She"ll never come back, he thought. Oh G.o.d!
He sat on the porch steps for a while, quietly biting his knuckle.
At three in the morning, in bed, he thought he heard a sigh and soft footsteps in gra.s.s, and waited. The photo alb.u.m lay closed on the floor. Even though it lay shut, he could see and know her face. And it was utterly impossible, utterly insane.
His last thought before sleep was: ghost.
The strangest ghost that ever walked.
The ghost of someone dead.
The ghost of someone who died very old.
But somehow come back not as her old self.
But a ghost that was somehow young.
Weren"t ghosts always, when they returned, the same age as when they died?
No.
Not this one anyway.
"Why . . .?" he whispered.
And dream took over the whisper.
One night pa.s.sed and then another and another, and there was nothing on the lawn but the light of a moon that changed its face from outright stare to half grimace.
He waited.
The first night a more than ordinarily casual cat crossed the yard at two A.M.
The second night a dog trotted by, wearing his tongue half out of his mouth like a loosely tied red cravat, smiling at trees.
The third night a spider spent from twelve-twenty-five until four A.M. building a baroque clockface on the air between lawn and trees, which a bird broke in pa.s.sing at dawn.
He slept most of Sunday and awoke with a fever that was not an illness at dusk.
Late in the twilight of the fifth day, the color of the sky somehow promised her return, as did the way the wind leaned against the trees and the look of the moon when it finally rose to set the scene.
"All right," he said, half aloud. "Now."
But at midnight, nothing.
"Come on," he whispered.
One o"clock, nothing.
You must, he thought.
No, you will.
He slept for ten minutes and woke suddenly at two-ten, knowing that when he went to the window- She would be there.
She was.
At first, he didn"t see her, and groaned, and then, in the shadow of the great oak far out on the edge of the lawn, he saw something move, and one foot came out, and she took a step and stood very still.
He held his breath, quieted his heart, told himself to turn, walk, and take each step down with precision, numbering them, fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, moving in darkness with no rush, six, five, four, and at last one. He opened the front screen door with only a whisper, and was on the porch without frightening what might be out beyond waiting for him.
Quietly, he moved down the porch steps to the edge of the lawn, like one who stands on the rim of a pond. Out in the center of that pond, the young woman stood, trapped like someone on thin ice that might at any moment break and drop her through.
She did not see him. And then . . .
She did a thing that was a signal. Tonight her hair was fixed in a knot at the back of her head. She lifted her white arms in a gesture and with one touch of her fingers, a touch of snow, loosened her hair.
It fell in a dark banner, to blow and repattern itself across her shoulders, which trembled with their shadows.
The wind stirred her hair in the night and moved it about her face and on her uplifted hands.
The shadows laid down by the moon under every tree leaned as if called by the motion.
The entire world shifted in its sleep.
The wind blew as the young woman waited.
But no footsteps sounded along the white sidewalks. No front doors opened far down the street. No windows were raised. No motion caused front porches to creak and shift.
He took another step out onto the small meadow of night.
"Who are you-?" she gasped, and stepped back.
"No, no," he said softly. "It"s all right."
Another trembling had taken over her body. Where before it had been some hope, some antic.i.p.ation, now it was fear. One hand stopped her hair from blowing; the other half shielded her face.
"I"ll stand right here," he said. "Believe me."
She waited a long while, staring at him until her shoulders relaxed and the lines around her mouth vanished. Her whole body sensed the truth of his words.
"I don"t understand," she said.
"I don"t either."
"What are you doing here?"
"I don"t know."
"What am I doing here?"
"You came to meet someone," he said.
"Did I?"
The town clock struck three in the morning far away. She listened to it, her face shadowed by the sound.
"But it"s so late. People don"t walk around late on front lawns!"
"They do if they must," he said.
"But why?"
"Maybe we can find out, if we talk."
"About what, what?!"
"About why you"re here. If we talk long enough, we may know. I know why I"m here, of course. I heard you crying."
"Oh, I"m so ashamed."
"Don"t be. Why are people ashamed of tears? I cry often. Then I start laughing. But the crying must come first. Go ahead."
"What a strange man you are."
Her hand fell away from her hair. Her other hand moved away so her face was illuminated by a small and growing curiosity.
"I thought I was the only one who knew about crying," she said.
"Everyone thinks that. It"s one of those little secrets we keep from each other. Show me a serious man and I"ll show you a man who has never wept. Show me a madman and I"ll show you a man who dried his tears a long time ago. Go ahead."
"I think I"m done," she said.
"Any time, start over."
She burst out a tiny laugh. "Oh, you are strange. Who are you?"
"We"ll come to that."
She peered across the lawn at his hands, his face, his mouth, and then at his eyes.
"Oh, I know you. But from where?!"
"That would spoil it. You wouldn"t believe, anyway."
"I would!"
Now it was his turn to laugh quietly. "You"re very young."
"No, nineteen! Ancient!"
"Girls, by the time they go from twelve to nineteen, are full of years, yes. I don"t know; but it must be so. Now, please, why are you out here in the middle of the night?"
"I-" She shut her eyes to think in on it. "I"m waiting."
"Yes?"
"And I"m sad."
"It"s the waiting that makes you sad, yes?"
"I think, no, yes, no."
"And you don"t quite know what you"re waiting for?"
"Oh, I wish I could be sure. All of me"s waiting. I don"t know, all of me. I don"t understand. I"m impossible!"
"No, you"re everyone that ever grew up too fast and wanted too much. I think girls, women, like you have slipped out at night since time began. If it wasn"t here in Green Town, it was in Cairo or Alexandria or Rome or Paris in summer, anywhere there was a private place and late hours and no one to see, so they just rose up and out, as if someone had called their name-"
"I was called, yes! That"s it! Someone did call my name! It"s true. How did you know? Was it you!"
"No. But someone we both know. You"ll know his name when you go back to bed tonight, wherever that is."
"Why, in that house, behind you," she said. "That"s my house. I was born in it."
"Well"-he laughed-"so was I."
"You? How can that be? Are you sure?"
"Yes. Anyway, you heard someone calling. You had to come out-"
"I did. Many nights now. But, always, no one"s here. They must be there, or why would I hear them?"
"One day there"ll be someone to fit the voice."
"Oh, don"t joke with me!"
"I"m not. Believe. There will be. That"s what all those other women heard in other years and places, middle of summer, dead of winter, go out and risk cold, stand warm in snow banks, and listen and look for strange footprints on the midnight snow, and only an old dog trotting by, all smiles. d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n."
"Oh, yes, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n." And her smile showed for a moment, even as the moon came out of the clouds and went away. "Isn"t it silly?"
"No. Men do the same. They take long walks when they"re sixteen, seventeen. They don"t stand on lawns, waiting, no. But, my G.o.d, how they walk! Miles and miles from midnight until dawn and come home exhausted and explode and die in bed."
"What a shame that those who stand and wait and those who walk all night can"t-"
"Meet?"
"Yes; don"t you think it"s a shame?"