The path was very faint, as if no one had walked it in a very long time. A rabbit hopped across it as I started down, twice the size of an earthly rabbit. It disappeared into the grass and flowers. I—
There was a pause here, but I could hear Mr. Bowditch breathing. It sounded raspier than ever. Labored. Then he resumed.
This is a ninety-minute tape, Charlie. I found a whole box of them amidst the rickrack on the third floor, from the days before cassettes became as obsolete as three-cent stamps. I could fill four of them, or five, maybe even the whole box. I have had many adventures in that other world, and would tell them if I had time. I don’t believe I do. Since my little bit of target practice in the shed I haven’t felt well at all. I’m having pain in the left side of my neck and down my left arm to the elbow. That sometimes fades a bit, but the heaviness in my chest doesn’t. I know what such symptoms mean. There’s a thunderstorm brewing inside me and I think it will break soon. I have regrets, many of them. Once I told you that a brave man helps but a coward only brings presents. Do you remember that? I brought presents, but only when I knew I wasn’t brave enough to help when the terrible change came. I told myself I was too old, so I took gold and fled. Like Jack scurrying down the beanstalk. Only he was just a boy. I should have done better.
If you go to that other world, where two moons rise in the sky at night and there’s no constellation the astronomers of earth have ever seen, you need to know certain things, so listen to me closely.
The air of our world is fatal to the creatures of theirs, except I guess for the bats. I once brought back a rabbit as an experiment. It died quickly. But the air of theirs is not fatal to us. It is invigorating, in fact.
The city was once a grand place but now it’s perilous, especially at night. If you enter, go only by day and be very quiet once you pass through its gates. It may seem deserted, but it isn’t. What rules there is dangerous and terrible, and what lies beneath is more terrible still. I have marked the way to a plaza behind the palace just as I used to mark the trees of the forest, with my original initials: AB. If you follow them… and if you are quiet… you’ll be fine. If you don’t, you may be lost in that terrible city until you die. I am speaking as one who knows. Without my blazes, I would be there still, dead or insane. What was once grand and beautiful is now gray and cursed and diseased.
There was another pause. The rasp in his breathing was louder now, and when he resumed, his voice was harsh, hardly like his own at all. I had an idea—almost a certainty—that while he was speaking these words I was in school, either on my way to chem class or already there, determining the boiling point of acetone.
Radar has been there with me, when she was young, hardly more than a puppy. She bounded down the steps of the well with no fear whatsoever. You know she goes to her belly when given the down command; she also knows to be quiet when given the hush or quiet command. I gave it to her that day, and we passed beneath the colonies of bats without disturbing them. She went through what I’ve come to think of as the border with no appreciable discomfort. She was delighted with the field of red flowers, bounding through them and rolling in them. And she loved the old woman who lives in the cottage. Most people of our world would turn in disgust from such as she is now, but I believe dogs sense the inner nature and ignore the outer aspect. Is that overly romantic? Perhaps, but it seems that way to—
Stop. Mustn’t ramble. No time.
You may choose to take Radar with you, perhaps after you have a shufti on your own, but perhaps right away. Because time for her is growing short. With the new medicine, she may be able to negotiate those steps again. If she can, I’m sure the air of that place will enliven her. As sure as I can be, at least.
There were once games in the city, and the thousands of people who came to watch congregated in the plaza I spoke of as they waited for entry to the stadium which is part of the palace… or an adjunct to it, I suppose you’d say. Near this plaza is a huge sundial that must be a hundred feet in diameter. It turns, like the carousel in the novel. The Bradbury novel. I’m sure he… never mind, mind this instead: The sundial is the secret of my longevity, and I paid a price. You must not get on it yourself, but if you were to put Radar on it—
Oh Christ. I think it’s happening. My God!
I sat with my hands clenched on the kitchen table, watching the spinning reels. Through the player’s window I could see it was approaching the point I’d rewound it from.
Charlie, I hate to think of sending you into the source of so many of our earthly terrors, and I won’t order you, but the sundial is there, and the gold is there, too. The blazes will lead you to it. AB, remember that.