Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 57: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Can you play it?” he asked; his voice almost broke with the intensity of his emotion. | “Yes,” I answered. “Shall I?” . He flung his hands to his head with a gesture of despair. “Play it,” he said hopelessly. The scene in Norton Hoorne’s studio that night, as I remember it, was fantastic and gruesome in the extreme. The room was in semidarkness. The shades were down, and we had drawn the heavy portiéres together before the French windows. The corners of the room and its heavily beamed ceiling were shrouded in thick, black shadows. The piano stood quite in shadow, with only a dim glow of amber light from a lamp shining upon its rack and keyboard. | : Near by stood the white-linened bed with the ghastly white face of Norton Hoorne upon its snowy pillow. And from a stand at the bedside a beam of light fell full upon the expressionless features. At first I was trembling so violently I would not dared have made the attempt to play. Forcing myself to calmness, I ran my fingers silently over the keys, staring intently at what I knew instinctively was Hoorne’s unplayed composition, finding its extraordinary harmonies, and fixing the rhythm in my mind. After many minutes of guiding my cold, trembling fingers in their un- familiar way over the keys, I began to play. In the hush of the room the fantastic music welled out with a throbbing intensity. No longer was |. nervous, no longer afraid. The shadows of the studio faded into blackness— a great void of nothingness all about me—as I abandoned myself more and more to the influence of the strange harmonies I was creating. Now my innermost being felt their power, for they awakened emotions my soul had never known before. The blackness around grew denser. My senses seemed freed of every earth- ly tie. The room, the piano, everything, was blotted out. Only the music re- mained, quivering out through the void, crying with the sorrow of the ages, but always tender, inexpressibly tender, and luring—luring me on—and on—_ I shall never forget the shock to my senses when the first sharp cry from Dr. Johns brought me to myself. The music died—throbbing away into silence. I found myself sitting at the keyboard, cold and shivering in the hot, close air of the room. “Look! Look there!” I heard Dr. Johns’s low whisper as though from a great distance. : ! | | ‘The corner of the room and the ceiling beyond and above Hoorne’s white, expressionless face was shrouded with a great, black, grotesque shadow. I do not know what made me stare in that direction, but as I stared the shadow began to take form. At first it seemed merely to waver; then it began to contract, slowly at first, then more rapidly. | Then it seemed no longer black but vaguely luminous, like a silver fog gleaming in the dim light of a hidden moon. And then all at once I realized that it was taking shape. I could see plainly the tiny glowing particles that composed it, twisting and crawling upon themselves, But the shape remained, ow wesewusow Fu J" Z£Ovuw a fPR+*4 4 SDE, TAFE Se 7 vu yuri g vey RIS FT Claude Thornhill and his Orchestra: Snowfall 3 ad am bac © Aribiinnnm Meek cw a Be Rhee as = wawoew see ue B-2521 ST ated Woodchopper’s Ball * Northwest Passage. Rosemary Clooney: Hev There @ Ratcha Man © Half ne 4 Gomicbook