like. I’ll have you driven into the city tomorrow morning.”
I ventured, “You needed us as stage properties, then. I’d be willing to stay on those terms.”
Malone shook his head again. “That’s out of the question. I don’t need props; I need actors. In business I’ve put on little shows for the competition, if you know what I mean, and sometimes even for my own people. And I’ve learned that the only actors who can really do justice to their parts are the ones who don’t know what they are.”
“Really—,” I began.
He cut me off with a look, and for a few seconds we stared at one another. Something terrible lived behind those eyes.
Frightened despite all reason could tell me, I said, “I understand,” and stood up. There seemed to be nothing else to do. “I’m glad, at least, that you don’t hate us. With your childhood it would be quite natural if you did. Will you explain things to Marcella in the morning? She’ll throw herself at you, no matter what I say.”
He nodded absently.
“May I ask one question more? I wondered why you had to leave and go into the orphanage. Did your parents die or lose their places?”
Malone said, “Didn’t you tell him, Priest? It’s the local legend. I thought everyone knew.”
The butler cleared his throat. “The elder Mr. Malone—he was the stableman here, sir, though it was before my time. He murdered Betty Malone, who was one of the maids. Or at least he was thought to have, sir. They never found the body, and it’s possible he was accused falsely.”
“Buried her on the estate,” Malone said. “They found bloody rags and the hammer, and he hanged himself in the stable.”
“I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to pry.”
The wind whipped the drapes like wine-red flags. They knocked over a vase and Priest winced, but Malone did not seem to notice. “She was twenty years younger and a tramp,” he said. “Those things happen.”
I said, “Yes, I know they do,” and went up to bed.
I do not know where Marcella slept. Perhaps there on the carpet, perhaps in the room that had been hers, perhaps even in Malone’s servants’ flat over the stables. I breakfasted alone on the terrace, then—without Bateman’s assistance—packed my bags.
I saw her only once more. She was wearing a black silk dress; there were circles under her eyes and her head must have been throbbing, but her hand was steady. As I walked out of the house, she was going over the Sevres with a peacock-feather duster. We did not speak.
I have sometimes wondered if I were wholly wrong in anticipating a ghost when the French windows opened. How did Malone know the time had come for him to appear?
Of course I have looked up the newspaper reports of the murder. All the old papers are on microfilm at the library, and I have a great deal of time.
There is no mention of a child. In fact, I get the impression that the identical surnames of the murderer and his victim were coincidental. Malone is a common enough one, and there were a good many Irish servants then.
Sometimes I wonder if it is possible for a man—even a rich man—to be possessed, and not to know it.
This was a dream story. I dream a good deal of fiction, but it is mostly very bad fiction. The title was in my dream and the setup, the possessed servant hiring a master and mistress. That and one visual image that has never left me, that of a large upper-class room at midnight swept by a high wind. Its drapes flutter among my thoughts even now.
Some are haunted by ghosts. I am haunted by stories.
The God and His Man
Once long, long ago, when the Universe was old, the mighty and powerful god Isid Iooo IoooE, whose name is given by certain others in other ways, and who is determined in every place and time to do what is good, came to the world of Zed. As every man knows, such gods travel in craft that can never be wrecked —and indeed, how could they be wrecked, when the gods are ever awake and hold the tiller? He came, I say, to the world of Zed, but he landed not and made no port, for it is not fit (as those who made the gods long ago ruled) that a god should set his foot upon any world, however blue, however fair.
Therefore Isid Iooo IoooE remained above the heavens, and his craft, though it traveled faster than the wind, contrived to do so in such a way that it stood suspended—as the many-hued stars themselves do not—above that isle of Zed that is called by the men of Zed (for they are men, or nearly) Land. Then the god looked down upon Zed, and seeing that the men of Zed were men and the women thereof women, he summoned to him a certain man of Urth. The summons of Isid Iooo IoooE cannot be disobeyed.
“Man,” said the god, “go down to the world of Zed. For behold, the men of Zed are even as you are, and their women are women.” Then he let Man see through his own eyes, and Man saw the men of Zed, how they herded their cattle and drove their plows and beat the little drums of Zed. And he saw the women of Zed, and how many were fair to look upon, and how they lived in sorrow and idleness, or else in toil and weariness, even like the women of Urth.
He said to the god, “If I am ever to see my own home, and my own women, and my children again, I must do as you say. But if I go as I am, I shall not see any of those things ever again. For the men of Zed are men—you yourself have said it—and therefore crueler than any beast.”
“It is that cruelty we must end,” said the god. “And in order that you may assist me with your reports, I have certain gifts for you.” Then he gave Man the enchanted cloak Tarnung by which none should see him when he did not wish to be seen, and he gave Man the enchanted sword Maser, whose blade is as long as the wielder wishes it (though it weighs nothing) and against which not even stone can stand.
