Show CHAPTER I 1 fi the giant moths of bokee those damp black ghosts and the smell of sour honey which were so trivial as facts but so vital to zorie zone coreys coneys fears were among the things that made made it hard for her to put a proper valuation on the events themselves th ore were moments of terror which when she awoke in the night she could now contemplate with amused detachment and there were moments of lesser danger which could bring a even in retrospect scream into her perhaps paul duncan could have explained all of it in his clever analytical way some of it he dio did try to explain because in his jealous heart he adored her and some of it was better le left ft unexplained and even unremembered it might have hastened her recovery if she could have wiped from her memory that night in mid pacific when she fell down and down through endless blackness with that soft terrifying whisper in her ears ah nahl nah ah nah and she could have well forgotten too the jasmine scented dawn when n she stood beside a stunted tree three thousand feet above the green and purple depths of the tropical canyon with an automatic pistol kicking in her hand although it would always seem that it had happened not to her but to an unbelievable girl who had stepped out of her just long enough to attempt murder yet au all of it fitted into the one bright romantic pattern of intrigue and adventure which she would always cherish even unimportant trifles the quarreling of the minah birds just at dusk and again just at dawn the annoying habit grandfather duncan had of saying you understand lim hm and the metallic luster of moonlight on palm fronds leaping in the trade wind the gleam in pierre Savo yards eyes whenever he ate meat and the pride that amber the i girl from martinique took in herself and the strange urbanity of the man who called himself winthrop lanning her memory of the rest of that ordeal was vague but she was never vague about stephen decatur duncan with his languid manner his mocking blue eyes and his treachery probing about in her mind on these sleepless nights in a blacked out room on an island at war she law saw herself on that dismal afternoon in early december in a drowsy little university town sitting at her desk and wishing among other things that she was not so meek j she was privately very certain that her wishing had started it and that every step she took that day was an unerring step in the direction of her destiny from her typewriter desk in the english department zorie corey could look out across the small campus and over some of the rooftops of this town in which she had grown up and of which she was now she to told id herself a helpless victim she had just uttered the fraudulent wish so often voiced by youth when it is overcome by a sense of frustration she wished shed never been born she then uttered three wishes all related in a row she wished she so meek she wished she had courage she wished shed had the gumption to tell the wife of her distinguished employer to jump in the river my cydear dear miss corey mrs folsome in her gushing way had sai said d over the telephone a few minutes previously would you mind terribly distributing the invitations for my tea next week they really should go out tonight and I 1 think its so much nicer having them delivered by hand dont you and professor says youre so dependable so will you drop around for them when youre through id love to mrs folsome zif zone I 1 corey had said in her melodious young voice instead of any number of appropriate things she might have said she might have mentioned that she possess a car that it was going to rain that she was terribly rushed she might T have suggested that mrs fols folsome ome neatly affix a two cent stamp in the upper corner of each of the envelopes and drop them in one of the green receptacles that an all seeing government has placed at numerous street corners for the convenience of its citizens why zorie corey rebelliously muttered dont you deliver them with your own hand you old tightwad zorie corey wished she was a war nurse then she wished she lived in california but anywhere would do anywhere but ellerston Ellery ton professor says youre so depend aale ab le 0 o and well he might probes sor bowdoin J folsome was head of the english department zorie corey was his halftime half time secretary and his notion of the hours that a halftime secretary should keep was from noon sharp until she slid from her chair with exhaustion the halfday half day was supposed to end at five but she often worked until six thirty nine sometimes midnight she expertly estimated that the work he had piled on her desk would keep her occupied until seven thirty after that she must deliver his cifes invitations there would be about thirty of them and the addresses would be scattered all over town and she had a date tonight with paul duncan paul did not like to be kept waiting next to cleanliness with paul came punctuality she gave herself the brief luxury of contemplating in a private archive of her mind her fiances fiancee fi ances lean good bood looking face his clear eyes his strong slender jr 7 As she looked at the wishing buddha a curious thing happened it began to glow hands she loved pauls hands they were clever and nervous and yet they were very masculine paul had a brilliant mind and his understanding of human foibles his amusing way of pricking the bubbles of vanity and conceit and hypocrisy was a source of delight to zorie paul was an instructor of psychology and he was much too good for this small midwestern university she would she decided knock off at five thirty at six she was still typing in her fast efficient way at six thirty she called pauls boardinghouse boarding house he home the