“You’re not going to eat anything?” He rose, darting a glance behind her. The house was silent, unmoving, a bulwark of familiarity against a suddenly hostile outside world.

  “When you didn’t show at the expected time I had a couple of tuna sandwiches.” Rising and pirouetting coquettishly, she pranced off in the direction of the kitchen. “I love you, honey, but I ain’t gonna starve for you.”

  “Wouldn’t want you to.” Holding his iced tea, he followed her into the other room.

  The attached dinette area was mostly wood, laminated and varnished. Did such treatment render natural materials like lumber uninhabitable by the organisms he had seen? If the potion’s effects had worn off, how would he know? While she busied herself with the freezer, he slid reluctantly onto a bench. It was cool and unmoving beneath him. Outside, desert landscaping surrounded the small plunge pool, both chilled by the winter night. A reassuring electronic hum filled the kitchen—microwave Muzak.

  Seventeen minutes and thirty-three seconds passed. The instructions on frozen-food packaging were designed to serve as benchmarks only, to be customized by consumers. Pulling a plate from a cabinet and a fork from a drawer, Kelli moved to join him as he dug at the plastic container. He took another sip from his nearly empty glass. And dropped it as he sprang from behind the table. Sweet tea and melting ice slid oil-like across the tabletop. The heavy glass bounced and rolled on the tile floor but did not break.

  As he charged his startled mate, one hand swept up a long steel spatula from a wall rack. She screamed softly as he swung in her direction—not at her, but at the bonsai she had been about to caress. Because, trailing upward and out from the branches of the shrunken tree like the tendrils of a jellyfish were a handful of silvery filaments lined with barbed hooks, waiting to sink into the naked flesh of her hand.

  The spatula struck the bonsai and sent it skidding sideways across the countertop, where it slammed up against the toaster, strewing dirt and decorative pebbles in its wake. Nothing emerged from this detritus, but filmy, questing fronds continued to wave in energetic frustration from the bole of the bonsai. Staring at it, breathing hard and clutching the spatula like a broadsword, Cody found himself wondering what to do next. From the bonsai came a faint, disappointed keening.

  Interesting, he thought wildly. He could hear as well as see them.

  Mouth agape, Kelli Westcott was leaning back against the butcher-block island that dominated the center of the kitchen, both hands gripping the uninhabited (as near as he could tell) laminated wood.

  “Are you crazy? What’s the matter with you?”

  “You don’t see it? You don’t hear it?”

  Slowly she followed his gaze to the upended bonsai before looking back at him uncertainly. “Don’t see what? Don’t hear what?”

  Ignoring her, he made a rapid search of the kitchen drawers until he found what he was looking for: a pair of oven mitts that were not made from cotton. Slipping on the oversized gloves, he approached the decorative houseplant with determined caution. The barbed tentacles writhed impotently as he picked up the bonsai and carried it purposefully toward the back door. The pot that was the plant’s home was a composite faux-stone material and ought to be safe to touch, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

  A bewildered Kelli followed. “What are you doing?”

  “Fumigating,” he snapped at her without turning around.

  There were three trash cans out back, all gray plastic. He had never been especially fond of plastic before, but the past few hours found him developing a new fondness for any synthetic material. Removing a lid, he dumped the bonsai in the half-filled can before replacing the cover. Silvery tentacles twisted helplessly as they tumbled among the rest of the garbage.

  Replacing the cover, he strode back to the house, his significant other trailing behind. “Have you lost your mind, Cody Westcott? That was one of my favorite houseplants!”

  “It’s bad for you.” He pushed the door wide so she could follow easily. “Allergies.”

  Her expression twisted. “Allergies? What the hell are you talking about, allergies?” She gestured behind her as they reentered the den. “We’ve had that bonsai almost a year. I’ve watered it and fed it without suffering so much as a sneeze!”

  Dropping back onto the couch, he buried his head in his hands. “How about headaches?” he prompted her. “Or cramps, or dizziness. Any symptoms at all?”

