*************
Harriet Schubert flipped through her papers endlessly and furiously. Thoughts of Tim's abduction by the monster nagged at her, but she pushed them away as fast as they came. Tim had no right to dominate her life when she had more important things to attend to. Now that she had zeroed in on the vital clues about Janet Thorpe, everything was falling into place. The poet's frank correspondence with her friend Mary Hazel continued to confirm Harriet's thesis. One of the letters she had read at the University library the day before was surely the key to one of the more perplexing lyrics in Thorpe's poetry. The poem read:
So empty within was I,
I thought I was free,
free to fly to the skies,
skies above my earth.
Earthborn was I yet,
yet was I dragged down,
down to my empty womb,
womb weighted by emptiness.
In the letter Harriet had discovered the day before, Janet had written to Mary Hazel:All these years I thought I could be free if only I could cast off the female shape of my body. Then I would fly to Plato's heaven like any man. The reason I refused all the men in my life, not only for marriage but even for a night, is because I thought I would be free if my womb remained empty. What I am finding is that my female body has encrusted my very soul and the emptiness of my womb weighs me down as much as any child conceived therein.
Harriet glanced out the window. Again, it had been snowing all day, and now it was coming down much harder. It was a good day for staying at home and leaving Frank to plow his way home by himself.
Just when Harriet was about to get back to work, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in!"
Cindy poked in her head hesitantly.
"Have you seen Timmy?" Cindy asked.
"Why should I have seen Timmy?" Harriet replied, suddenly frightened. "I didn't come here to be his nursemaid."
"Was he in the house this morning when you came down for breakfast?"
"If he was, he kept his presence to himself."
"You mean, you didn't see him at all?" Cindy asked.
"No. No. No. A thousand times, no. I've seen neither head nor tail of Timmy since yesterday. Why should I? Wasn't he supposed to be in school all day? Now, have you interrupted my work long enough?"
"I guess so," said Cindy as she withdrew as quickly as she could.
Harriet found herself feeling suddenly dizzy for a moment. Again, she pushed Tim out of her thoughts and then typed with determination:It is well known that Janet Thorpe was never willing to accept the fact that she had a female body. She had interiorized society's belief in the inferiority of the female to the extent that insofar as she was feminine she was inferior. However, critics have assumed that her poetry was an attempt to build an interior fantasy that freed her of this physical limitation. My findings agree with the consensus this far. But, contrary to what these critics have believed, my findings show conclusively that, in the end, she saw her attempt to transcend her femininity to be a failure. She had thought she could free herself of her femininity by refusing to conceive a child. What she discovered was that the biological potential to bear a child tied her spirit to her femininity.Harriet typed on and on with elaborations of her new discovery and correlations from other letters. Somewhere along the line she noticed that it was growing dark and she turned on her desk lamp. Only when she came to a stopping place in her work did she notice that her stomach was growling with hunger. A look at her clock told her that it was well past the normal dinner hour.
"Don't tell me that Frank has resorted to starting supper without me!" Harriet muttered to herself.
She pulled back her chair, rushed out of the room and stomped down the stairs with a tirade boiling in her head. The empty dining room stopped that tirade before it even started. Following the light to the kitchen, she found Frank, Diane, Cindy and Peter, all bunched together, sitting on stools, the counter, or the floor. There was no sign of supper.
"So, what's the convention all about?" Harriet asked.
"We still can't find Timmy," said Diane. "I hear you never saw him today, either."
"Am I my nephew's keeper? He was in school, today wasn't he?"
"That's the problem," said Frank. "This afternoon, one of my colleagues told me she had just heard on the radio that school was being let out early on account of the snow, and parents were requested to pick up their children, if they could. I called the school to tell them I was coming for Timmy, but they told me he was absent all day. I called Diane, and she didn't know he'd been absent, either."
"It seems that none of us actually saw Timmy this morning," said Peter.
"Well, don't bother to come tell me about it or anything," Harriet snapped.
"As it happens, Cindy tried," Diane retorted.
"After a fashion," said Harriet in an icy voice.
"Make up your mind, Harriet!" cried, Frank, "are we supposed to leave you undisturbed when my son disappears, or are we supposed to rush up to your room and tell you? I'm sorry if my son's disappearance has inconvenienced you!"
"So, are you going to mope around all night or are you going to serve dinner?" asked Harriet.
"I threw some frozen pizzas in the oven," said Diane.
"It was Timmy's night to cook," Peter explained.
"Frozen pizzas!" Harriet snorted. "I guess even that will be better than putting up with one of Timmy's concoctions of God-knows-what! I suppose maybe there's a chance you would have thought to call me down once these pizzas are done?"
"You might have been worth an afterthought somewhere along the line," Diane replied, mirroring Harriet's icy tone of voice.
"After all, you are almost as important as my son," Frank added.
"Glad to hear it," Harriet retorted. "Our father always liked you better just because you were a boy, so I shouldn't wonder at your attitude. Well, don't worry about me. I won't bother you with my presence. I hope you enjoy your frozen pizzas."
