The shadow thickened darkly, growing in me, spreading from hidden to more truly conscious regions of my mind. ‘Help you? You mean you intend to—’ I paused, then started to speak again as I saw for sure what she was getting at and realized that she meant it: ‘But haven’t you said that this stuff was too dangerous? The last time you—’
‘Oh, yes, I know,’ she impatiently argued, cutting me off. ‘But now, well, it’s different. I won’t stay more than a moment or two — just long enough to see the children — and then I’ll get straight back… here. And there’ll be precautions. It can’t fail, you’ll see.’
‘Precautions?’ Despite myself I was interested.
‘Yes,’ she began to talk faster, growing more excited with each passing moment. ‘The way I’ve worked it out, it’s perfectly safe. To start with, George will be asleep — he won’t know anything about it. When his sleeping mind moves into my body, why, it will simply stay asleep! On the other hand, when my mind moves into his body, then I’ll be able to move about and—’
‘And use your brother as a keyhole!’ I blurted, surprising even myself. She frowned, then turned her face away. What she planned was wrong. I knew it and so did she, but if my outburst had shamed her it certainly had not deterred her — not for long.
When she looked at me again her eyes were almost pleading. ‘I know how it must look to you, Love, but it’s not so. And I know that I must seem to be a selfish woman, but that’s not quite true either. Isn’t it natural that I should want to see my family? They are mine, you know. George, my brother; his wife, my sister-in-law; their children, my nephew and niece. Just a — yes — a "peep", if that’s the way you see it. But, Love, I need that peep. I’ll only have a few moments, and I’ll have to make them last me for the rest of my life.’
I began to weaken. ‘How will you go about it?’
‘First, a glance,’ she eagerly answered, again reminding me of a young girl. ‘Nothing more, a mere glance. Even if he’s awake he won’t ever know I was there; he’ll think his mind wandered for the merest second. If he is asleep, though, then I’ll be able to, well, "wake him up", see his wife — and, if the children are still at home, why, I’ll be able to see them too. Just a glance.’
‘But suppose something does go wrong?’ I asked bluntly, coming back to earth ‘Why, you might come back and find your head in the gas oven! What’s to stop him from slashing your wrists? That only takes a second, you know.’
‘That’s where you come in, Love.’ She stood up and patted me on the cheek, smiling cleverly…’ You’ll be right here to see that nothing goes wrong.’
‘But—’
‘And to be doubly sure,’ she cut me off, ‘why, I’ll be tied in my chair! You can’t walk through windows when tied down, now can you?’
Half an hour later, still suffering inwardly from that as yet unspecified foreboding, I had done as Aunt Hester directed me to do, tying her wrists to the arms of her cane chair with soft but fairly strong bandages from her medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
She had it all worked out, reasoning that it would be very early morning in Australia and that her brother would still be sleeping. As soon as she was comfortable, without another word, she closed her eyes and let her head fall slowly forward onto her chest. Outside, the sun still had some way to go to setting; inside, the room was still warm — yet I shuddered oddly with a deep, nervous chilling of my blood.
It was then that I tried to bring the thing to a halt, calling her name and shaking her shoulder, but she only brushed my hand away and hushed me. I went back to my chair and watched her anxiously.
As the shadows seemed visibly to lengthen in the room and my skin cooled, her head sank even deeper onto her chest, so that I began to think she had fallen asleep.
Then she settled herself more comfortably yet and I saw that she was still awake, merely preparing her body for her brother’s slumbering mind.
In another moment I knew that something had changed.
Her position was as it had been; the shadows crept slowly still; the ancient clock on the wall ticked its regular chronological message; but I had grown inexplicably colder, and there was this feeling that, something had changed…
Suddenly there flashed before my mind’s eye certain of those warning jottings I had read only a few nights earlier, and there and then I was determined that this thing should go no further. Oh, she had warned me not to do anything to frighten or disturb her, but this was different. Somehow I knew that if I didn’t act now—
‘Hester! Aunt Hester!’ I jumped up and moved toward her, my throat dry and my words cracked and unnatural-sounding. And she lifted her head and opened her eyes.
For a moment I thought that everything was all right — then…
She cried out and stood up, ripped bandages falling in tatters from strangely strong wrists. She mouthed again, staggering and patently disorientated. I fell back in dumb horror, knowing that something was very wrong and yet unable to put my finger on the trouble.
My aunt’s eyes were wide now and bulging, and for the first time she seemed to see me, stumbling toward me with slack jaw and tongue protruding horribly between long teeth and drawn-back lips. It was then that I knew what was wrong, that this frightful thing before me was not my aunt, and I was driven backward before its stumbling approach, warding it off with waving arms and barely articulate cries.
Finally, stumbling more frenziedly now, clawing at empty air inches in front of my face, she — it — spoke: ‘No!’ the awful voice gurgled over its wriggling tongue. ‘No, Hester, you… you fool! I warned you…’
And in that same instant I saw not an old woman, but the horribly alien figure of a man in a woman’s form!
More grotesque than any drag artist, the thing pirouetted in grim, constricting agony, its strange eyes glazing even as I stared in a paralysis of horror. Then it was all over and the frail scarecrow of flesh, purple tongue still protruding from frothing lips, fell in a crumpled heap to the floor.
That’s it, that’s the story — not a tale I’ve told before, for there would have been too many questions, and it’s more than possible that my version would not be believed. Let’s face it, who would believe me? No, I realized this as soon as the thing was done, and so I simply got rid of the torn bandages and called in a doctor. Aunt Hester died of a heart attack, or so I’m told, and perhaps she did — straining to do that which, even with her powers, should never have been possible.
During this last fortnight or so since it happened, I’ve been trying to convince myself that the doctor was right (which I was quite willing enough to believe at the time), but I’ve been telling myself lies. I think I’ve known the real truth ever since my parents got the letter from Australia. And lately, reinforcing that truth, there have been the dreams and the daydreams—or are they?
This morning I woke up to a lightless void — a numb, black, silent void — wherein I was incapable of even the smallest movement, and I was horribly, hideously frightened. It lasted for only a moment, that’s all, but in that moment it seemed to me that I was dead — or that the living me inhabited a dead body!
Again and again I find myself thinking back on the mad Arab’s words as reported by Joachim Feery: "…even from beyond the Grave of Sod…" And in the end I know that this is indeed the answer.
That is why I’m flying tomorrow to Australia. Ostensibly I’m visiting my uncle’s wife, my Australian aunt; but really I’m only interested in him, in Uncle George himself. I don’t know what I’ll be able to do, or even if there is anything I can do. My efforts may well be completely useless, and yet I must try to do something.