Fool on the Hill Read online

  Calliope puttered around in the kitchen, out of sight but continually making just enough noise—or so it seemed—that she remained tantalizingly on the edge of George’s thoughts. Not that he ever stopped thinking about her, anyway. Every night since that first when she’d appeared at the Fevre Dream had been filled with their lovemaking, and every day with his writing—except when he had to teach, a grudging chore now. He remembered once believing that requited love might spell the end of his creativity, but the truth was that Calliope inspired him more than loneliness ever had. Her origin, the reason for her coming to him, were still mysteries.

  She had the radio on in the kitchen, and a squeaky-voiced announcer—no doubt an Ithaca College student on a work-study program—recited the major news items of the day: President Botha of South Africa had reiterated that there would be no end to white minority rule; Nancy Reagan had bought still another set of china for the White House; and at O’Hare Airport, FAA investigators were unable to account for the appearance of a two-headed cow which had wandered onto a runway and into the path of an accelerating 747.

  As George finished a page and set a new sheet in the roller, Calliope appeared at the kitchen door, cloaked in her silver-threaded robe and bearing a big package wrapped in brown paper.

  “This came in the mail today,” she said, setting the package down on the coffee table next to his typewriter. And this.” She handed him a cream-colored envelope. George stared at it.

  “The mailman hasn’t been by yet this morning,” he reminded her, not really expecting any sort of explanation. He did not get one.

  “Well,” was all Calliope would say, and she shrugged, smiling. For whether the mailman had been here yet or not, both packages were properly stamped, postmarked only yesterday afternoon, and if that defied logic then Calliope cared little. And while she smiled at him, looking more beautiful than any metaphor could suitably describe, George discovered that he didn’t much care, either.

  “Fine,” he finally said. He opened the envelope first, drawing out a silvery card identical to the one Aurora Smith had recently received.

  An Enchantment Promised for All . . .

  Like Aurora, George had to wonder who in Tolkien House would think to invite him to a Halloween party, for though he had heard of the place, he had never been there, or to any other fraternity for that matter, during his entire time at Cornell. But there were a few other things about the card that caught George’s eye especially where Aurora would have noticed nothing unusual, such as the imprint of the white rose, or the first few words of the invitation itself. The Lady of Tolkien House, it said. This did not bother George, as it had Brian Garroway, because of the notion of a woman sending invitations to a frat party, but rather because for some reason “Lady” made him immediately think of Calliope.

  “You . . .” he began awkwardly, glancing up at her.

  “I?” Calliope queried, raising an eyebrow and smiling wider than before, as if at some private amusement.

  “It’s stupid,” said George, almost in warning. Then he stumbled on: “Do you know any . . . any other people at Cornell? What I mean is, you haven’t been to Ithaca before, have you?”

  “I’ve never come to The Hill for anyone’s sake but yours, George,” Calliope assured him. It took him a minute to realize that this did not answer his question, but by that time the Lady had retreated to the kitchen. George turned his attention to the big brown-paper-wrapped package; faintly he heard a metallic clink and a hiss of igniting gas as Calliope set the tea kettle on to boil.

  He somehow did not expect to find a return address on the package; when he did, he was not surprised to see it had been badly smudged, so that only the city of origin—Chicago—could be made out. Glancing again at the date and the P.M. on the postmark, George thought that it must have been shipped express, and one hell of an express at that to get all the way from Illinois to New York ahead of even the mailman. The delivery address was similarly question-raising: TO THE PATRON SAINT OF DAYDREAMS, Ithaca, N.Y.14850. No street number, but it had found him anyway, and though “Patron Saint of Daydreams” kicked modesty to hell and gone, George saw how it might be applied to him, by a fan if not by a critic. But how had the not-yet-arrived mailman known whom to deliver it to?

