Norton, Andre - Anthology Read Free Page A

             "That's crazy. And you're crazy to
believe it." Molly wished she had closed the drapes, but she didn't feel,
somehow, like walking to the end of the room to do it. "The monkey
belonged to Mrs. Welles's own children. She wouldn't
give an evil thing to her own children."
                   "Those weren't her own children. She was their stepmother, and they didn't like each other when she
first came to their house," Jason said. "She told me so."
                   And those children had all died as children.
How they had died no one remembered anymore; it had happened such a long time
ago. Molly had heard Mrs. Stark, the organist at church, telling her mother the
old story just yesterday. One child had died from falling downstairs in a fit,
Mrs. Stark thought. But nobody was still living who really knew, except Mrs. Welles , and she seemed to go on from generation to
generation, never growing any older or getting any younger. Were the patches on
the monkey from those stepchildren's clothes? Their clothes and no others?
                   "Anyway," Molly said a little too
loudly, "the monkey's shut away. He can't—"
                   A roll of thunder stopped her. It started as a
rumble that grew and grew until the house trembled. In the midst of it there
was a click in the hall. Molly's neck muscles went stiff. She couldn't turn her
head to look. But she didn't have to. She knew that the closet door had jarred
open. "It's true," Jason whispered into the silence that followed the
thunder. "True, what you said."
                   "No!" Molly cried. "Don't
believe it. Don't."
                   But they both heard the thud of something
falling—or jumping—to the floor from the closet shelf. They both heard the
jingle of brass bells.
                   Molly shot a glance at the living room door.
It was still empty. "Run," she said, and she hurled herself toward
the opening just as the lights flickered and went out.
                   Something bumped into her and knocked her
down. "Jason!" she yelled.
                   "Molly! Molly, help!"
                   He was behind her somewhere, lost in the dark.
There were scuffling noises and a crash. He kept crying to her, but his voice
seemed to come from first one direction and then another.
                   Molly was lost, too. A wall met her reaching
hands where the doorway should have been. She turned to the right and stumbled
against the armchair. Jason was no longer in it. The chair arm and the cushion
were warm with a sticky wetness. In the corner of the chair her fingers slid
across a glass ashtray like the ones she had set the cocoa mugs in.
                   "Jason," she called. "Where are
you?"
                   This time there was no answer, no sound
anywhere except the lashing of rain against the window.
                   A flare of lightning showed her the living
room doorway. She ran for it and into the blackness of the hall. The edge of
the closet door struck her head full force as though someone had pushed it. She
went down in a heap on the floor.
                   When her spinning wits cleared and she could
bear to lift her aching head, all the lights were on again. A woman on
television was talking cheerily about toilet bowl cleaners.
                   Neither Jason nor the patchwork monkey were anywhere to be seen.
                  "Jason?" she tried waveringly.
                   "Up here. In my
room." The voice was muffled a bit, but it was Jason's sure enough,
and he wasn't crying.
                   He came out of his bedroom fully dressed as
Molly gained the top of the stairs. His eyes were round and black in a very
white face, but he was smiling.
                   "Where are your pajamas?" she asked.
He ducked his head, avoiding her eyes as he