FSF, February 2008 Read online

  McCaffrey looked at me expectantly but I found myself incapable of speech. The part of me that was the counsel thought this was a wonderful teaching story and would be happy to help the elder in any way possible. The part of me that was from before, however, was furious because history had been changed and because these arrogant idiots had changed it. Most of all this part of me was furious because I had thought these people were my friends and they had excluded me from the major focus of their lives. These two parts or selves tangled me in such a knot of conflicting ideas and emotions, I found it hard to cut through with articulate speech. “Why?” I finally croaked.

  "Why didn't we tell you?” asked McCaffrey. I nodded. That question was as good as any. “Because I didn't trust you. Mortimer wanted to tell you. He looked on you as a kind of protégé, said your heart was in the right place. And Ariel certainly would have told you. Ariel trusts just about everybody. She hasn't had the hard knocks Mortimer and I have, and she was particularly fond of you. But I felt sometime or another you might let slip to one of your colleagues that you had a way to go back in time, or that you might be tempted to plant objects in particular places in the past so you could find and market them in our time. Mind you, I didn't think it was likely you'd do either, but I felt it was possible and I just didn't want to take the chance."

  This is what it must feel like to have schizophrenia, I thought, to have two people warring for dominion in your head. Part of me wanted to pummel the balding man sitting across from me. Part of me prattled on excitedly about initiation and tribal teaching traditions. “What is it that you want of me?” I finally managed.

  "I want you to come with me, see how the portal works and act as my backup in case I'm not successful in changing things back. If you're in close proximity to the portal when I travel back, you'll remember how things were, if things change. You'll be able to see if I was successful."

  "When they went back in time, where did Ariel and Mortimer go?"

  "Ariel followed her plan of taking Winnie Ille Pooh to the boy, Caesar. I don't think that would have changed things. Mortimer, however, liked your idea about Columbus. He wasn't going to take a book back with him, though. He knew better than to try to change history. He just wanted to go and see the ships off, maybe even sign on as a ship hand with one of them. He must have done something to change things though, because from what I can tell from the few hours I've been here in this time, the European conquest of the Americas never happened. The Native Americans rule this part of the continent, don't they?"

  "The land is under the protection of the Hopi Navajo Circle,” I said.

  "My point,” said McCaffrey. “So you will help me? You'll help me put history right?"

  "Right now, I'm in too much of a muddle to make any decisions, but I would like to see Ariel's Portal. Is it at the bookstore? Does the bookstore still...."

  "Yes, it still exists. It was too close to the portal apparently to be changed when the rest of history changed.” As McCaffrey said this I felt a longing to see the bookstore with its dusty shelves and haphazard stacks of books. At this time of day the light would be slanting in the front windows to warm the travel shelves with their volumes about boats and camels and adventurers who would not turn back.

  We took a skimmer. I preferred this small but elegant little craft to the more imposing vehicles that sailed so far above the ground you couldn't see details. As we maneuvered over the plains, my memories from that other time superimposed pavement and high-rises over the tall waving grasses where the antelope were now contentedly grazing.

  "It's funny,” McCaffrey said, “I could have sworn we were dead in the middle of winter yesterday.

  "Yes, I remember that.” I also remembered the drifting snow and the miserable cold. I remembered the smell of exhaust and the people scurrying, trying to get ahead or, at least, not to be left behind. I remembered the homeless and the elders locked away in nursing homes. I remembered Willy Loman.

  McCaffrey looked up through the skylight of the skimmer. “You build ‘castles in the air’ now?"

  "Yes, our lodges are layered in the air. That way we don't disturb the fields."

  McCaffrey craned his neck for a better look. “But how do you keep them floating up there? For that matter, how does this thing we're riding in work? Does it use some sort of magnetic or anti-gravity field?"

  "I don't know,” I said. “I am not an elder.” As I said this, my disparate selves seemed to gel into one cohesive whole and I knew this man was not an elder. He was totally from that other time. That was when I made up my mind. But I wanted to discuss it with him. “Maybe,” I said, “you should take a while before going back. Get to know this time. Things are very different...."

