Moon Mirror (9 page)

It took a long time for plants to grow—weeks—Lesley knew. But look—these were growing right while you watched. They had already made a thick mat over every piece of the machinery they had reached, like they had to cover it from sight quickly. And there were flowers opening —and butterflies—Lesley had never seen so many butterflies as were gathering about those flowers, arriving right out of nowhere.

“Rick—how—?” She could not put her wonder into a
full question, she could only gesture toward what was happening there.

Her brother shrugged. It was as if he did not want to look at what was happening. Instead he spoke to both of them sharply.

“Listen, shrimp, Les, it's getting late. Mom and Dad will be home soon. We'd better get there before they do. Remember, we left all the things Matt and Lizzy used out in the summer house. Dad's going to work on the lawn this afternoon. He'll want to get the mower out of there. If he sees what we left there he'll ask questions for sure and we might have to talk. Not that it would do any good.”

Rick was right. Lesley looked around her regretfully now. She was not frightened any more—she, well, she would like to just stay awhile and watch. But she reached for Alex's sticky hand. To her surprise he did not object or jerk away, he was still hiccuping a little as he did after he cried. She was thankful Rick had been able to manage him so well.

They scraped through their own private hole in the fence into the backyard, heading to the summer house which Rick and Dad had fixed up into a rainy day place to play and a storage for the outside tools. The camping bags were there, even the plates and cups. Those were still smeared with jelly and peanut butter. Just think, Matt had never tasted jelly and peanut butter before, he said. But he had liked it a lot. Lesley had better sneak those in and give them a good washing. And the milk—Lizzy could not understand how you got milk from a bottle a man brought to your house and not
straight from a cow. She seemed almost afraid to drink it. And she had not liked Coke at all—said it tasted funny.

“I wish Matt was here.” Alex stood looking down at the sleeping bag, his face clouding up again. “Matt was fun—”

“Sure he was. Here, shrimp, you catch ahold of that and help me carry this back. We've got to get it into the camper before Dad comes.”

“Why?”

Oh, dear, was Alex going to have one of his stubborn question-everything times? Lesley had put the plates and cups back into the big paper bag in which she had smuggled the food from the kitchen this morning, and was folding up the extra cover from Mart's bed.

“You just come along and I'll tell you, shrimp,” she heard Rick say. Rick was just
wonderful
today. Though Mom always said that Rick could manage Alex better than anyone else in the whole family when he wanted to make the effort.

There, she gave a searching look around as the boys left (one of the bags between them) this was cleared. They would take the other bag, and she would do the dishes. Then Dad could walk right in and never know that Lizzy and Matt had been here for two nights and a day.

Two nights and a day—Lizzy had kept herself and Matt out of sight yesterday when Lesley and Rick had been at school. She would not go near the house, nor let Matt later when Alex wanted him to go and see the train Dad and Rick had set up in the family room. All she had wanted were newspapers. Lesley had taken those to her and some of the
magazines Mom had collected for the Salvation Army. She must have read a lot, because when they met her after school, she had a million questions to ask.

It was then that she said she and Matt had to go away, back to where they had come from, that they could not stay in this mixed up horrible world which was not the right one at all! Rick told her about the words on the stones and how long it had been. First she called him a liar and said that was not true. So after dark he had taken a flashlight and went back to show her the stone and the words.

She had been the one to cry then. But she did not for long. She got to asking what was going to happen in the field, looking at the machines. When Rick told her, Lizzy had said quick and hot, no, they mustn't do that, it was dangerous—a lot of others might go through. And
they,
those in the other world, didn't want people who did bad things to spoil everything.

When Rick brought her back she was mad, not at him, but at everything else. She made him walk her down to the place from which you could see the inter-city thru-way, with all the cars going whizz. Rick said he was sure she was scared. She was shaking, and she held onto his hand so hard it hurt. But she made herself watch. Then, when they came back, she said Matt and she—they had to go. And she offered to take Alex, Lesley, and Rick with them. She said they couldn't want to go on living
here.

