The Witching Hour Read online

  He saw the can go in …

  Abbie’s eyes were wide and frightened. Matt turned around dazedly, prodding his chest with trembling fingers. The can had shattered against the cabin wall behind him. It lay on the floor, battered, in a drift of powder.

  “It went in,” Matt said. “I saw it. But I didn’t feel a thing. It passed right through me. What happened, Abbie?”

  “I couldn’t stop it,” she whispered. “So I just sort of wished it was-n’t there. For just a moment. And it wasn’t.”

  That was how they found out that Abbie could teleport. It was as simple as telekinesis. She could project or pull objects through walls without hurting either one. Little things, big things. It made no difference. Distance made no difference either, apparently.

  “What about living things?” Matt asked.

  Abbie concentrated. Suddenly there was a mouse on the table, a brown field mouse with twitching whiskers and large, startled black eyes. For a moment it crouched, frozen, and then it scampered for the edge of the table, straight toward Abbie.

  Abbie screamed and reacted. Twisting in the air, the mouse vanished. Matt looked up, his mouth hanging open. Abbie was three feet in the air, hovering like a hummingbird. Slowly Abbie came down to her chair.

  “It works on people, too,” Matt whispered. “Try it again. Try it on me.”

  Matt felt suddenly nauseated, as if he had unexpectedly stepped off the Earth. The room shifted around him. He looked down. He was floating in the air about two feet above the chair he had been sitting on. He was turning slowly, so that the room seemed to revolve around him.

  He looked for Abbie, but she was behind him now. Slowly she drifted into view. “That’s fine,” he said. Abbie looked happier than she had looked for days. She almost smiled.

  Matt began to turn more rapidly. In a moment he was spinning like a top; the room flashed into a kaleidoscope. He swallowed hard. “All right!” he shouted. “That’s enough.”

  Abruptly he stopped spinning and dropped. His stomach soared up into his throat. He thumped solidly into the chair and immediately hopped up with a howl of anguish. He rubbed himself with both hands.

  “Ouch!” he shouted. And then accusingly, “You did that on purpose.”

  Abbie looked innocent. “I done what you said.”

  “All right, you did,” Matt said bitterly. “From now on, I resign as a guinea pig.”

  Abbie folded her hands in her lap. “What shall I do?”

  “Practice on yourself,” Matt said.

  “Yes, Mr. Wright.” She rose sedately in the air. “This is wonderful.” She stretched out as if she were lying in bed. She floated around the room. Matt was reminded of shows in which he had seen magicians producing the same illusion, passing hoops cleverly around their assistant’s body to show that there were no wires. Only this wasn’t magic, this wasn’t illusion; this was real.

  Abbie settled back into the chair. Her face was glowing. “I feel like I could do anything,” she said. “Now what shall I try.”

  Matt thought a moment. “Can you project yourself?”

  “Where to?”

  “Oh, anywhere,” Matt said impatiently. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Anywhere?” she repeated. There was a distant and unreadable expression in her eyes.

  And then she vanished.

  Matt stared at the chair she had been in. She was gone, indisputably gone. He searched the room, a simple process. There was no sign of her. He went outside. The afternoon sun glared at him, exposing everything in a harsh light.

  “Abbie!” Matt shouted. “Abbie!” He waited. He heard only the echo drifting back from the hills across the lake. For five minutes he roamed about the cabin, shouting and calling, before he gave up.

  He went back into the cabin. He sat down and stared moodily at the bunk where Abbie had slept. Where was she now? Was she trapped in some extra dimension, weird and inexplicable to the senses, within which her power could not work? There had to be some such explanation for teleportation — a fourth dimensional shortcut across our three. Was Abbie dead? Perhaps that would be the most merciful thing that could have happened.

  As he brooded, remorse came to him slowly, creeping in so stealthily that awareness of it was like a blow. The whole scheme had been madness. He could not understand now the insane ambition that had led to this tinkering with human lives and the structure of the universe. He had justified it to himself with the name of science. But the word had no mystic power of absolution. His motive had been something entirely different. It was only a sublimated lust for power, and thinly disguised at that. The power of knowledge. The power to topple a whole system of ideas. The power to hold the truth in his hands like a club. And for that lust, which she could never understand, an innocent, unsophisticated girl had suffered.

