"Why—why yes, Will, I'll go."
Go! Leave this world!
And my voice was telling them calmly that I would go!
CHAPTER V
LAST PREPARATIONS
Committed thus by my own quiet words, involuntarily spoken as though by a volition apart from me, I strove for calmness. A confusion of mind possessed me. But Bee was quite calm; and presently, though within me the surge of apprehension continued, outwardly I believed I did not show it.
Three of us going into the shadows. And Will said, not to linger this time in the Borderland, but to go on—to penetrate into the depths of the Unknown realm beyond. The very thought of it brought a score of anxious questions to my mind; but when I tried to voice them Will crisply checked me.
I realized now, with an emotion tinged by a faint whimsicality, that Will and Bee had summoned me here this evening with an anticipation of just this outcome. They had foreseen that we all three would make the trip together. They were prepared for it; and Will's first trial had been experimental wholly.
Thus, I found them ready. Two others of the knitted suits were at hand. Two other batteries. But we—Bee and I—had been seemingly indispensable in aiding Will. His departure—Bee had been by his side to remove the battery wires. And far more important, when he returned, his solidifying shadow had lain beneath the mattress. We had been there to raise him up, to hold him until the substance of his body was great enough for the mattress to sustain it. Suppose we had not raised him? Suppose while yet within the mattress space—or within the space the floor of the room itself was occupying—the growing solidity of him had demanded empty space of its own? The thought brought a shudder—a thought too horrible to be dwelt upon.
During our brief preparations—which Will hurried with a grim haste—he did not once volunteer to explain his experience. And only once did Bee question him.