S Is for Space

“The marasmius oreades, of course! It’s me against them, and I intend to win. There! There! There!”

He left the hedge, the gasping pump, the wheezing voice, and found his wife waiting for him on the porch almost as if she were going to take up where Dorothy had left off at her door a few minutes ago.

Fortnum was about to speak, when a shadow moved inside. There was a creaking noise. A knob rattled.

Tom vanished into the basement.

Fortnum felt as if someone had set off an explosion in his face. He reeled. Everything had the numbed familiarity of those waking dreams where all motions are remembered before they occur, all dialogue known before it fell from the lips.

He found himself staring at the shut basement door. Cynthia took him inside, amused.

“What? Tom? Oh, I relented. The darn mushrooms meant so much to him. Besides, when he threw them into the cellar, they did nicely, just lying in the dirt.”

“Did they?” Fortnum heard himself say.

Cynthia took his arm. “What about Roger?”

“He’s gone, yes.”

“Men, men, men,” she said.

“No, you’re wrong,” he said. “I saw Roger every day for the last ten years. When you know a man that well, you can tell how things are at home, whether things are in the oven or the mixmaster. Death hadn’t breathed down his neck yet. He wasn’t running scared after his immortal youth, picking peaches in someone else’s orchards. No, no, I swear, I’d bet my last dollar on it, Roger—”

The doorbell rang behind him. The delivery boy had come up quietly onto the porch and was standing there with a telegram in his hand.

“Fortnum?”

Cynthia snapped on the hall light as he ripped the envelope open and smoothed it out for reading.

TRAVELING NEW ORLEANS. THIS TELEGRAM POSSIBLE OFF-GUARD MOMENT. YOU MUST REFUSE, REPEAT REFUSE, ALL SPECIAL DELIVERY PACKAGES! ROGER.

Cynthia glanced up from the paper.

“I don’t understand. What does he mean?”

But Fortnum was already at the telephone, dialing swiftly, once. “Operator? The police, and hurry!”

At ten-fifteen that night, the phone rang for the sixth time during the evening. Fortnum got it, and immediately gasped. “Roger! Where are you?”

“Where am I?” said Roger lightly, almost amused. “You know very well where I am. You’re responsible for this. I should be angry!”

Cynthia, at his nod, had hurried to take the extension phone in the kitchen. When he heard the soft click, he went on.

“Roger, I swear I don’t know. I got that telegram from you—”

“What telegram?” said Roger, jovially. “I sent no telegram. Now, of a sudden, the police come pouring onto the southbound train, pull me off in some jerkwater, and I’m calling you to get them off my neck. Hugh, if this is some joke—”

“But, Roger, you just vanished!”

“On a business trip. If you can call that vanishing. I told Dorothy about this, and Joe.”

“This is all very confusing, Roger. You’re in no danger? Nobody’s blackmailing you, forcing you into this speech?”

“I’m fine, healthy, free, and unafraid.”

“But, Roger, your premonitions …?”

“Poppycock! Now, look, I’m being very good about this, aren’t I?”