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melted in the moonlight, swimming around him. He was aware of strange perfumes
and great things moving. He crawled in the shadow of a robe and the two
witches were somehow present, standing back. But the blindness hid the book
from him like a curtain of darkness, and out of that curtain came a Question.
 Yes! he cried eagerly, yearningly.
And the Question was asked again.
 Yes, yes  he cried. Anything! Make me the smallest, make me the
littlest but make me one of you!
And once more, the Question&
 I do! he cried.  I will! Forever and ever 
Then the darkness parted, accepting him. And, even as he looked on the
beginning of his road, he felt himself dwindling, shrinking. For one last
moment it came back to him, the big-muscled, sunburned arms and the proud body
lithe and clean, the strength and the freedom; and then his limbs were
narrowed to bone and tendon, to thickset fur, his belly sucked in, and his
haunches rose and a tail grew long.
And the two witches shrieked and howled with laughter. They stood like
sisters, arm in arm,sisters in malice, filling the night sky with their
raucous, reveling laughter.
 Fool! screeched the old one, letting go the other and swooping forward to
fasten a leash and collar about his hairy cat s neck.  Fool to think you could
match your wits with ours! Now you are my Charon, to fetch andrun, an acolyte
to our altars. Fool that was once aman, did you think to feed before you had
waited on table?
 Character is destiny said the ancient Greeks, and drove the point home in
their myths.
The Haunted Village
He came to the hill overlooking the village and braked to a halt. Below him
the still town lay, caught like a mirage of hot air in a shallow cup of the
enforested earth. He stared at it as he might have stared at a mirage, not
quite certain even now as to how he had found it, for the instructions of the
boy at the filling station had been vague and he had seen no one along the way
who could give him directions. He had takenCounty Road number twelve and
hunted at random through the small, twisting and rutted trails of dirt that
snaked back from it among the pines and birch. Now, as twilight was dimming
the hollows with the long rays of a red sunset glancing across the rolling
hills of soft, glaciated earth, he had come upon it.
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He looked down. In the still, late afternoon, the heat waves still beat and
shimmered in the narrow streets and above the dark housetops, giving the town
a twisting, insubstantial look. Still as a dream, it lay; and no people were
visible about it.
He released the brakes and the car rolled forward down the hill, and the
first houses, building quickly to a wall on either side of his car, trapped
the sound of his car s motor, and magnified it, so that it seemed to clamor in
the stillness. He went slowly, searching for a stopping place, until he saw to
his right a high, weathered building of brown clapboard with three steps
leading up to a dusty porch that bore a HOTEL sign upon its overhang. He
stopped his car beside the porch and got out.
A tall dark man with grey eyes large in a thin face appeared out of the
porch s deeper shadow, walking toward him.
 Can I help you? he asked. His voice was deep butmuted, as if a sort of
weary sadness in him made it a special effort to speak.
 Why, yes, said Barin, mounting the three steps.  I m looking for a room.
 Oh, said the tall man.  You ll have to ask inside, then.
He waited until Barin had passed him,then followed half a step behind. And
Barin thought he felt the slight breath of a sigh on the back of his neck, but
it was so light he could not be sure.
He opened the door and stepped into a dim lobby, lit only by the fading light
from a bay window. To the left a shadowed passage led away into the gloomy
depths of the hotel and about the lobby heavy leather chairs sat cracked and
withdrawn. Ahead was the desk. He walked toward it, the tall man behind him.
 Mikkelson? It was a heavy voice from behind the desk, hoarse and mechanical
as the grating of a spade on concrete.
 There s a guest, answered the tall man from behind Barin s shoulder, in his
sad, tired voice.
Beyond the counter of the desk, a cubbyhole reached back into obscurity. At
the counter, a pale patch of light from the distant window fell on the grained
wood and the stiff white pages of an open guest book just turned, evidently,
to a new page, for there were no signatures upon it.
There was the squeak of a chair from the darkness and the heavy, creaking
steps of a large man; a thick form loomed up out of the cubbyhole to stand
with belly pressed against the worn inner edge of the counter.Barin looked
into a wide face, the face of a man past middle age, heavy-lipped and
broad-nosed, above a thick, coarse body loosened only slightly from a younger
strength.
 For how long? The hoarse voice was now directed at Barin.
 A couple of days maybe three. Again Barin thought he caught the trailing
wisp of a sigh from the man behind him. He added quickly, to forestall
questions,  I m a photographer.A writer. I m doing a piece on the woods up
here. I d like to explore a bit for a day or two.
 Sign. One thick hand swiveled the guest book toward him. Another passed him
the stub of a pencil on the end of a string. He took it and signed. He laid it
down and looked up into the face of the man behind the desk.
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 I ll be eating my meals in town, he said.  Any idea where  He left the
question hanging, but the man behind the desk did not take it up and a long
silence drew itself out between them. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]