Norman Invasions Read Free Page B

outside the window. The framing of the window, in its partitions, suddenly became a terrible shadow on the wall, one that looked for a moment, in the swiftly following crash of thunder, like the gigantic thrown-back head of a rearing horse.
    So distraught was my fancy!
    At the same time the cat, startled, awakened with a screech, and stood at the foot of the bed for a tense, wicked instant, ears back, back arched, hair erected like bristling wire, a forepaw lifted, claws exposed, fangs bared, hissing, spitting, toward the window. Then she turned as suddenly and leapt from the bed, and fled out the door, which I had left ajar for her passage.
    She had been frightened by the storm, the noise.
    There had been the prints on the beach. What if it were not a joke, not a hoax, even a stupid, cruel hoax.
    What if the old men, and old Duncan, were right.
    But the calpa, I thought, no more than ghosts, or devils, or demons, or angels, or such things, would leave prints, nor stir pebbles, nor mark beaches.
    Thus such marks must have some natural, explicable origin.
    But there may be diverse natures, of which we are familiar with only one.
    And suddenly I wondered, the thought chilling me, if such a beast, if such there were, in its passage, had even needed to leave such prints, now doubtless muchly washed away. Any more than fog, swift and zealous, need leave marks. And I had the odd sensation that it might have chosen to leave them. But, if so, why? Could fog, if it so chose, take on might and form, and weight, and speed, and a hungry ferocity, what might be its tracks? Could even the hoofs of an eager fog, massive, palpitating and alive, luring, blinding mariners, so torment the earth? Might its claws scour beaches, furrow stone? But if it, or, better, some such thing, could take on equine form, donning a foreign coat and metaphysical mask, perhaps one even incongruous to its nature, might it not leave such marks? There had been prints on the beach, dark, deep prints. I had seen them, and so had others, coming down to the beach in the light. This was no fancy private to me. Something had passed there. That seemed clear. Need such marks have been put here? If not, why had they been put here? Could they be curiously annunciatory? Was this a signal, a knell, from a far-off place, betokening something, a visitor, a presence? I thought of a scratch on a sidewalk, a mark on a wall, scrawled in colored chalk. Was this a flag, or cairn?
    Or perhaps it was only an exuberance of movement, of a creature of great power, bursting into an unfamiliar reality, testing itself in a new space, excited by a new body, trying it out, exulting like a horse racing its phantom fellow in the midnight darkness, in the cold, between the cliffs and sea, the wind stinging its eyes, whipping in its mane.
    I have come home, I thought. But I must soon leave.
    Or could this be its announcement, this racing, reflective of its power, its joy? Is this the way it claims its territory, I wondered. Thusly marking it? Against whom? But why would it claim territory? Why does an animal do that? The antelope has all the grass of the plains, I thought. Why does it stop in one place, and put down its horns, and stamp its hoofs?
    I am not sure, but I think I then fell asleep.
    I had the sense of rising from the bed once, but I do not know if this occurred, or if it was part of a dream.
    I went to the window, or seemed to do so, which was cold, and streaked with rain. It felt chilled to my fingertips. In another flash of lightning, I looked down into the yard and, for an instant, it seemed to me that below, looking up at me, was a girl, illuminated, streaming with rain, unclothed save for long, bedraggled, soaked yellow hair clinging about her body like seaweed. She looked up, indifferently, unmindful of the storm, and then turned away. When lightning flashed again, the yard below was empty, save for some debris, a barrel, some puddles into which the fierce rain pelted, the