Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed Read online

  “What?” whispered Bay Sister.

  “Shhhh!” said Willie Bea. Carefully, she crept farther down the stairs. She had Bay Sister by the hand and she knew Bay Sister would take Bay Brother’s hand without her having to tell her. Someone always took Bay’s hand on the dark staircase. It was a closed staircase, steep and without a banister. Going down, a person had to touch one of the walls or lean on one for balance. Willie Bea was leaning her shoulder into the wall on her right. They crept down the stairs and stopped again, hidden from sight behind the wall. Willie Bea stood on the final stair before the open landing, listening.

  She decided whoever was upset in the living room would feel better once she saw their wonderful costumes.

  Two ghosts and one hobo, bad bindlestiff, she thought.

  Showing off at Halloween was a custom. Willie Bea always made a grand entrance on begging night. She had done that ever since she was old enough to go out begging. When Bay Sister was old enough, both she and Willie Bea made a grand entrance, with Willie Bea going first. Now all three of them would make a grand entrance, with Bay Brother, little ghost, bringing up the rear.

  “It’s the end of ev-ree-thing!” the woman cried. “Oh, my lord in heaven, it’s awe-fel, it’s aw-awe-fel!”

  “Aunt Leah!” said Willie Bea.

  “Aunt Leah?” said Bay Sister.

  “Who? Wil’ Bea, i’ scare me on these ’tairs,” said Bay Brother. Willie Bea glanced behind her to see Bay Brother peeking around Bay Sister’s head.

  It was scary, Willie Bea decided, when you looked up and saw ghosts. A chill ran up her spine at the thought of what it would be like outside when they went begging in the dark of night. And it didn’t quite register that Aunt Leah might be in Willie Bea’s living room. Willie Bea had spent so much time and effort getting herself and her brother and sister ready. She had been appearing in costume on the landing every Halloween. And it was hard to understand that something might happen that would alter the second grand event of October 30, 1938. The first grand event of the day had been Aunt Leah and her numbers and reading Willie Bea’s palm—the Star of Venus! Willie Bea thought suddenly. But that was over, a fantastic ending to the day. At least, in Willie Bea’s mind it was over.

  Willie Bea eased them down onto the landing. The landing was lighted by the glow from the living-room lamps. She pulled Bay Sister, who pulled Bay Brother, behind her. She wanted the three of them in their costumes to just sort of flow into view. Just to appear there, like Halloween phantoms.

  “The Gobble-uns are here!” Willie Bea announced, in as good a voice as the announcer Don Ameche or that Harry Von Zell announcer. She always said that about the Gobble-uns on Halloween. They stood there, the three of them, as dressed up, as frightening as they could be.

  No one heard Willie Bea. No one was listening. For the living room was a crazy, mixed-up scene. Willie Bea froze on the landing, taking it all in with Bay and Bay Sister. The three of them were poised there in silence, unmoving.

  Willie Bea drank in what lay before them with wonder at what she saw.

  This tall, very good-looking man stood in the middle of the living room. Not her father. The man had on a great coat of dark wool. He’d unbuttoned the coat and flung it open. He had on a dark felt hat that matched the coat. It’s crown was dented from front to back, with a stiff brim turned up slightly on the sides. Willie Bea glimpsed a gorgeous tuxedo suit of clothes under the man’s coat. Suit jacket with satin lapels. A white dress shirt with gold-like buttons. There was a satin bow tie. The man had on a handsome gold chain draped across his chest. Willie Bea knew there would be a watch in the man’s watch fob. The gent’s shoes were white, and black on the shiny top front and the sides of the heels.

  “Mr. Hollis, do sit down, won’t you?” Willie Bea’s mama was saying.

  But the man, Mr. Hollis, couldn’t sit down. For hanging on his shoulder, being held in an almost standing position, was wonderful Aunt Leah of the first event. What in the world is she doing here? wondered Willie Bea.

  Aunt Leah had on a full-length, to-the-floor, silky black, honest-to-goodness evening gown. It was the kind of evening dress that daringly bared the neck and the shoulders. It was the first evening gown Willie Bea had ever seen on anybody outside of the ladies in the movies. Aunt Leah had on a necklace of glistening pearls that came down to her waist and were tied in a pearly knot halfway down. She had on gold, low-cut dress shoes with very high heels. She wore a three-quarter-length, Norfolk-type, precious Persian fur coat that must have cost a fortune.

