The Other

by Thomas Tryon

Amethyst. Or lavender; rose, almost.

I’ve read a lot of books, oh

Granddaddy Perry and his father

having been known thereabouts

Caribbean: Jamaica and Trinidad and Martinique. And in Pequot Landing didn’t the Perrys prosper! Pequot Landing—I’m sure you know what that’s like, a typical Connecticut river town, small, unpretentious, elderly. Splendid elms forming shady aisles over the streets—before the Dutch Blight, this was—spacious, well-kept lawns, promising in June, scorched by September, houses of wood or brick or stucco, sometimes all three. The Perry house, stalwart, large, rambling. Once-white clapboards grimed to gray, paint blistered on green shutters framing tall windows, the glass pitted and watery, the patinated gutters pocketing last October’s leaves. A comfortable house: veranda, pillared portico at one end, fireplaces in most of the high-ceilinged rooms, everywhere lace curtains, even the attic dormers. Watermarks on the plaster overhead. The barn was venerable, swaybacked, lichen-spotted, musty, sitting on a small rise beside the icehouse road. Up on the rooftree was a cupola, a four-windowed affair where pigeons were housed. This was the highest point anywhere around, and on this small peaked roof sat a weathervane, a peregrine falcon, emblem of the Perrys, commanding the view. With the passing of Granddaddy Perry—just after the First World War, that was—the farm had ceased altogether being a farm. Except for one hired man, old Leno Angelini, all the hands were laid off, the livestock disposed of, the plows and harrows sold or left to rust. Neither Vining nor his younger brother Geo...

the last

magically overnight, like mushrooms.

had to

surreptitious, creepy, sneak-up-on-you steps. He waited for the grating protest of iron hinges he knew must follow. Silence. The footsteps neither progressed nor receded, they merely stopped. There followed a faint double thud on the trapdoor and he could picture Somebody kneeling on the floor overhead, hand cupped to ear, ear to floor, listening . . . He held his breath. Now Somebody moved away, went tippy-toeing back across the trapdoor; a board creaked; Somebody must have gone outside. Phew. Niles inhaled the terror like exotic incense, his thin frame rippling with fright. Nyang-dang-ga—dang-drumm-drumm—dang-ga-dang— Cripes, there he went with his harmonica again, that idiot Mother Goose rhyme. Niles had heard it so often he knew the words by heart. How many miles to Babylon? Threescore miles and ten— Can I get there by candlelight? Yes, and back again. A mocking, lilting refrain, perfect for blowing on a harmonica. On it went, the tripping refrain: If your heels are nimble and light, You may get there by candlelight . . . nyang-dang-ga-dang— Damn Mother Goose. Next, Holland’s hateful crooning: “Ni-yuls—Ni-yuls Alex-an-der Per-ry.” Cripes. The Alexander was by way of Alexandra, his mother, and had, Niles felt, sort of a sissy sound. “Ni-yuls Al-ex-an-der—” At last, defeated: “What?” he answered Holland. “What?” They were sitting there in the dark; some light, you fool! Niles groped for the bottle, righted it. He fingered a kitchen match from the Prince Alber...

Fascinated, Niles observed

crooking it, chased him out; Holland called her a dirty name. He chuckled wryly. “And she says she’s going to tell Father—how about that.” He tossed an amused look over his shoulder, down to the meadow where Mr. Angelini was haying. “But what about the cattails?” Niles persisted, his mind on the Winter Kingdom. “You said it was a good idea.” “It’s good,” Holland said laconically. “But—” He cocked an ear. From down in the hayloft came the cry of Russell Perry at play. Eee-yaiee! I’m the King of the Mountain! “How do we sneak cattails in with him jumping around down there? If he sees us—” “—He’ll squeal.” Niles nodded, ruminating. “We could bring them in through the wagon room. We’ll open the Slave Door from the outside.” No reply. The rat continued feeding. Niles gave up. Holland was preoccupied. And stubborn—if he didn’t want, he didn’t want, and that was the end of it. In a while the rat stopped nibbling

