Asimov's Science Fiction: October/November 2013 (13 page)

However, Mrs. Claymore had promised to look in throughout the day, and that presented him with an unforeseen impediment to his plans. All he could do was lie in bed and wait.

It wasn't long before she checked up on him. Providently, she apologized that she needed to go out—a visit to the butcher in order to make their dinner. She wouldn't be long, an hour perhaps. He assured her he would be fine, with a whole volume of Stevenson to read.

The moment the front door closed, he was out of the bed and across the hall. There was no one else about. Mr. Vanderhoff was traveling, Mr. Righter at his accounting job.

Eustace unlocked and entered the room. Everything stood immaculate.

Carefully, he searched for anything from Miss Comuzzi—at the very least, the rosewater that he'd smelled. The narrow closet held two suits, one formal black suit and one brown tweed, and two pairs of shoes, one with spats. He felt under the mattress, looked beneath the bed, but found nothing, no secret message nor forgotten item of hers. Yet he had smelled her rosewater. He was sure of it. There must be a handkerchief, a stocking, or a bottle of perfume hidden somewhere. Eventually he had investigated every place but the phonograph cabinet.

It stood beside a hard-backed chair that he climbed up on in order to remove the cover; but standing there, with the latches thrown, he balked at touching it. He must, he knew. There might never be another opportunity. He lifted off the lid, climbed down and placed it carefully on the bed, then got up on the chair again.

Close up, the mechanism looked far more complicated than the Edison players in the store, even the one that had recorded Miss Comuzzi at the piano. For one thing, a cluster of copper tubing ran behind the mandrel and down into the cabinet. The tubes were almost as thin as Mother's bone crochet hooks. They emerged out of a steel block with a row of fins along the back. Below the fins was a bank of switches that he could not comprehend, and what looked like two receptacles where something might be fitted in. The reproducer itself lay tilted back on its articulated arm, revealing the sharpest stylus he had ever seen. It shone like glass. He extended a finger, but hesitated to touch the tip. The extra elements of the phonograph presented a mystery all their own.

He climbed down to the front of the cabinet, opened both the doors. Inside were shelves of cylinder records in their cartons. He drew one out. The label proclaimed "Edison Records" and as he rolled it, showed a photograph of Edison himself and the words "No Others Are Genuine." On the end cap, it said "4035 Original Lauterbach." He worked off the cardboard cap and carefully slid the cylinder out. It was brown just like the ones in the music store, made of carnauba wax, and he could see that it had been played many times. The grooves were worn. He recapped and put it away. He didn't need to hear it. More than likely he
had
heard it. He squatted down and looked at the lowest shelf. Only more cardboard cylinders. He finally closed the doors and reached to get the lid off the bed.

And that was when he saw the other door. It had been assembled into the side of the cabinet so that it looked like nothing more than a split panel—except that near the top and bottom lay two tiny brass hinges. There were no knobs to pull like on the front, but when he pushed, the panel moved a little and clicked outward. He drew it open.

The cylinder cartons here were like nothing he'd ever seen, of shiny black leather. He drew one all the way out. It bore no label at all, and the cap had an unbroken wax seal around it. Eustace replaced it, tried another, and then another until he pulled out one that had been unsealed. Carefully he worked off the cap. There was a cylinder inside and, as he had been taught to do, he inserted two fingers into it and tilted the carton to slide it out.

The cylinder was blood red. Eustace stared at it in awe.

It bore not a trace of writing, no etched words and no label on the inside either; but it was grooved all around, not a blank.

What was it was made of? He knew from the music store salesman that Edison was perfecting better cylinders.

Now curiosity took over. There was still plenty of time before anyone would return to the house.

With great care he again climbed up on the chair, slid the red cylinder onto the mandrel, locked it in place. Then, gathering a deep breath, he drew the knob and let the cylinder spin up to speed. He lowered the glittering reproducer.

The cabinet hissed with a sound like an exhalation that rose and fell, and then within it a single small, helpless moan. There was no music at all. And then quite suddenly
she
was in the room with him. His whole body sensed her nearness. Roses were everywhere.