  This time she chose to sit in a chair opposite, with the glass-topped coffee table between them. “You’ve had a rough night,” she responded slowly. “You’ve lost a friend and colleague and you’re upset. You need to throw out a perfectly innocent little plant to make yourself feel more secure, okay. But it stops with that. The next unprovoked attack you make on my décor, I’m calling a therapist.”

  Dropping his hands, he dug his fingers into his palm. “There was something in the bonsai, Kelli. Something dangerous.”

  Her attitude changed immediately, though she was still wary. “What—a bug? A scorpion?” Since moving into the house they had killed several scorpions in the bathroom. The enterprising arachnids came up through the tub and shower drains.

  “No, not a scorpion. It had—tendrils, or tentacles. It was going for you. I—I had to stop it.”

  “Well, you sure stopped it, all right.” She glanced briefly in the direction of the back porch and the distant garbage cans. “Attack of the Killer Bonsai. I love you truly, Cody, but you’re going to have to do better than that.”

  Slowly, patiently, he explained in detail the nature of the research he had been conducting in concert with the chemist Harry Keeler. Told of taking the potion and what he had seen earlier that night while walking from the chemistry building back to his car. Related the encounter with the patrolling security guard. Finished with the explosion and fire that had destroyed Harry Keeler’s office and lab—and Harry Keeler.

  Kelli Alwydd Westcott was nothing if not systematic. She listened, waiting until her husband was finished. Her initial reaction was to categorize everything he had told her as the biggest piece of fanciful crap it had ever been her misfortune to hear and to reinforce her previous belief that he needed therapy. Understandable as it might be, such a response did not constitute good science. Given the intensity with which he had propounded his inanity, she would grant him the opportunity to provide substantiation. Then she would tell him he was full of crap, and suggest he seek professional help.

  In the manner of one discussing a particularly controversial passage destined for inclusion in a soon-to-be published scientific paper, she responded calmly and rationally. “I didn’t see anything in the bonsai but dirt, pebbles, and fallen needles. You saw barbed tendrils.” He nodded. “To the best of my admittedly limited botanical knowledge, bonsai trees don’t put forth barbed tendrils, or tendrils of any kind. So you’re saying that there was something else in that pot.”

  “Not in the pot,” he corrected her. “Living in the tree itself.”

  She nodded slowly. “Something with barbed tendrils. And what might that have been?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed helplessly. “I only know what I saw.”

  “And what you saw earlier tonight, in the sculpture garden: They were different?”

  “That’s right.” He found himself wishing that he smoked. “These things must have different species. They only seem to inhabit natural objects. Trees and rocks. The sculpture was worked stone, but the original granite was still mostly intact. Turning a tree into lumber might reduce the habitability factor of anything residing in the original growth. I’m not sure about that yet. Remember, I haven’t had time to study these things, and I’ve only been aware of them since I drank that potion.”

  “Which leads to my next, inevitable question.” She didn’t even have to ask it.

  “I’m not suffering from hallucinations!” he replied tersely. “I know what I saw.”

  “Everyone who sees things knows what they saw,” she countered. “What do these things do if you make contact with them?”

  “I don’t know that either, but it can’t be good.” He thought of the man and his dog: one minute strolling and relaxed, the next violent and ranting.

  She smiled thinly. “On what hard evidence do you base that conclusion, my love?”

  “On the way they look, the manner in which they try to snag people. The gestures, the movements—they aren’t benign. And I think, somehow, they started that fire and killed Harry.”

  “Now you’re really starting to worry me. Wouldn’t you call that reaction a little paranoid, Cody?” She said it gently, to minimize his reaction. “Couldn’t this fanciful story you’re weaving be a means of trying to rationalize his unexpected and tragic death?”

  “It could,” he admitted, “except that I started seeing these creatures before the fire. What’s worse, I think they know now that I can see them.” His eyes scanned the walls, the floor, the innocent-seeming furniture. “They’re aware of me.”

