Xavier turned the note over again and again, hoping to see a Hercule Poirot explanation on the back. None appeared. Melinda grabbed his shoulder. "Let's go," she told him.They walked to the Student Union in the soft autumnnight while Melinda talked."I didn't really notice it before," Melinda told him."I belong to a group of writers, poets, and assorted others that meets at the Student Lounge every other day to discuss and recite their work. At first, it was slow, almost like a drain that you don't notice pulling water from the bottom of a deep pool. That Monday, there were only twenty entries where there were usually people fighting over the microphone. Then, eighteen, then fifteen, then nine, then five."
Xavier had half of his mind on Melinda, when the shock came to him. "You're a writer?" he asked incredulously. Melinda turned toward him, shocked.
"Shakespere, I must have told you a hundred times that I was a writer." Melinda said."Yes, but. . ." Xavier trailed off as the facts hit him.They had always floated around in his head before. He remembered Melinda reciting a poem to him about the trees, remembered a half dozen times when she had went home early to finish up on a project. They had always been there, but Xavier had never really acknowledged them. He was too caught up in his own work. Am I really that dead to the world?
The question made him look up at the starry night. He noticed, for the first time, all of the constellations in the cold winter sky. He also noticed the dead grass on the lawn, the crispness of their steps on the concrete. He tried to feel something about them. . .and could not. He felt a huge hole in his heart, soul, his very essence. Nothing would enter save for himself and the green jar.
"When does this group meet?" Xavier asked, not really concerned but thinking about the luminous green jar with its sweet low hum that called to him day and night. . .he shook off the thought. Somehow he knew something was happening to him, but what, he did not know. Melinda stopped talking while a group of kids walked bye. He noticed a boy look at him, then quicken his step, pulling the others along with him. Melinda looked at them only for another moment, then pulled him towards the Student Union.The Student Union, like all of the other buildings oncampus, had been designed in an adobe fashion. Xavier had more than once written to the student union about this monstrosity. Now he ignored the buildings. He ignored everything except for the green jar, which he could picture perfectly in his mind, a perfect liquid emerald inside a glass container. He felt a yank on his coat. "Shakespeare, where are you going?" Melinda asked.Xavier took a moment to realize he had stopped and turned back. In the direction of his room. He turned back around. What is happening to me? A small voice screamed. Xavier felt it lessen, and it was gone.
Inside of the Student Union the jukebox crooned out a country song while a group of students gathered at the far end, staring at the microphone in their midst. The people seemed almost lifeless. One of the students toyed with a yoyo in the aisle, while another girl in the same booth looked at him longingly. Give it back, her eyes seemed to say. Give what back, though?
Xavier looked to Melinda for an explanation. She went over to the boy with the yoyo. "David," she said, "why don't you tell us your story?"David looked up at her longingly, then sighed. "Whatstory?" he asked."Why the story about the mouse?" she prodded. Xavierthought he had written a story about a mouse. He couldn't really tell. The stories had flown through him so fast. The boy seemed dispondant.
"It dried up," he said. "I was writing about where the mouse sneaks out to the cat after he dies and. . ." Xavier finished it for him.
"And he finds that it really isn't dead but unconscious, and the mouse finds a knife near the cat and can end the life of the beast that has tormented him but he doesn't, but he only walks away with a whisker that he has cut away!" the young man stormed to life."How the hell did you know that!" he roared. Xaviertook a step back. The young man's face, once pallid with dispondency, now was flush with anger. "You stole that idea from me!""I wrote a poem about a mockingbird." A woman asked.She did not look young enough to be a student. Her frizzed hair made her look even older. Xavier now was the focus of attention. All of the writers seemed to walk toward him slowly, telling their plots in an agonized state."I had a story about three hunters." ". . .And he was in love with an alien." "Give it back!"
"Give it back!"
"Give it back!" Xavier could not stand it any more. He dashed from the room with the voices hot at his heels. And Melinda's voice. He ran in the night back to his dorm with more energy than he thought possible. He scampered up the stairs and into his room. . .and stopped.
Mr. Lee, the old antique salesman, stood in the middle of the room, laughing quietly. Even his trimmed, moustacheless beard seemed to quiver with laughter. Xavier looked at him wildly."What did you do to me?" Xavier demanded. Mr. Lee's laughter trailed off."Do to you?" the old man asked. "Why, I gave you acure for your writer's block is what I did. Wasn't that what you wanted in your heart, to cure your writer's block? And so I did."
"You stole those ideas and put them in my head. You made me into a typist." Xavier retorted. Mr. Lee laughed again.
