The Dark Music

It was Not a Path at all but a dry white river of shells, washed clean by the hot summer rain and swept by the winds that came across the gulf: a million crushed white shells, spread quietly over the cold Alabama earth, for the feet of Miss Lydia Maple.

She'd never seen the place before. She'd never been told of it. It couldn't have been purposeful. her stopping the bus at the unmarked turn, pausing, then inching down the narrow path and stopping again at the tree-formed arch; on the other hand, it certainly was not impulse. She had years ago recognized impulse for what it was: an animal thing. And, as she was proud to say, Miss Maple did not choose to think of herself as an animal.

Perhaps it was this: by its virginal nature, the area promised much in the way of specimens. Frogs would be here, and insects, and if they were lucky, a few garden snakes for the bolder lads.

In any case, Miss Maple was well satisfied. And if one could judge from their excited murmurings, which filtered through the thickness of trees, so were the students.

She smiled. Leaning against the elm, now, with all the forest fragrance rising to her nostrils, and the clean gulf breeze cooling her, she was suddenly very glad indeed that she had selected today for the field trip. Otherwise, she would be at this moment seated in the chalky heat of the class room. And she would be reminded again of the whole nasty business, made to defend her stand against the clucking tongues, or to suppose there was nothing to defend. The newspapers were not difficult to ignore, but it was impossible to shut away the attitude of her colleagues; and -- no: one must not dwell on it. She looked at the shredded lace of sunlight.

It was a lovely spot. Not a single beer can, not a bottle nor a cellophane wrapper nor even a cigarette to suggest that human beings had ever been here before. It was -- pure.

In a way, Miss Maple liked to think of herself in similar terms. She believed in purity, and had her own definition of the word. Of course Of she realized -- how could she doubt it now? -- she might be an outmoded and slightly incongruous figure in this day and age; but that was all right. She took pride in the distinction. And to Mr. Owen Tracy's remark that hers was the only biology class in the world where one would hear nothing to discourage the idea of the stork, she had responded as though to a great compliment. The Lord could testify, it hadn't been easy! How many, she wondered, would have fought as valiantly as she to protect the town's children from the most pernicious and evil encroachment of them all?

Sex education, indeed!

By all means, let us kill every last lovely dream; let us destroy the only trace of goodness and innocence in this wretched, guilty world! Miss Maple twitched, vaguely aware that she was dozing. The word sex jarred her toward wakefulness, but purity pulled her back again.

A sound brushed her ear: something apart from the shrillings of the forest's invisible creatures. She opened her eyes, watched a fat wren on a pipestem twig, and settled to the half-sleep -- deciding to think a while now about Mr. Hennig and Sally Barnes. They had been meeting secretly after three o'clock, Miss Maple knew. She'd waited, though, and taken her time, and then struck. And she'd caught them, in the basement, doing those unspeakable things. Mr. Hennig would not be teaching school for a while now.

She stretched, almost invisible against the leafy floor. The mouse-colored dress covered her like an embarrassed hand, concealing, not too successfully, the rounded hills of her breasts, keeping the secret of her slender waist and full hips, trailing down below the white and shapely legs, down to the plain black leather shoes. Her face was pale and naked, but the lips were large and moist, and the cheekbones high. Miss Maple did her best: she fought her body and her face every morning, but she was not victorious. In spite of it all, she was an attractive woman.

The sound came again, and woke her.

It was not the fat bird and it was not the children. It was -- music. Like the music of flutes, or piccolos, very high-pitched and mellow; sharp yet somehow -- dark; and though there was a melody, she could not recognize it.

Miss Maple arose, slowly, and brushed the leaves and pine needles away.

Why should there be music in a lost place like this?

She turned and, without having the slightest notion why, except that the sounds were beautiful, she began to walk into the thickness. The foliage was wet, glistening dark green, and it was not long before her thin dress was soaked in many places, but she went on.

Presently she was standing in a grove. Slender saplings, spotted brown, surrounded her like the necks of restless giraffes, and beneath her feet there was soft golden grass, high and wild. But the music -- which had pulsed clearly in the summer air, drawing her -- was gone.

