Within the Brightest Night

WITHIN THE BRIGHTEST NIGHT (Part 01) ”Life?” "Are you thinking what I think?" she said, nonchalantly. ”Is this not the place for it, Young Light?” "My young light." said I. "Let's go in, then, Young Light." She had other things to do. For a time she stood over the body, getting a spot for the head and shoulders; he was not whole, for a moment, and the inhuman intelligence within him swelled up, talking in frantic tongues. It was only when he began to faint that she let him go. WITHIN THE BRIGHTEST NIGHT (Part 02) "Why did you do that?" he asked, trying to speak. "You must have wanted us to see the place." He drew breath again, his eyes watering with alarm. "Now, put me down, it's too sudden to talk." She started toward the fireplace; the muscular bulk of Hill House disappeared with an incredible speed. The water stopped; a rose was growing in the stream. After a moment she reached into the bathtub and filled it; between one and two she'd beaten Hill House's heart. "Go and get the doctor, I'm going to clean him out and see what he's got," she said. "He'll see that—" He spoke first. "I was in it for nine hours, you know. You know how it is in the bowels of the earth. Dead sometimes, and sometimes not. I was in that place for a long time, there was no real feeling of waking from it, I have to be honest with you, the only moment in all the time I remember—my body sank in and I floated to the surface and what do you think?" "Oh, you're in a dream, boy." WITHIN THE BRIGHTEST NIGHT (Part 03) "But where am I?” What has happened to me, what happened to that house and everything in it and me?" ”Nothing.” It was an accident. I can't explain to you—there wasn't a great deal of lighting in the place.” Now stay still, young man, that you may not get scared.” I was falling over a high rock—The house, the electric chairs, the drinks—everything looked ordinary. Then this thin film began to fall from the wall down to the floor. That is all.” I woke up after ten or fifteen minutes and felt I'd been out for hours.” I got out a glass of water, and drank it without thinking what I was doing—I had no idea why I was doing it.” And when I'd got the place as light as I could, I had a slight feeling of ill-health, a feeling that something was wrong; I went to my door and there was only half a window open, the blinds were drawn, so I took them down.” After a time the door opened, and, what was this?” The house outside was gone, just a huge plain of flat earth and another huge mound of rock, open to a great empty field with a large pond of water in the middle." "I've never been through that!" he cried. "I told him all I know." WITHIN THE BRIGHTEST NIGHT (Part 04) ”I can't believe it," she said. "I'd better call—I'm going to call the man.” If you don't mind, I'd like to ask him to look for us someplace that he can keep an eye on the place and tell you if there's anything going on there.” I was sleeping when I woke, but when I called I could still hear you shouting. ”I don't know what I'll do now,” I thought. ”But we should have known." WITHIN THE BRIGHTEST NIGHT (Part 04) "Here's the key," he said. He climbed in, leaning on the bar. There was a pile of clothes in the bed. A loaf of bread lay broken on a mattress. "He's put his face in," she said, sitting by the bed. "And he's talking. Let me tell you what he's said to me. He says he's done it, and he says it was—a miracle, and he says the other people, the whole world—is coming to get him—all in an instant. But I tell him that his whole belief, all his life, was in me, in me and my ingenuity. And that I could have done it all for him. And that I had the plan down to the tiniest detail. And he said, ”Well, you didn't have a plan down to the tiniest detail, and the plan worked. You only had a vague idea. That's all.” A miracle, indeed! That's what he was after all." The electric chair was next. She came out of it as slowly and quietly as she came in, wiping her face with a handkerchief. She talked to him again. "He was dying. I was going to make it a triple electrocution if I could, it was so awful, and it got to me so all I could think of was I was going to, like, kill the other prisoners, kill the people I didn't like, they'd probably stop me, anyway. So I had no business dying." WITHIN THE BRIGHTEST NIGHT (Part 05) She wasn't frightened, he knew, not frightened. But he had a fright at the same time that had nothing to do with the method, with the target. There was a big cloud of dust about her, with her and something like a coffin. He looked at the key in his hand. She looked at him, and they made eye contact again. "I told him all I know. I told him all I know. And now, are you with me? Are you with me? I don't know how it happened, but somehow he knew I'd been listening. He'll get them all for this. He'll get them all for this. He always gets his own way. He wants to kill me, and I don't know what he wants to do with me—I'm only here to deliver the message. I should be thankful, but I'm—I don't know." She was silent for a time, staring. "I told him I couldn't help him," she said finally, "but I can give him a window into the game if you want." He stood up and looked around him.