Authors: Gene Wolfe
Castleview (17 page)
THE TOWER BY THE SEA
THE DOUBLE doors at the far end of the barn seemed to explode, smashed inward by sound and blinding light. Bigger and faster than any charger, light roared down the broad aisle between the stalls. For an instant the blare of a discordant trumpet rose above the roar, shriller and shriller until it was higher than the scream of brakes.
Shields flew, the barn floor dizzy overhead.
He had been asleep and wished to sleep again, but he could not. Everything hurt—or if there was anything that did not, he was unconscious of it, could not discover it; there was too much pain for him to explore it all, too much for him to do anything but try to push it away.
The floor was bounding and jolting beneath him, every jar a separate and distinct agony. A chill wind whistled unceasingly, a wind wet with rain.
“How you feeling, son?”
Shields wanted to spit; he swallowed instead. He had never swallowed anything like that before, and decided it had probably been clotted blood. “Bob?”
“It’s me all right, Mr. Shields.” Roberts was sitting very close, with his legs crossed and his head bent. “How are you? Think anything’s broken?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“I ran my hands all over you and couldn’t find anything, but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t want to flex everything to see. Don’t sit up—roof’s pretty low.”
“We’re in a truck, aren’t we?”
From somewhere Ann called, “Willie, is that you? Are you all right?”
“No!”
“That’s my Willie.”
Roberts told him, “We’re in the back of that old Cherokee you took off the lot, Mr. Shields.”
Lisa Solomon’s voice: “My old car. I had to sell it.”
“It’s yours again,” Shields told her. “I just gave it back to you.”
“Willie!”
“Ann, shut the hell up.” He resolved to be quiet himself; but as soon as he fell silent, pain rushed upon him. He turned and thrashed, vainly seeking a position that hurt less than the previous one.
“Lie still, son. That don’t do no good.”
“What makes it so windy in here?”
Lisa said, “That maniac smashed the windshield the second time he shot.”
Roberts was tucking a blanket around Shields, who had not been aware of it until now. “How’s Sancha?”
“About the same,” Lisa told him. “Once in awhile she says something, but it’s in Portuguese.”
“Sancha’s on the back seat,” Roberts explained to Shields. “Lisa’s taking care of her. We put her in there first, and we didn’t want to move her again.”
“Bob, what happened to the ape?”
Ann called, “What’d you say, Willie?”
“The ape—I was wrestling with an ape.” Painfully, Shields lifted himself on one elbow, impelled by an invalid’s weak anger in the face of contradiction. “And don’t tell me I wasn’t, Ann. I was.”
She called triumphantly, “See! I told you.”
Roberts whispered, “She said she ran over a gorilla. Lisa and me were still ducked down, so we didn’t see it. I figured she’d hit one of those horses. I don’t know what Lisa thought.”
“It was going to kill me,” Shields said. “It was trying to break my back.” He remembered how near he had come to death and shook with a chill against which the blanket could do nothing.
“ … and so you could see Sancha was going to die.” Roberts was advancing some argument whose opening phases Shields had not heard. “So I said the heck with this, give me the keys and I’ll put her in the car, and if he gets me he gets me. But your wife said you had the keys and if she’d had them she would’ve gone already. Then Lisa said there was another set, up in Wrangler’s room. So we did it, and she got in back with Sancha. I was up front with your wife.”
Ann called, “She was
dying,
Willie. The lights hadn’t gone off, and we didn’t know
where
you were. Besides, Emily called—So Lisa gave me Wrangler’s keys and Bob carried Sancha.”
dying,
Willie. The lights hadn’t gone off, and we didn’t know
where
you were. Besides, Emily called—So Lisa gave me Wrangler’s keys and Bob carried Sancha.”
“Anyhow,” Roberts continued, “your wife started her up, and we were about to pull out when we heard something—”
“I heard
you,
Willie. You yelled just like you do when you have nightmares. I’d know that yell anywhere, because it always wakes me up.”
you,
Willie. You yelled just like you do when you have nightmares. I’d know that yell anywhere, because it always wakes me up.”
Shields muttered, “I think I must have been dreaming about this. You saved my life.” But he spoke too softly for her to hear him.
