The Magic Meadow (10 page)

“Everything and nothing,” she said. “Brick, I was raised in turpentine country, but I never saw a still as small as this. Why, it wouldn't pay a body to run it. On top of that it's pretty. With that thatched roof, it's downright picturesque.” She shook her head again. “Who ever heard of a picturesque turpentine still, especially one with thatch on the roof?”

“But why shouldn't it have a thatched roof? That place where we're staying has one.”

She sighed. “Brick, you just can't have thatch around a turpentine still. It catches fire too easily. I don't know why this place hasn't burned down years ago, but I'll bet it's been here for ages. I don't understand it.”

“Maybe it's not real thatch,” he said.

The idea seemed to startle her. The roof was low, and by standing on her tiptoes she was able to reach up and grasp a few pieces of the overhanging straw. They refused to break, and she was forced at last to get her knife and cut off a piece.

“What d'you know!” she exclaimed. “It's not straw after all. It's imitation thatch—plastic!”

The roof, she found, was covered with bundles of little plastic tubes. The tubes seemed to be filled with a powdery substance.

“Well!” Nurse Jackson said at last. “I think I've figured it out. We're on a millionaire's estate. He wanted everything to be picturesque, with thatched roofs and all, but he used plastic thatch so it would be safe.”

It seemed to Brick that the plastic tubes had another purpose more important than just being pretty, but at the moment he couldn't think what it was.

“If this is on an estate,” he said, “why isn't there a road so you can drive here in a car?”

“Oh, the owner of a place like this would probably come by helicopter. He could land anywhere arqund on the meadow.”

Brick felt doubtful. “I wouldn't think a millionaire would want to bother with anything like a turpentine still. And why isn't there a lock on that big door back there? I mean, that place has been there a long time, and a lot of things in it must be valuable. Why haven't they been stolen?”

“That sort of bugged me too,” Nurse Jackson admitted. “Take those blankets I found in the chest. All handwoven, the finest things I've ever seen. If they were mine, I'd sure keep 'em under lock and key. But there they are. Anybody can walk right in and walk right out with 'em. So I figure we're in the middle of a huge estate, thousands of acres, maybe, with a steel fence all around it and guards to watch over it.” She hesitated, then added, “The only thing I
can't
figure is the difference in time and in season—that is, if we're in the South, like I think we are.”

“You still believe we're in Alabama?”

“Well, it could be Mississippi, Georgia, or somewhere in the Carolinas or Virginia.” Suddenly she pointed. “See that tree yonder? That's a sassafras. I know, because when I was a little girl I used to dig the roots of one of those trees so we could make tea. Brick, the
only
place you'll find a sassafras tree is in America. It's the same with those big pines behind us. They're what we call yellow pines, and the only place they grow is in the South. You see? So we're bound to be in one of the states I mentioned. But why is the time different?”

“It could be because we teleported here,” he said, and began explaining the theory that had come to him during the night. But somehow, as he told it in the bright light of day, the theory didn't sound so hot. Nurse Jackson listened to it politely, but seemed far from convinced. “Anyhow,” he finished lamely, “I'm sure time has something to do with it.”

She chuckled. “Of course it has. That's what's really got us bugged.” She glanced at her wristwatch, gasped, then studied the sun and looked at her watch again. “Speaking of time, my watch is acting crazy. The sun tells me it's only about ten in the morning, but the watch says it's past noon. It's gained all of two hours since we've been here. Do you s'pose teleporting did that to it?”

“It must have. Look what it did to us!”

His eye was suddenly attracted by a carved wooden disc on a post. He went over and turned it, and was rewarded by a bright glow of light from the rafters above.

As he stared at it, Nurse Jackson said, “That's funny. There's no power line coming in here. But maybe there's an underground one leading from the bunkhouse.”

“That must be it,” he agreed, as he turned off the light. “Say, that gives me an idea. If we can't find a road anywhere, then all we have to do is to follow the power line that comes into the place, and it'll lead us to people.”