With that, Harriet stalked up the stairs to her room. She punched the door open, slammed it shut, and found herself nose to nose with the girl. That girl. Harriet delayed reacting for a few seconds in case she was just looking at herself in the mirror once again. But this time, when she moved a hand, the girl shrank back a little as if afraid Harriet was about to hit her. Harriet knew that this time she was dealing with a genuine intruder and she was not about to tolerate that.
"What are you doing in my room?" Harriet thundered.
The girl backed off and petted the animal she held in her arms. It wasthatanimal, the one that had escaped from Tim's computer program.
"I - I thought this was my room," the girl replied. "If I'm wrong, you can have it."
"Thank you very much," said Harriet, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "It is most generous of you to relinquish to me my room."
"Very well," said the girl.
Without another word, she carried her pet out of the room and closed the door. Harriet sat down at her desk only to discover that it wasn't her desk. Instead of her laptop and papers, there was a loose-leaf notebook open to a page filled with a child's handwriting. In a panic, Harriet jumped out of the seat to check out the rest of the room. In the corner, there was a small, unmade cot. On a small night stand next to the cot, were a couple of paperbacks. With a shudder, Harriet recognized the books as girlish romances that she read when she was a child. This room wasn't hers at all! It didn't even seem to be in the same house! Instead of plaster, the walls were cedar. Looking outside the window, Harriet saw the garden with the trampled white flowers. She opened the door, desperately hoping to find herself in the familiar hallway of her brother's house. Instead, Harriet found herself staring down a long, dark corridor whose ends receded into the shadows.
**********
Diane hung up the phone, discouragement written all over her face.
"No trace of Timmy?" Peter asked.
"You don't really think the police will find him, do you?"asked Frank.
Diane took another half-hearted bite out of her slice of pizza.
"You never know."
"Maybe I'd better tell you all something," said Cindy, somewhat hesitantly.
"What?" everybody chorused.
"You won't think I'm stupid or crazy, will you, if I tell you?"?
Frank and Diane exchanged quizzical looks.
"If Tim were here, he'd promise to think you're stupid or crazy," said Peter.
The joke lightened the tension a little. Cindy hesitated a bit longer until she was pretty sure the others really were waiting for her to speak.
"You know, we've been trying to pretend that Aunt Harriet isn't here."
"That's the most intelligent statement I've heard in a long time," said Frank, with marked sarcasm.
"Let Cindy say her piece," Diane reprimanded her husband.
Frank hung his head in irritation.
"I stand corrected," he said.
"Go on, Cindy," Diane prompted.
"So maybe it's been harder to notice that we've been ignoring Timmy, too."
"Come to think of it --- " said Peter, "Boy! You'd think we'd learned our lesson on that one!"
"I guess we haven't," said Diane dejectedly.
"Two days ago," Cindy continued, "Timmy had a talk with me. He was upset."
"With us?" Frank asked.
"No. With himself. He -- you won't believe this!"
"Try me," said Peter.
Reassured by the echo of what she had said to Tim, Cindy went on.
"He told me that the monster disappeared from the poster in his room and was on the loose again."
The others munched on their pizzas thoughtfully. Nobody laughed.
"That doesn't seem to explain Tim's disappearance," said Frank.
Peter tossed his pizza crust towards the trash can, and missed.
"It might explain why the police can't find him," said Peter.
"The blizzard outside can explain that," Diane replied.
"If the monster is loose again," said Peter, "then it could mean that Tim's disappearance has to do with that funny world that kind of invaded this house when we moved in."
*********
When the monster finally stopped bounding over hills and around trees and placed Tim on the ground in the middle of a copse, Tim was still too frightened to scream. The monster let out a triumphant roar and Tim shrank back against the tree, hoping against hope that it would absorb him. Tim waited for the monster to devour him, but instead, it did a pair of somersaults, landed on its feet and let out another roar. The monster then looked at Tim expectantly.
"That was -- a very nice somersault," said Tim, not knowing what else to do or say.
The monster grunted and pulled a branch off the tree with its teeth. Tim gasped at the crackling sound, but then relaxed slightly when the monster started to munch on the leaves. When it was about half way through its meal, it looked at Tim again. Tim's muscles tightened when the monster hopped over to him.
"Please don't eat me!" Time blurted out. "You're supposed to be a polite monster now."
The monster looked a bit puzzled. It seemed to think for a minute and then it handed the branch to Tim.
"Uh -- thank you," said Tim. "But -- I don't want to hurt your feelings -- but -- you see -- I don't eat leaves."
Hoping he didn't seem impolite, Tim handed the branch back to the monster, who graciously received it and quickly chewed up the rest of the leaves.
"I'll make a deal," said Tim.
The monster grunted.
"If you try to be a nice monster, I'll try to be a nice boy, and I won't hurt you. Okay?"
