Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

Something was going to happen. She waited. She watched the blue sky of Mars as if it might at any moment grip in on itself, contract, and expel a shining miracle down upon the sand. Nothing happened. Tired of waiting, she walked through the misting pillars. A gentle rain sprang trom the fluted pillar tops, cooling the scorched air, falling gently on her. On hot days it was like walking in a creek. The floors of the house glit- tered with cool streams. In the distance she heard her husband playing his book steadily, his fingers never tired of the old songs. Quietly she wished he might one day again spend as much time holding and touching her like a little harp as he did his incredible books. But no. She shook her head, an imperceptible, forgiving shrug. Her eyelids closed softly down upon her golden eyes. Marriage made people old and familiar, while still young. She lay back in a chair that moved to take her shape even as she moved. She closed her eyes tightly and nervously. The dream occurred. Her brown fingers trembled, came up, grasped at the air. A moment later she sat up, startled, gasping. She glanced about swiftly, as if expecting someone there before her. She seemed disappointed; the space between the pillars was empty. Her husband appeared in a triangular door. “Did you call?” he asked irritably. “No!” she cried. “J thought J heard you ery out.” “Did I? IT was almost asleep and had a dream!” “In the daytime? You don’t often do that.” She sat as if struck in the face by the dream. “How strange, how very strange,” she murmured. “The dream.” “Oh?” He evidently wished to return to his book, “I dreamed about a man.” “A man?” “A tall man, six feet one inch tall.” “How absurd; a giant, a misshapen giant.” “Somehow”—she tried the words—“he looked all right. In spite of being } tall. And he had—oh, I know you'll think it silly—he had blue eyes!” “Blue eyes! Gods!” cried Mr. K. “What’ll you dream next? I suppose he | had black hair?” “How did you guess?” She was excited. “T picked the most unlikely color,” he replied coldly. “Well, black it was!” she cried. “And he had a very white skin; oh, he was most unusual! He was dressed in a strange uniform and he came down out of the sky and spoke pleasantly to me.” She smiled. “Out of the sky; what nonsense!” “He came in a metal thing that glittered in the sun,” she remembered. She closed her eyes to shape it again. “I dreamed there was the sky and some- 21 comiclsooks.com