voice that answered know when he would return at seven zorie called again paul she was told had dined out he was probably in the library do doing in research on his dissertation at seven twenty eight she finished the last of her typing and laid her afternoons production in neat piles on professor Fol somes desk she would be late for her date with paul and he would tell her again that the trait he admired most in the wives of the men he knew was punctuality one of the troubles with being meek of always saying yes and never no to a request zorie reflected is that youre always getting yourself into hot water she paused and looked about the gloomy office with its littered desk its overflowing wastebasket the pamphlets and catalogs and books scattered and stacked about all so typical of professor Fol somes untidiness at the back of the desk a confusion of books memoranda pens pencils and bottles and pots of ink cf various colors was presided over by a gilded cast iron buddha about eight inches high zorie corey was a sensible girl and she took no stock in heathen idols or any of the nonsense you hear about them but as she looked at the wishing buddha a curious thing happened it began to glow the explanation of this phenomenon was prosaic and simple but zorie instantly aware of that the glow was greenish and ghostly and it seemed to come on as if the jungle buddha were trying to call her attention to himself and his reputation uta tion what had happened was that the shifting shit ting clouds above the fenwick body plant had glowed brightly bright 0 y f for or a moment in the glare from the floodlights flood lights which surrounded the buildings one of the measures being taken to discourage saboteurs sabot eurs and this glow had let the curving surfaces of the siamese buddha catch and momentarily hold a ghostly gleam even his eyes seemed to gammer glimmer 1 I wish 11 zorie corey began impetuously and hesitated then she made her wish she wished she could be whisked to a leisurely land of palms and jade green seas of strange flowers with intoxicating scents of birds that left bright flames in their wake and of delightful people too gallant to take advantage U of her meekness she next wished that paul duncan was there with her then she wished that she would lose her meekness that made a total of three wishes and three wishes were according to tradition the correct number there should be of course some sort of ritual she bent down quick ly and kissed the cast iron jungle buddha three times on the brow one kiss for each wish he tasted dusty and rusty she stepped back and gazed somewhat defiantly at the buddha who no longer glowed but sat there in the jungle of a fusty old english professors desk a dark lump in the darkness as if in glowing once he had spent his magic force and would never glow again zorie waited and a curious tingling went along her spine nothing noteworthy happened zorie zone corey did not find herself speeding through the night on a persian rug nor did she feel one degree less meek the telephone in her cubicle began to ring she ran down the hall with h her er heart racing out of all proportion to the amount of exercise cise she was giving it As she ran she pictured the man who was calling her and the man was curiously enough not paul duncan he was a total stranger he was tall bronzed and big shouldered with merry eyes and curly hair and a big easy smile and a lazy romantic way about him he would say to her in a deep resonant cheery voice miss corey I 1 have just been authorized to offer you an opportunity to leave el leayton at once and take a very interesting te journey but the voice that responded to her breathless hello was neither deep resonant nor cheery my dear it said with just a hint of severity 1 I thought be over for these invitations ages ago had you forgotten no I 1 forgotten zone answered in her melodiously meek voice im just leaving it was an un seasonal december night rainy and warm the kind of night that might be transformed by a sudden north wind into a glitter of ice clad trees and telephone wires As she started along the campus with her head bowed as if in shame against the drizzle I 1 she indulged in still another wish she wished she had had the courage to ask her aunt hannah for her coupe for a couple of hours zorie went up on the wide porch of the big old fashioned gray house where the Fol somes lived A colored maid answered the doorbell and brought zorie the stack of invitations in a cellophane wrapper zorie was on the point of asking her if she could borrow an umbrella but the door was quickly closed and she decided against pressing the button again for the maid had looked cross she went down the steps and into the rain less than one hundred feet from the Fol somes front porch on the corner was a telephone pole to which was affixed a street light the street light clearly illuminated two objects a mailbox and a large trash basket on the side of which was a led sign zorie stopped two temptations were tugging at her the first was to buy thirty two cent stamps and mail the invitations the other temptation appealed strongly to the r renegade ne in her but it was as spurious as her wish that shed never been born thinking of the malicious gossip that flew around at these faculty Y teas she gazed at the sign on th the e trash basket KEEP YOUR TOWN CLEAN USE THIS how id love to she murmured across the street was a taxicab with the meter ticking she was too preoccupied to notice it yet she would remember every other detail of that night of that moment t the he sound of it the look of it the smell 11 of it the feel of it all the 1 little i atle things that make a great moment so real in afterthought the rattle of the rain on the tree TO BE CONTINUED |