Roberts said, “She just spun this clunker around and went bang through those doors. I never seen anything like it outside of a movie.”
“And there was this tall ape, Willie, right in my lights. I knew he must have been after you, so I went for him. At the last minute I got chicken and put on the brakes, but we still hit him pretty hard. Where were you?”
“I’ll tell you later. Did you see a little boy?”
“A kid?” Ann asked. “No, I certainly didn’t, just the ape or
gorilla or whatever it was, and it was dead, I think. Where it came from, I can’t imagine, unless it escaped from some zoo. Calamity Annie meets King Kong! Was it really chasing a kid, too, Willie?”
gorilla or whatever it was, and it was dead, I think. Where it came from, I can’t imagine, unless it escaped from some zoo. Calamity Annie meets King Kong! Was it really chasing a kid, too, Willie?”
Ann braked for the main gate, and Lisa sprang out to open it. For a moment the domelight flooded the inside of the old Cherokee with weak illumination. In it, Roberts caught Shields’s eye. Shields said, “No, Ann, I don’t think it really was.”
There was an old rug on the wall behind the candlesticks. Judy hid in back of that for what seemed like a long while, but when she came out it was still dark, and all the candles were still burning.
At least they looked like candles when she looked right at them, tall candles with wax the color of skin, some thick, some thinner, and some very thin, all of them tall; but if she looked at something else—at the floor or the old rug with its bounding lions and sad unicorns—they were not candles at all, but ladies crowned with fire, ladies who stood and burned as quietly as if they were thinking, with eyes and faces shut like little stores that have turned against you, locking up their doors while their lights are still on inside and the people who seemed so friendly walk around moving things and pretending not to see you. Judy spit on two fingers and tried to pinch out one of the candles. Fire rose around her wet fingers, hotter and madder than ever, and she snatched them away.
She had heard nothing and no one while she hid in back of the rug; it had seemed to her that she had this whole place to herself. She knew that the man with the terrible hands had not followed her because she would have heard him. Quiet though he was, he was not that quiet. Now she listened again, and again heard only stillness; and yet it did not seem the stillness of mere emptiness. It was, she told herself, just like the whole place were full of people with bees on them, people not moving at all. Standing or sitting absolutely still was a thing that Judy could
not do, although she often tried. Even when she had hidden behind the rug, she had moved, even though she had been so quiet—swaying from side to side without moving her feet, and pushing back her hair with one hand and then the other.
not do, although she often tried. Even when she had hidden behind the rug, she had moved, even though she had been so quiet—swaying from side to side without moving her feet, and pushing back her hair with one hand and then the other.
She chewed a lock of hair ruminatively while listening to the bees. Would the people talk if she told them she knew? She doubted it—not coming out would make her feel silly, and they
wanted
her to feel silly. Or at least she hoped it was no worse than that.
wanted
her to feel silly. Or at least she hoped it was no worse than that.
The door by which she had come into the tower stood open. Night breezes crept through like the smallest children and tried to wake the candles by touching their hair. The tower room of Aunt Sally’s house was gone; Judy should have been able to see Aunt Sally’s through the doorway, but the stars were there, far and cold and bright, like the lights of Davenport when Mom had gone away with Judy in the back pretending to sleep but really peeking out through the wide back window and watching lights get smaller and smaller as they grumbled across the river and purred up into the hills.
She went out onto the balcony and looked around.
The tower—this tower—was higher than she had thought; she could see a long way. Aunt Sally’s house was there, but it was far away and getting farther and farther all the time, floating off like the bright toy boat she used to sail on the lake in the park. Between Aunt Sally’s tower and this one were black waves, more waves and more water than Judy had ever seen.
The air had a new smell. Inside, even the little breezes had been scented by the candles, as warm and bright as so many waxy flowers. The new smell was not a sweet one but sharp and stinging, like Daddy’s aftershave. Judy spit out the hair and patted her mouth. This was not a good smell, but she liked it; lately she had noticed that she liked bad smells, sometimes.
But Aunt Sally’s house was floating away with Mom inside; Judy would have to go downstairs and find somebody with a boat. She returned to the room where the candles burned, eyes leaking tears.