  Ends can never justify means, Matt realized now. They are too inextricably intertwined ever to be separated. The means inevitably shape the ends. In the long view, there are neither means nor ends, for the means are only an infinite series of ends, and the ends are an infinite series of means …

  And Abbie appeared. Like an Arabian genie, with gifts upon a tray, streaming a mouth-watering incense through the air. Full-formed, she sprang into being, her cheeks glowing, her eyes shining.

  “Abbie!” Matt shouted joyfully. His heart gave a sudden bound, as if it had suddenly been released from an unbearable weight. “Where have you been?”

  “Springfield.”

  “Springfield!” Matt gasped. “But that’s over fifty miles.”

  Abbie lowered the tray to the table. She snapped her fingers. “Like that, I was there.”

  Matt’s eyes fell to the tray. It was loaded with cooked food: shrimp cocktail, broiled lobster tails, French-fried …

  Abbie smiled. “I got hungry.”

  “But where — ?” Matt began. “You went back to the restaurant,” he said accusingly. “You took the food from there.”

  Abbie nodded happily. “I was hungry.”

  “But that’s stealing,” Matt moaned. And he realized for the first time the enormity of the thing he had done, what he had let loose upon the world. Nothing was safe. Neither money nor jewels nor deadly secrets. Nothing at all.

  “They won’t ever miss it,” Abbie said. “And nobody saw me.” She said it simply, as the ultimate justification.

  Matt was swept by the staggering realization that where her basic drives were concerned Abbie was completely amoral. There was only one small hope. If he could keep her from realizing her civilization-shattering potentialities! They might never occur to her.

  “Sure,” Matt said. “Sure.”

  Abbie ate heartily, but Matt had no appetite. He sat thoughtfully, watching her eat, and he experienced a brief thankfulness that at least she wasn’t going to starve to death.

  “Didn’t you have any trouble?” he asked. “Getting the food without anyone seeing you?”

  Abbie nodded. “I couldn’t decide how to get into the kitchen. I could see that the cook was all alone.”

  “You could see!”

  “I was outside, but I could see into the kitchen, somehow. So finally I called ‘Albert!’ And the cook went out and I went in and took the food that was sitting on the tray and came back here. It was really simple, because the cook was expecting someone to call him.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I thought it,” Abbie said, frowning. “Like this.”

  She concentrated for a moment. He watched her, puzzled, and then he knew what she meant. Panic caught him by the throat. If she had that ability, too! There were things she shouldn’t know. Because he was trying so hard to bury them deep, they scuttled across his consciousness. He half-rose in his chair.

  Telepathy!

  And as he watched her face, he knew that he was right.

  Her eyes grew wide and incredulous. Slowly something hard and cruelly cold slipped down over her face like a mask.

  Oh, Abbie! My sweet, gentle Abbie! />
  “You — ” she gasped. “You devil! There ain’t nothin’ too bad for anyone who’d do that!”

  I’m a dead man, Matt thought.

  “You with your kindness and your handsome face and your city manners,” Abbie said pitifully. “How could you do it? You knew I liked you better’n anyone I ever saw, so you made me fall in love with you. It wasn’t hard, was it? All you had to do was hold a little hill girl’s hand in the moonlight and kiss her once, and she was ready to jump into bed with you. But you didn’t want anything as natural as that. All the time you was laughin’ and schemin’. Poor little hill girl!

  “You make me think you like me so well you want me to look real purty in new clothes and new hair and a new face. But it’s just a trick. All the time it’s a trick. When I’m feeling happiest and most grateful, you take it all away. I’d sooner you hit me across the face. Poor little hill girl! Thinkin’ you wanted her. Thinkin’ maybe you were aimin’ to marry her. I wanted to die. Even Paw was never that mean. He never done anything a-purpose, like you.”

  White-faced, Matt watched her, his mind racing.

  “You’re thinking you can get around me somehow,” Abbie said, “and I’ll forget. You can make me think it was all a mistake. ‘Tain’t no use. You cain’t, not never, because I know what you’re thinking.”

