interpretative construct of the human mind; a reality we re-make every day to deny the howling nothingness of existence and the meaningless tragedy of life. Bacilli have no such concerns. They just are. They can't be horrified or elated.

Denker's two safety margins were time and s.p.a.ce. Many of his translations-the words from the book-were not meant to be in the same place at the same time, not even as ones and zeros in a database. The whole of it, as I have said, was tricky to handle. There was no manual for this sort of thing. This was completely new, untried, unsaid, undone.

In the end, Denker realized that ultimately all his equipment was not needed. The physical hardware briefly won him that fickle n.o.bel Prize, but all he had really needed was the book. He had already achieved what we have agreed to call a break from reality, but in the end people are more comfortable saying that he just snapped.

I think it is overreachingly grandiloquent and silly to blame Denker for the downslide of the entire planet. Haven't you noticed that long before the incident, we had already become so biosensitive that we could not even travel without getting sick? I think the Earth is simply evolving, and it is not for for us anymore. us anymore.

In the midst of all that I have told you, it might be said that Denker himself fragmented. His mind went elsewhere.

And if you could find me, you could probably find Denker too, but it's not really Denker you're interested in, is it? You're after the book, just like the ones before you.

Now, of course, the fas.h.i.+on is to impugn Denker for the way the sky looks at night. For the night itself, since I have heard that the sun no longer rises. I have not been able to bear witness to the other stories I have heard about the freezing cold or the sounds of beasts feeding.

But once I find a way to free myself from this room, I am going to seek out Denker and ask him to explain it to me.

Inhabitants of Wraithwood.

W.H. Pugmire

W. H. Pugmire is a widely published and popular author ofLovecraftian stories, including the volumes Dreams of Lovecraftian Horror Dreams of Lovecraftian Horror (Mythos Books, 1999), (Mythos Books, 1999), Sesqua Valley andOther Haunts Sesqua Valley andOther Haunts (Delirium Books, 2003), and (Delirium Books, 2003), and The Fungal Stain The Fungal Stain(Hippocampus Press, 2006). An omnibus of his collectedweird fiction is forthcoming from Centipede Press.

*awakened to the raucous cry of crows and pushed my torso away from the tree beneath which I had fallen asleep. Where the h.e.l.l was I? I remembered deciding not to return to the halfway house where I was completing my time for three counts of bank robbery, after doing two years in federal prison. I think the prison officials let me out early because they were impressed with my intellect and good manners. I had been the first inmate on record who had requested a one-volume Complete Works of Shakespeare. I ain't no intellectual, but I've been raised by a woman who taught literature and art in college. One of my fondest memories was of my seventh birthday, when Mom took me to a thrilling production of Cymbeline, Cymbeline, a play with which I was familiar from bedtime readings of Shakespeare since infancy. When I listen to or read Shakespeare, I hear my mother's voice. Loving the plays is loving her. a play with which I was familiar from bedtime readings of Shakespeare since infancy. When I listen to or read Shakespeare, I hear my mother's voice. Loving the plays is loving her.

Yes, I screwed up. After her early death, I didn't care about anything, fell in with "bad types" and learned to enjoy petty crime. Drug addiction heightened my criminal tendencies, and I got hooked on danger. Doing time was no ha.s.sle. I read a lot of good books and improved my education. But the goons and clueless "therapists" in the halfway house were too insulting to be endured, and so I didn't return one day from job hunting, robbed a store from which I stole a couple of bottles of choice whiskey, hijacked a weakling's car and drove until the petrol ran out. After that things get a bit blurry, thanks to the booze. I sort of remember hoofing it for quite a while, and then stopping to rest after climbing a hill and entering a woodland. I guess I pa.s.sed out beneath the oak tree.

It must have been early dusk when at last I came to my senses. The sky still held a quality of violet, and a low orange moon hung like some gigantic disc in heaven. I've never liked the way the moon looks at me, and so I threw my empty bottle at it; and then I noticed the other glow, the moving lamplight that slowly approached and became a lantern held by Jesus. This Christ was a tall red-headed dude with dark, penetrating eyes, attired in what looked like a suit from the 1920s. He stopped a few feet from me, and the moon directly behind his head looked like some illuminated halo as one sees in the works of Cimabue or Giotto. Moaning, I made an effort to stand up, becoming aware of the dampness at my crotch and the stink of urine. I began to laugh. "Drink, sir, is a great provoker, of sleeping and p.i.s.s," I told Jesus, paraphrasing the Immortal Bard.

"Are you in need of shelter?" asked my savior.