  “Screw it,” George muttered, deciding to work out the paradoxes later. He tore away the brown paper, and numerous layers of newspaper that he found beneath it. When the last sheet had been torn off and tossed carelessly to the floor, he was left holding a dark wooden box, with a silver latch and silver hinges and a single word inlaid in ivory letters on the box’s lid:

  PANDORA

  “Right,” said George. Not touching the latch, he held the box up by his ear and shook it. It made no sound: the contents either filled the box entirely or were well padded. He reread the word on the lid.

  Pandora’s Box, he thought. It seemed rather small to contain all the evils that plagued humankind. But no, even if it were the genuine article—which he was not ready to discount at this point, seeing the odd way it had come to him—according to the old Greek legend it had already been opened, the evils loosed, Hope the only thing remaining inside. Being optimistic enough in his own right—and having Calliope living with him—George didn’t suppose he had much need for a box full of Hope. Perhaps he could give it to someone else who did, someone like Ragnarok, who’d been looking troubled just recently.

  Inevitably thinking of the white marble square in the Boneyard—even the style of lettering on the box was the same—George sprung the latch and lifted the lid. Metal flashed within.

  The figurine in the box did not look much like Hope, unless it were Hope as conceived by a chronic depressive: Hope with coiled body of silver, ivory fangs, jade scales inlaid on the wings and belly, eyes of what looked like sapphire. The only thing missing was a plume of flame to shoot out of its mouth.

  A dragon. Someone had sent him a miniature wingéd dragon. He took it out of the box, surprised by its light weight, and set it on the coffee table. The thing must have been quite valuable, but this fact, as well as the craftsmanship that had gone into making it, was lost on George for the moment. For all its finery, it was also an ugly thing, as a monster ought to be, and those dark blue eyes held an undeniable malevolence. In fact it was as mean-looking as it could be, considering its size—barely a foot from tail to snout.

  After trying to stare down the dragon for a full five minutes, George picked up Pandora’s Box again and checked to see if there was anything else inside—a subsidiary Hope, perhaps, or a note containing even a clue as to why it had been sent to him. There was nothing more.

  “What the hell is this?” George said bemusedly, studying the dragon again. Just then Calliope returned from the kitchen, balancing a cup and saucer neatly in the palm of one hand.

  “Tea,” the Lady announced.

  “Hey,” George looked up. “Check out what I got.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said calmly, as if she had looked inside the package herself before giving it to him. She set the tea cup in front of him. “Drink this. It’s not too hot.”

  George glanced at the cup, then back at her. “Who do we know in Chicago?” he asked, accenting the second pronoun carefully.

  “Mayor Daley?” Calliope suggested. “Maybe he liked one of your books and wanted to send you a present.”

  “I don’t think Mayor Daley docs much reading these days,” said George, and Calliope laughed and leaned across the coffee table to give him a quick kiss. He laughed too—what else could he do? He could not force a straight, sensible answer out of her if she didn’t want to give it, that he’d long since learned.

  “Drink your tea,” Calliope repeated. George picked up the cup and sipped gingerly at it. She was right—it was not too hot.

  “They couldn’t really fly, you know,” he said.

  “What that?”

  “Dragons. Aerodynamically unsound—a physics prof I know told me about it once.”

  “Bumblebee
s are aerodynamically unsound,” Calliope pointed out. “And besides, the stories all say dragons could fly. Which would you rather believe?”

  “Well . . .” He stroked the figurine. “A metal dragon couldn’t, anyway.”

  “That might depend on what kind of wind he’s got behind him.”

  Another sip; George felt suddenly light-headed, the taste of tea bitter on his tongue.

  “Can you do magic?” he asked her next.

  She smiled. “Magic? What makes you think of magic?”

  “All this . . .” He tried to indicate dragon, box, party invitation and ‘Patron Saint of Daydreams’ with one gesture. “It’s too weird, Calliope.”

  With a look of genuine compassion on her face, she reached out to stroke his cheek. “Poor George,” she said. “You have no idea what that word really means yet. But as for magic . . . I can’t do any more magic than you can.”

  “That answer doesn’t say anything.”

