Strange Stories by Robert Aickman Page B

common or uncommon but essentially manageable creature of the moors. Stephen wished he had brought his revolver (another official issue), even though he had no experience in discharging it. He could not think how he had omitted it. Then he recollected the horrible furred-up flat, and shuddered anew, within his warm clothes.
    For the first time it occurred to him that poor Elizabeth might be trying, from wherever she was, to warn him. Who could tell that Harriet had not made a miraculous recovery (she was, after all, in touch with many different faiths); and was not now ready once more to accept him for a spell into the life at the rectory?
    Nell was being very silent.
    Stephen went back to the bed.
    ‘Nell.’
    He saw that she was not in the bed at all, but standing by the door.
    ‘Nell.’
    ‘Hush,’ she said. ‘We must hide.’
    ‘Where do we do that? ’
    ‘I shall show you. He could see that she was back in her shirt and trousers; a part of the natural scene once more. Her white dress glinted on the boards of the floor.
    To Stephen her proposal seemed anomalous. If it really was her father outside, he could penetrate everywhere, and according to her own statement. If it was a lesser adversary, combat might be better than concealment.
    Nell and Stephen went downstairs in the ever more noisy darkness, and Nell, seemingly without effort, lifted a stone slab in the kitchen floor. Stephen could not quite make out how she had done it. Even to find the right slab, under those conditions, was a feat.
    ‘All the houses have a place like this,’ Nell explained.
    ‘Why?’ inquired Stephen. Surely Nell’s father was an exceptional phenomenon? Certainly the supposed motion of him was akin to no other motion Stephen had ever heard.
    ‘To keep their treasure,’ said Nell.
    ‘You are my treasure,’ said Stephen.
    ‘You are mine,’ responded Nell.
    There were even a few hewn steps, or so they felt to him. Duly it was more a coffer than a room, Stephen apprehended; but in no time Nell had the stone roof down on them, almost with a flick of the elbow, weighty though the roof must have been.
    Now the darkness was total; something distinctly different from the merely conventional darkness above. All the same, Stephen of all people could not be unaware that the stone sides and stone floor and stone ceiling of the apartment were lined with moss and lichen. No doubt he had developed sixth and seventh senses in that arena, but the odour could well have sufficed of itself.
    ‘How do we breathe? ’
    ‘There is a sort of pipe. That’s where the danger lies.’
    ‘You mean it might have become blocked up?’
    ‘No.’
    He did not care next to suggest that it might now be blocked deliberately. He had already made too many tactless suggestions of that kind.
    She saved him the trouble of suggesting anything. She spoke in the lowest possible voice.
    ‘He might come through.’
    It was the first time she had admitted, even by implication, who it was: outside or inside - or both. Stephen fully realized that. It was difficult for him not to give way to the shakes once more, but he clung to the vague possibilities he had tried to sort out upstairs.
    ‘I should hardly think so,’ he said. ‘But how long do you suggest we wait? ’
    ‘It will be better when it’s day. He has to eat so often.’
    It would be utterly impossible for Stephen to inquire any further; not at the moment. He might succeed in finding his way to the bottom of it all later. He was already beginning to feel cramped, and the smell of the fungi and the algae were metaphorically choking him and the moss realistically tickling him; but he put his arm round Nell in the blackness, and could even feel his letter safe against her soft breast.
    She snuggled back at him; as far as circumstances permitted. He had only a vague idea of how big or small their retreat really was.
    Nell spoke again in that same lowest possible voice. She could communicate, even in the most