"Shelter would be cool, good fellow," says me, struggling to my feet and working diligently to steady my sense of balance. The gentleman turned and walked away. Guessing that I was meant to follow, I stumbled through the growing darkness, pa.s.sing a large sunken pond as I moved beneath and out of the ma.s.s of oak trees. We crossed a wide dirt roadway and approached a twostory building situated on the crest of a mammoth hill. Looking down the hill I saw a small town twinkling its lights as day expired. The building looked of the same era as the silent man's dress. Perhaps it had been some kind of hotel-c.u.m-speakeasy in the Prohibition era. Why else would it be situated up here, so far from the rest of town?

Jesus led me into an anteroom that contained a couple of chairs and bureau on top of which were delicate bits of objet d'art. objet d'art. A stairway led to the second floor. We stepped through double doors into a charming sitting room filled with what looked like choice antiques. A bra.s.s chandelier softly illuminated the room, and one of the several small sofas looked especially inviting. I sat in it and sank into its comfortable depths. I saw that Jesus had abandoned me, and I a.s.sumed he had gone to fetch me a change of clothing. Leaning toward the low coffee table in front of the sofa, I grabbed hold of the large alb.u.m of red leather that lay there, which turned out to be a heavy photo alb.u.m. A stairway led to the second floor. We stepped through double doors into a charming sitting room filled with what looked like choice antiques. A bra.s.s chandelier softly illuminated the room, and one of the several small sofas looked especially inviting. I sat in it and sank into its comfortable depths. I saw that Jesus had abandoned me, and I a.s.sumed he had gone to fetch me a change of clothing. Leaning toward the low coffee table in front of the sofa, I grabbed hold of the large alb.u.m of red leather that lay there, which turned out to be a heavy photo alb.u.m.

My mother had taught art and literature to university brats, and so our home had been packed with quality books. I had delighted in pouring over those picture books when I was a kid, long before the text explaining the artwork was of interest. Mom had always encouraged me to be imaginative, and many of our games together, after father had left us, consisted of trying our hand at copying great works of art, our tools being color crayons, watercolor, and children's modeling clay. (My Play-do Pieta had been a deliciously somber affair.) Because I am by nature lazy, I never advanced in art or literature, although I had a modic.u.m of talent. I was a curious and tragic combination of intellect and debauchery, and my high priest was Oscar Wilde. I was equally comfortable in either a museum of cla.s.sical art or in the lowest mire of Malebolge. Art was one of my sanest obsessions. And thus, when I opened this oversized leather binder and began to study the photographs within, I was instantly mesmerized.

I recognized the first photograph as a kind of take on Caspar David Friedrich's Raven Tree; Raven Tree; but instead of an actual tree the main focus in the print was an outrageously lean old guy with long hair and beard, who had contorted himself to mimic the shape of Friedrich's tree. The sky above the fellow was crowded with crows, one of which had perched on his scrawny shoulder. The photo's sepia tone suggested that it was an extremely old print. but instead of an actual tree the main focus in the print was an outrageously lean old guy with long hair and beard, who had contorted himself to mimic the shape of Friedrich's tree. The sky above the fellow was crowded with crows, one of which had perched on his scrawny shoulder. The photo's sepia tone suggested that it was an extremely old print.

Turning the leaf, I saw that the next photo was a wicked parody of the Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa. The ancient woman pictured, old and haggard though she be, still contained a degree of facial beauty. She had been a seductress in her day. The diabolic smile unnerved me, as did the hand that clutched one wrist, digging a talon into thin flesh. A single drop of blood upon that talon was the photo's one touch of vivid color. The ancient woman pictured, old and haggard though she be, still contained a degree of facial beauty. She had been a seductress in her day. The diabolic smile unnerved me, as did the hand that clutched one wrist, digging a talon into thin flesh. A single drop of blood upon that talon was the photo's one touch of vivid color.

The next photo was Jesus, posing with his lantern and attired with a gown of what looked like silken gold. Over the gown he wore an embroidered cloak, and a curious crown of metallic thorns adorned his dome. He was standing within the grove of oaks, knocking upon one tree. Unlike the two previous images, this one was new and full of color.

Ah, how I sighed when I turned the leaf and beheld the next image, for it copied my favorite painting, Fuseli's The Nightmare, The Nightmare, and this photographic representation was superb. Where they had found a creature who so resembled Fuseli's incubus was beyond conjecture. There were, however, unnerving anomalies. The gremlin in the photograph was tragically incomplete, missing both legs and all its fingers. One stunted paw leaned against the thing's chin, near its mouth, and one could not escape the suggestion that the beast had been supping on its corporeal tissue. and this photographic representation was superb. Where they had found a creature who so resembled Fuseli's incubus was beyond conjecture. There were, however, unnerving anomalies. The gremlin in the photograph was tragically incomplete, missing both legs and all its fingers. One stunted paw leaned against the thing's chin, near its mouth, and one could not escape the suggestion that the beast had been supping on its corporeal tissue.