It felt hot and stuffy inside the tower now, and the candle ladies were just candles, because Judy was watching them. The other door was made of wide boards and looked thick and heavy. It had no knob, only an iron bar from which a string hung. The bar lay in a bent one fastened to the doorframe. Judy tried to lift the first bar, but both were old; they had rusted together like glue. The big hinges were rusty too, rotting into a rough powder that blackened her thumb and stained her fingers orange, green, crimson, and violet.
Judy did not like to knock on doors (it hurt her knuckles) so she kicked it instead. Her kicks made an empty booming noise like men emptying garbage cans in the next block. At the sound, all of the people she could not hear stirred without making any noise, though the bees did not seem to care. The stirring made her stop kicking.
She examined the door to the balcony. It was smaller, and its latch and hinges were hardly rusted; she could move it with a touch. The wind ran through the doorway and ruffled all the candle flames. Judy discovered that when its hands were in the fire she could see them, fingers and thumbs, and that it had a great many more hands than she, enough to touch all the flames at once.
She went out onto the balcony again and leaned across the railing to watch Aunt Sally’s house. The railing was stone and came almost up to her armpits, but it felt old and shaky, as if nothing was holding its stones together except the ivy. Once, ever so softly, she heard two stones grate, one sliding on the other. She stood up straight and just rested her hands on the stones after that.
All of Aunt Sally’s lights were on, all her windows bright and yellow, like the eyes and noses and mouths of a whole family of jack-o’-lanterns. Judy pictured her mom running from room to room in that big house, switching on the lights and calling her. Her mom had even gone up into the high old attic, where Judy was not allowed because she would get dirty—all the little windows that pulled the roof around their heads were yellow,
too. And it seemed to Judy that they and all the rest became brighter as they floated away. Pretty soon Mom would ask somebody to help, Judy decided, but no nice policeman would ever find her up here. Nobody would ever find her to take her home.
too. And it seemed to Judy that they and all the rest became brighter as they floated away. Pretty soon Mom would ask somebody to help, Judy decided, but no nice policeman would ever find her up here. Nobody would ever find her to take her home.
There was a loud click behind her.
The door of the room filled with candles had swung shut. A moment passed before Judy pushed on it, but if she had pushed at once she would still have been too late. She might as well have matched her small strength against the great, dark stones of the tower.
When it was quite clear that the door would not budge, she stopped, gasped for breath, and dried her eyes on the hem of her skirt. There was a hole not much bigger than her finger in the door where a doorknob should have been. When she put her eye to it, she could peer into the room beyond, bathed in golden light as before; and in fact she could see the tall candle ladies even when she looked right at them: so many smoothfaced ladies, all ivory and white. Their big dark eyes were open wide and moved, looking now at Judy’s own as it peeped at them through the hole, now at one another, now at something moving, that Judy could not see.
Effort had left her warm, but the wind from the sea chilled her quickly. Soon, she thought, she would be very cold. In a long time it would be morning; the sun would come, and then—perhaps—people on the ground could see her when she waved from this high porch. They would (maybe) climb the stairs and open the door in the room where the candle ladies burned.
Or at least they would, Judy thought, if it weren’t that the latch was latched on the inside. They would have to break down the door, probably; and meanwhile she would starve if the cold wind had not frozen her first. She did not know how long it took somebody to starve, but she suspected it was not very long.
She went back to the stone railing. Aunt Sally’s house had drifted out of sight; there was nothing left but the sea, tossing
handkerchiefs in the starlight. She stood on tiptoes and leaned over, looking way down. It was so far to the bottom that she could not tell how far it was, but not straight up-and-down like the wall of a house. It sloped instead, exactly like the side of a steep hill covered with ivy. That would be thickest at the bottom, she decided—or if it was not thick, then at least there would have to be a lot of big branches like a tree’s. Judy had climbed big trees before.
handkerchiefs in the starlight. She stood on tiptoes and leaned over, looking way down. It was so far to the bottom that she could not tell how far it was, but not straight up-and-down like the wall of a house. It sloped instead, exactly like the side of a steep hill covered with ivy. That would be thickest at the bottom, she decided—or if it was not thick, then at least there would have to be a lot of big branches like a tree’s. Judy had climbed big trees before.
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