  "No.” McCaffrey interrupted me impatiently. Then he smiled and said ruefully, “I'm sorry. It's just that I've got this urgent feeling I've got to put things back the way they were right now. Things are too changed. You don't know. I had a helluva time finding you. I didn't think I ever would. I didn't think I'd ever see anyone I knew again.” He brought himself up short. “It just isn't right to change history. We did something we shouldn't have and now we need to correct it."

  I felt for him then, but I wasn't going to change my decision. The ethics of the situation were too big for me to get a handle on and I treasured the time I was in now, so I kept to the course that felt right to me. I brought the skimmer to a gentle stop near where the bookstore had been. I saw it then, in the short distance, nearly hidden by the tall grasses and the rise of the land in front of it. It looked very different out of context, out of the city that I remembered it in, but still the sight of it brought a lump to my throat. It was a heart place, a home long forgotten. I wondered why no one in my time had ever discovered it, out in this field, but then I thought someone probably had, and had chosen not to disturb it.

  We went down the old, familiar steps. The tinkle of the bell as McCaffrey opened the door brought waves of memory back to me. Once inside, McCaffrey excused himself for a few minutes, and I stood looking at all my old friends, all the old books I had loved that had given me sustenance. I felt a pang of sorrow. There were so many authors, so many stories that no one but our little book group would ever know.

  McCaffrey returned wearing the type of clothes that were worn in Columbus's time. I couldn't help but smile to see the man in tights. “Now I know why you want to go back there. You miss the fashion statement."

  McCaffrey didn't even crack a smile and I could see how scared he was. In his mind, he was doing something heroic to try to make things right again. “Are you sure you don't want to stay?” I asked. “It's not so bad in this time, in this place."

  "No, I need to make it right and, in case I fail, I need your assurance that you will also try to make it right."

  "Don't worry,” I said, “everything will be all right.” He paused a beat over the semantics, I think, but then he let it go. We went down into the basement and there, in the center of the room, was the portal. It looked like a gaudy dressing room for some 1960s star, but it had depth and it was made of a material I didn't recognize. McCaffrey showed me how to use the console to set the time and the place. Then I stepped out of the machine. McCaffrey looked at me wistfully and gave a little wave. “Well, good-bye,” he said.

  "Good-bye, McCaffrey.” And then McCaffrey wasn't there anymore. I waited a little, looking out the window to see if there were any changes, but there weren't. I hadn't really expected any. There were no buildings in sight. The tall grasses still bent to the wind. The antelopes still grazed in the distance. I shut the windows to the basement and locked the door. On my way out of the shop, I selected a copy of Yeats's poems (for all my books had disappeared with the time change) and Milne's Winnie the Pooh.

  Then I took the skimmer to a lake I loved, just beyond Eeyore's Meadow. All the long afternoon, I sat by Piglet's Lake. I watched the blue heron fishing and read a little from the Pooh book (it was wonderful to have these teaching stories and not to have to
wait for a gathering to hear them). Most of all though, I just sat and thought, remembering my friends, remembering Mortimer Fechner's passion for literature and Ariel's enthusiasm for Pooh, remembering McCaffrey and his pipe. Sometimes I imagined Ariel giving the Pooh Cycle to the boy, Caesar. In my mind, she was in a hall full of light, and cedar incense burned on a brazier nearby. Sometimes I imagined McCaffrey and Fechner standing on the foredeck of a ship, looking straight ahead, smoking their pipes and telling each other stories. I liked to think that McCaffrey had found Fechner. I knew that if he had found Fechner, he would be all right.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Memoirs of the Witch Queen by Ron Goulart

  Ron Goulart has contributed a ghost story or three over the years, but when was the last time he gave us a ghost writer story? Here he brings us the tale of Paul Sanson, a scribe with a rather unenviable job.

  He didn't sneeze.