The woman on whom the daemon squatted was dressed in white, as in the original painting, but her hair was dark and fell in such a way as to conceal most of her face. Unlike the original, her mouth did not frown. Above the woman and her incubus, to the viewer's left, an equine skull peeked through an opening in the curtain behind the bed.

I s.h.i.+fted in my seat, and the smell of my soiled pants drifted to me. Feeling restless, I shut the alb.u.m and got up to investigate the room. Upon one wall was a large painting of an oak grove at nighttime. Arching over the trees was what looked like a pale lunar rainbow, and I seemed to remember some such effect in a painting by Friedrich. It certainly produced an eerie effect. Dim winged specks, which I took to be night birds, spotted the darkened dimension.

Sensing company, I turned to face the beings who were watching me. The woman, tall and slender, was dressed in a long black gown of antique silk, its tight brocade collar decorated with raised patterns in gold and silver. Gloves of black lace covered dainty hands, and a veil concealed the details of an emaciated face. I could just make out the pale and colorless eyes that observed me. She stood behind a ramshackle wheelchair that was occupied by the incubus from the photograph I had earlier been admiring. I stared at that impish visage with its sickly hue, at the yellow eyes and bulbous nose, at the blue veins that lined the grotesque face.

"Welcome to Wraithwood," the gnome sighed, in a high childlike voice. "Philippe has gone to find you clothing. You could benefit from a bath. Pera has a wee bathroom adjoining her room. Follow her, please."

"Thank you, uh . . . " I hesitated, not knowing how to address him, not wanting to shake the malformed hand. When I studied the right hand, I saw that it differed from the photograph, having two stunted fingers where in the photograph there were none.

"Eblis Mauran," he offered, bowing his head.

"Hank Foster," I said, smiling. The silent woman held a hand to me, then turned to a door near a corner. I followed her into a hallway and through another door that entered on a s.p.a.cious boudoir. Undoing my s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.tons, I watched as she went into a small bathroom and began to run a bath, sprinkling various salts from antique jars into the running water. I thanked her, but she said nothing as she ushered me into the bathroom and shut the door. I tested the water for heat, then undressed and stepped into the tub. The effect was instantaneous. My groans of pleasure rose with the steam as sore limbs and soiled flesh relaxed. I barely noticed when Jesus quietly entered with an armful of clean clothing, which he placed atop the closed toilet seat. I momentarily froze as he bent and placed a hand into the water, joined to it his other hand, then brought the hands above my head and let the cupped water drop over my hair. Smiling, he turned off the running water, rose, and vacated the room.

Okay, I thought as a scrubbed myself, I've entered into a house full of loonies and queers. Pulling the plug, I listened as the water drained, then stepped out of the tub and reached for a nearby towel. Examining the clothes, I saw that they were from an earlier decade; but they fit well enough, and I rather liked the way I looked in the full-length mirror, nothing like the alcoholic drug addict I had become since Mother's death.

I opened the door and entered Pera's dusky room. The place was semi-lit by various wall fixtures that resembled candles in holders, each candle topped by an electric flame. The furnis.h.i.+ngs were all dark, with long blue-purple drapery at the windows. A black bedspread covered the commodious bed. The young woman rested upon the bed, very still, resembling a lifeless husk on its deathbed. Her frail arms clutched a length of st.u.r.dy rope. I stepped to the bed and knelt next to it, as if I were preparing to pray for the soul of a departed loved one. I touched the rope, and her head moved so that the pale eyes behind the veil gazed into my own.

She then began to sing; and as I watched the vague impression of her mouth behind its curtain of lace, I felt a chill. The song was from my mother's favorite play.

"He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone; He is dead and gone; At his head a gra.s.s-green turf, At his head a gra.s.s-green turf, At his heels a stone." At his heels a stone."

I was uncertain of what line actually followed, and thus I recited the line I knew. "How do you, pretty lady?"

Pera smiled and blew at the veil, and some of her soft sweet air lightly touched my face. Then she turned away from me and stared at the ceiling. I moved my vision to the painting on the wall above the bed. It, too, had been one of Mother's favorite works of art, John Everett Millais's Ophelia. Ophelia. This somewhat explained the strange girl's song. Looking at her again, I saw that her eyes were closed. Mutely, I vacated the room. This somewhat explained the strange girl's song. Looking at her again, I saw that her eyes were closed. Mutely, I vacated the room.