She nodded slowly. “And we may have to locate some people soon, Brick. It all depends on how much food we can find. It takes an awful lot when there are six mouths to feed. That dried stuff won't last long, and we can't live off dandelion greens. Some of you need meat—especially Princess and Charlie Pill.”

“Maybe I can kill a deer with the crossbow.”

She looked at him sharply. “I doubt if Princess would eat it if you did. But we'll see. If we don't locate a road in the next day or two, I think we'd better plan to follow the power line and see where it goes.”

Before moving on, she borrowed his adze and dug some of the roots of the sassafras tree and put them in her basket. Later, near some monstrous oaks at the lower end of the meadow, she found a curious brown mushroom, pitted and crinkled, that started them upon an eager search that lasted into the afternoon. His legs had nearly given out now, and to save them for the walk back to the bunkhouse he did his searching on hands and knees. The pitted mushroom, he learned, was a morel. It appeared only in the spring, and they were lucky to find a spot where so many of them had been overlooked by the deer.

“We used to call 'em hickory chickens when I was a kid,” Nurse Jackson told him happily. “Best eating things on earth! Better than beefsteak. Don't pass up any—they'll be gone tomorrow, and there won't be any more till next year.”

Her basket was nearly full of mushrooms and roots when he glanced back up the meadow and saw the deer moving swiftly away. She noticed them at the same time, and caught up the basket with one hand and pulled him to his feet with the other. They started back the way they had come, her hand on his elbow to steady him.

They did not speak until they had passed the turpentine still and could see the upper part of the meadow and the tall fence on one side of the field. Charlie Pill and the others had evidently returned to the house, for the only living things in sight were the two great horses. They were pawing at the ground and tossing their long manes while they watched something in the woods on the opposite slope.

“W-what d'you s'pose they're afraid of?” he whispered.

“I don't believe they're afraid. They act more upset and angry. Those are wild horses, Brick, and I've an idea they'd fight the thing if it would come out. I think it's a panther. I've been watching for tracks, and I saw some smudged ones that made me think it's some kind of a cat. They were too big for a dog.”

They had reached the corner of the fence now, and abruptly his uncertain legs crumpled under him again. But now he saw something he had not noticed before. It was a gate. It opened outward just as the big door in the building did, and when they were safely on the other side it swung shut and automatically bolted itself. He realized suddenly that both door and gate had been planned to swing as they did so that animals could never accidentally open them, even though they were not locked against humans.

“Are panthers spotted?” he asked, as they started slowly along the edge of the field.

“Why, I've never heard of such a thing. What made you ask?”

“Well, it sort of seemed that the animal I saw the other night was spotted. I'm not sure. Maybe it was just the way he looked to me in the starlight. And he was big.”

“Oh, lordy me! Don't tell me we've got a leopard or a jaguar to worry about!”

“I hope not, but I think we'd better learn how to use that crossbow. Now let's find the power line and see which way it runs.”

They looked carefully all around the building. There was no sign of a power line anywhere. Nor, for that matter, was there any sort of apparatus that remotely resembled a generator for creating electricity, or a system of batteries for storing it. Yet there was all the power they needed to run the stove and keep the place blazing with light.

Did it just come to them out of the air?

Their meal that night consisted of dandelion greens, fried mushrooms, sassafras tea, and heaping dishes of wild strawberries. No one minded the lack of salt and pepper on the greens and mushrooms, for Nurse Jackson had found enough things growing in an herb garden out by the fence to give them a hint of seasoning. Everyone was hungry, and they could have eaten more, but half the food had to be saved for tomorrow.

Afterward, a small fire was kindled in the fireplace—it was more for cheer than for heat, for the night had turned warm—and they all sat about it to talk over the puzzles of the day.

Brick listened but said little. He was tired and he wanted to go to bed, but his mind was churning with questions. The answer to everything, he felt, was somewhere in this room. It was just a matter of looking for it in the right spot.