  What comes of being a fortune lady, thought Willie Bea, giddy with the richness of it all.

  Aunt Leah’s hair was piled high on her head, with curls that cascaded down on each side at her temples. There was a black velvet bow ribbon pinned to her hair in the center, just above her forehead. A cluster of pearls decorated her earlobes. Her face was rouged and powdered to perfection. Willie Bea didn’t know how any one person could be so perfectly beautiful in so many different ways as was Aunt Leah.

  But now Aunt Leah was crying and moaning. Mr. Hollis supported her with one strong arm around her waist, inside that fabulous coat. There were no tears in Aunt Leah’s eyes, although Willie Bea could see she was crying. But it was natural that Aunt Leah would dry-sob. It would never do to spoil that perfect, made-up face with real, salty tears.

  Mr. Hollis half-carried Aunt Leah across to the radio. He rapidly turned the dial, trying to find something. You could hear garbled voices going in and out of hearing very quickly. Mr. Hollis took his fist and pounded the top of the radio.

  “Now, here, don’t do that!” said Willie Bea’s father. He looked shocked. “That won’t help anything. Tell me what you are looking for.”

  Mr. Hollis gave a glance around and down at Willie Bea’s papa. He was that much taller. Willie Bea could tell he wasn’t the kind of gent that took much direction or said quite a lot. There was mostly static on the radio now, after his pounding of it.

  “Leah, sit down,” Marva Mills said. “Won’t you both sit down and tell us what is the matter?” She took her sister by the shoulder. But that made Aunt Leah hold on to Mr. Hollis all the more tightly.

  “Oh, my lord above!” cried Aunt Leah.

  “Leah, Mr. Hollis,” said Willie Bea’s papa, “please get hold. Do tell us.”

  “It’s the world,” said Mr. Hollis in a thin, tenor voice. “She call me after she heard it, but I already left to come for her.”

  Willie Bea was disappointed in the sound of Mr. Hollis. A gent his size should have a deep voice, rolling like thunder, she thought. What’d he say about the world?

  “What?” Willie Bea’s papa was saying. “The world? You mean there is war? It’s the Nazis?”

  “The world,” murmured poor Aunt Leah. She clung to Mr. Hollis, eyes tightly closed. Her silk-stockinged legs seemed weak and trembly. “It’s all over,” she cried. “Heard it on the radio. The world. The-world-is-coming-to-an-end!”

  Aunt Leah’s legs buckled completely. Mr. Hollis lifted her off her feet and swung her tenderly up in his arms. It was then that Aunt Leah fainted dead away.

  Willie Bea saw her sneak a glance up at Mr. Hollis before she went.

  No time for anyone to pay Willie Bea and her brother and sister any attention. Neither Willie Bea’s mama or her good papa noticed their costumes. All eyes were riveted on Aunt Leah and her handsome gent, Mr. Hollis.

  Willie Bea was caught up, too. It was no longer her show. Her grand Halloween event had been snatched away. But she wasn’t angry. Like everyone else, she had been taken over. Seized by fabulous glamour.

  A prisoner of Aunt Leah’s matchless second coming.

  8

  There was silence in the living room, and a strong fragrance of roses. Just the sound of the radio, down very low with its static and its whistling. Willie Bea’s papa had stopped fiddling with it. Not one station would come in clearly. Maybe it was just the Halloween night and witches messing up radios, Willie Bea thought
fleetingly. But her better sense told her it was Mr. Hollis’ pounding. Even she knew that something as magical as a radio with what they call its sound waves couldn’t take that kind of battering. Shake everything up. Her father ran his hand rapidly through his hair a couple of times. Then he gave up on the radio, which he knew to have a weak tube, and turned back to the women on the couch. He stood there, lost in thought, staring at them.

  Willie Bea’s mama and Aunt Leah were on the couch. Mr. Hollis was sitting on the piano bench, one hand in his overcoat pocket and the other hand holding a lighted cigarette. Beside him on the piano bench was a glass saucer which he used as an ashtray; her papa had got it for him. And next to the saucer was his hat. Willie Bea’s papa didn’t smoke cigarettes. Of course, her mama didn’t, so there were no pretty crystal ashtrays in the house as there were in Aunt Leah’s.

  “She comin’ to now,” Mr. Hollis said in his odd, high voice. He glanced from Aunt Leah to Willie Bea’s papa. He was talking to Willie Bea’s papa, the man of the house. “She’ll tell you now. She comin’ to.”