  That surprised him because he always sneezed a few times on awakening. It was allergy season in this part of Connecticut.

  As Paul Sanson was swinging out of bed in his small rented cottage, the phone rang. He knew who that was. They called him just about every other morning at a few minutes beyond eight.

  Yawning once, he went into the small living room and picked up the phone off the rickety coffee table. “Yeah?"

  "Paul Sanson, please,” said a polite and unfamiliar female voice.

  "Speaking."

  "My name is Amy and I'm calling about your International Bank Credit Card account."

  "What happened to Tom?"

  The young woman sighed. “Well, I suppose I really shouldn't tell you this, Paul,” she said hesitantly. “Yet, since you've been dealing with Tom for several weeks—"

  "I've been harassed by Tom and his false claims that I owe—"

  "I'll get to that, Paul,” said Amy. “First, though, let me explain about Tom.” She sighed sadly once again. “He drove his motorcycle off a bridge late yesterday afternoon and both he and the motorcycle sank in the river without a trace."

  Holding back a pleased chuckle, Sanson inquired, “Which river was that?"

  "Oh, I'm afraid we can't give out specific information pertaining to our actual location. Suffice it to say that it was a very deep river."

  "During the entire time that Tom hounded me about the money that I don't actually owe you people,” said Sanson, scratching his left ankle with his right foot, “he never once mentioned that he was a motorcycle buff."

  "He wasn't. That's what's so odd, you know,” she said. “He only bought the motorcycle early yesterday afternoon. He'd never owned one before."

  "Sad,” observed Sanson, not meaning it. “So you've taken over his task of calling me at odd hours to demand that I pay sums which I—"

  "No, Paul, that isn't the reason I called.” Her voice brightened. “It turns out you were right about having made those arrears payments."

  "I was? I mean, I was, yes."

  "In fact, you have no back balance at all and you can start using your card again immediately. Your new credit line is fifty thousand dollars."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "Fifty thousand dollars,” Amy repeated. “And since you're on our Especially Valued Customers list, Paul, you don't have to make any payments for eighteen months."

  Making a puzzled noise, he said, “Well, that's ... nice,” and ended the call.

  He walked barefoot over to the living room window, gazed out into the patch of woodlands that surrounded his cottage. A light rain was falling. “How did I get from deadbeat to Especially Valued?"

  He was eating bran flakes and scanning the front page of the New Beckford News-Pilot when the phone rang again.

  Sanson returned to the living room. “Hello?"

  "Hey, dude. Did I wake you up?"

  "No such luck, Rudy. What's wrong now?"

  "Deadline,” said his youthful editor in far-off Manhattan. “Does that word have any meaning for you?"

  "Greensea Publishing hired me to polish Inza Warburton's memoirs, not write them,” he reminded Rudy Korkin. “I've faxed you folks my revisions of every page she's given me thus far."

  "When we hired you for such an outrageous fee, we assumed you'd be able to speed her up and—"

  "Fifteen thousand dollars is not an outrageous fee. It's actually on the modest side. The fellows who used to mow my lawn earn more than that in—"

  "You know we have to have a completed manuscript in three months, dude. Certain people here at Greensea are getting—"

  "Inza Warburton is aware of that, Rudy."

  "I had to fight to get them to take her book for the winter list,” said his editor. “And it was a battle to get you hired. Since I've worked with you before and you live just one town over from that self-styled witch, you were—"

  "She's a witch queen,” corrected Sanson. “Meaning she's top-seeded in the quack sorcery community. You knew that, Rudy, which is why Greensea wanted her memoirs in the first place."

  "Be that as it may,” said Rudy, “we've got to start seeing more pages damned soon. Otherwise ... otherwise ... otherwise...."

  "Rudy?"

  Sanson heard a bouncing thump, followed by the sound of stacks of fat manuscripts sliding off a desk to thunk onto a thick rug.

  "Rudy?"

  Then a young woman said, “Paul, this is Polly."