The air grew charged. It sizzled against him, making the hairs on his arms jump up. Sparks danced before his eyes, swirled into a vision, ghostly as a visitation but visible, transparent before him. It was her shape. It stood stiffly, like someone reciting or singing in a choir, but only the breathing emerged. The crackling of the cylinder matched the shimmering aura she threw off, of tiny sparks that stung his skin. A swell of energy thrummed through him. He might have flown around the room on it if he hadn't been rooted to that chair, absorbing it. Miss Comuzzi was inside him, her skin slipping along his own like oil. He shook, and sweat popped out upon his forehead, trickled down from his hair. His eyes closed and he was about to swoon in a fever no longer contrived.

Then all at once it stopped. The stylus had come to the end of the groove and only the crackling remained as it rode around and around in place. With trembling fingers he drew the reproducer away the way he knew he should; but his fingertips were moist, and it slipped in his grasp. Terrified, he clutched and pulled it back. It took all his will to slide the knob and stop the spinning. He collapsed in the chair like a rag doll.

Sweat stung his eyes. He wiped his hands over them. Time must have passed. He shivered not from fever but from energy that he could barely contain. It was as if his muscles wanted to swell and burst through his skin.
She's still inside me,
he thought. His legs jittered. He couldn't sit any longer.

Put the lid on and get away—that's what he had to do. But the cylinder! He couldn't leave that there. He got onto his knees, pulled away the locking arm and then carefully pushed the cylinder onto two fingers. As he returned it to its sleeve, he saw the damage the reproducer had done when it slipped—the stylus had cut a gouge across the middle of the delicate grooving. His fingers hovered over it. Was there some way to smooth it out? But he dared not touch it and finally put the leather case away, closed the secret compartment. Then with a strength he had never before possessed, he lifted the lid and held it in one hand while he climbed back up on the chair. Lowered the lid. Snapped the latches.

Jumping down, he scanned the room to make sure it looked undisturbed. He ran to the door, listened with his ear pressed against it, uncannily able to hear the emptiness of the whole boarding house. He locked the door and stole across the hall to his own room.

He tried to sit but seconds later jumped up, paced, sat again shaking, and finally, madly, rushed out and down the stairs, outside, across the walk and down the street.

The sun was so warm, the colors so bright. Passing voices assailed him. He winced at their sharpness. Buildings, shadows, the stink of sweat, of fresh laundry drying on lines strung across the alley overhead—he could
smell
it up there. He walked and walked until he came to rails, and his attention was pulled along them by the smell of a train that had passed by within the hour, a stink of stockyards, blood and offal, though the yards lay nowhere near here. By then he'd crossed the tracks, walking in whatever direction, it didn't matter, but finally east toward the lake, which lay flat and blue across the horizon; and it wasn't until he'd jumped down from the board-walk and waded into the coldness that his driving fever abated. The welter of sensations and limitless energy resolved and was at last contained within him.

Ten years old again, covered in icy water and muck, he climbed out upon the rocky bank, where he collapsed. The sun whirled in the heavens. He lay panting as if he'd run the whole length of Chicago.

He came to inside a large looming shadow. Sure that Mr. Schulde had caught up with him, he thrashed about until a voice he didn't know said, "Lad. There now, relax." He focused on brass buttons, a leather belt and holster, finally upon the badge.

The policeman put a cool hand to his forehead and brushed back his hair. "I feared you was drowned, boy. If you can sit up, I'll take you home. Where is it you live?"

Eustace and the policeman walked back toward Princeton Avenue, and it was only then that he appreciated how far he had gone. The energy of Miss Comuzzi still thrummed within him, but had settled now like a low wood fire in the belly of a stove.

The policeman asked casually what he'd been doing. He didn't know how to answer. "Were you sick?" Eustace nodded, tense. "I see. And does your mother—"

"There was a lady named Miss Comuzzi, she disappeared and then... but then she was in the room."

The policeman stopped, leaned toward him.
"What
was her name?"

The intensity of the policeman's stare unnerved him. He answered softly, "Miss Comuzzi."

"You say she was in a room with you? When was that?"

He wanted to explain or confess, but his every instinct rebelled—there was something wrong with the questions—and he said nothing.