  A moment ago, Willie Bea and Bay and Bay Sister had crept into the room. All three of them squeezed into the overstuffed easy chair facing the couch, surrounded by the heady scent of roses. That was the fragrance of the smelling-salts mixture in the bottle that Willie Bea’s mama waved under Aunt Leah’s nose.

  “Uh-nuh, uh-nuh,” moaned Aunt Leah with each pass of the bottle. She came to in stages. Willie Bea watched each stage, her eyes fixed on Aunt Leah’s perfectly made-up face.

  Bay Sister couldn’t keep quiet any longer. She had been thinking very hard. And now she blurted out to Willie Bea. “Where’s the end of the world?”

  “Hush up!” Willie Bea whispered back. She didn’t turn her head around.

  “Well, I wanta see it,” whispered Bay Sister.

  “Shhhh!” warned Willie Bea. “She’s comin’ to.”

  “Comin’ to,” murmured Bay Brother. He was staring serenely at the couch. He loved the scent of roses. Summer had come to his living room.

  The first stage of coming to was an anguished look that contorted Aunt Leah’s face. Willie Bea’s mama had her arm around her sister. And when she saw Leah’s strained expression, she gently massaged her shoulder.

  After the look had passed and her features relaxed, Leah’s eyebrows knitted together. Her lips parted and her fingers clutched at her evening gown. Willie Bea’s mama put down the bottle of smelling salts and clasped one of Leah’s hands in hers.

  Aunt Leah’s eyes fluttered wide open. She didn’t look around, she looked straight into Willie Bea’s face. She squeezed her sister’s hand so hard that Willie Bea’s mama winced.

  “They’ve come. They landed,” Aunt Leah said, straight at Willie Bea.

  “What, Leah?” said Willie Bea’s mama.

  “Oh, it’s awful!” said Aunt Leah, and she began to cry. Now real tears fell and marred the rouge on her cheeks. “Martians!” she said. “From the planet Mars! Landed right there in the state of New Jersey!”

  “Now, Leah!” said Willie Bea’s mother. She looked alarmed, but very doubtful.

  “I’m tellin’ you, I heard it on the radio,” said Aunt Leah. “It was on the radio!”

  They were silent at that. All of them. For if it came over the radio, if it was one of those sudden news bulletins, like urgent messages from on high, then it had to be true.

  “Leah, are you sure?” said Willie Bea’s papa. He stood before the couch, his hands deep in his pants pockets.

  “Listen here,” Aunt Leah said. She took her hand from her sister’s and began to shape the air in front of her as she spoke. “This radio announcer,” she began, “starts out sayin’ that, incredible as it seems, some strange beings has landed in the New Jersey farmlands. And that they are the first of an invading army from the planet Mars!” Aunt Leah looked around at all of them.

  They were speechless—Willie Bea’s mama and her good papa. Staring at Aunt Leah, tongue-tied. It was too much for Leah to be making up, their looks seemed to say.

  Willie Bea felt her heart leap into her mouth.

  “Now a battle was fought,” Aunt Leah continued. “The government sent our army of seven thousand men to fight this monster machine full of invaders out of Mars.

  “Our army had rifles. They had machine guns!” Aunt Leah cried silently now, and when she could, she spoke again. “One hundred and twenty of our army soldiers survived. One hundred and twenty, that’s all! And the rest, fallen all over the battlefield, some place called Grover Mill or somethin’. They were crushed and trampled by the monster. Burned to a cinder by the heat ray.”

  “Heat ray!” said Willie Bea’s papa. He looked off then, gazing at the walls, as if some distant light had smacked him between the eyes.

  “That just the beginning,” Aunt Leah said. She paid no attention to the fact that her face and nose were streaming wet. But Mr. Hollis did. He leaned over and handed Willie Bea’s mama his silk handkerchief. Marva took it and gently began dabbing at Leah’s face. “It was awful,” said Aunt Leah. “It went on and on. The announcer breaking in on the shows, don’t you see? See, the Martians has plowed through the whole state of New Jersey. They goin’ in New York City!” She paused and took a deep breath.

  “Leah, could you be mistaken?” whispered Willie Bea’s mama, as though she could hardly breathe.

  “She heard it on the radio,” Mr. Hollis said, and that was finally enough evidence to the truth of what Aunt Leah was telling them. For the bulletin flashes that came over the radio with news of the world were always true.

