Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 01.djvu/51

Rh that other became less cautious. As Julia had hoped, he emerged into the open at last. By great patience, she had managed to meet her antagonist face to face. It happened in this way:

Determined to be with Gin as much as possible from now on, she had suggested to the child that they park a picnic basket, don bathing suits and spend the day at the pond. The suggestion seemed to startle Gin, yet please her.

"I dunno," she had objected uncertainly. "Tommy lives there. He—"

"He need't be afraid of me, dear. Let him join us there. We can all spend the day together, then. Wouldn't that be nice? And if you'll just tell him he has nothing to fear from me, ever, and that I want to be friends—"

"I would love a swim," Gin had interrupted. "Down at the pond."

So presently they were sitting on the edge of the water-soaked float, dabbling bare feet in the bright water. It was a perfect summer day—hot and breathlessly still.

The water, blue in the pond's deep center, was brown in the shallows, dappled green with thick lily-pads. Virginia squealed happily as she lowered herself into the cold water, paddling at the edge of the float and showing off the new stroke her father had taught her.

All at once Julia was aware of someone standing in the muddy shallows just behind—someone stealthily watching, half-hidden by the thin, tall reeds. Very matter-of-factly, Julia turned her head, forcing herself to smile at the vision.

"Hello," she said calmly. "I'm glad you came at last. We've been waiting for you, Gin and I—and won't you come sit with us, out here?"

"Tommy!" Virginia crowed, holding to the edge of the float with one hand and waving frantically at the small, furtive figure in the reeds. "Tommy—c'm on! look—I can swim a little on my back! Tommy—look!"

Like some small, cautious animal, the child very slowly left the reedy shallows where he was crouching and clambered up onto the bank. He shuffled across the bare strip of ground behind the float and stood there, to all appearances bashfully hesitant, grinning and squirming his bare toes in the dry earth.

There seemed nothing malevolent or remarkable about him now. He was small, Julia saw—indeed scarcely bigger than Gin herself. He seemed a bit thin or "spindling"—or else his faded, patched overalls and quaintly cut shirt were a little too big for him. This time, he carried his big straw hat, and she could see his face quite plainly—a grinning, engaging, freckled face surmounted by an unruly mop of red hair worn longish in the style of another time.

"Won't—won't you come near us?" Julia repeated her invitation a little faintly.

"No, ma'am," she heard the boy distinctly say—still grinning, eyes lowered as though in shy embarrassment, bare toes wriggling a pattern in the dry dust.

Julia stood up. As though in pleading, she stretched out her hand—took three quick steps across the bobbing float toward the small, smiling child on the bank. He looked up, then—and the hatred in the blue eyes leaped out at her, stabbing.

"Child, why do you hate me? I wouldn't harm you—don't you know that? I only want to know—the truth. Why you are this way, and what I can do to help you be at peace—"

He was gone. Quite simply, he turned his back, stepped toward the reeds and melted into their midst—disappeared. The float rocked as Gin, dripping and clumsy, heaved herself out of the water.

"Why, he's gone!" Gin said