She looked in every direction, deciding to feel foolish; but somehow she could only feel disappointed. Her heart was beating entirely too fast. She saw nothing across the grove: just the surrounding dark and shadowed woods, the grass and trees and sunlight. There was the sound of the brook, of the wind, of her heart.

She sank to the ground and lay still, curiously exhausted. Then she became conscious of it: one thing which her vision might deny, and her senses, but which she felt nonetheless to be.

She was not alone.

"Yes?" The word rushed and died before it could ever leave her throat.

A rustle of leaves: small hands applauding.

"Who is it?"

A drum in her chest.

"Who is it -- who's here?"

And silence.

Miss Maple put unsteady fingers to her lips and stopped breathing. I'm not alone, she thought, I'm not alone.

No.

Did someone say that? She lay on the grass, trembling, and a new sensation -- neither fear nor terror -- washed over her, catching her up in tides.

She stiffened when she felt this, and when she heard the laughter, the deep-throated far-off laughter -- was it far off? -- her eyes arced over the grove.

And saw nothing.

She rose to her feet. There was a new smell in the air. A coarse animal smell, like wet fur; hot and fetid, thick, heavy, rolling toward her, covering her.

She cried something inarticulate and attempted to run. When she reached the shaded dell at the end of the grove, she dropped, consumed with heat, to the softness and breathed the animal air.

Something touched her. A hand?

She threw her arms over her face. "Please!"

"Miss Maple!"

She felt her hands reaching toward the top button of her dress.

"Miss Maple! What's the matter?"

An eternal moment; then, everything sliding, melting, like a vivid dream you will not remember. Miss Maple shook her head from side to side and stared up at a boy with straw hair and wide eyes.

She pulled reality about her.

"You all right, Miss Maple?"

"Of course, William," she said. The smell was gone. The music was gone. It was a dream. "I was following a snake, you see -- a chicken snake, to be exact -- and I almost had it, you see, when I twisted my ankle on one of the stones in the brook. That's why I called."

The boy said, "Wow."

"Unfortunately," Miss Maple continued, getting to her feet, "it escaped. You didn't happen to see it, did you, William?"

William said no, and Miss Maple pretended to hobble back to the field.

When she inquired of the students if they'd heard anything peculiar, like music, like a radio playing music, or something, they told her they hadn't, and she looked closely at them.

But they were telling the truth.

* * *

At 4:19, after grading three groups of tests, Miss Lydia Maple put on her gray cotton coat and flat black hat and started for home. She was not exactly thinking about the incident in the forest, but Owen Tracy had to speak twice. He had been waiting.

"Miss Maple. Over here!"

She stopped, turned, and approached the blue car. The principal of Overton High was smiling: he was too handsome for his job, too tall and too young, and Miss Maple resented his eyes. They traveled. "Yes, Mr. Tracy?"

"Thought maybe you'd like a lift home."

"That is very nice of you," she said, "but I enjoy walking. It isn't far."

"Well, then, how about my walking along with you?"

Miss Maple flushed. "I -- --"

"Like to talk with you, off the record." The tall man got out of his car, locked it.

"Not, I hope, about the same subject."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, I have nothing further to add."

Owen Tracy fell into step. His face was still pleasant, and it was obvious that he intended to retain his good humor, his charm. "I suppose you read Ben Sugrue's piece in The Sun-Mirror yesterday?"

Miss Maple said, "No," perfunctorily. Sugrue was a monster, a libertine: it was he who had started the campaign, whose gross libidinous whispers had first swept the town.

"It refers to Overton High as a medieval fortress."

"Indeed? Well," Miss Maple said, "perhaps that's so." She smiled, delicately. "It was, I believe, a medieval fortress that saved hundreds of lives during the time of the Black Plague."

Tracy stopped a moment to light a cigarette. "Very good," he conceded. "You're an intelligent person, Lydia. Intelligent and sharp."

"Thank you."

"And that's what puzzles me. This mess over the sex education program isn't intelligent and it isn't sharp. It's foolish. As a biology teacher you ought to know that."