When they finally arrived at the Claymore Boarding House, the policeman tried again to ask about Miss Comuzzi, and Eustace might have told then, only the front door opened and Mother ran onto the porch and swept him up in her arms, saying, "My baby, oh, Eustace, what did you do?" She hugged him tightly. He might have told then, but in the shadows of the doorway behind her, with eyes drilling into him, stood Mr. Schulde. His slight smile bore no trace of humor, and his eyes conveyed his message so loudly that Eustace heard the words
I know what you did,
and those eyes shifted to his mother and then back again. Did he understand the threat? Oh, yes, he did. No word to the policeman, or anybody.

"I'm sure he's all right, missus," the policeman was saying. He'd taken off his helmet. "But you might want to keep a tighter rein on the lad. My name's Gallagher. Can I ask—"

Whatever question he'd been about to ask, he never finished it as Mr. Schulde strode across the porch and to Eustace's horror placed one hand tenderly upon Mother's back. "Officer Gallagher," he said, "We thank you. He's a good boy, but like all boys he does get into mischief." This close to him, Eustace noticed the touch of gray at his temples.

"Surely, I know that. I've two of my own," the policeman replied. He tipped his cap to Mother. "I'll bid you good afternoon, then." He gave Eustace a smile still edged in concern, then walked back to the street and was gone.

"My dear," said Mr. Schulde. "You see? All that worry was unnecessary. He's a rambunctious boy on an adventure and unconcerned for the feelings of others."

Mother set him down. "Eustace," she scolded, "You must never do that again." He wanted to explain that he'd run off because of the energy burning inside him, Miss Comuzzi's life whirling inside him; but Mother continued. "You must never go into other people's rooms when they aren't at home. Why, Mrs. Claymore will evict us, d'you see? If Franklin"—and she turned her head and actually smiled to the villain—"weren't so kind, why, he could've had that policeman arrest you."

"I didn't—"

"Eustace, don't compound it with a lie. I
found
the key you stole, on a chair in our room."

He couldn't remember where he'd left it. It must have fallen from his pocket.

Mr. Schulde's hand slid from her back to her shoulder, snaked along her arm. "Miriam," he said, "I would never have him arrested."

Eustace stared at Mother in horror. How could she? Only Father had called her by her
private
name. How could she reveal it to this awful man with his scorpion mustache?

"No," he said, and he stepped away from the intimacy.

"It's all right," assured Mr. Schulde. "No harm done. But you must obey your mother, boy. If you wish to listen to my music, you may always ask. It would be my
pleasure
to have you as a guest in my rooms, any time at all."

"There, Eustace, you see? You must thank Franklin for his kindness."

Franklin again!
He squirmed, but there was no way out of it. He had to agree, or at least pretend to agree. "Thank you," he said, staring at their feet with miserable eyes.

Mr. Schulde placed both hands upon his shoulders. "Excellent."

It wasn't until Mother had him standing in his nightshirt in a basin to wash the mud off his legs before putting him to bed that she noticed some part of his transformation. She was talking to him about his behavior, when all of a sudden she fell silent.

Then she said, "Why, Eustace, your cheeks and forehead have never been so pink and shiny since you were a baby. You should spend more time out in the sun and less in this house by yourself up to mischief." She gave him a towel and got up.

He looked at his arm, his hand.
He
didn't see any change, but he knew what it was, and blurted, "Don't tell Mr. Schulde."

"What?"

He saw in her perplexity that he could not stop her—that the bigger he made the issue of his luster, the more certainly she would relate it.

In the end, it didn't matter. As Eustace was toweling his legs dry, a howl of inhuman fury roared through the house, and something shattered in the room across the hall. Mother ran out and knocked on Miss Comuzzi's door. "Franklin?" she called. "Franklin, are you all right?"

It was some moments before the door opened. Schulde stood there, his hair for once pushed into disarray. He looked drawn, even stricken as he faced Mother, but then he stepped forward, and his focus shifted past her to Eustace. She couldn't see his face, but for a split-second a look of hatred flashed at Eustace like a lighthouse beam, so stunning that he leaned away. He comprehended that his enemy had not previously discovered the damaged red cylinder.