root beer all gone? Maybe Winnie would let them bring out the enamel tub and mix a batch in the kitchen sink. Or churn some ice cream. But, jeeze, that was work, Holland would say; besides, ice cream was Sunday treat. Or they could go up in the storeroom and play Granddaddy Perry’s old records on the Victrola. Or practice some more magic tricks. Though that morning had already seen secret practice in this regard. Next month was the Firemen’s Fourth of July Carnival. Chan Yu the Disappearing Marvel. With who knew what latest feat of prestidigitation! “What’s a hermaphrodite?” Niles asked out of the blue. “What?” Holland, who collected big words as others collect stamps or money (though there were collections of these as well), was a million miles away. “A hermaphrodite. There was this poster at the drugstore this morning that said they’re going to have a real live hermaphrodite this year. All the way from Malta.” “I don’t know what that means. Look it up.” Holland stooped and opened his hands out onto the floor. The rat crawled from his palm, dragging itself to the center of a panel of light where it lay beside a knothole, belly down, tall limply curled, quiescent and scarcely breathing. What was wrong with it? Niles looked down at the lime-speckled planking where the sun melted in a syrupy flow of red and gold around his feet and around the still, white form. Bending,

stopped in the doorway, struck by Holland’s cryptic smile. Then his brother had turned his back, stood idly staring out the window, watching where Mr. Angelini worked among the windrows of fallen hay, gathering them onto his fork and tossing them into the wagon. Niles left then, cradling the rat between spread fingers and, a dry whirring of feathers behind him, ran quickly down the stairway, his heart in his mouth; but even before he reached the bottom he felt quite certain that however much water might be provided, it would not be sufficient to restore the rat. The animal would never touch water again. Poor rat. 3 God damn you, Holland. He slammed across the granary yard to the breezeway. In

He laid the rat inside and put the lid on, then took a trowel from a nail on the wall—the one hanging between Mr. Angelini’s red-handled rose shears and the rubber hip boots Father used to fish in—and went to the kitchen garden. Close by, an outside stairway with wooden steps and a white railing rose to the house’s second story. With the trowel he dug a hole, buried the box, and, meditating, slowly covered it over. Oh Holland, you bastard. What a heartless thing to do. Those pellets from Mrs. Rowe’s garage—they weren’t Gro-Rite at all. It was as bad as the cat. Involuntarily his look shifted to the well across the drive. The pulley gear under the peaked roof was rusted with disuse, the bucket hung cracked and leached. Inside, the spring had long ago dried up and there were only puddles around the mossy rocks at the bottom. That and blackness, for now it was covered with a cement slab where toads would sun themselves and garter snakes slough their skins undisturbed, where summer weeds grew tall around it and clover sprang in patches of bright lavender. It looked like an ancient tomb, decaying. He thought a moment. Yes—he knew what was needed?—flowers for the grave, a memorial for the dead rat. Quickly he ran and gathered a suitable bunch of clover. He had started back to the tool shed to find a jar to put them in when his eye was attracted by a movement at an upstairs window. A curtain fluttered. Behind it he glimpsed a figure partially hidden by the shadow of the half-rais...

to sound severe, but he could tell she didn’t mean it, which is also the

“Yes.” But no, he meant, no camp. There was

Ada meant business; Mrs.

“Don’t

running to meet the Avalon

up in Holland’s pocket, thence to a hiding place, thence, discovered, to the

inside his shirt, went to stab

Holland adopted a sober expression.

the shed at the back of the house where Holland had bundled up the oily rags and started the fire. The clapboarding was still burned black. Sassafras mittens, three-, four-, five-fingered leaves. Sassafras alhidum, according to the Chautauqua

“Dear, telephone—the

more

repeating the name and Niles distinctly

went to roll up the wheelchair

eyes gazed out across the meadow, the river, and up along the fields on the farthest side, up to the Avalon ridge, beyond, even, across some vast untraveled space, and he could tell she had gone farther yet, even to that farthest point, that faraway place where no one might accompany her, beyond the ridge, beyond the Shadow Hills, to a place where she was alone, aloof, a solitary, pondering—what? witch, perhaps? no, something

garlanded banister when they led

As if that explained it all. But

gamekeeper would not destroy

in her dooryard, along the fence, beside the garage. And when she came

and copied them out, and the thought seemed to please her. But with the

was

he?” “No’m.”

windows, between heavy

bright birds were everywhere imprisoned under transparent domes.

Peking,

By day and by night, summer

amount of water he managed

What else

dancing,

Mother’s room and show some pictures to her before it gets too dark.” A warm wind was blowing up across the meadow from the river and the grandfather clock striking nine when Niles