“When you’re Dead,” the baby-sitter says, “everything’s a lot easier. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to. You don’t have to have a name, you don’t have to remember. You don’t even have to breathe.”
She shows them exactly what she means.
When she has time to think about it, (and now she has all the time in the world to think) Samantha realizes with a small pang that she is now stuck indefinitely between ten and eleven years old, stuck with Claire and the baby-sitter. She considers this. The number 10 is pleasing and round, like a beach ball, but all in all, it hasn’t been an easy year. She wonders what 11 would have been like. Sharper, like needles maybe. She has chosen to be Dead, instead. She hopes that she’s made the right decision. She wonders if her mother would have decided to be Dead, instead of dead, if she could have.
Last year, they were learning fractions in school when her mother died. Fractions remind Samantha of herds of wild horses, piebalds and pintos and palominos. There are so many of them, and they are, well, fractious and unruly. Just when you think you have one under control, it throws up its head and tosses you off. Claire’s favorite number is 4, which she says is a tall, skinny boy. Samantha doesn’t care for boys that much. She likes numbers. Take the number 8 for instance, which can be more than one thing at once. Looked at one way, 8 looks like a bent woman with curvy hair. But if you lay it down on its side, it looks like a snake curled with its tail in its mouth. This is sort of like the difference between being Dead, and being dead. Maybe when Samantha is tired of one, she will try the other.
On the lawn, under the oak trees, she hears someone calling her name. Samantha climbs out of bed and goes to the nursery window. She looks out through the wavy glass. It’s Mr Coeslak. “Samantha, Claire!” he calls up to her. “Are you all right? Is your father there?” Samantha can almost see the moonlight shining through him. “They’re always locking me in the tool room. Goddamn spooky things,” he says. “Are you there, Samantha? Claire? Girls?”
The baby-sitter comes and stands beside Samantha. The babysitter puts her finger to her lip. Claire’s eyes glitter at them from the dark bed. Samantha doesn’t say anything, but she waves at Mr Coeslak. The baby-sitter waves too. Maybe he can see them waving, because after a little while he stops shouting and goes away. “Be careful,” the baby-sitter says. “He’ll be coming soon. It will be coming soon.”
She takes Samantha’s hand, and leads her back to the bed, where Claire is waiting. They sit and wait. Time passes, but they don’t get tired, they don’t get any older.
Who’s there?
Just air.
The front door opens on the first floor, and Samantha, Claire, and the baby-sitter can hear someone creeping, creeping up the stairs. “Be quiet,” the baby-sitter says. “It’s the Specialist.”
Samantha and Claire are quiet. The nursery is dark and the wind crackles like a fire in the fireplace.
“Claire, Samantha, Samantha, Claire?” The Specialist’s voice is blurry and wet. It sounds like their father’s voice, but that’s because the hat can imitate any noise, any voice. “Are you still awake?”
“Quick,” the baby-sitter says. “It’s time to go up to the attic and hide.”
Claire and Samantha slip out from under the covers and dress quickly and silently. They follow her. Without speech, without breathing, she pulls them into the safety of the chimney. It is too dark to see, but they understand the baby-sitter perfectly when she mouths the word, Up. She goes first, so they can see where the fingerholds are, the bricks that jut out for their feet. Then Claire. Samantha watches her sister’s foot ascend like smoke, the shoelace still untied.
“Claire? Samantha? Goddammit, you’re scaring me. Where are you?” The Specialist is standing just outside the half-open door. “Samantha? I think I’ve been bitten by something. I think I’ve been bitten by a goddamn snake.” Samantha hesitates for only a second. Then she is climbing up, up, up the nursery chimney.
Avram Davidson & Grania Davis
The Boss in the Walclass="underline"
A Treatise on the House Devil
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) needs very little introduction. He was one of the great voices of imaginative fiction. The author of more than 200 short stories and many longer works, he won the Hugo, Ellery Queen, Edgar and World Fantasy awards, including the latter for Life Achievement. He was also nominated for the Nebula in every category.
Grania Davis was Avram Davidson’s former wife, life-long friend, and sometime collaborator. Her fantasy novels based on oriental legends include The Rainbow Annals, Moonbird and Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty (with Davidson), while her short fiction also reflects her travels abroard.
Although Avram Davidson’s work was largely out of print at the time of his death, Grania Davis has undertaken to get his fiction back into publication, helped by friends in the SF and fantasy community. With Robert Silverberg she co-edited the 1998 collectionThe Avram Davidson Treasury, which included thirty-eight stories, each introduced by a noted author, while The Investigations of Avram Davidson, co-edited with Richard A. Lupoff, is a recent collection of mystery stories.
“What a long, strange trip ‘The Boss in the Wall’ has been,” reveals Davis. “Avram had a weird dream in the early 1980s. I don’t remember exactly when. The dream became a rough, sprawling 600-plus page novel manuscript, about a strange creature in American folklore. When I first read it, it blew me away. After Avram’s health declined, I set to work to complete the novel, as I had already done with Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty (1988).
“(Aside: In classical music, ‘Completed By’ is a recognized byline. Different versions of Mozart’s ‘Requiem’ were posthumously Completed By different living composers. Perhaps we should consider this usage.)
“There was interest in theBoss novel, but editors changed positions, and somehow the book never got published. Avram began to work on a novella-length version of the story, but that also slipped through the cracks of the publishing process. After his death, I really wanted to see ‘Boss’ in print. I began the job of completing the novella, incorporating important segments from the novel, including material of my own. This version was supposed to be published in a fine magazine — which promptly ceased publication. Was ‘Boss’ jinxed, or what?
“Finally, Jacob Weisman, at Tachyon Publications in San Francisco, rose to the challenge. He published the completed novella, The Boss in the Walclass="underline" A Treatise on the House Devil, with thoughtful introductions by Peter S. Beagle and Michael Swanwick, and a truly creepy cover by Michael Dashow. ‘Boss’ was placed on the ballot by the Nebula Jury, which reaches out to smaller publishers like Tachyon. What a great surprise!
“ ‘The Boss in the Wall’ is a powerful, strange, funny tale. This was Avram’s last major work (along withVirgil III: The Scarlet Fig). ‘Boss’ has been well-received, as I always hoped it would be. To quote from the story: ‘. The dreadful secret, so long concealed, has begun to escape from its dreadfully long concealment.’ “
— And he dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth -
— Job XV, 28