The Anything Box

"It's open!" she whimpered, peering out. "It's open!" And was gone.
I caught my foot in the sleeping bag, tried to put my jacket on upsidedown,and got the wrong foot in the right shoe, before I finally got straightened upand staggered out through an ankle-deep puddle to follow Liesle. I groped myway in the wet grayness halfway to the Little House before I realized therewas no one ahead of me in the path. I nearly died. Had she already been suckedinto that treacherous gray rock! And inside me a voice mockingly chanted, "Notfor true, only pretend—"
"Shut up!" I muttered fiercely, then, turning, I sploshed at fullstaggering speed back past the tents. I leaned against my breathing tree tostop my frantic gulping of the cold wet air, and, for the dozenteenth time inmy life, reamed myself out good for going along with a gag too far. If I hadonly scotched Liesle's imagination the first—
I heard a tiny, piercingly high noise, a coaxing, luring bird-like sound,and I saw Liesle standing in the road, intent on the little hills, her righthand outstretched, fingers curling, as though she were calling a puppy.
Then I saw the little hills quiver and consolidate and Become. I saw themlift from the ground with a sucking sound. I heard the soft tear of turf andthe almost inaudible twang of parting roots. I saw the hills flow into motionand follow Liesle's piping call. I strained to see in the half light. Therewere no legs under the hills—there were dozens of legs under—there werewheels—squares —flickering, firefly glitters—
I shut my eyes. The hills were going. How they were going, I couldn't say.Huge, awkward and lumbering, they followed Liesle like drowsy mastodons inclose order formation. I could see the pale scar below the aspen thicket wherethe hills had pulled away. It seemed familiar, even to the scraggly rootspoking out of the sandy crumble of the soil. Wasn't that the way it had alwayslooked?
I stood and watched the beast-hills follow Liesle. How could such a troopgo so noiselessly? Past the tents, through the underbrush, across thecreek—Liesle used the bridge—and on up the trail toward the Little House. Ilost sight of them as they rounded the bend in the trail. I permitted myself abrief sigh of relief before I started back toward the tents. Now to gatherLiesle up, purged of her compulsion, get her into bed and persuaded that ithad all been a dream. Mockingly, I needled myself. "A dream? A dream? Theywere there, weren't they? They are gone, aren't they? Without bending a bladeor breaking a branch. Gone into what? Gone into what?"
"Gone into nothing," I retorted. "Gone through—"
"Through into what?" I goaded. "Gone into what?"
"Okay! You tell me!" I snapped. Both of us shut up and stumbled off downthe darkened path. For the unnum-beredth time I was catapulted into by Liesle.We met most unceremoniously at the bend in the trail.
"Oh, Gramma!" she gasped. "One didn't come! The littlest one didn't come!
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There were eight, but only seven went in. We gotta get the other one. It'sgonna close! Gramma!" She was towing me back past the tents.
"Oh, yipes!" I thought dismally. "A few more of these shuttle runs and Iwill be an old woman!"
We found the truant huddled at the base of the aspens, curled up in acomparatively tiny, grass-bristly little hillock. Liesle stretched out herhands and started piping at the beast-hill.
"Where did you learn that sound?" I asked, my curiosity burning even in amad moment like this one.
"That's the way you call a beast-hill!" she said, amazed at my ignorance,and piped again, coaxingly. I stood there in my clammy, wet sneakers, andpresumably in my right mind, and watched the tight little hillock unroll andmove slowly in Liesle's direction.
"Make him hurry, Gramma!" cried Liesle. "Push!"
So I pushed—and had the warm feeling of summer against my palms, the sharpfaint fragrance of bruised grass in my nostrils, and a vast astonishment in mymind. I’ll never get over it. Me! Pushing a beast-hill in the watery chill ofa night hour that had no number and seemed to go on and on.
Well anyway, between Liesle's piping and my pushing, we got the Least-onepast the tents (encore!) across the creek and down the trail. Liesle ranahead. "Oh, Gramma! Gramma!" Her voice was tragedy. "It's closing! It'sclosing!"
I hunched my shoulders and dug in with my toes and fairly scooted that dumbbeast down the path. I felt a protesting ripple under my hands and a recoillike a frightened child. I had a swift brief vision of me, scrabbling on thetrail with a beast-hill as Jerry had with Liesle, but my sudden rush pushed usaround the corner. There was Liesle, one arm tight around a tree trunk, theother outstretched across the big gray boulder. Her hand was lost somewhere inthe Anything that coalesced and writhed, Became and dissolved in the middle ofthe gray granite.
"Hurry!" she gasped. "I'm holding it! Push!"
I pushed! And felt some strength inside me expend the very last of itselfon the effort. I had spent the last of some youthful coinage that could neverbe replenished. There was a stubborn silent moment and then the beast-hillmust have perceived the opening, because against my fingers was a suddenthrob, a quick tingling and the beast-hill was gone—just like that. Theboulder loomed, still and stolid as it had been since the Dawn, probably—justas it always had been except—Liesle's hand was caught fast in it, clear uppast her wrist.
"It's stuck." She looked quietly over her shoulder at me. "It won't comeout."
"Sure it will," I said, dropping to my haunches and holding her close."Here, let me—" I grasped her elbow.
"No." She hid her face against my shoulder. I could feel the sag of herwhole body. "It won't do any good to pull."
"What shall we do then?" I asked, abandoning myself to her young wisdom.
"Well have to wait till it opens again," she said.
"How long?" I felt the tremble begin in her.
"I don't know. Maybe never. Maybe—maybe it only happens once."
"Oh, now!" I said and had nothing to add. What can you say to a child whosehand has disappeared into a granite boulder and won't come out?
"Liesle," I said. "Can you wiggle your fingers?"
Her whole face tightened as she tried. "Yes," she said. "It's just likehaving my hand in a hole but I can't get it out."
"Push it in, then," I said.
"In?" she asked faintly.
"Yes," I said. "Push it in and wiggle it hard. Maybe they'll see it andopen up again."
So she did. Slowly she pushed until her elbow disappeared. "I'm wavinghard!" We waited. Then— "Nobody comes," she said. And suddenly she was
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fighting and sobbing, wrenching against the rock, but her arm was as
tight-caught as her hand had been. I hugged her to me, brushing my hand
against the rock as I quieted her thrashing legs. 'There, there, Liesle."
Tears were wadding up in my throat. I rocked her consolingly.
"O God in Heaven," I breathed, my eyes closed against her hair. "O God in
Heaven!"
A bird cried out in the silence that followed. The hour that had no number
stretched and stretched. Suddenly Liesle stirred. "Gramma!" she whispered.