Perhaps the letter from Nina, and Lanny's continual thinking about it, may have had something to do with the strange experience which befell him a few nights later. When Lanny went to bed he was tired in both mind and body, and usually fell asleep at once, and rarely wakened until the maid tapped on his door. But now something roused him; at least, he insisted that he was awake, fully awake, and no amount of questioning by others could shake his certainty. He lay there, and it seemed that the first faint gray of dawn was stealing into the room — just enough light so that you could know it was a room, and that there were objects in it. The mocking-bird hadn't noticed the light, and the crickets had gone to sleep, and the stillness caught Lanny's attention; it seemed abnormal.
Then a weird feeling began to steal over him. Something was happening, he didn't know what it was, but fear of it began to stir in his soul, and his skin began to creep and draw tight, so it seemed. Lanny stared into the darkness, and it appeared to be taking form, and he began to wonder whether the light was daylight or something else; it seemed to be shaping itself into a mass at the foot of his bed, and the mass began to move, and suddenly Lanny realized it was Rick. A pale gray figure, just luminous enough so that it could be clearly seen; Rick in his flier's uniform, all stained with mud. On his face was a grave, rather mournful expression, and across his forehead a large red gash.
It came to Lanny in a sort of inner flash: Rick is dead! He raised his head a little and stared at the figure, and a cold chill went over him, and his teeth began to chatter, and his eyes popped wide, trying to see better. “Rick!” he whispered, half under his breath; but maybe that was a mistake, for right away the figure began to fade. Lanny cried again, half in fright and half in longing: “Rick! Speak to me!”
But the pale form faded away — or rather it seemed to spread itself over the room, and when it did, Lanny could see that it was the beginning of dawn and that objects were slowly looming in the room. All at once the mocking-bird tuned up and the other little birds outside began to say: “Cheep, cheep,” and “Twitter, twitter.” Lanny lay sick with horror, saying to himself soundlessly: “Rick is dead! Rick is dead!”
He did not go to sleep again. He lay till the sun was nearly up, and then put on his clothes and went into the garden and walked up and down, trying to get himself together before he had to meet the rest of the family. He tried to argue with himself; but there was no making headway against that inner voice. It was the first great loss of his life. He had to wrestle it out with himself — and he knew that he hated this war, and all wars, now and forever; just as Beauty had done in the beginning, and as Robbie still did in the depths of his heart, though he had stopped saying it.
VII
Impossible that Robbie and Esther should not notice his distraught condition. He said that he had slept badly — he didn't want to discuss the matter before the children. But after they had gone to their play he told his father and stepmother. As he had expected, Esther hated the idea. Hers was a practical mind and her beliefs in supernormal phenomena were limited to those which had been ratified and approved by biblical exegesis. The visit of Emmaus was all right, because it was in the Bible; but for there to be an apparition in the year 1917 — and in her home! — that could be nothing but superstition. Only Negroes, and maybe Catholics, let themselves be troubled by such notions. “You just had a dream, Lanny!” insisted his father's wife.
“I was exactly as wide awake as I am right now,” he answered. “I feel sure something dreadful has happened to Rick.”
He wanted to cable Nina; and Robbie said he would send it — his name being known would speed matters with the censors. He promised to attend to it the moment he reached the office, and to prepay a reply, because Nina didn't have much money. “What news about Rick?” he sent; and in course of the afternoon his secretary called the house and read Lanny the reply: “Rick reported well last week's letter.”
Of course, Lanny said, that didn't tell him anything. He insisted upon a second message being sent, with reply prepaid: “Advise immediately if trouble.” For two days Lanny waited, doing his utmost to keep his mind upon his studies, so as not to forfeit the respect of his stepmother and her friends. Then came another cablegram from Nina: “Rick badly hurt great pain may not live prayers.”