I was uncertain what way led to the main room, for there were doors on either end of the hallway. But then the sound of someone playing music in the room next to Pera's caught my attention. Through the partially parted doorway came a smell of incense. Gingerly, I pushed at the door with the toe of my shoe. A small man sat on the floor, playing a kind of Egyptian music on a shortnecked lute. I laughed silently, for the tiny guy closely resembled the Hungarian film actor Peter Lorre. The piece he played was simple yet expressive, and to its cadence danced the creature named Eblis. Dance, of course, is a generous verb, given that the fellow had no legs. And yet he was not clumsy as he stood upon his stumps and moved with a kind of nimbleness, now and then smacking together the palms of his fragmentary hands. The dancer noticed me and wickedly smirked, his ochrous eyes twinkling.

The music ceased, and Eblis moved to his wheelchair as swiftly as a scuttling insect. The other fellow observed me from his position on the floor. "Ah, the new guest."

"Yes," I answered, and then quickly corrected myself. "No, actually. I've had some trouble with my car a ways back. One of your compatriots found me sleeping in that grove of oaks and brought me here to clean up. So, what is this place, a hotel or something?"

"Or something. Just a collection of lost souls, you might say, gathered accidentally-fatefully." He shrugged and laughed. "So, the old crone hasn't had you sign yet?"

"Sorry?" He shrugged again and got to his feet, throwing his instrument onto the narrow bed. Seeing the painting above that bed I went to it and touched a finger to its surface. It was a painting rather than a print, although it had not been varnished. The image seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it. What interested me was that the sitter was almost a dead ringer for the small man who now sat upon the bed. "Wow, this could be you."

"Eventually it will be. I've already lost three inches of height." I gave him a troubled look, which moved him to more laughter.

"I've seen it somewhere before, but I can't remember the artist."

"Kokoschka. This is his portrait of a tubercular Count he met in, I believe, Switzerland. Once my face began to thin I took to parting my hair in the middle. My hands aren't quite as bad as his-yet."

What the f.u.c.k was he talking about? Yes, I had certainly stumbled onto a clutch of crazies. "The resemblance is quite uncanny," I continued.

"That's the very word. Come on," he said, standing and touching my arm. "We'll return you to the convening room."

I tried to smile as he loped to the wheelchair and guided it through the doorway. The door to Pera's room was partially open, as I had left it, and I caught a glimpse of her sleeping on the bed, the length of rope in her embrace. When I followed my new acquaintance into the drawing room, I found another person awaiting our arrival. She turned and smiled at me, and I saw that it was the woman in the Mona Lisa Mona Lisa photo. Although ancient and vaguely sinister, yet was she anomalously lovely. Her streaked hair was long and smooth, and it was only her hands and face that bespoke of age. I saw that she held a book to her bosom, the crimson leather of which she tapped with a tapered fingernail. The woman walked toward me and examined my face with piercing blue eyes, and then she linked her arm with mine and guided me to the sofa. On the table before us, next to the photo alb.u.m, was a small pot of ink and one of those quaint feather pens. Playfully, the elderly woman sat next to me and opened her book, which I saw was a registry with yellowed paper. A column of signatures filled one page. photo. Although ancient and vaguely sinister, yet was she anomalously lovely. Her streaked hair was long and smooth, and it was only her hands and face that bespoke of age. I saw that she held a book to her bosom, the crimson leather of which she tapped with a tapered fingernail. The woman walked toward me and examined my face with piercing blue eyes, and then she linked her arm with mine and guided me to the sofa. On the table before us, next to the photo alb.u.m, was a small pot of ink and one of those quaint feather pens. Playfully, the elderly woman sat next to me and opened her book, which I saw was a registry with yellowed paper. A column of signatures filled one page.

"You seem down on your luck," the lady crooned.

Sardonically, I chuckled. "h.e.l.l, pa.s.sing out and p.i.s.sing myself ain't nothing new, if that's what you mean. As for luck, she's a lady I've never kissed."

Deeply, she sighed. "This edifice was built during the Prohibition era. It served as asylum for persons of fugitive nature." There was something funny about the way she spoke, as if from personal memory. "Asylum" was well chosen, I thought. I studied her face, and could believe that she had been a bonny la.s.s in the 1920s. My kind of woman. Yet something in her words gave me pause.

"What makes you think of me as fugitive?"

"You wear a hunted aura. You are lost and hungry. We can give you shelter. You'll find it entertaining."

"I'm broke."