Ebenezer froze against the floor, felt the pumping of his heart jerking at his body.
"Who's there?' Webster asked once more and then he saw the dog.
His voice was softer when he spoke again. "Come in, feller. Come on in."
Ebenezer did not stir.
Webster snapped his fingers at him. "I won't hurt you. Come on in. Where are all the others?"
Ebenezer tried to rise, tried to crawl along the floor, but his bones were rubber and his blood was water. And the man was striding towards him, coming in long strides across the floor.
He saw the man bending over him, felt strong hands beneath his body; knew that he was being lifted up. And the scent that he had smelled at the open door — the overpowering god-scent — was strong within his nostrils.
The hands held him tight against the strange fabric the man wore instead of fur and a voice crooned at him — not words, but comforting.
"So you came to see me," said Jon Webster. "You sneaked away and you came to see me."
Ebenezer nodded weakly. "You aren't angry, are you? You aren't going to tell Jenkins?"
Webster shook his head. "No, I won't tell Jenkins."
He sat down and Ebenezer sat in his lap, staring at his face — a strong, lined face with the lines deepened by the flare of the flames within the fireplace.
Webster's hand came up and stroked Ebenezer's head and Ebenezer whimpered with doggish happiness.
"It's like coming home," said Webster and he wasn't talking to the dog. "It's like you've been away for a long, long time and then you come home again. And it's so long you don't recognize the place. Don't know the furniture, don't recognize the floor plan. But you know by the feel of it that it's an old familiar place and you are glad you came."
"I like it here," said. Ebenezer and he meant Webster's lap, but the man misunderstood.
"Of course, you do," he said. "It's your home as well as mine. More your home, in fact, for you stayed here and took care of it while I forgot about it."
He patted Ebenezer's head and pulled Ebenezer's ears.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Ebenezer."
"And what do you do, Ebenezer?"
"I listen."
"You listen?"
"Sure, that's my job. I listen for the cobblies."
"And you hear the cobblies?"
"Sometimes. I'm not very good at it. I think about chasing rabbits and I don't pay attention."
"What do cobblies sound like?"
"Different things. Sometimes they walk and other times they just go bump. And once in a while they talk. Although oftener, they think,"
"Look here, Ebenezer, I don't seem to place these cobblies."
"They aren't any place," said Ebenezer. "Not on this earth, at least."
"I don't understand."
"Like there was a big house," said Ebenezer. "A big house with lots of rooms. And doors between the rooms. And if you're in one room, you can hear whoever's in the other rooms, but you can't get to them."
"Sure you can," said Webster. "All you have to do is go through the door."
"But you can't open the door," said Ebenezer. "You don't even know about the door. You think this one room you're in is the only room in all the house. Even if you did know about the door you couldn't open it."
"You're talking about dimensions."
Ebenezer wrinkled his forehead in worried thought. "I don't know that word you said, dimensions. What I told you was the way Jenkins told it to us. He said it wasn't really a house and it wasn't really rooms and the things we heard probably weren't like us."
Webster nodded to himself. That was the way one would have to do. Have to take it easy. Take it slow. Don't confuse them with big names. Let them get the idea first and then bring in the more exact and scientific terminology. And more than likely it would be a manufactured terminology. Already there was a coined word— Cobblies — the things behind the wall, the things that one hears and cannot identify — the dwellers in the next room.
Cobblies.
The cobblies will get you if you don't watch out.
That would be the human way. Can't understand a thing. Can't see it. Can't test it. Can't analyse it. O.K., it isn't there. It doesn't exist. It's a ghost, a goblin, a cobbly.
The cobblies will get you
It's simpler that way, more comfortable. Scared? Sure, but you forget it in the light. And it doesn't plague you, haunt you. Think hard enough and you wish it away. Make it a ghost or goblin and you can laugh at it — in the daylight.
***
A hot, wet tongue rasped across Webster's chin and Ebenezer wriggled with delight.
"I like you," said Ebenezer. "Jenkins never held me this way. No one's ever held me this way."
"Jenkins is busy," said Webster.
"He sure is," agreed Ebenezer. "He writes things down in a book. Things that us dogs hear when we are listening and things that we should do."
"You've heard about the Websters?" asked the man.
"Sure. We know all about them. You're a Webster. We didn't think there were any more of them."
"Yes, there is," said Webster. "There's been one here all the time. Jenkins is a Webster."
"He never told us that."
"He wouldn't."
The fire had died down and the room had darkened. The sputtering flames chased feeble flickers across the walls and floor.
And something else. Faint rustlings, faint whisperings, as if the very walls were talking. An old house with long memories and a lot of living tucked within its structure. Two thousand years of living. Built to last and it had lasted. Built to be a home and it still was a home — a solid place that put its arms around one and held one close and warm, claimed one for its own.
Footsteps walked across his brain-footsteps from the long ago, footsteps that had been silenced to the final echo centuries before The walking of the Websters. Of the ones that went before me, the ones that Jenkins waited on from their day of birth to the hour of death.
History. Here is history. History stirring in the drapes and creeping on the floor, sitting in the corners, watching from the wall. Living history that a man can feel in the bones of him and against his shoulder blades — the impact of the long dead eyes that come back from the night.
Another Webster, eh? Doesn't look like much. Worthless. The breed's played out. Not like we were in our day. Just about the last of them.
Jon Webster stirred. "No, not the last of them," he said.
"I have a son."
Well, it doesn't make much difference. He says he has a son. But he can't amount to much
Webster started from the chair, Ebenezer slipping from his lap.
"That's not true," cried Webster. "My son-"
And then sat down again.
His son out in the woods with bow and arrows, playing a game, having fun.
A hobby, Sara had said before she climbed the hill to take a hundred years of dreams.
A hobby. Not a business. Not a way of life. Not necessity.
A hobby…
An artificial thing. A thing that had no beginning and no end. A thing a man could drop at any minute and no one would ever notice.
Like cooking up recipes for different kinds of drinks.
Like painting pictures no one wanted.
Like going around with a crew of crazy robots begging people to let you redecorate their homes.
Like writing history no one cares about.
Like playing Indian or caveman or pioneer with bow and arrows.
Like thinking up centuries-long dreams for men and women who are tired of life and yearn for fantasy.
The man sat in the chair, staring at the nothingness that spread before his eyes, the dread and awful nothingness that became to-morrow and to-morrow.
Absent— mindedly his hands came together and the right thumb stroked the back of the left hand.