That was the only time she talked much of what it was like
there.
Birds and flowers, no noise or cars rushing about nor
bulldozers tearing the ground up, everything pretty. It was Lesley who had asked then:

“If it was all that wonderful, why did you want to come back?”

Then she was sorry she had asked because Lizzy's face looked like she was hurting inside when she answered:

“There was Ma and Pa. Matt, he's little, he misses Ma bad at times. Those
others,
they got their own way of life, and it ain't much like ours. So, we've kept a-tryin’ to get back. I brought somethin'—just for Ma.” She showed them two bags of big silvery leaves pinned together with long thorns. Inside each were seeds, all mixed up big and little together.

“Things grow
there,”
she nodded toward the field, “they grow strange-like. Faster than seeds hereabouts. You put one of these,” she ran her finger tip in among the seeds, shifting them back and forth, “in the ground, and you can see it grow. Honest-Injun-cross-my-heart-an'-hope-to-die if that ain't so. Ma, she hankers for flowers, loves ‘em truly. So I brought her some. Only, Ma, she ain't here. Funny thing—
those
over
there,
they have a feelin’ about these here flowers and plants.
They
tell you right out that as long as
they
have these growin’ around
they
’re
safe.”

“Safe from what?” Rick wanted to know.

“I dunno—safe from somethin’ as
they
think may change ‘em. See, we ain't the onlyest ones gittin’ through to
there.
There's others, we've met a couple. Susan—she's older'n me and she dresses funny, like one of the real old time ladies in a
book picture. And there's Jim—he spends most of his time off in the woods, don't see him much. Susan's real nice. She took us to stay with her when we got
there.
But she's married to one of
them,
so we didn't feel comfortable most of the time. Anyway
they
had some rules—they asked us right away did we have anything made of iron. Iron is bad for
them, they
can't hold it, it burns
them
bad. And
they
told us right out that if we stayed long we'd change. We ate
their
food and drank
their
drink stuff—that's like cider and it tastes good. That changes people from here. So after awhile anyone who comes through is like
them.
Susan mostly is by now, I guess. When you're changed you don't want to come back.”

“But you didn't change,” Lesley pointed out. “You came back.”

“And how come you didn't change?” Rick wanted to know. “You were there long enough—a hundred and ten years!”

“But,” Lizzy had beat with her fists on the floor of the summer house then as if she were pounding a drum. “It weren't that long, it couldn't be! Me, I counted every day! It's only been ten of ‘em, with us hunting the place to come through on every one of ‘em, calling for Ma and Pa to come and get us. It weren't no hundred and ten years—”

And she had cried again in such a way as to make Lesley's throat ache. A moment later she had been bawling right along with Lizzy. For once Rick did not look at her as if he
were disgusted, but instead as if he were sorry, for Lizzy, not Lesley, of course.

“It's got to be that time's different in that place,” he said thoughtfully. “A lot different. But, Lizzy, it's true, you know—this is 1971, not 1861. We can prove it.”

Lizzy wiped her eyes on the hem of her long apron. “Yes, I got to believe. ‘Cause what you showed me ain't my world at all. All those cars shootin’ along so fast, lights what go on and off when you press a button on the wall—all these houses built over Pa's good farmin’ land—what I read today. Yes, I gotta believe it—but it's hard to do that, right hard!

“And Matt ‘n’ me, we don't belong here no more, not with all this clatter an’ noise an’ nasty smelling air like we sniffed down there by that big road. I guess we gotta go back
there.
Leastwise, we know what's there now.”

“How can you get back?” Rick wanted to know.

For the first time Lizzy showed a watery smile. “I ain't no dunce, Rick.
They
got rules, like I said. You carry something outta that place and hold on to it, an’ it pulls you back, lets you in again. I brought them there seeds for Ma. But I thought maybe Matt an’ me—we might want to go visitin’
there.
Susan's been powerful good to us. Well, anyway, I got these too.”

