Gerald Durrell - The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

Even if I had wanted to leave the house the roads were already impassable; with another snow fall I would be completely cut off from the outside world. I must say that, thinking back on my experiences of the previous night, this fact made me feel somewhat uneasy. But I chided myself and by the time I had finished dressing I had managed to convince myself that my experience in the blue salon was due to a surfeit of good wine and an over-excited imagination.

Thus comforting myself I went downstairs, picked up Clair in my arms, called Agrippa to heel and, steeling myself, threw open the door of the blue salon and entered. It was as I had left it, the dirty plates and wine bottle near my chair, the chestnut roots in the fire burnt to a delicate grey ash that stirred slightly at the sudden draught from the open door. But it was the only thing in the room that stirred. Everything was in order. Everything was normal. I heaved a sigh of relief. It was not until I was halfway down the room that I glanced at the mirror. I stopped as suddenly as if I had walked into a brick wall and my blood froze, for I could not believe what I was seeing.

Reflected in the minor was myself, with the cat in my arms, but there was no dog at my heels; although Agrippa was nosing at my ankles.

For several seconds I stood there thunderstruck unable to believe the evidence of my own senses, gazing first at the dog at my feet and then at the mirror with no reflection of the animal. I, the cat and the rest of the room were reflected with perfect clarity, but there was no reflection of Agrippa. I dropped the cat on the floor (and she remained reflected by the mirror) and picked up Agrippa in my arms. In the minor I appeared to be carrying an imaginary object in my arms. Hastily I picked up the cat and so, with Clair under one arm and an invisible dog under the other, I left the blue salon and securely locked the door behind me.

Down in the kitchen I was ashamed to find that my hands were shaking. I gave the animals some milk (and the way Agrippa dealt with his left no doubt he was a flesh and blood animal) and made myself some breakfast. As I fried eggs and some heavily smoked ham, my mind was busy with what I had seen in the blue salon. Unless I was mad — and I had never felt saner in my life — I was forced to admit that I had really experienced what I had seen, incredible though it seemed and indeed still seems to me. Although I was terrified at whatever it was that lurked behind the door in the minor, I was also filled with an overwhelming curiosity, a desire to see whatever creature it was that possessed that gaunt and tallow hand, yellow and emaciated arm.

I determined that that very evening I would attempt to lure the creature out so that I could examine it. I was filled with horror at what I intended to do, but my curiosity was stronger than my fear. I spent the day cataloguing the books in the study and, when darkness fell, once again lit the fire in the salon, cooked myself some supper, carried it and a bottle of wine upstairs, and settled myself by the hearth. This time, however, I had taken the precaution of arming myself with a stout ebony cane. This gave me a certain confidence though what use a cane was going to be against a looking-glass adversary, heaven only knew. As it turned out, arming myself with the stick was the worst thing I could have done and nearly cost me my life.

I ate my food, my eyes fixed on the mirror, the two animals lying asleep at my feet as they had done the night before. I finished my meal and still there was no change to the mirror image of the door. I sat back sipping my wine and watching. After an hour or so the fire was burning low. I got up to put some logs on it, and had just settled myself back in my chair when I saw the handle of the mirror door start to turn very slowly. Millimetre by millimetre, the door was pushed open a foot or so. It was incredible that the opening of a door should be charged with such menace, but the slow furtive way it swung across the carpet was indescribably evil.

Then the hand appeared, again moving very slowly, humping its way across the carpet until the wrist and part of the yellowish forearm was in view. It paused for a moment, lying flaccid on the carpet, then, in a sickening sort of way, started to grope around, as if the creature in control of the hand was blind.

Now it seemed to me was the moment to put my carefully thought-out plan into operation. I had deliberately starved Clair so that she would be hungry; now I woke her up and waved under her nose a piece of meat which I had brought up from the kitchen for this purpose. Her eyes widened and she let out a loud mew of excitement. I waved the meat under her nose until she was frantic to get the morsel and then I threw it down the room so that it landed on the carpet near the firmly closed door of the salon. In the mirror I could see that it had landed near, but not too near the reflection of the hand which was still groping about blindly.

Uttering a loud wail of hunger, Clair sped down the room after it. I had hoped that the cat would be so far away from the door that it would tempt the creature out into the open, but I soon realized that I had thrown the meat too close to the door. As Clair’s reflection stopped and the cat bent down to take the meat in her mouth, the hand ceased its blind groping. Shooting out with incredible speed, it seized Clair by the tail and dragged the cat, struggling and twisting, behind the door. As before, after a moment the hand reappeared, curved round the door and slowly drew it shut, leaving bloody fingerprints on the woodwork.

I think what made the whole thing doubly horrible was the contrast between the speed and ferocity with which the hand grabbed its prey, and the slow, furtive way it opened and closed the door. Clair now returned with the meat in her mouth to eat it in comfort by the fire and, like Agrippa, seemed none the worse for now having no reflection. Although I waited up until after midnight the hand did not appear again. I took the animals and went to bed, determined that on the morrow I would work out a plan that would force the thing behind the door to show itself.

By evening on the following day I had finished my preliminary sorting and listing of the books on the ground floor of the house. The next step was to move upstairs to where the bulk of the library was housed in the Long Gallery. I felt somewhat tired that day and so, towards five o’clock, decided to take a turn outside to get some fresh air into my lungs. Alas for my hopes! It had been snowing steadily since my arrival and now the glistening drifts were so high I could not walk through them. The only way out of the central courtyard and across the bridge would have been to dig a path, and this would have been through snow lying in a great crusty blanket some six feet deep. Some of the icicles hanging from the guttering, the window ledges and the gargoyles were four or five feet long and as thick as my arm.

The animals would not accompany me, but I tried walking a few steps into this spacious white world, as silent and as cold as the bottom of a well. The snow squeaked protestingly, like mice, beneath my shoes and I sank in over my knees and soon had to struggle back to the house. The snow was still falling in flakes as big as dandelion clocks, thickening the white piecrusts on the roof ridges and gables. There was that complete silence that snow brings, no sound, no bird song, no whine of wind, just an almost tangible silence, as though the living world had been gagged with a crisp white scarf.

Rubbing my frozen hands I hastened inside, closed the front door and hastened down to the kitchen to prepare my evening meal. While this was cooking I lit the fire in the blue salon once more, and when the food was ready carried it up there as had become my habit, the animals accompanying me. Once again I armed myself with my stout stick and this gave me a small measure of comfort. I ate my food and drank my wine, watching the mirror, but the hand did not put in an appearance. Where was it, I wondered. Did it stalk about and explore a reflection of the house that lay behind the door, a reflection I could not see? Or did it only exist when it became a reflection in the mirror that I looked at? Musing on this I dozed, warmed by the fire, and presently slept deeply, which I had not meant to do. I must have slept for about an hour when I was suddenly shocked awake by the sound of a voice, a thin cracked voice, singing shrilly.