  “And then the radio announcer standin’ on the rooftop,” said Aunt Leah. “Sayin’ he seein’ them Martians, tall as skyscrapers. They wade across this Hudson River into New York City. Said now they lift their metal hands!”

  Ever so slowly, Aunt Leah’s hands rose higher in the air. Willie Bea and Bay and Bay Sister were statues, stunned and tongue-tied.

  “This is the end now, he said,” said Aunt Leah. She stared at them earnestly. “He said, the announcer said, smoke comes out … black smoke, driftin’ over the city. People in the streets see it now. Said they are running toward this East River, New York. Running away from it. Thousands of people dropping in the river like rats.” Aunt Leah’s shoulders shook. “Now the smoke spreadin’ faster,” Leah whispered. “It reaches the Time Square, New York City. People tryin’ to get away, but it’s no use! Said they’re fallin’ like flies.…”

  As if in a dream, Willie Bea saw Aunt Leah’s pearl necklace glisten and shimmer in the light. She was aware she was holding her breath a moment, for fear Aunt Leah would stop talking. Willie Bea had to know everything she could about the Martians.

  Not Martians, she was able to think, breathing out, then in, a long, deep breath. No, oh, no. Great Star of Venus!

  They would certainly have come from the planet Venus, those aliens, Willie Bea was thinking. And it had been there in her palm all this time! Itching, trying to tell her something.

  I’m a prophet, too! Willie Bea thrilled, tingling at the thought.

  “The poor announcer,” Aunt Leah moaned, holding her head as though it ached. “He one I usually listen to, I think. And he just shut off right then. He went dead on the air. The Martians and their machines just taken over everything. Oh. Oh! Who’s to say they haven’t already landed here?”

  “Now, now,” said Willie Bea’s mama, patting Aunt Leah. She looked vaguely around at the windows, black with night. Then she noticed Willie Bea and Bay and Bay Sister right there in front of her. Her face lit up as if to say, How nice you all look! She didn’t say it. But maybe they had reminded her. “It’s a dark night out,” she said to Aunt Leah. “It’s the night for beggars all over town.”

  “After that, I didn’t listen again,” Aunt Leah went on. She didn’t seem to have heard Willie Bea’s mama. She sat up straight. Got hold of her black evening bag beside her and searched for her lipstick and powder puff. She sniffled and sighed. “I was ’m
ost afraid to touch that radio. But I did. I turned it off, and it about burned my hand, too. But I pulled the plug! I’ll never plug it in again! Then I called Avery.” She nodded toward Mr. Hollis, but she did not turn her streaked face toward him. “That’s all,” she said. “I just wanted to come here, be with everybody.” She smiled wanly. Her chin trembled. “But what I can’t understand,” she continued, “is how I could’ve missed it. How I wasn’t forewarned they were coming.”

  “You were!” Willie Bea said, at last finding her voice. She gazed at her Aunt Leah. “This afternoon you said there was somethin’ about this day. Aunt Leah, you said there would be a chill on the night!”

  “Willie Bea, baby!” Aunt Leah exclaimed, taking in their costumes in one swift gaze. “You so right! All dressed up!” she commented, but that was all. “We’d better do somethin’!” she finished, and said no more.

  Willie Bea’s papa stood there, wondering what to do. “Don’t have a telephone,” he said absently. “If I did, I could put in a call to Officer Bogen downtown. And he could put in a call to the Xenia sheriff, although I don’t know what good that would do.” This last spoken to Mr. Hollis.

  There was no telephone anywhere around. It was a long, dark mile into town.

  “Don’t understand clearly what this is all about,” Jason Mills added.

  Before anyone could say anything or do anything, the front door opened. It swung in ever so slowly, as if the black night had pressed too hard and had pushed it open. Willie Bea’s papa jumped back and spun around, facing the door. Mr. Hollis moved back on the piano bench and his elbows hit the piano keys. A great, discordant noise rose from the piano and spread around them. Willie Bea in the chair had her back to the door. She couldn’t move. Neither could Bay Sister. But Bay Brother dived down into Willie Bea’s lap. He scooted over, his face and head hidden under her arm.

  Willie Bea shivered, thoughts paralyzed, as a stream of cold fell over the chair and down her neck.

  “Hey, now, don’t upset youselves. It just me.” Uncle Jimmy’s voice. Willie Bea went limp with relief.