  “It says everything,” Calliope insisted. She gripped the hand that held the teacup, raising it to his lips and gently making him drink the rest down. When the last drop had been drained, cup was returned to saucer and pushed aside as Calliope locked gazes with him. There was an actual physical feeling of being held; George’s head had now passed from lightness to a rising tumble, yet Calliope’s eyes riveted him at the center of the spin.

  “Tell me a story, storyteller,” she said.

  “What story?”

  “About the first time you called the wind. When you were a boy.”

  “I was with my Uncle Erasmus,” George recalled the day as if hypnotized. “He’d managed to sell one of his sculptures—one of his real sculptures, not the concrete animals I told you about—and we went out kite-flying to celebrate. Huge multi-colored box kites, those were Erasmus’ favorite. We went out to Flushing Meadow Park, out by the big steel globe from the World’s Fair, only the wind wouldn’t blow. Hours we waited, from just before noon to near on dusk, talking about everything under the sun and then some. We wouldn’t give up and try it another day—it was like a point of honor.

  “Finally the sun was going down, still not a rumor of a breeze, and my Uncle said ‘OK, George this wind isn’t going to cooperate on its own so we’re just going to have to figure out some way to twist its arm.’ I asked what way was that and he rolled up his sleeves, sat back, and thought it over.

  “Now when Erasmus sets his mind to a problem he comes up with these bizarre solutions that usually work. He watched the sky for few minutes and then said to me: ‘You want to be a. writer, right George?’

  “ ‘More than anything,’ I told him.

  “ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘imagine you were writing a story about two fellows who’d just spent a whole day waiting for the wind to blow. How would you end it? Would they finally get what they wanted, you think?’

  “ ‘Well sure,’ I said (it was a couple years yet before the idea of a less-than-perfectly-happy ending even began to penetrate). ‘Of course they would.’

  “ ‘Just like that.’

  “ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I suppose if it were the whole point of the story . . .’

  “ ‘Yes?’ said Erasmus.

  “ ‘. . . then I guess maybe they’d have to do something first.’

  “ ‘Like what, George?’

  “ ‘Oh, I don’t know . . . an Indian Wind Dance, maybe?’ “

  Calliope smiled. “An Indian Wind Dance?”

  “Hey, I was twelve, OK?” He continued: “So right there Erasmus says ‘Great, let’s do it,’ like I actually have some idea what this dance is like.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What could I do? Made something up on the spot. Wasn’t much—just turning in place really, with the kite held up in one hand, string in the other.”

  “What happened when you tried it?”

  “Nothing.” Now George smiled. “Not at first. We tried it, and there was still no wind, and so we tried it again, and again, and then . . .”

  “And then?”

  “. . . there was a crossover moment, a moment of control—who knows, maybe I just got dizzy—but it felt as if it really were a story, a story but still real life, and there was an ending to be chosen, and it seemed right that it should end with the wind blowing.”

  “And it did.” A statement, not a question.

  “It did,” George agreed. “And ever since . . . I don’t know, it’s like—”

  “Like writing without paper,” Calliope suggested.

  “Yes,” said George. “Yes, that’s just right.”

  “Do you suppose,” she asked him now, “that it would work with something other than the wind?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never tried.” He shrugged. “Guess it might depend on the circumstances.”

  “Well then . . . what if your life depended on it, George?”

  She blinked deliberately, releasing him, and George became aware once more of the room around him. His light-headedness had risen to a plane where the very color and dimension of the things around him had become malleable. The upholstery of the couch, originally brown, now wavered between dark red and fluorescent orange; the edges of the coffee table had become indistinct, as if it were no longer certain how much space it wanted to occupy. And as for the sunlight streaming in through the living room windows . . . God . . .

  “You put something in my tea,” George realized, paranoia pouncing like a tiger that had been creeping up through the brush all this time. “What did you put in my tea, Calliope?”

  “Something to expand your mind a little,” Calliope told him, herself remaining unchanged, distinct. “And to help you defend yourself.”

  “Defend my . . . oh—oh, hey, no!”

  With a click of claws and teeth, the dragon figurine had begun to uncoil. It pulled itself out straight, wings flapping, sapphire eyes flickering with some ignited inner spark. George shied back from it.

