Free Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC by John the Balladeer (v1.1) Page B

blue-eyed, brown-faced. She
had a little bitty nose and a red mouth. Her blue eyes widened almost as wide
as the blue pool itself, and she smiled, with big, even white teeth.
                 "John,"
she sang, halfway, "I was saying it for the third time, and you came to my
call." She licked her red lips. "The way Mr. How-sen promised you
would."
                 I
didn't let on to know Mr. Howsen. I stuffed the red scarf into the hip pocket
of my blue duckins. "Why were you witch-spelling me? What did I ever do to
you? I disremember even where I've met you."
                 "You
don't remember me? Remember Enderby Lodge, John."
                 Of
course. A month ago I'd strolled through with my guitar. Old Major Enderby bid
me rest my hat awhile. He was having a dance, and to pleasure him I sang for
his guests.
                 "You
must have been there," I said. "But what did I do to you?"
                 Her
lips tightened, red and hard and sharp as her nails. "Nothing at all,
John. You did nothing, you ignored me. Doesn't it make you furious to be
ignored?"
                 "Ignored?
I never notice such a thing."
                 "I
do. I don't often look at a man twice, and usually they look at me at least
once. I don't forgive being ignored." Again she licked her mouth, like a
cat. "I'd been told a charm can be said three times, beside Bottomless
Pool on Hark Mountain , to burn a man's soul with love. And you
came when I called. Don't shake your head, John, you're in love with me."
                 "Sorry.
I beg your pardon. I'm not in love with you."
                 She
smiled in pride and scorn, like at a liar. "But you climbed Hark Mountain ."
                 "Reckoned
I'd like to see the Bottomless Pool."
                 "Only
people like Mr. Howsen know about the Bottomless Pool. Bottomless pools usually
mean the ones near Lake Lure , on Highway 74."
                 "Those
aren't rightly bottomless," I said. "Anyway, I heard about this one,
the real one, in a country song."
                 Slinging
my guitar forward, I strummed and sang:
                 Way up on Hark Mountain I
climb all alone, Where the trail is untravelled, The top is unknown.
                 Way up on Hark Mountain Is
the Bottomless Pool. You look in its waters And they mirror a fool.
                 "You're
making that up," she charged me.
                 "No,
it was made up before my daddy's daddy was born. Most country songs have truth
in them. The song brought me here, not your witch-spell."
                 She
laughed, short and sharp, almost a yelp. "Call it the long arm of
coincidence, John. You're here, anyway. Look in the water and see whether it
mirrors a fool."
                 Plainly
she didn't know the next verse, so I sang that
                You
can boast of your learning And brag of your sense, It won't make no difference
A hundred years hence.
                 Stepping
one foot on a poolside rock, I looked in.
                 It
mirrored neither a fool nor a wise man. I could see down former and ever, and
I recollected all I'd ever heard norrated about the Jottomless Pool. How it was
blue as the sky, but with a special light »f its own; how no water ran into it,
excusing some rain, but it tayed full; how you couldn't measure it, you could
let down a inker till the line broke of its own weight.
                 Though
I couldn't spy out the bottom, it wasn't rightly dark down here. Like looking
up into blue sky, I looked down into blue water, ind in the blue was a many-color shine, like
deep lights.
                 "I
didn't need to use the stolen scarf," she said at my elbow. 'You're lying
about why you came. The spell brought you."
                 "I'm
sorry to say, ma'am," I replied, "I don't even call