  What had he been thinking? Had he actually thought of marrying her? Just for a second? He shuddered. It would be hell. Imagine, if you can, a wife who is all-knowing, all-powerful, who can never be evaded, avoided, sighed to, lied to, shut out, shut up. Imagine a wife who can make a room a shambles in a second, who can throw a dish, a chair, a milk bottle, or a cow, and hit the bull’s eye every time. Imagine a wife who can be any place, any time, in the flicker of a suspicion. Imagine a wife who can see through walls and read minds and maybe wish you a raging headache or broken leg or aching joints.

  It would be worse than hell. The torments of the damned would be pleasant compared to that.

  Abbie’s chin came up. “You don’t need to worry. I’d sooner marry up with a rattlesnake. At least he gives you warnin’ before he strikes.”

  “Kill me!” Matt said desperately. “Strike me dead!”

  Abbie smiled sweetly. “Killin’s too good for you. I don’t know anything that ain’t too good for you. But don’t fret, I’ll think of somethin’. Now go away and leave me alone.”

  Thankfully Matt started to turn. Before he could complete the movement, he found himself outside the cabin. He blinked in the light of the sinking sun. He began to shiver. After a little he sat down on the porch and lit a cigarette. There had to be some way out of this. There was always a way.

  From inside the cabin came the sound of running water. Running water! Matt resisted an impulse to get up and investigate the mystery. “Leave me alone,” Abbie had said, in a tone that Matt didn’t care to challenge.

  A few minutes later he heard the sound of splashing and Abbie’s voice lifted in a sweet soprano. Although he couldn’t understand the words, the tune sent chills down his back. And then a phrase came clear:

  “Root-a-toot-toot, three times she did shoot

  Right through that hardwood door.

  He was her man, but he done her wrong… . “

  Matt began to shake. He passed a trembling hand across his sweaty forehead and wondered if he had a fever. He tried to pull himself together. He had to think clearly. The situation was obvious. He had done a fiendishly cruel thing — no matter what the excuse — and he had been caught and the power of revenge was in the hands of the one he had wronged, never more completely. The only question was: What form would the revenge take? When he knew that, he might be able to figure out a way to evade it. There was no question in his mind about waiting meekly for justice to strike.

  The insurmountable difficulty was that the moment he thought of a plan it would be unworkable because Abbie would be forewarned. And she was already armed. He had to stop thinking.

  How do you stop thinking? he thought miserably. Stop thinking! he told himself. Stop thinking, damn you!

  He might be on the brink of the perfect solution. But if he thought of it, it would be worthless. And if he couldn’t think of it, then —

  The circle was complete. He was back where he started, staring at its perfect viciousness. There was only one possi —

  Mary had a little lamb with fleece as white as snow and everywhere that Mary went (Relax!) the lamb (Don’t think!) was sure (Act on the spur of the moment) to go. Mary had a…

  “Well, Mr. Wright, are you ready to go?”

  Matt started. Besides him were a pair of black suede shoes filled with small feet. His gaze traveled up the lovely, nylon-sheathed legs, up the clinging black dress that swelled so provocatively, to the face with its blue eyes and red lips and blonde hair.

  Even in his pressing predicament, Matt had to acknowledge the impact of her beauty. It was a pity that her other gifts were so terrible.

  “I reckon your fiancée won’t mind,” Abbie said sweetly. “Being as you ain’t got a fiancée. Are you ready?”

  “Ready?” Matt looked down at his soiled work clothes. “For what?”

  “You’re ready,” Abbie said.

  A wave of dizziness swept him followed by a wave of nausea. Matt shut his eyes. The sensations receded. When he opened his eyes again, he had a frightening sensation of disorientation. Then he recognized his surroundings. He was on the dance floor in Springfield.

  Abbie came into his arms. “All right,” she said. “Dance!”

  Shocked, Matt began to dance, mechanically. People were staring at them as if they had dropped through a hole in the ceiling. Matt wasn’t sure they hadn’t. Only two other couples were on the small floor, but they had stopped dancing and were looking puzzled. As Matt swung Abbie slowly around, he saw that the sprinkling of customers at the bar bad turned to stare, too. A waiter in a white jacket was coming toward them, frowning determinedly.

