By buying this book, you are supporting 826 DC and literacy, and I am grateful, and Dave Eggers, who cofounded the whole 826 movement, is grateful, and the kids who attend 826 DC are grateful too. Probably some of the griffins and mermaids, who are, as far as we know, not in the museum, are also grateful, but of this, as of so many things, we cannot be certain.
Neil Gaiman
September 2012
PS: An introduction is not an acknowledgments page. Lots of people have donated their time and their stories to make this book a reality, and I am grateful to all of them, to all the authors in this book and to everyone who has helped. But I want to embarrass my coeditor, Maria Dahvana Headley, by thanking her here by name. Maria is not just an excellent writer, but she is also an organized powerhouse and is the only reason that this book is coming out on time without lots and lots of blank pages in it. Thank you, Maria.
1
GAHAN WILSON is a cartoonist. He draws things that scare me. Sometimes he writes stories too. In this story, with a somewhat unpronounceable title (you’ll see why), he combines writing and drawing with terrifying results, to show us a most unnatural creature indeed.
One morning, beside the eggs and toast, there’s a dark spot on the tablecloth, and where it came from, no one knows. The only certainty is that the moment one stops looking at it, it moves. And as it moves, it grows….
THE FIRST TIME REGINALD ARCHER saw the thing, it was, in its simplicity, absolute. It owned not the slightest complication or involvement. It lacked the tiniest, the remotest, the most insignificant trace of embellishment. It looked like this:
A spot. Nothing more. Black, as you see, somewhat lopsided, as you see—an unprepossessing, unpretentious spot.
It was located on Reginald Archer’s dazzlingly white linen tablecloth, on his breakfast table, three and one half inches from the side of his eggcup. Reginald Archer was in the act of opening the egg in the eggcup when he saw the spot.
He paused and frowned. Reginald Archer was a bachelor, had been one for his full forty-three years, and he was fond of a smoothly running household. Things like black spots on table linens displeased him, perhaps beyond reason. He rang the bell to summon his butler, Faulks.
That worthy entered and, seeing the dark expression upon his master’s face, approached his side with caution. He cleared his throat, bowed ever so slightly, just exactly the right amount of bow, and, following the direction of his master’s thin, pale, pointing finger, observed, in his turn, the spot.
“What,” asked Archer, “is this doing here?”
Faulks, after a moment’s solemn consideration, owned he had no idea how the spot had come to be there, apologized profusely for its presence, and promised its imminent and permanent removal. Archer stood, the egg left untasted in its cup, his appetite quite gone, and left the room.
It was Archer’s habit to retire every morning to his study and there tend to any little chores of correspondence and finance which had accumulated. His approach to this, as to everything else, was precise to the point of being ritualistic; he liked to arrange his days in reliable, predictable patterns. He had seated himself at his desk, a lovely affair of lustrous mahogany, and was reaching for the mail which had been tidily stacked for his perusal, when, on the green blotter which entirely covered the desk’s working surface, he saw:
He paled, I do not exaggerate, and rang once more for his butler. There was a pause, a longer pause than would usually have occurred, before the trustworthy Faulks responded to his master’s summons. The butler’s face bore a recognizable confusion.
“The spot, sir—” Faulks began, but Archer cut him short.
“Bother the spot,” he snapped, indicating the offense on the blotter. “What is this?”
Faulks peered at the in bafflement.
“I do not know, sir,” he said. “I have never seen anything quite like it.”
“Nor have I,” said Archer. “Nor do I wish to see its likes again. Have it removed.”
Faulks began to carefully take away the blotter, sliding it out from the leather corner grips which held it to the desk, as Archer watched him icily. Then, for the first time, Archer noticed his elderly servant’s very odd expression. He recalled Faulks’s discontinued comment.
“What is it you were trying to tell me, then?” he asked.
The butler glanced up at him, hesitated, and then spoke.