"So what do you care where the ideas came from, Souless One? They had to come from somewhere. Everything has a price. The young man who possessed this jar before you was insanely jealous of a competitor in love and wanted her for himself. I gave her to him." He shrugged his shoulders. "So what if I had to make her into a zombie. She wouldn't have gone with him even if the competior didn't exist. Not of her own free will. He enjoyed her body for a week, and then had to fork over his payment. And now I have come for my price."
"And what is that?" Xavier asked. He felt his stomach turn in on himself, and wasn't the least bit shocked when Mr. Lee told him."Why the very same thing that I demanded of the young courter and of the thousands before and after him? Your soul. The one thing that you didn't believe in, and thus, don't have a need for. And you will give it to me of your own free will. After all, there can be no such thing as a forced sale." Xavier tried to back away, and felt a barrier behind him. He turned around. The door was open, but he couldn't go through. The old man laughed, and Xavier turned to face him.
"You aren't getting my soul without a fight!" Xavier screamed. He had never fought for anything as hard as he prepared himself to fight this insideous monstor.
"Well now, then I will take the second least valuable thing to you. At least, what you treat as if it were theleast most valuable thing. The man turned his attention to the jar, and the jar turned color. No longer green, but green and red and blue and violet and colors which Xavier could not describe. A wind ruffled the old man's hair, but he paid no attention to it. He made strange gestures with his hand, powerful gestures.
The tulmultion in the jar ended, and right in the middle of the jar Xavier could see the front of the Student Union. The angle seemed odd; Xavier was looking down at the Student Union, not very far down, but down still. He could see the light leaking out from the front doors, making a sunlight pattern on the dark concrete.
And then Melinda appeared. She burst out of the doors and looked around at the area. Mr. Lee gestured once more, and Melinda reeled back into the covered area, slapping up against the wall.
"No!" Xavier screamed. He wanted to tear Mr. Lee's head off, but he couldn't. He forced his concentration into his legs and arms, but they seemed cold and distant to him. Mr. Lee looked slyly over his shoulder, and continued. Xavier wanted to howl. He was helpless to do anything but watch.
They came in close to Melinda, and Xavier could see her flesh whiten. Not just white as when you grow faint, but a pasty white in a bright hue that seemed impossible. Impossible, but. . .Xavier remembered that doll staring at them. The doll.
"No," Xavier said. The old man seemed not to pay attention to him. "Damn you," Xavier growled, "I'll give you what you want. Just leave her alone." Mr. Lee turned to face him, and the scene stopped. Suddenly Xavier could move again. He wriggled his fingers, just to be sure. "Now just relax," Mr. Lee said, "this won't hurt a bit if you don't resist. If." Xavier nodded; he knew what he had to do. The man touched the middle of his forehead, and Xavier felt himself being pulled away from his body. Slowly, ever so slowly. He had a picture of his body crumpling like an old garment. The last thing that he heard was Mr. Lee laughing."You will make an excellent hue," he told the bottle.
When Melinda's eyes opened, she first thought she had had a bad dream. When she got to her feat, she was back in front of the Student Union. She remembered running out of the hall while trying to talk to a angry crowd shouting about Xavier stealing their plots, whatever that meant. That, and Xavier screaming distantly. . .
Melinda never ran track and field, but she set several world records dashing to Xavier's dorm. She wanted to scream for Xavier, but felt strongly that if she did, she would alert somebody dangerous.
She got to Xavier's room, and stepped in cautiously. Inside, Mr. Lee stood fondling the blue bottle that had been in Xavier's possession before he had gone insane or whatever. Blue? Wasn't it green. She thought, then immediately looked for Xavier. Nobody else was visible. "Ah, there you are," Mr. Lee said, as if they werediscussing inventory over coffee. "I thought you would come here. Xavier loved you a great deal; it's too bad he never got to say it." Melinda stepped toward Mr. Lee.
"What have you. . ." her words stopped when she tripped over a large object in the middle of the room. She looked down, and screamed harder than she had ever. Xavier lay there, even more lifeless than before if that could be possible. Sobbing, she drew his head to her breast, brushing his blonde hair back. He didn't have any visiblemark on him, except his blue eyes were now pure white. She didn't think she had much left other than her love for Xavier. . .and her hate."You bastard!" she said through clinched teeth. Mr.Lee laughed.
"Actually, I was quite legitimate," he told her, "but now I must cease this chit-chat. You really have been an excellent employee and I enjoyed your friendship, but I cannot allow you to give away my secret. I am sure you will make an excellent doll. Just like Jane did. I have Xavier's soul, and now I will have you."