  “What the fuck, Calliope!” he cried out. “What—”

  “I told you when I first came to you,” she replied, calmly, “that I had a few things to teach you. Consider this a lesson.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think I want a lesson. Could you please—”

  “Writing without paper, George. Just think about writing without paper and you’ll be fine, probably.”

  She stood up.

  “Wait a minute!” George commanded. “Don’t you go anywhere!”

  “I’m already gone,” Calliope said. “See you after class.” Her form blurred and faded out; her robe, empty, dropped to the floor.

  George did not even bother to marvel at the vanishing trick, but merely accepted the fact that he was on his own and turned his attention to the dragon, which was now drawing air into its mouth and expanding like a balloon.

  “Good God,” George exclaimed, as the creature attained the size of a small dog and continued to grow. The dragon ceased to draw air and fixed its eyes on him with a hiss. It tensed as if to spring. George did not waste time gawking. Without thinking about it he brought his legs up hard against the underside of the coffee table, upending it. The dragon, the typewriter, and Pandora’s Box were catapulted into the air to land with a crash by the far end of the sofa. The coffee table itself flipped over and shriveled up like a deflated rubber raft, cycling through three shades of indigo before it evaporated altogether.

  A weapon. He needed to find a weapon, quickly. While the dragon untangled itself from the wreckage of the typewriter and the manuscript pages of Porcelain Messiah hovered near the ceiling like giant moths, George made a hurried scan of the room. He saw nothing that might serve as a club or mace, nothing sharp—once upon a time he had actually had a replica of a Viking battle-ax hanging on the wall, but that had long since been sent to rust in a Tompkins County junkyard. Desperate, George’s eyes lighted on Calliope’s fallen robe, and, vaguely remembering an old fairy tale where a prince had used a fair maiden’s girdle to leash a monster, he dove for it.

  The dra
gon came at him even as he snatched up the robe. George held the garment out to his side, waving it like a bullfighter’s cape in the hope that the beast might be distracted. But the dragon, borne on a whisper of silver wings (it didn’t seem to need a wind at its back after all) did not even hesitate; it ignored the robe and went straight for George’s chest. Only at the last moment did the storyteller swing the robe around to use as a shield.

  Ivory fangs and claws parted the material easily; the dragon’s head poked through the hole in the robe, mouth open for a bite. George ducked back, at the same moment gripping the robe by the thick fold of the hem, using that as a garrote to wrap around the monster’s neck. Incredibly, it seemed to work; all at once the dragon began flapping its wings in reverse, jerking its head around and hissing as if it were really short of breath. It even seemed to shrink a bit. Suddenly overconfident, George yanked harder on the ends of the hem, willing it to constrict still more and choke the beast.

  “That’s it! That’s got you, you—” George’s cry of victory was cut short as the dragon simultaneously spat smoke in his face and tore at his arm with one wildly swinging claw. Beneath the sudden pain the storyteller felt his grip loosen, and before he could lose it entirely he used the robe as a sling to hurl the monster into a corner. Then he staggered, eyes watering fiercely, arm bleeding from three deep gouges.

  With a fresh whir of wings the dragon was up and moving again. George beat a hasty retreat into the kitchen, where multi-hued rays of sunlight streamed in through the window, every color in the spectrum being represented except the normal yellow-white of mid-morning. It would have been quite beautiful to stand and watch, really, had he the time.

  “Oh burn in hell!” George cried, kicking open the refrigerator door and slamming the dragon a good one on the nose as it buzzed into the kitchen. The storyteller continued to back away, hurling utensils, spice jars, Hi-C cans—anything that came to hand—in his wake, none of it slowing the monster for more than a moment. Tossing one last juice can, George ducked into the rear hallway. Knowing he would never make it to the back door of the house (and not sure where he would run to if he got outside), George cut into the bedroom instead and tried to shut the door behind him. Close on his heels, the dragon got one claw and half a snout inside the room; two quick slams of the door convinced it to back off.