Forty-second street was filthier than she remembered it being, and at nine in the morning, with the grayness of the day and the lack of bright lights, the dirty movie houses and sex shops looked more depressing than usual. Miss Debicker was glad she worked on the East Side. She turned down forty-fourth street and suddenly found herself in the theater district. She hadn't been in this area for quite a while, and was taken aback by the fact that the respectable, clean theaters were so close to the smut houses. She quickened her steps: though she was rarely afraid of the city she found herself suddenly longing to reach the well known, safe path she followed every day. Shifting her gaze from the marquis, she glanced at the pavement where an object caught her eye.
She stopped to look at it for some unaccountable reason: there was something strange about this object: a symmetry in the way it was placed on the sidewalk, a deliberateness about its appearance. She stooped to examine it more closely.
It was a small box-like cube, about four inches square on a side. It was maroon in color, and the color darkened around the edges as if it had bled into the corners. It appeared translucent, like a polished dark gem. Because it appeared so perfectly placed, it looked as if it were attached to the sidewalk.
Miss Debicker stood up suddenly, glancing at her watch. She stepped over the cube and walked toward the end of the block. After a few steps she glanced over her shoulder and noticed that it was still there, at rest on the filthy sidewalk; no breeze had stirred it, no cat had darted out of an alley to bat it away; it had not disappeared in the wink of an eye. She shook her head at her foolishness and walked toward the Avenue of the Americas, then again glanced back at the cube. It was still there, a purple smudge on the dirty pavement.
She shook her head, to clear it. She wanted very badly to be at her desk, but she also wanted to look at that cube again. Retracing her steps, she rationalized her action as an interesting diversion from the normal routine. Then she stopped before the cube and stared at it.
It had not changed. It still looked symmetrical and like a large polished stone. Perhaps it belonged to someone from the diamond district. Perhaps someone had been making a delivery, and a hole had appeared in the bottom of a leather bag, and this stone had fallen out onto the sidewalk. But her journalist's mind wanted to know why it had landed so perfectly placed. Why hadn't it tumbled up against a storefront or dropped off the curb into the gutter?
She bent to pick it up, looking quickly around. There was no one watching her. It wasn't as if she was afraid to be seen picking up this cube; it was just that she now felt aware of a strange weakness. She was determined to walk to the end of the block and cross the street and go away from this thing.
Miss Debicker glanced again at her watch; she would now be very late for work. This foolishness had cost her more time than she could legitimately justify; at the office it would be a mark against her. Yet she wanted to turn around and look at the cube again. She had to, and this urgency frightened her; it was as if some magnetic influence was pulling her around toward the cube. She found herself walking back to it.
She had a fleeting thought about how strange it was that she happened to walk down this particular street, that her train happened to be diverted to Times Square on this particular day.
The cube looked the same; it had not moved; it was the same maroon with the concentration of color at the edges. She tried to look at her watch, and with great effort looked at her shoes, but her eyes instantly returned to the six-sided figure.
She tried to scream out, to attract the attention of the people hurrying by, but her mouth would not work. Some sort of control was being exerted over her. Then quickly she transferred all her will from the cube to her legs and tried to run toward the Avenue of the Americas, knowing she would then be all right, everything would be all right. Her feet began to stumble. A few more steps now. A pedestrian glanced at her and hurried on. She stopped as if a wall had been thrown up in front of her. She could not go on. In a few moments she would turn and walk, or crawl, or run, back to the maroon cube. She turned and stumbled back.
A few moments later she picked up the cube, and felt a compulsion to hide it. She didn't know why she should do this, but she found a safe place under some theatrical props between two theaters, and hid it there. It was cool to the touch, like smooth marble, but there was nothing else remarkable about it.
That night she hid in the entrance to the alley, out of the bright lights of the theater district, guarding it.
In the days that followed Miss Debicker spent her time in the vicinity of the maroon cube. She found there were periods—short periods of time—when she was allowed to leave the cube to find something to eat or relieve herself. She was not allowed to go beyond a certain vaguely defined area about two blocks square, and she always found herself back in front of the cube. During the day she hid in alleyways between the theaters, and at night she slept not far away.
It was now winter, and she had run out of money. She was dirty and disheveled-looking; she shivered uncontrollably. She foraged for food in her two-block area, and began to beg. Sometimes she was bothered by the police or a passerby, but the neighborhood was used to her presence now. She was learning when to hide and when to beg profitably.
The maroon cube stayed hidden under the stage props. She usually slept in the alleyway by it when she slept at all. Her dreams were fitful and, even in sleep, she could feel the tug of the dark cube.
During the first few weeks she learned, through scraps of newspaper stories, that the police were doing a missing persons search for her. This had bothered her slightly, but when the stories stopped, she no longer thought about it.
The first really cold day came and she knew that she must find indoor shelter for the winter. Her original clothes had been discarded and she wore the various rags which she picked out of garbage cans; she even had a few pieces of costume from discarded wardrobes. She went to the alley and the cube. She thought she would make out all right during the cold months; the begging was better during the holidays. She'd taken to keeping her possessions, pieces of clothing, salable items picked from garbage cans, bits of food, in a plastic shopping bag.
The days grew colder. A few days before Christmas the cube called her to its hiding place; she cleared away a dusting of snow and dug it out from under the rubble. It felt cold in her hands and though it looked no different than it ever had she knew it was content and full when she was this close.
She put the cube in her plastic bag, at the bottom, in the warmest place. It would stay there, her prize possession; it would always be a part of her; she would always keep it in her bag.
She walked out to the street and began begging, her bag close to her. She searched the faces closely and was startled when a gray-haired man appeared, walking briskly toward her. She averted her eyes and he did not recognize her; he passed by, leaving a quarter in her cracked palm. Her editor...
She began to study faces again. Most of them were bright with the glow of the holidays, or at least happy. She knew, though, that sooner or later her eyes would meet those of a woman that were hard and empty. And when she met those eyes, she would say, holding her bag to her frozen breast, 'You have no love.'
The Red Wind
This night I will be with my Natisha in a place far away from here, where her dull, dead body, and the red wind that will soon carry me away, are just vague remembrances that will no longer have meaning. There must be such a place, or all that has come before makes all life and youth impossible and evil. This night—
But there is little use in the end of the tale coming first; the begin-fling must suffice...
I came to Castle Mayhew two fortnights ago at the bidding of the Count himself. His letter stated that he was in desperate need of my services as an architect, and left the details to my imagination. I am not one who craves mystery, and was inclined to turn his offer down, but my fiance Natisha, with me in Menz, urged me so strongly to take the commission that I was forced to reconsider.
'The Castle is in a beautiful area,' she said, 'and with the stipend he offers we can be married.'
'So you know this area?' I teased, for I had yet to learn where this creature who had stolen my heart came from.
'You must do it,' she said, and then went off into a lengthy discussion of what our married life would be like
