Algernon Blackwood

The Other Wing

Algernon Blackwood

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It used to puzzle him that, after dark, some one would look in

round the edge of the bedroom door, and withdraw again too rapidly for

him to see the face. When the nurse had gone away with the candle this

happened: “Good night, Master Tim,” she said usually, shading the light

with one hand to protect his eyes; “dream of me and I’ll dream of

you.” She went out slowly.

The sharp-edged shadow of the door ran across the ceiling like a

train. There came a whispered colloquy in the corridor outside, about

himself, of course, and—he was alone. He heard her steps going deeper

and deeper into the bosom of the old country house; they were audible

for a moment on the stone flooring of the hall; and sometimes the dull

thump of the baize door into the servants’ quarters just reached him,

too—then silence. But it was only when the last sound, as well as the

last sign of her had vanished, that the face emerged from its

hiding-place and flashed in upon him round the corner. As a rule, too,

it came just as he was saying, “Now I’ll go to sleep.

I won’t think any longer. Good night, Master Tim, and happy

dreams.” He loved to say this to himself; it brought a sense of

companionship, as though there were two persons speaking.

The room was on the top of the old house, a big, high-ceilinged

room, and his bed against the wall had an iron railing round it; he

felt very safe and protected in it. The curtains at the other end of

the room were drawn. He lay watching the firelight dancing on the heavy

folds, and their pattern, showing a spaniel chasing a long-tailed bird

towards a bushy tree, interested and amused him. It was repeated over

and over again. He counted the number of dogs, and the number of

birds, and the number of trees, but could never make them agree. There

was a plan somewhere in that pattern; if only he could discover it,

the dogs and birds and trees would “come out right.”

Hundreds and hundreds of times he had played this game, for the

plan in the pattern made it possible to take sides, and the bird and

dog were against him. They always won, however; Tim usually fell

asleep just when the advantage was on his own side. The curtains hung

steadily enough most of the time, but it seemed to him once or twice

that they stirred—hiding a dog or bird on purpose to prevent his

winning. For instance, he had eleven birds and eleven trees, and,

fixing them in his mind by saying, “that’s eleven birds and eleven

trees, but only ten dogs,” his eyes darted back to find the eleventh

dog, when—the curtain moved and threw all his calculations into

confusion again. The eleventh dog was hidden. He did not quite like the

movement; it gave him questionable feelings, rather, for the curtain

did not move of itself. Yet, usually, he was too intent upon counting

the dogs to feel positive alarm.

Opposite to him was the fireplace, full of red and yellow coals;

and, lying with his head sideways on the pillow, he could see directly

in between the bars. When the coals settled with a soft and powdery

crash, he turned his eyes from the curtains to the grate, trying to

discover exactly which bits had fallen. So long as the glow was there

the sound seemed pleasant enough, but sometimes he awoke later in the

night, the room huge with darkness, the fire almost out—and the sound

was not so pleasant then. It startled him. The coals did not fall of

themselves. It seemed that some one poked them cautiously. The shadows

were very thick before the bars. As with the curtains, moreover, the

morning aspect of the extinguished fire, the ice-cold cinders that

made a clinking sound like tin, caused no emotion whatever in his

soul.

And it was usually while he lay waiting for sleep, tired both of

the curtain and the coal games, on the point, indeed, of saying, “I’ll

go to sleep now,” that the puzzling thing took place.

He would be

staring drowsily at the dying fire, perhaps counting the stockings and

flannel garments that hung along the high fender-rail when, suddenly,

a person looked in with lightning swiftness through the door and

vanished again before he could possibly turn his head to see.