  “And obviously, these will-o’-the-wisps that live in trees and rocks and God knows what else murdered Harry Keeler to silence him, and to destroy his records of the formula.”

  “Makes sense to me.” He ignored her sarcastic tone.

  “Only to you, I think.” Laughing, she rose and settled herself forcefully in his lap. “Okay, Cody. It’s a great story, very imaginative. But for it to be anything more than that to me I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask to see a little teensy-weensy itsy-bit of proof.” Inclining her head to peer up into his downcast face, she smiled encouragingly. “That’s not too much to ask, is it? You know how it goes: Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, with her squirming around on his lap he found it hard to concentrate. “How can I provide proof of something only I can see? I’d let you try the potion yourself, except that everything went up in flames in Harry’s lab. It can be re-created, but I need to find another chemist as adept as Harry, and as willing.”

  “I’m sure you will, Cody.” She kissed him on the forehead. “Maybe tomorrow morning everything will look different and you won’t have to. You’ve had a difficult evening, and I’m really sorry to hear about your friend. That’s one advantage that archaeology as a field of study has over chemistry. Our subject matter tends not to blow up.” Rising, she headed for the bedroom. “It’s late, and I’ve got to teach a two-hundred-level class tomorrow. Adobe construction techniques as exemplified by Lambayeque transitional period architecture.” She made a face. “I get to talk about mud-brick pyramids to mud-faced sophomores and juniors. And I believe you have an assignment or two yourself, Professor Westcott.”

  “I’m not a full professor yet.” Suddenly very tired, he rose from the couch.

  “You are to me.” Blowing him a kiss, she disappeared into the bathroom.

  While he listened to the water run in the shower, he sat on the edge of the bed and weighed everything she had said. Could she be right? Was he hallucinating it all? Drinking an ancient shamanistic potion could be expected to provoke such a response. Viewing and interpreting hallucinogen-inspired visions was an important part of every South American shamanistic tradition. Dendrobates toxin was powerful stuff, even in tiny quantities.

  Startled, he realized that he was sitting on a bed with a wooden frame. But he was fine, nothing had happened, nothing had materialized from beneath the sheets and blankets to assault him. He was almost convinced that reducing a tree to lumber expunged whatever might be abiding within when he saw the long, hooked tongue emerge from the wall behind the bed. It was the only wall in the bedroom that boasted natural, unpainted paneling. He stared at the wormlike protrusion for several minutes before it withdrew back into the wall. While visible, it had mewled softly.

  Nothing made of wood could be trusted, then. Not a chair, not a desk, not even a pencil. Not until it had been inspected and pronounced clean. By him, since he was the only one who could see that which dwelt within.

  Emerging from the shower, Kelli felt relaxed and in a better mood. Cody strove mightily to be his usual cheerful, contented self until and after they retired. Apparently he was successful, because among other things, Kelli did not notice that he’d dragged the bed a full inch away from the paneled wall, so that headboard and paneling did not make contact.

  Five

  To all outward appearances Cody was his normal self again the next morning. He did not bring up the events of the night before, and Kelli, clearly relieved, chose not to either. Perhaps she thought he would forget all about the inanity of inimical forces that resided in innocuous bonsai trees. Perhaps she thought he had done so already, now that some of the shock of his colleague’s unexpected passing had faded a little. In any event, she spoke only of ordinary, everyday inconsequentialties as they joined the flow of traffic that led toward the university.

  She was delighted that he no longer would be working late, though out of consideration for the deceased chemist she concealed that much of her feelings. Not unexpectedly, the campus paper headlined the incident. Watching her husband surreptitiously for any hint of retrogression as he perused the article over coffee and Danish in the faculty cafeteria, she was gratified to see that he hardly reacted at all. They parted with smiles.

