Free Nebulon Horror by Hugh Cave Page B

it.
    Several times that day Lois Ellstrom paused in her work as principal of the school to study her copy of the diagram. A number of definitions ran through her mind: sign, symbol, diagram, character. She jotted these down.
    On her way home she stopped at the library. For a town the size of Nebulon it was an excellent one, competently supervised by Miss Elizabeth Peckham. This afternoon it was nearly empty. With a nod to Elizabeth, Lois went past the desk and began searching for a book or books that might contain some answers,
    "May I help you, Mrs. Ellstrom?"
    Startled, she rose from a squatting survey of some lower-shelf volumes to find Elizabeth standing ramrod-straight at her side. "Oh," she said. Then, "I don't know. I'm not sure what I want. Do you have anything on . . . symbols?"
    "What kind of symbols are you interested in, Mrs. Ellstrom?"
    "I'm not sure of that, either." None of the words on her mental list would really do, would they? Another one occurred to her, so alien to any previous thought process of hers that she was not even sure how to pronounce or spell it. "Are there such things as . . . cabalic or cabalistic symbols? Would you have a book on that?"
    "I'm not sure I understand."
    "Symbols like this, then." Reluctantly, because she did not want to be questioned about it, Lois produced the copy she had made of Raymond's scratches. "I ah . . . came across it recently under somewhat odd circumstances and feel it may mean something." Her wry smile indicated embarrassment. "Frankly, I don't believe I know what a cabalistic symbol is. I suppose I've just come across the word somewhere."
    Elizabeth Peckham did not smile back. She said with a slight shrug, "I believe the word refers to secret or esoteric rituals, occultism, that sort of thing." She studied the paper for a moment. Her face revealed nothing. She shrugged again. "We haven't any book that would contain such symbols. But I hardly believe this is cabalistic. Why do you think it's anything more than elaborate doodling?"
    "Just that. It's so intricate. So . . . sophisticated."
    "May I ask where you discovered it?"
    "I'd rather not say."
    Elizabeth seemed annoyed by the rebuff. "I suppose it was done in school, and you're wondering about the child who drew it. I can't help you, I'm afraid. I have no knowledge of such things. But"—still another shrug—"I would call it just an exercise in doodling by someone quite artistically inclined." Excusing herself, she returned to her desk.
    Lois went home. Soon after she arrived there, Keith Wilding came to plant the hibiscus he had not been able to plant the day before. She had discussed the project with Willard and was able this time to tell him where to put them. An hour or so later, when she opened her handbag to pay him, she found she still had the drawing of the school-yard diagram and dropped it into a wastebasket.
    That evening Willard Ellstrom wanted a scrap of paper on which to do some figuring, and looked in the nearest basket. It was a habit of his. His wife was an inveterate paper waster—many school teachers were, weren't they?—and any basket in the house was likely at any time to yield only partly used pieces of perfectly good paper.
    He found the drawing and looked at it with interest. "Did you do this, Lois?"
    "Yes."
    "What in the world is it?"
    She told him.
    "I see." He dropped the paper back into the basket. But later, when he happened to remember the photograph he had taken of Elizabeth Peckham's house—the one with the lineup of children on the veranda—he quietly fished the paper out again and tucked it away in his pocket.

10
     
    The remainder of that week in Nebulon was as strange as its beginning.
    At the Hostetter residence the mayor and his wife questioned their son, seeking to learn where he had gone and what he had done after running away from school. They learned little. "I just walked around," the boy insisted.
    "You walked around where?"
    "I don't know."
    "You must know where