When he came to, it was broad daylight. Phyllis was splashing water in his face, her lower lip caught between her teeth. He blinked, and wondered for a moment where he was.
"Am I still here?" he asked.
"Are you all right?" Phyllis demanded. "What happened? Oh, darling! Let's get out of this place—"
"Where's your father?" Mallen asked groggily, getting to his feet.
"Fishing. Now please sit down. I'm going to call a doctor."
"No. Wait." Mallen went into the kitchen. On the refrigerator was the cake box. It read "Johnson's Cake Shop. Vainsville, New YorK". A capital K in New York. Really a very small error.
And Mr Carter? Was the answer there? Mallen raced upstairs and dressed. He crumpled the cake box and thrust it into his pocket, and hurried out of the door.
"Don't touch anything until I get back!" he shouted at Phyllis. She watched him get into the car and race down the street. Trying hard to keep from crying, she walked into the kitchen.
Mallen was at Old Creek in fifteen minutes. He parked the car and started walking up the stream.
"Mr Carter!" he shouted as he went. "Mr Carter!"
He walked and shouted for half an hour, into deeper and deeper woods. The trees overhung the stream now, and he had to wade to make any speed at all. He increased his pace, splashing, slipping on stones, trying to run.
"Mr Carter!"
"Hello!" He heard the old man's voice. He followed the sound, up a branch of the stream. There was Mr Carter, sitting on the steep bank of a little pool, holding his long bamboo pole. Mallen scrambled up beside him.
"Take it easy, son," Mr Carter said. "Glad you took my advice about fishing."
"No," Mallen panted. "I want you to tell me something."
"Gladly," the old man said. "What would you like to know?"
"A fisherman wouldn't fish out a pool completely, would he?"
"I wouldn't. But some might."
"And bait. Any good fisherman would use artificial bait?"
"I pride myself on my flies," Mr Carter said. "I try to approximate the real thing. Here, for example, is a beautiful replica of a hornet." He plucked a yellow hook from his hat. "And here is a lovely mosquito."
Suddenly his line stirred. Easily, surely, the old man brought it in. He caught the gasping trout in his hand and showed him to Mallen.
"A little fellow — I won't keep him." He removed the hook gently, easing it out of the gasping gill, and placed the fish back in water.
"When you throw him back — do you think he knows? Does he tell the others?"
"Oh, no," Mr Carter said. "The experience doesn't teach him anything. I've had the same young fish bite my line two or three times. They have to grow up a bit before they know."
"I thought so." Mallen looked at the old man. Mr Carter was unaware of the world around him, untouched by the terror that had struck Vainsville.
Fishermen live in a world of their own, thought Mallen.
"But you should have been here an hour ago," Mr Carter said. "I hooked a beauty. A magnificent fellow, two pounds if he was an ounce. What a battle for an old war-horse like me! And he got away. But there'll come another — hey, where are you going?"
"Back!" Mallen shouted, splashing into the stream. He knew now what he had been looking for in Mr Carter. A parallel. And now it was clear.
Harmless Mr Carter, pulling up his trout, just like that other, greater fisherman, pulling up his—
"Back to warn the other fish!" Mallen shouted over his shoulder, stumbling along the stream bed. If only Phyllis hadn't touched any food! He pulled the cake box out of his pocket and threw it from him as hard as he could. The hateful lure!
While the fishermen, each in his respective sphere, smiled and dropped their lines into the water again.
Dreamworld
Infinite worlds exist in the infinite in every cycle — aeth DE PLACITUS RELIQUAE.
Lanigan dreamed the dream again and managed to wake himself up with a hoarse cry. He sat upright in bed and glared around him into the violet darkness. His teeth were clenched and his lips were pulled back into a spastic grin. Beside him he felt his wife, Estelle, stir and sit up. Lanigan didn't look at her. Still caught in his dream, he waited for tangible proofs of the world.
A chair slowly drifted across his field of vision and fetched up against the wall with a quiet thump. Lanigan's face relaxed slightly. Then Estelle's hand was on his arm — a touch meant to be soothing, but which burned like lye.
"Here," she said. "Drink this."
"No," Lanigan said. "I'm all right now."
"Drink it anyhow."
"No, really. I really am all right."
For now he was completely out of the grip of the nightmare. He was himself again, and the world was its habitual self. That was very precious to Lanigan; he didn't want to let go of it just now, not even for the soothing release of a sedative.
"Was it the same dream?" Estelle asked him.
"Yes, just the same ... I don't want to talk about it."
"All right," Estelle said. (She is humouring me, Lanigan thought. I frighten her. I frighten myself.)
She asked, "Hon, what time is it?"
Lanigan looked at his watch. "Six-fifteen." But as he said it, the hour hand jumped forward convulsively. "No, it's five to seven."
"Can you get back to sleep?"
"I don't think so," Lanigan said. "I think I'll stay up."
"Fine, dear," Estelle said. She yawned, closed her eyes, opened them again and asked, "Hon, don't you think it might be a good idea if you called—"
"I have an appointment with him for twelve-ten," Lanigan said.
"That's fine," Estelle said. She closed her eyes again. Sleep came over her while Lanigan watched. Her auburn hair turned a faint blue and she sighed once, heavily.
Lanigan got out of bed and dressed. He was, for the most part, a large man, unusually easy to recognize. His features were curiously distinct. He had a rash on his neck. He was in no other way outstanding, except that he had a recurring dream which was driving him insane.
He spent the next few hours on his front porch watching stars go nova in the dawn sky.
Later, he went out for a stroll. As luck would have it, he ran into George Torstein just two blocks from his home. Several months ago, in an incautious moment, he had told Torstein about his dream. Torstein was a bluff, hearty fellow, a great believer in self-help, discipline, practicality, common-sense, and other, even duller virtues. His hard-headed no-nonsense attitude had come as a momentary relief to Lanigan. But now it acted as an abrasive. Men like Torstein were undoubtedly the salt of the earth and the backbone of the country; but for Lanigan, wrestling with the impalpable (and losing), Torstein had grown from a nuisance into a horror.
"Well, Tom, how's the boy?" Torstein greeted him.
"Fine," Lanigan said, "just fine." He nodded pleasantly and began to walk on under a melting green sky. But one did not escape from Torstein so easily.
"Tom, boy, I've been thinking about your problem," Torstein said. "I've been quite disturbed about you."
"Well, that's very nice of you," Lanigan said. "But really, you shouldn't concern yourself—"
"I do it because I want to," Torstein said, speaking the simple, deplorable truth. "I take an interest in people, Tom. Always have, ever since I was a kid. And you and I've been friends and neighbours for a long time."
"That's true enough," Lanigan said numbly. (The worst thing about needing help was having to accept it.)
"Well, Tom, I think what would help you would be a little vacation."
Torstein had a simple prescription for everything. As he practised soul-doctoring without a licence, he was always careful to prescribe a drug you could buy over the counter.
"I really can't afford a vacation this month," Lanigan said. (The sky was ochre and pink now; three pines had withered; an oak had turned into a cactus.)