Miss Maple was silent.

"If we were an elementary school," Tracy said, "well, maybe your idea would make sense. I personally don't think so, but at least you'd have a case. In a high school, though, it's silly; and it's making a laughing stock out of us. If I know Sugrue, he'll keep hammering until one of the national magazines picks it up. And that will be bad."

Miss Maple did not change her expression. "My stand," she said, "ought to be perfectly clear by now, Mr. Tracy. (continued on page 83)Dark Music(continued from page 22) In the event it isn't, let me tell you again. There will be no sex education program at Overton so long as I am in charge of the biology department. I consider the suggestion vile and unspeakable--and quite impractical --and I am not to be persuaded otherwise: neither by yourself, nor by that journalist, nor by the combined efforts of the faculty. Because, Mr. Tracy, I feel a responsibility toward my students. Not only to fill their minds with biological data, but to protect them, also." Her voice was even. "If you wish to take action, of course, you are at liberty to do so -- --"

"I wouldn't want to do that," Owen Tracy said. He seemed to be struggling with his calm.

"I think that's wise," Miss Maple said. She paused and stared at the principal.

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Simply that any measures to interrupt or impede my work, or force changes upon the present curriculum, will prove embarrassing, Mr. Tracy, both to yourself and to Overton." She noticed his fingers and how they were curling.

"Go on."

"I hardly think that's necessary."

"I do. Go on, please."

"I may be ... old-fashioned ...," she said, "but I am not stupid. Nor am I unobservant. I happen to have learned some of the facts concerning yourself and Miss Bond ..."

Owen Tracy's charm fled like a released animal. Anger twitched along his temples. "I see."

They looked at one another for a while; then the principal turned and started back in the opposite direction. The fire had gone out of his eyes. After a few steps, he turned again and said, "It may interest you to know that Miss Bond and I are going to be married at the end of the term."

"I wonder why," Miss Maple said, and left the tall man standing in the twilight.

She felt a surge of exultation as she went up the stairs of her apartment. Of course she'd known nothing about them, only guessed: but when you think the worst of people, you're seldom disappointed. It had been true, after all. And now her position was absolutely unassailable.

She opened cans and bottles and packages and prepared her usual supper. Then, when the dishes were done, she read Richards' Practical Criticism until 9:00. At 9:30 she tested the doors to see that they were securely locked, drew the curtains, fastened the windows and removed her clothes, hanging them carefully in the one small closet.

The gown she chose was white cotton, chin-high and ankle-low, faintly figured with tiny fleurs de lis. For a brief moment her naked body was exposed; then, at once, covered up again, wrapped, encased, sealed.

She lay down, quite prepared to sink gracefully into sleep. For some reason, she could not. Sleep refused to come. After a time she got up, warmed and drank some milk; still, curiously, she was wakeful.

Then she heard the music.

The pipes: the high-pitched, dancing pipes of the afternoon, so distant now that she felt perhaps she was imagining them, so real she knew she couldn't be. Perhaps the radio? She checked it: it was off. Someone else's radio? No.

Miss Maple decided to ignore the sounds, and the strange feeling that was creeping upon her alone in her bed. She pressed the pillow tight against her ears, and held it there.

The music grew, indescribably beautiful, melancholy, yearning ...

She threw off the covers and began to pace the room, hands clenched. The sounds came through the locked windows. Through the locked doors. Calling.

She remembered things, without remembering them.

She fought another minute, very hard; then surrendered. Without knowing why -- except to tell herself that it was terribly stuffy in the room and that a ride in the cool night air would help her sinuses -- she walked to the closet and removed her gray coat. She put it on over her nightgown. Then she opened a bureau drawer and pocketed a ring of keys, walked out the front door, down the hall, her naked feet silent upon the thick-piled carpet, and into the garage where it was dark. The music played fast, her heart beat fast, and she moaned softly when the seldom-used automobile sat cold and unresponding to her touch.

At last it came to life, and in moments she was out of town, driving faster than she had ever driven, pointed toward the wine-dark waters of the Gulf. The highway turned beneath her in a blur and sometimes, on the curves, she heard the shocked and painful cry of the tires, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except the music.