  "What's happened to Rudy?"

  "Well, I don't exactly know. He's lying here on the floor of his office in some sort of coma and his feet are twitching and his face is a lobster color. I have to go get help. We'll call you later."

  "Yeah, okay."

  For several minutes he sat in his only armchair, looking out not at the damp, overcast day but at the blank tan wall behind his small sofa.

  Rising slowly, he said, “I'd better go see Inza Warburton."

  * * * *

  The carved wooden door was yanked open with such force that the brass gargoyle knocker rattled and thumped. A large, plump arm reached out from the shadowy hallway, pulling him in out of the rainy early afternoon.

  "So good to see you, hon."

  Two large plump arms encircled him and, as the heavy oaken door was booted shut, he was hugged enthusiastically by the immense Inza Warburton.

  She pressed him closer, engulfed him in her vast bosom, lifted him several inches up off the venerable hardwood floor.

  "Oof,” Sanson managed to say.

  Releasing him, Inza asked, “Well, are you impressed?"

  "By what? Your smothering abilities?"

  In her middle thirties, she weighed about 320 pounds. She wore her black hair cut short and slicked down. As usual, she was clad in one of her dust-colored muumuus and an Egyptian Eye of Osiris medal swung from her ample neck on a silver chain.

  "Tell me about your morning,” the witch queen invited, taking him by the arm and leading him into the cluttered and dim-lit living room.

  The beam-ceilinged room, where he usually worked with Inza, was crowded with glass-doored bookcases, dusty display cabinets, several claw-foot tables, an assortment of stuffed animals—some of which Sanson had never been able to identify—sprawls of bright colored cloth, a yellowed human skull, a large crystal ball that glowed greenly in a dark corner, and a scatter of incense sticks sending up colored smoke of various scents.

  As the immense woman arranged herself in a faded purple Morris chair, he asked, “You had something to do with what's been happening?"

  She grinned. “I've had the feeling of late, dear heart, that you don't actually believe in me and my powers."

  Sanson sat on the edge of a straight-backed chair. “I told you when we started working on your memoirs three months ago, Inza, that I didn't believe in witchcraft. But I'm a pretty good writer and I can put stuff into satisfactory form for—"

  "Every word we've written together, Paul dear, is the truth. I especially want you to accept me for what I am, since, as you ought to know by now, I've grown quite fond of you."

  He mo
ved his chair a few inches farther away from the witch queen. “It isn't really a good idea for me to get too involved with the people I work with on books."

  "But I can really help you, Paul,” she told him. “Look what I did this morning, for example. Cleared up your allergies, canceled your major debt, fixed it so your editor won't bother you anymore."

  "You used witchcraft to—"

  "Witchcraft, sorcery, black magic, a bit of Satanic help,” she amplified. “Haven't you been paying attention to what we're writing? I really do possess considerable occult powers, dear."

  He took a deep breath. “You're capable of killing Rudy from a distance?"

  "Relax, he's not dead. Merely sidelined."

  "He was in a coma and—"

  "Telephone.” Inza gestured at him with one fat beringed hand.

  "What?” His cell phone chimed. He pulled it free of his jacket pocket, opened it. “Hello?"

  "Rudy is all right, Paul,” said Polly, the assistant Greensea Publishing editor, in a voice not rich with optimism. “He's not unconscious anymore and that strange crimson color is gone."

  "I guess that's good news. Where is he?"

  "Right now, I'd estimate, he's en route to Iola, Wisconsin."

  "Oh, so?"

  "He's going to be recuperating at his sister's place for a few months."

  "Didn't know he had a sister."

  "None of us here at Greensea did. But Rudy was always sort of secretive about his personal life."

  "Will you be editing our book now?"

  "Actually, no. They're sending a new fellow over from Germany. That's where, you know, the munitions conglomerate that owns us is based. From Munich, but I don't know his name yet."

  "Lazlo Font,” provided Inza from her purple chair.

  "Polly, if you talk to Rudy, give him my best."