She had burrowed deeper in her pocket, under the packets of seeds and brought out two chains of woven grass, tightly braided. Fastened to each was a small arrowhead, a very tiny one, no bigger than Lesley's little fingernail.

Rick held out his hand. “Let's see.”

But Lizzy kept them out of his reach.

“Them's no Injun arrowheads, Rick. Them's what
they
use for
their
own doin's. Susan, she calls them ‘elf-shots.’ Anyway, these here can take us back if we wear ‘em. And we will tomorrow, that's when we'll go.”

They had tried to find out more about
there,
but Lizzy would not answer most of their questions. Lesley thought she could not for some reason. But she remained firm in her decision that she and Matt would be better off
there
than
here.
Then she had seemed sorry for Lesley and Rick and Alex that they had to stay in such a world, and made the suggestion that they link hands and go through together.

Rick shook his head. “Sorry—no. Mom and Dad—well, we belong here.”

Lizzy nodded. “Thought you would say that. But—it's so ugly now, I can't see as how you want to.” She cupped the tiny arrowheads in her hand, held them close. “Over
there
it's so pretty. What are you goin’ to do here when all the ground is covered up with houses and the air's full of bad smells, an’ those cars go rush-rush all day and night too? Looky here—” She reached for one of the magazines. “I'm the best reader in the school house. Miss Jane, she has me up to read out loud when the school board comes visitin’.” She did not say that boastfully, but as if it were a truth everyone would know. “An’ I've been readin’ pieces in here. They've said a lot about how bad things are gittin’ for you all—bad
air, bad water—too many people—everything like that. Seems like there's no end but bad here. Ain't that so now?”

“We've been studying about it in school,” Lesley agreed, “Rick and me, we're on the pick-up can drive next week. Sure we know.”

“Well, this ain't happening over
there,
you can bet you!
They
won't let it.”

“How do they stop it?” Rick wanted to know.

But once more Lizzy did not answer. She just shook her head and said
they
had their ways. And then she had gone on:

“Me an’ Matt, we have to go back. We don't belong here now, and back
there
we do, sorta. At least it's more like what we're used to. We have to go at the same hour as before—noon time—”

“How do you know?” Rick asked.

“There's rules. We were caught at noon then, we go at noon now. Sure you don't want to come with us?”

“Only as far as the field,” Rick had answered for them. “It's Saturday, we can work it easy. Mom has a hair appointment in the morning, Dad is going to drive her ‘cause he's seeing Mr. Chambers, and they'll do the shopping before they come home. We're supposed to have a picnic in the field, like we always do. Being Saturday the men won't be working there either.”

“If you have to go back at noon,” Lesley was trying to work something out, “how come you didn't get here at
noon? It must have been close to five when we saw you. The school bus had let us off at the corner and Alex had come to meet us—then we saw you—”

“We hid out,” Lizzy had said then. “Took a chance on you ‘cause you were like us—”

Lesley thought she would never forget that first meeting, seeing the fair haired girl a little taller than she, her hair in two long braids, but such a queer dress on—like a “granny” one, yet different, and over it a big coarse-looking checked apron. Beside her Matt, in a check shirt and funny looking pants, both of them barefooted. They had looked so unhappy and lost. Alex had broken away from Lesley and Rick and had run right over to them to say “Hi” in the friendly way he always did.

Lizzy had been turning her head from side to side as if hunting for something which should be right there before her. And when they had come up she had spoken almost as if she were angry (but Lesley guessed she was really frightened) asking them where the Mendal house was.

If it had not been for the stone and Rick doing all that hunting down of the story behind it, they would not have known what she meant. But Rick had caught on quickly. He had said that they lived in the old Mendal house now, and they had brought Lizzy and Matt along with them. But before they got there they had guessed who Lizzy and Matt were, impossible as it seemed.

Now they were gone again. But Lizzy, what had she done just after she had looped those grass strings around her neck
and Matt's and taken his hand? First she had thrown out all those seeds on the ground. And then she had pointed her finger at the bulldozer, and the other machines which were tearing up the rest of the farm she had known.