Though her eyes were blind, her instinct found the turn-off, and soon she was walking across the moon-white path of shells, unmindful of the thousand razor sharpness that cut into her feet.

Now the piping was inside her. She was drawn across the path and into the field and across the field and into the trees, not feeling the cold sharp fingers of brush tearing at her and the high wet grass soaking her and the stones daggering her flesh, feeling only the pumping of her heart and the music, calling and calling.

There! The brook was cold, but she was past it, and past the wall of foliage. And there -- the grove, moon-silvered and waiting.

Miss Maple tried to pause and rest; but the music would not let her do this. Heat enveloped her: she removed the coat, tore the tiny pearl buttons of her gown and pulled the gown over her head and threw it to the ground.

It did no good. Proper Miss Lydia Maple stood there, while the wind lifted her hair and sent it billowing like shreds of amber silk, and felt the burning and listened to the pipes.

They were frenzied now. In front of her, in back, to the sides of her; growing louder, growing faster, and faster. She heard them deep in her blood and when her body began to sway, rhythmically, she closed her eyes and fought and found she could do nothing.

Dance! they seemed to say. Dance tonight, Miss Maple: now. It's easy. You remember. Dance!

She swayed and her legs moved, and soon she was taking steps over the tall grass, whirling and pirouetting.

She danced until she could dance no more, then she stopped by the first tree at the end of the grove, and waited for the music to cease as she knew it would.

The forest became silent.

Miss Maple smelled the goaty animal smell and felt it coming closer; she lay against the tree and squinted her eyes, but there was nothing to see, only shadows.

She waited.

There was a laugh -- a wild shriek of amusement; bull-like and heavily masculine it was, but wild as no man's laugh ever could be. And then the sweaty fur odor was upon her, and she experienced a strength about her, and there was breath against her face, hot as steam, panting, chuckling.

"Yes," she whispered, and hands touched her, hurting with fierce pain.

"Yes!" and she felt glistening muscles beneath her fingers, and a weight upon her, a shaggy, tawny weight that was neither ghost nor human nor animal, but with much heat: hot as the fires that blazed inside her.

"Yes," said Miss Maple, parting her lips. "Yes! Yes!"

* * *

In the days that followed, Miss Maple walked with a new step, and there was a new light in her eyes, but only a few noticed the change: she hid it well. Owen Tracy would stare at her sometimes, and sometimes the other teachers would wonder to themselves why she should be looking so tired so much of the time. But since she did not say or do anything specifically different, it was left a small mystery.

When some of the older boys said that they had seen Miss Maple driving like a bat out of hell down the gulf highway at two in the morning, they were quickly silenced: for such a thing was too absurd for consideration.

But all were agreed that Miss Maple certainly looked happier than she had ever been; and it was attributed to her victory over the press and the principal's wishes on the matter of sex education.

To Owen Tracy, it was a distasteful subject for conversation all the way around. He was in full agreement with the members of the school board that progress at Overton would begin only when Miss Maple was removed, but he could not say this openly. "She's a first class teacher, gentlemen, and first class teachers are hard to find ..." And furthermore, she could break Lorraine Bond's heart by spreading her vicious gossip. Which she wouldn't hesitate to do ...

As for Miss Maple, she adjusted magnificently to a complicated situation. She would hear the music of the pipes and go to them, yet she would never believe in them. It was all fantastic, and fantasy had no place in her life. She would awaken each morning satisfied that she had had another dream; then -- wondering vaguely about the spattered mud on her leg, about the grass stains and bits of leaves and fresh twigs in her hair -- she would forget it and go about her business.

She did so fiercely, almost with abandon. She had power now. Power to scrape the scandalous barnacles away, with whatever instrument she chose.

It was on a Monday -- the night of the day that she had assembled positive proof that Willie Hammacher and Rosalia Forbes were cutting classes together and stealing away to Dauphin Park; and submitted this proof; and had Willie and Rosalia threatened with expulsion from school -- that Miss Maple scented her body with perfumes, lay down and waited, again, for the music.