Ignoring his aching legs, he got up finally and began moving slowly about the place, peering at the objects hanging on the walls and within the bunks. He discovered a second crossbow hanging on the back of the end bunk used by Diz Dobie. The short arrows in the woven quiver looked deadly, and obviously were not intended for target practice. His eyes swung to the tools—the chisels and other things whose use he could not even guess—and went on to the musical instruments. There were some that looked like flutes, and others with strings that were strange to him. As he studied them, he realized they had two things in common with all the other objects in the room. They'd been produced by highly skilled craftsmen, and they'd been made to be used.

He could hear Nurse Jackson repeating her belief that this was part of a millionaire's estate, but suddenly he knew she was wrong. The people who used this place came only twice a year—in the spring to plant the field out back, and in the fall to harvest it. How they got here or where they came from, he couldn't guess; and far from being millionaires, he had a feeling they didn't even use money. In fact, he couldn't see a thing here that might have been bought with it. Even the dishes and utensils had a handmade look.

So, in spite of the trees Nurse Jackson had pointed out, this couldn't be in America, where money was so important. Where in America were people so smart they could draw power from the air, and so honest they didn't use locks to keep strangers from entering?

As Brick closed his eyes, he could almost see the people who came here. They loved to make things, and song and music poured out of them; they didn't seem at all like the kind whose lives were bound up in newspapers. But wouldn't they have books? Surely they would!

Then where were they?

His glance went swiftly around the room, and suddenly fastened on the big chest where the colorful blankets were stored. He went over and raised the top, and held his breath while he dug down under the remaining blankets.

The books were there. The entire bottom seemed to be covered with them. He hauled one out and opened it, and stared blankly at the strange page of type. It was printed in an unknown language. Even the letters were unfamiliar.

Frowning, he reached down again for another book. Instead, his hand touched what seemed to be a heavy roll of paper. He drew it out and slowly unrolled it. It took a minute or more of careful study before comprehension came.

Suddenly he turned and shouted, “Hey! Look what I found!”

8

EXPEDITION

He brought the long piece of paper he had unrolled over to the table and tried to spread it out. It would not lie flat until he had placed the book at the upper edge and a pair of earthenware mugs at the lower corners. The others crowded around, and Nurse Jackson lifted Charlie Pill from the wheelchair so he could have a better view of it.

“Why, it's a crazy map of some kind,” Charlie Pill muttered.

“There's nothing crazy about it,” he told Charlie. “It's just in a language you don't understand. Latin or Greek, maybe.”

“It's not Latin,” Nurse Jackson said. “No, and it's not Greek either. I don't recognize those characters. But I do know it's an original drawing by a very fine artist. It's a beautiful piece of work.”

Princess said breathlessly, “It's absolutely unspeakably gorgeous!”

“Sure is,” Diz Dobie agreed, and Lily Rose said, “If only we could read it!”

“We don't have to,” Brick told them. “It's a map of this part of the country. See, here we are right down here!”

The map was about two feet wide and more than twice as long, and it was drawn in exquisite detail and tinted with watercolors. Birds, animals, and flowers decorated the open spaces, along with symbols placed near tiny squares indicating buildings. His pointing finger touched a square at the bottom. “This is the house,” he said. “And here's the field. And there are the two springs coming together to make the stream. Yonder's the turpentine still.”

A stringed instrument drawn beside the square for the house showed that it was a place where people came for fun as well as for work. An ear of corn and a pumpkin decorated the field, and a pinecone gave the clue to the still. Two horses had been drawn grazing in the middle of the meadow.

Princess squealed when she saw them. “They are the same horses that are out there now!” she exclaimed. “They must be pets.”

Brick was more interested in tracing the course of the stream. After much winding, it went all the way to the top of the map, where it entered what seemed to be a river. Here were grouped many squares indicating houses, showing that a community of some size existed by the water. No straight lines for roads were on the map, but there were many winding dotted lines that he decided must stand for trails.