"On the contrary, I have you." Xavier's voice replied from Mr. Lee's lips. Mr. Lee looked shocked. He looked to the jar, and shook his head. Melinda backed away from him and Xavier unwillingly. Something was happening here. Bolts of lightning shot out from Mr. Lee's eyes, firsthitting the roof with a tremendous boom and then wrapping around him. The electricity threw Melinda back, but she was on her feet in an instant.
"Nooooooo!" Mr. Lee's voice shreiked seven octaves above it's usual tone. "This. . .can. . .not. . .happen!" He threw himself against the window, and Melinda felt an odd sense of calm. She could sense Xavier with her and directing her steps. Melinda crossed the two steps to Mr. Lee and pushed him through the window. Mr. Lee decended those three stories in a shower of glass, his arms danging in front of him. His shreik was cut off abruptly, and Melinda stood where the window had been breathing hard and crying. Mr. Lee, or whatever he had been was gone, and so was Xavier. "No I'm not," a weak voice moaned, and Melinda whipped around. Xavier sat up, rubbing the back of his head. One moment Melinda was looking at him stunned, the next her lips were glued so hard to Xavier's you couldn't have parted the two of them with a fireman's hose. They stayed in that position for a very long time.
"You scared me," Melinda told him finally, smoothing the color of his red shirt. Then, to Xavier's surprise, she knocked him in the stomach with her fist. "Don't you EVER do that to me again!" she growled at him. Xavier looked at her in an odd sort of smile.
"I think I preferred the kissing to that," he told her. He got to his feet, again, Melinda under his shoulder. For the first time the two looked at the room. That last fight had wrecked the whole place Shards of glass lay everywhere, as well as books, papers, clothes, and the computer, which occasionally whined and let out electric shocks. Oddly, the jar, now back to its original green, did not even looked cracked. Melinda gave the jar a look of pitiless hatred, then grabbed it up and tried to throw it out the window. Xaiver stopped her.
"Let me go," she growled.
"Not here," Xavier said. "We can't just throw it away like that. We have to be sure that nobody else gets it. Look what it did to me." Melinda nodded, looking up to him. "The Reservoir," she said, and Xavier shook his headroughly.
"I don't think this glass is that indestructable and I don't want to think about what would happen if it leaked into that water. We'll bury it as deep as we can out on the prarie." Melinda nodded slowly. She saw something, or rather she didn't see anything, and turned her head downwards.
"Mr. Lee is gone," she said. Xavier was still looking at her like a lovesick puppy."Yeah, he's gone forever," he told her. She sniffed,and turned his head downward.
"No," she said, pointing to the rock garden below, "he's really gone." Xavier shook his head. Sure enough, the rock garden stood empty, except for a man-shaped depression in the rocks, scattered where Mr. Lee had fallen. "He couldn't have survived that jump." Xaiver said.The two of them backed away slowly.
"Xavier," Melinda said, "what would you say if we went on a little vacation to Boulder. I could get my degree there, and you could finish your writing.""Uh-huh." Xavier said, not even looking at her. Thetwo flew out of the room, taking nothing with them.A few weeks later Xavier and Melinda went out of townpast La Junta to the plains and off roads where no one could find them. There, they buried the glass jar as deeply as two college kids could, and drove off just as quickly. They also left Pueblo, never to return again to the area. They were sure Mr. Lee was gone, but they didn't want to be around an area with so many bad memories.
Xavier wrote less often, but with more passion. He would spend days out in the mountains, exploring a state that had been his home for so long but had been unexplored by him. Melinda would join him, and often the two would end their hikes on a mountain cliff somewhere with the sun slowly settling into the mouth of the giant, falling in love with nature as much as they fell in love with each other. The plan would have worked, except the bottle had a wayof wanting to get out, just like the Ring of Power in Tolkien's epic. It happened that some boys on a camping trip discovered the jar when their dogs started sniffing around the area. They dug it up, and kept it for a week, after which they sold it to the local packratt, an man named McCorckle who kept such things in a shop. Mr. McCorkle never thought about it again until an old man, of a slightly Asian look, limped into his shop seemingly looking for nothing in particular.
"What can I do ya for?" Mr. McCorkle said, the old man pointed a twisted finger toward the jar on the shelf behind his counter. McCorkle smiled. "That's a real strange item there. Some boys sold it to me a few years back. How much would you be willing to pay for it?""You'd never know," the Asian man replied. His eyes were blue.