Edward Hoch: Isaac Asimov's Worlds of Fantasy. Book 6: Mythical Beasties

And Del said, "He will get another. He must." With difficulty he added, "He couldn't be… punished… for being so gloriously Fair-

There are many legends of human beings who. for one reason or another, become animallike in appearance and nature. This may have arisen perhaps because the quiet, settled farmers of agricultural areas may have been horrified (and justly so) at the wild barbarian nomads who occasionally struck at them from the surrounding wilderness. (Even today we hear expressions such as "They're animals" when people describe the criminal denizens of our urban environment.) ft may also be that in the primeval forests, especially at night, human beings, armed with only primitive weapons, ran peculiar dangers, so that exaggerated tales of fearsome and intelligent predators would naturally arise.

Of course, transformations of human beings into animals might be the result of charms or spells. The case of the handsome prince turned into a frog until he is kissed by a princess, or into a fearsome Beast until Beauty falls in love with him. are well known.

Much more frightening are transformations that take place spontaneously and even involuntarily. The best-known case in our own culture is that of the werewolf (actually ' 'man-way,'' since ' 'were'' is an Old English term for "man"). The werewolf is only one variety of this sort of thing, and weretigers etc. are also spoken of. However, thanks to Hollywood, the werewolf ranks above them all.

Among the northeastern Indian tribes, it was thought that any hunter lost in the forest would gradually be forced by hunger to waylay some unwary human being and eat him. The hunter would then develop animal form and become an inveterate man-eater. He was then known as a wendigo, or, more correctly, windigo. It is a pity the, following story was not named "Mood Windigo." for that would have been even better wordplay.

When did this story begin? It's hard for anyone here in town to say. It looped back on itself and tied its bit of time in a knot. No one is really sure just what happened, though we do know we lost a good boy.

Did it start when Lydia Seltzer told her high school biology class about the wendigo? She was talking about the world's mystery beasts, the Abominable Snowman, the Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster and its cousins in other lakes around the world- She told them about all the expeditions, the lack of results, the questions-are the searchers simply crackpots? Or do elusive things still exist in the hidden comers of the world? And then she mentioned the wendigo, a thing that had never been more than a story, a superstition, something no one had ever believed in enough to check it out. Its name was Indian, and it was known across the Northeast, from Maine to Ontario. It screamed in the night, and anyone who sought the screamer disappeared without a trace. If they ever returned, they were mad, too blown of mind even to say what had happened to them. There were no descriptions of the wendigo.

Or did it start the day our town acquired a second Lydia?

Mad she was, and raving, but she was the same Lydia we had all known for a decade. The same wide mouth, the nose a little larger than she liked, the black hair worn short and curled over her collar. Neither was any beauty, but neither were they ugly, and it seemed surprising that she had never married. Or perhaps it was no surprise after all. She was tough-minded as only a woman can be, and she showed it at an unusually young age. Most women wait till their forties and later to show their steel. But not Lydia. She brooked no nonsense, in class or out, and for as long as we had known her she had been given to severely tailored pantsuits, wool for work, denim for evenings and weekends.

When did it start? Who can say? The best I can do is tell you where I came into it. That was some time after the wendigo class I was at home, sitting at the kitchen table, going over the town budget for the fourth time. Sarah, my wife, was in the living room, watching something inane on TV. We didn't talk much anymore, not about her job at the bank, not about mine. We had no kids.

When the buzzer sounded, I heard her chair creak as she rose to answer the door. There was a murmur of voices, steps in the hall, and "Harry? Miss Seltzer wants to see you."

There was a glare with the words. I ignored it, raised my head from the papers and said, "Duty calls, then. Have a seat, Lydia. Coffee, a drink?"

"Do you have any tea?" As Lydia pulled the other chair out from the table, Sarah disappeared. A moment later, the sound of the TV rose, as if to drown out anything that might give my wife's fantasies the lie. But my attention was for Lydia. She seemed more serious than usual, if possible, and there was a folded paper jutting from her bag. I wondered what was on her mind as 1 filled the kettle. I found out soon enough.

She sat still, watching me as I moved about the room, saying nothing until our tea was before us and I had sat down again. Then she said, "Mayor, 1 need a leave of absence. A short one."

She stirred her cup, squeezed the bag. and dumped it in the ashtray half full of my pipe ashes. "Of course," I said. "But shouldn't you be asking the superintendent about this?" I was puzzled. It wasn't my chore to handle the teachers, thank goodness. I was the town's unpaid mayor, and there were professionals, paid ones, to handle day-to-day affairs.

"I will," she replied. She looked at me, her brown eyes unblinking. I remember thinking that for all her mannishness she would be worth shielding from all grief. Perhaps it was the eyes. Maybe it was just Sarah. "But you can help," she said- "You know people, and…"

"But what do you need help with?"

She shrugged and look the paper from her bag. She unfolded it and handed it to me. "Look at this," she said. "It's French-Canadian, a rhyme, collected back in the thirties by the WPA people. I found it in the university library, buried in the folklore files."

The paper was covered with a pencilled scrawl, a copy of a poem that must have been set down by someone who wished to capture the flavor of a speech pattern;

Ze Wendigo,

Zat crazy beast, 'E never eats,

But loves t'go.

In darkest night, 'E runs and screams

And stirs ze dreams

Of second sight.

But when you go

To join ze run, 'E stays unknown,

Ze Wendigo.

I packed and lit my pipe, studying the rhyme, before I spoke. "Interesting," I said. I sent a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling- "But what does it have to do with a leave of absence?"

Her fingers tensed around her teacup. She had come to me, but she seemed unwilling to reveal her problem- Could it be so rare or odd or shameful? Suppose it was, I told myself, and then I guessed me answer.

"You want to go wendigo hunting." I laughed.

Her lips tightened, and I was immediately sorry for the laughter. That was just the reaction she had feared. Of course.

No one wants to be thought a nut, a crackpot, even if their ideas are a bit off the beaten track. "But go on," I said, trying to save the situation. "Maybe I can help. At least, I'm game to try."

She relaxed as if that was all she had wanted. I caught a faint whiff of perfume or cologne. And she began to talk. She told me of the wendigo class, of her own interest in the strange, of her sense of fairness that led her to the library, of her conviction that all the legends must reflect some grain of truth, of her wish to seek that truth. She had come to me for suggestions on where to seek, a guess at the chances of success, perhaps even a partner in the strange quest.

Why me? Well, I do have a reputation for imagination.

Last year's ad program for my oil business certainly stirred folks up enough. And men there were the gimmicks I had come up with to get more tourists into the area. And men, too, there had been a few incidents now and again to connect me with the strange. Really, 1 should have been more surprised if Lydia had not come to me.