  Abbie seemed as unconcerned about the commotion she had caused as the rainbow-hued jukebox in the corner. It thumped away just below Matt’s conscious level of recognition. Abbie danced lightly in his arms.

  The waiter tapped Matt on the shoulder. Matt sighed with relief and stopped dancing. Immediately he found himself moving jerkily around the floor like a puppet or a paretic. Abbie, he gathered, did not care to stop.

  The waiter followed doggedly. “Stop that!” he said bewilderedly. “I don’t know where you came from or what you think you’re doing, but you can’t do it here and you can’t do it dressed like that.”

  “I — I c-can-n’t s-st-stop-p!” Matt said jerkily.

  “Sure you can,” the waiter said soothingly. He plodded along after them. “There’s lots of things a man can’t do, but he can always stop whatever you’re doing. I should think you’d be glad to stop.”

  “I-I-I — w-would,” Matt got out. “S-st-stop-p!” he whispered to Abbie.

  “Tell the man to go ‘way,” Abbie whispered back.

  Matt decided to start dancing again. It was easier than being shaken to pieces. “I think you’d better go away,” he said to the waiter.

  “Go away?” the waiter said. “You’re the one who’s going to go. Come along, now … “

  Matt felt Abbie stiffen. “Please,” he told the waiter frantically, “please go away.”

  “We don’t like to use force,” the waiter said, frowning, “but we have to keep up a standard. Come along quietly” — he jerked on Matt’s arm — “or — ”

  The grip on Matt’s arm suddenly was gone. The waiter vanished. Matt looked around wildly.

  The jukebox bad a new decoration. Dazed, opaque-eyed, the waiter squatted on top of the box, his white jacket and whiter face a dark fool’s motley in the swirling lights.

  Abbie pressed herself close. Matt shuddered and swung her slowly around the floor. On the next turn, he saw that the waiter had climbed down from his perch. He had recruited reinforcements. Grim-faced and silent, the waiter approached
, followed by another waiter, a lantern-jawed bartender, and an ugly bulldog of a man in street clothes. The manager, Matt guessed.

  They formed a menacing ring around Matt and Abbie.

  “Whatever your game is,” growled the bulldog, “we don’t want to play. If you don’t leave damn quick, you’re going to wish you had.”

  Matt, looking at him, believed it. He tried to stop. Again his limbs began to jerk uncontrollably.

  “I-I c-can-n’t,” he said. “D-d-don’t-t y-you th-think I-I w-would if I-I c-could?”

  The manager stared at him with large, awed, bloodshot eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess you would.” He shook himself. His jowls wobbled. “Okay, boys. Let’s get rid of them.”

  “Watch yourself,” said the first waiter uneasily. “One of them has a trick throw.”

  They closed in. Matt felt Abbie stiffen against him.

  They vanished, one after the other, like candles being snuffed. Matt glanced unhappily at the jukebox. There they were on top of the box, stacked in each other’s laps like a totem pole. The pile teetered and collapsed in all directions. Dull thuds made themselves heard even above the jukebox.

  Matt saw them get up, puzzled and wary. The bartender was rubbing his nose. He doubled his fists and started to rush out on the floor. The manager, a wilier sort, grabbed his arm. The four of them went into consultation. Every few seconds one of them would raise his head and stare at Matt and Abbie. Finally the first waiter detached himself from the group and with an air of finality reached behind the jukebox. Abruptly the music stopped; the colored lights went out. Silence fell. The four of them turned triumphantly toward the floor.

  Just as abruptly, the lights went back on; the music boomed out again. They jumped.

  Defiantly the manager stepped to the wall and pulled the plug from the socket. He turned, still holding the cord. It stirred in his hand. The manager looked down at it incredulously. It wriggled. He dropped it hurriedly, with revulsion. The plug rose cobra-like from its coils and began a slow, deadly, weaving dance. The manager stared, hypnotized with disbelief.

  The cord struck. The manager leaped back. The bared metal fangs bit into the floor. They retreated, all four of them, watching with wide eyes. Contemptuously the cord turned its back on them, wriggled its way to the socket, and plugged itself in.