Part 19 (2/2)

Then she rose and dressed and got into her car.

She went to the grove.

She stood under the crescent moon, under the bruised sky.

And heard the wind; her heart; owls high in the trees; the s.h.i.+fting currents of the stream; the stony rustle of the brook; and heard the forest quiet.

Tentatively, she took off her clothes, and stacked them in a neat pile.

She raised her arms from her sides and tried a few steps. They were awkward. She stopped, embarra.s.sed.

”Where are you?” she whispered.

Silence.

”I'm here,” she whispered.

Then, she heard the chuckling: it was cruel and hearty, but not mirthless.

_Over here, Miss Maple_.

She smiled and ran to the middle of the grove. Here?

_No, Miss Maple: over here! You're looking beautiful tonight. And hungry. Why don't you dance?_ The laughter came from the trees, to the right. She ran to it. It disappeared. It appeared again, from the trees to the left.

_What can you be after, madame? It's hardly pro per, you know. Miss Maple, where are your clothes?_She covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with her hands, and knew fear. ”Don't,” she said. ”Please don't.” The aching and the awful heat were in her. ”Come out! I want--”

_You want--?_ Miss Maple went from tree to tree, blindly. She ran until pain clutched at her legs, and, by the shadowed deli, she sank exhausted.

There was one more sound. A laugh. It faded.

And everything became suddenly very still and quiet.

Miss Maple looked down and saw that she was naked. It shocked her. It shocked her, also, to become aware that she was Lydia Maple, thirty-seven, teacher of biology at Overton.

”Where are you?” she cried.

The wind felt cold upon her body. Her feet were cold among the gra.s.ses. She knew a hunger and a longing that were unbearable.

”Come to me,” she said, but her voice was soft and hopeless.

She was alone in the wood now.

And this was the way it had been meant.

She put her face against the rough bark of the tree and wept for the first time in her life. Because she knew that there was no more music for her, there would never be any music for her again.

Miss Maple went to the grove a few more times, late at night, desperately hoping it was not true.

But her blood thought for her: What it was, or who it was, that played the pipes so sweetly in the wooded place would play no more; of that she was sure. She did not know why. And it gave her much pain for many hours, and sleep was difficult, but there was nothing to be done.

Her body considered seeking out someone in the town, and rejected the notion. For what good was a man when one had been loved by a G.o.d?

In time she forgot everything, because she had to forget.

The music, the dancing, the fire, the feel of strong arms about her: everything.

And she might have gone on living quietly, applauding purity, battling the impure, and holding the Beast of Worldliness outside the gates of Sand Hill forever-- if a strange thing had not happened.

It happened in a small way.

During dinner one evening Miss Maple found herself craving things. It had been a good day, she found proof that the rumors about Mr. Etlin, the English teacher, were true--he did indeed subscribe to that dreadful magazine; and Owen Tracy was thinking of transferring to another school; yet, as she sat there in her apartment, alone, content, she was hungry for things.

First it was ice cream. Big plates of strawberry ice cream topped with marshmellow sauce.

Then it was wine.

And then Miss Maple began to crave gra.s.s . .

n.o.body ever did find out why she moved away from Sand Hill in such a hurry, or where she went, or what happened to her.

But then, n.o.body cared.

Introduction to

THE MAGIC MAN

by Charles E. Fritch

At Chuck Beaumont's funeral twenty years ago, a man came up to me and introduced himself ”I'm Bill Shatner,” he said. And of course he was--Captain Kirk himself, beamed down to planet Earth for this sad occasion to pay his respects to a fine writer and a nice guy inexplicably cut down in his prime.

Shatner had already appeared in Chuck's film _The Intruder_. If fate had played a kinder hand he might also have appeared in television and movie _Star Trek_ adventures with interesting and literate screenplays sculpted by the fine creative hand of Charles Beaumont. What incredible journeys he would have taken us on, what strange new Beaumontian worlds we might have explored. The mind boggles!

Beaumont is no longer with us (G.o.d knows why; I don't), but we do have a wealth of his stories, a literary treasure trove that brings back fond personal memories for me. I remember, for example, the reading of many of these stories in ma.n.u.script form to a group of writer-friends gathered around Chuck's table in the kitchen of his North Hollywood apartment. And for those of you who had not the good fortune to know this man, you can discover him through these stories; it will be an effort well worth your time.

”The Magic Man” is one of my favorite pieces. Some stories written a generation-plus ago date badly, but this one seems timeless. I had not read it in a quarter of a century, but once again, all these years later, I delighted in and admired Chuck's magic in building a story: the smooth phrasings, the just-right metaphor or simile in just the right place, the rhythm of the sentences that makes the images flow with fluid grace even as the story unfolds.

The casual reader would not notice the bricks and the mortar, and a good thing, too, or, as in the story itself, the magic might go away. The story ill.u.s.trates another truism that Chuck had learned: stories that meant something should be about _real_ people. The pretty word, the clever phrase, the unusual gimmick are fine if they fit, but by themselves they are not enough to sustain the delicate magic for very long, and stories that have only these artificial devices fade quickly and are soon forgotten.

”The Magic Man” is one of Chuck's stories that will not be forgotten. When it came to telling a story, he was a craftsman, a wordsmith, a magician who mesmerized his audience with the tools of his trade: a typewriter, a free-wheeling imagination, and a gift for telling tales about people who lived and breathed in his and their universe. He created a magic that lives on, for just as surely as the character in the story that follows, Chuck Beaumont was himself a magic man!

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