Tim held out a shaky hand to the monster. Since Tim didn't have any idea of how he could hurt the monster if he wanted to, it probably wasn't a very fair deal, but it was the best Tim could think of on the spur of the moment. The monster seemed to think the matter over and then it took a gentle hold of Tim's hand.
"It's a deal!" Tim cried.
The monster roared with satisfaction, gently placed Tim on its back, and took his friend for another ride.
*************
Harriet's first thought was to go back into "her" room and try the door one more time in the hope that she would end up in Frank's house. The trouble with that idea was that, with identical doors all up and down the hall, she had already lost track of which door was "hers." She stood where she was, hoping that somebody might come along who could tell her where she was and take care of her. But she saw no one and did not hear as much as a footfall. She walked down the hall, hoping she might find a way out to the garden, where perhaps Frank's house would reappear the way it had before. But no matter how far she walked, she saw no end to the hallway.
"Can anybody help me?" Harriet cried out.
There was no response to her outcry. No doors opened. With rising desperation, Harriet rushed down the hallway as if she were a schoolgirl late for class. Lockers appeared on the walls on each side of the hall. When she saw an open door just off to the left, Harriet rushed into it. Seeing that a class was in progress, Harriet slowed down and moved through the doorway circumspectly. She could hardly believe her eyes! Miss Milford, dumpy green dress and fat bandy legs and all, was teaching the class. It was Miss Milford who gave Harriet encouragement during her grade school years. Harriet listened to the teacher's melodious voice as she made learning the parts of speech sound like a great adventure. But then, when Harriet inched closer to the room, her heart stopped. There, in her seat, was the very girl who had already invaded her room!
Feeling that she had been expelled from paradise, Harriet ran down the hall again, past the line of lockers until she turned a corner. Here, a dark green carpet covered the hall floor. Again, a door was open just ahead. Holding her breath, Harriet approached the room. One look, and she choked. It was her father's den! And there was little Frank, father's pet, sitting in the big chair across from his father's desk with his legs dangling in the air. That sight sent Harriet off and running again.
Harriet huffed and puffed down the hall until it started to look vaguely familiar again. When she was sure she had come to her own room, she flung open the door. Relief flooded through her for a second as she thought it was her room, but horror followed immediately. A life-size paper cutout rose from the desk where her desktop lay. Scribbled on the cutout was one of Tim's caricatures of her.
"How dare you invade my room without my permission?" yelled the cutout, mimicking Harriet's own voice.
"I'm not invading your room, I'm trying to enter the room that is rightfullymine!" Harriet yelled back at the cutout.
"Harriet Agatha Schubert, when are you going to learn your manners?" asked the cutout.
"When you learn how to speak in a civil manner, yourself," Harriet retorted. She was beginning to wonder if she knew when she was speaking and when it was the cutout.
"So, you seem to think everybody in the world should wait on you hand and foot?"
"I just want a little respect in life!"
"As if you ever had any respect for others! As if you had it in you to earn any respect from others!"
"I don't have to put up with any more of this from you!" cried Harriet, "you're just an overblown piece of paper!"
"And you're just an overblown--"
The cutout said no more as Harriet grabbed a hold of the cutout and tore it to shreds.
"How dare you mock me like that?" Harriet asked the now mute cutout. "I'll rip you apart yet!"
In her frenzy, Harriet tore the paper until the pieces piled up practically to her knees. Yet the cutout remained virtually intact. Even after tearing off countless pieces of paper, Tim's caricature of her still stared her in the face.
"I'll get you yet," Harriet threatened her distorted image.
She grabbed hold of a fistful of the paper right where the face was, crumpled it as thoroughly as she could, and ripped it off.
"There!"
But Harriet's pencil-drawn face continued to scowl back at her. In her frustration, Harriet threw the whole cutout to the floor where it floated on top of the shreds of paper that had piled up. The white pieces of paper, however, looked suspiciously like torn pieces of wilted flowers.
********
"You know," said Cindy, "We really should offer Aunt Harriet some pizza."
"All right by me," said Peter, "I've had enough."
"If she's hungry enough to eat anything, she can jolly well be civilized enough to come down herself," said Frank.
"Frank, don't be that way," Diana reproved her husband.
"All right, ask the old witch to come down if you want to," said Frank. "I don't care."
"I really think we should," said Cindy.
"Then act on your conscience like a good girl!" Frank growled.
Cindy quickly withdrew on what could be a delicate errand.
"Think it's worth calling the police again to ask if they've come up with anything?" Diane asked.
"No," said Peter. "I'm sure they'll call if they find Tim. And I don't think they will."
"It's hard to stand around and do nothing but wait," said Diane.
"It sure is," Peter replied. "Maybe Aunt Harriet grew fangs and gobbled up Timmy for breakfast after seeing the pictures he drew of her."
The rest of the family tried to enjoy the joke, but couldn't.
Cindy burst into the kitchen, her face pale.
"Mom! Dad!"
"What is it now?" Frank asked, "Did my sister fly off on a broomstick?"
Cindy swallowed her words and regrouped herself.
"She did something," Cindy answered. "She's gone!"