  Cody watched her go. Smiling he was, but also worried to death. He, and only he, knew that unimaginable horrors lurked throughout the campus as well as in the world outside. If he brought the subject up again without having incontrovertible proof of what he had seen, she would surely follow through on her threat to demand professional therapy for him. Her good and loving intentions would only cause him more distress. He had to find another chemist to work with, preferably off-campus. The potion had to be remade so that she could sample it for herself. It was the only way he knew to incontestably prove to her the truth of his assertions.

  It meant that he could not yell at her to take care. Insist that she avoid touching any tree, or bush, or flower, that she keep to the concrete walkways and avoid the grass, that she not make contact with wood or stone, and she might be tempted, out of love of course, to send more than verbal therapy winging his way. Sedated, he would not be able to pursue his studies. Worse, it would make him an easy target for the same forces that had destroyed Harry Keeler.

  He headed for his first class, careful to avoid touching anything growing, taking an extra couple of minutes so he could avoid the decorative flagstone walkway that led to the building’s main entrance. Concrete was safe, evidently too extensively blended an amalgam of ingredients to provide a comfortable home for the repulsive beings he had seen.

  It was a bright, beautiful winter morning, comfortably cool while most of the rest of the country was freezing. He would have relished it, luxuriated in it, acknowledging the smiles and waves of students and faculty he knew, if not for one thing. He could still see that which he could not put a name to.

  They were not everywhere, but neither were they uncommon. As he proceeded toward his teaching assignment like a scout making his way through enemy territory, he observed the creatures as closely as he dared, studying and learning. There was nothing else he could do. And while he beheld them, he was acutely conscious of the fact that they, in turn, were watching him. With malice in mind. Well, let them glower, whatever they were. He had yet to encounter one that was capable of leaving its lair, and he would be careful not to give the least of them any opportunity to slip a hook, sucker, tentacle, or probe into his flesh.

  Others, strolling blind and innocent on a clear, cool desert morning, were not so fortunate.

  It was agony to be able to witness their activities and not do anything about them. Were they immortal, with their twisting, curling little malevolent probes? Or after penetrating and entering a human host, did they perish when the human died? If they were not everlasting, then unless they were a recently arrived phenomena, that meant they had to reproduce and multiply somehow. Unless they were incredibly long-lived, the latter must be the case, because their history stretched back at least as far as the Chachapoyan culture.

  What must have been the reaction, he wondered, of the Chachapoyan shaman who had first concocted and then partaken of the potion that enabled a human to see otherwise invisible, undetectable monstrosities? He must have been an astonishing individual indeed not to have gone mad on the spot. Or perhaps it was not so very remarkable. Ancient peoples were closer to the inexplicable, to the spirit world, to phenomena that contemporary man dismissed as imaginary when he was unable to reduce to the coldness of a mathematical formula what he had experienced but could not explain. Cody wished he could have known that long-dead, perceptive, and incalculably brave avatar.

  Now the knowledge had been passed down to him, and a large part of him wished circumstances had decreed otherwise.

  Would the effects of the potion ever wear off, or had ingesting it permanently altered his perception? Certainly his new vision was, if anything, sharper than ever today. Drifting restlessly toward his first lecture, he watched tendrils and tentacles, appendages and creepers sprout from landscaping boulders and barrel cacti, from small shade trees and the granite-faced walls of the physics building. Tenacious pebbles put forth tiny feelers while dozens of identical small stones remained unpolluted by inimical protrusions. The same was true of growing things. A cluster of dangerous-looking prickly-pear thrust only flat green, thorn-laden pads sunward, while a shaded rose bush lush with pink blossoms was lined with small, snapping gray mouths like fanged oysters. Even the little stream that ran through the campus pushed questing, intangible stingers upward, ethereal snags that weaved lazily back and forth in the current of a raging incorporeal river.

  Much as he might want to, if only for sanity’s sake, he could not keep from making observations and drawing conclusions. His scientific training would not let him do otherwise, would not let him conveniently ignore the inimical phenomena all around him. The preliminary theory that had been percolating in his brain ever since he’d perceived the first of the apparitions drew supporting evidence from each new, unsettling encounter.