She waited, tremulous as usual, aching beneath the temporary sheets.

But the air was still.

He's late, a part of her thought, and she tried to sleep. Often she would sit up, though, certain that she had heard the sound; and once she got halfway across the room toward the closet; and sleep was impossible.

She stared at the ceiling until 3:00 A.M., listening.

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 shifting currents of the stream: and heard the forest quiet.

"Where are you?" she whispered.

Silence.

"I'm here," she whispered.

Then, she heard the chuckling. It was cruel and hearty, without mirth.

She ran to the middle of the grove.

The laughter came from the trees, to the right. She ran to it. It disappeared. It came again, from the trees, to the left.

Miss Maple put her hands to her breasts and knew fear. "Don't," she said. "Please, don't." The aching and awful heat were in her. "Come to me. I want -- --"

You want -- --?

"Yes!"

What is it that you want, Miss Maple?

She looked up, feeling the hot salt tears streaming down her face, hearing the mocking voice inside her heart.

"You!" she whispered.

There was a pause; then, slowly, the effluvium drifted toward her: the thick smell of wild things, lost and dead things, things that could not exist.

Do you know what you're saying, Miss Maple?

She reached out and fancied she could touch the strong-thewed back. "I know, of course -- yes, I know! Don't torture me -- --"

The chuckle rose from the invisible space before and around her.

Do you think it's nice for a lady to suggest such things?

"I don't care. I must have it. I need it, don't you understand?"

I understand perfectly, Miss Maple.

"Then, please!" She sank to the shadowed grass floor in the familiar dell. "Please."

You never learn, do you, Miss Maple? You come to me with your scented flesh and your cries of yes and you accept me without a qualm ... then you go back and deny my existence and frustrate and impede my spirit.

Breath seemed to compress in her lungs; she felt she could not live another moment.

Very well. I may give you what you ask just once more. But there is a price. Are you willing to pay this price?

"Yes. Anything!"

I warn you, you may regret it afterwards ...

"I don't care."

The heavy animal odor, the rich fur smell came closer to her. You're quite sure?

"Yes!"

And then it was upon her, and she felt its power and its strength; one contemptuous, brutal, blinding instant and it was over ...

Then she was alone, and it was still, but for the beating of her heart.

There was one more sound. A deep sardonic vengeful laugh, that pierced her heart like a knife. Then it faded. And everything was suddenly very quiet.

Miss Maple looked down and became aware that she was Miss Maple, 32, teacher of biology at Overton High.

"Where are you?" she cried.

The wind was cold upon her. Her feet were cold among the grasses.

There was no one in the wood now but herself.

Miss Maple put her face against the tree and wept for the first time in many years.

* * *

She went to the grove the following night, and the night after that and the next night. But it had truly been just once more. What it was, or who it was, that played the pipes so sweetly in the wooded place, would play no more. The music was gone. 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, but her mind rejected the notion. What good was a man when she had been loved by a god?

In her dreams, she realized this.

The music, the dancing, the fire, the feel of strong arms about her; and the animal smell ... a god.

Then she forgot, and even the dreams vanished.

She went to her work with renewed vigor, applauding purity, casting out the impure, holding the Beast of Worldliness outside the gates of Overton. In her quiet way, she put together certain information on the conduct of principal Owen Tracy and the Lit. I teacher, Lorraine Bond, and drafted a fine plan for the dismissal of both.

And she most certainly would have carried it through, if a strange thing had not happened.

It happened slowly and in small ways.

Miss Maple began to put on considerable weight. Then, although she had never cared for any form of alcoholic beverage, she desperately wanted a glass of wine.

And a plate of grass, nice green grass, would taste wonderful ...

She went to a physician, listened to what he had to say, swore him to secrecy, and came home. She remembered the voice in the grove -- There is a price -- and she tried to scream, but she could not scream.

She could only feel the silent terror within her. Growing.

No one ever did find out why Miss Maple moved away from Sand Hill in such a hurry, or where she went, or what happened to her afterwards.

But, then, nobody cared.