She bought the gazing ball at WalMart, a pretty bauble for her garden, something unusual and charming. Something, she felt, from a bygone era. An era of poise and grace, an era when time perhaps flowed at a slower, more sedate pace. Laura Hollingsworth was a sales executive for a large conglomerate that sold snack foods, beer, pop, cigarettes and condiments under thirty company names. Her work week ran sixty hours plus and she always brought her laptop, pager and cell phone, no matter where she went. There were no weekends that weren't working weekends and no retreats from the pressure, save for the few hours she managed to steal in her small garden each week. Laura Hollingsworth hated her life.

Oh, to be able to live in a time when the telephone was nonexistent. When the automobile was but a future pipe dream of some crackpot inventor. When the airplane was an impossibility and the computer never even thought of. She bought a pedestal along with the gazing ball, so it would have a secure place to rest. It was a glaring, garish blue-purple that could only be duplicated in glass. No paint manufacturer could mix that particular color. A color that at once reflected and seemed to absorb light, creating a different, skewed vision or version of the world for one to gaze into and contemplate.

She had taken some time from the job, just in order to have an opportunity to shop on her way home, and she had passed through the garden supply area at the sprawling discount store because the register there usually had the shortest line and the least number of screaming, sticky-faced, obnoxious kids.

The only bright spot in her life right at the time was Raymond, her current squeeze. The fact that he had never seemed to be able to land a job since they'd met didn't particularly bother her. She liked having him around. He did chores, kept her car washed and serviced, and, if she were to admit it, kept her well serviced, too. Other than being hell in bed, he was really worth little else. No great conversationalist, he seemed to like whatever sports were on the big screen TV and whatever she decided they should have for dinner. He preferred beer over wine, tacos over pâté, and chips over caviar. While she drove a Lexus, he preferred a Camaro, unless she wanted to buy him a Corvette. She didn't. She considered the price tag way too high for what was, essentially, a plastic Chevrolet, albeit a high-performance one.

When she placed the gazing ball in the small garden, he'd merely looked at it and said, "What the hell's that thing for?"

She'd tried to explain that it was merely an example of the decorative tastes of the Victorian era, but he'd snorted and pronounced it a waste of money. "Besides, the damn thing's ugly," he'd declared.

"Well, it's my garden, and I like it. It's... different."

"Okay, whatever."

That evening, she'd sat in the garden after they'd had supper and tried to relax. The sun had sunk low on the horizon and the traffic noises from the street eighteen floors below seemed distant and subdued. The garden was really tiny, just fitting onto their terrace and leaving little room for more than a couple of chairs.

Now, she found that time and again, her eyes were attracted to her new decoration, and soon she found herself gazing into the ball. Raymond was in the den, watching the Nicks butcher some other team and the crowd's roar and the droning of the announcer came to her faintly, an almost hypnotic combination of sounds, that, combined with the color and oddly skewed shapes within the ball, had a mesmerizing effect on her.

Just an instant before Raymond stepped out into the garden with a resounding beer-belch, she thought she heard, in the recesses of her mind, the clip-clop of horses? hooves and the creaking of a carriage, then she was rudely yanked away from her reverie.

"God, that was rude." She looked up at Raymond through what seemed to be new eyes and saw a crude, boorish man in his mid-thirties, who held little attraction for her, but whom she was used to and more or less comfortable with. He was...well, predictable. Right now he was looking at her in that way that told her he would soon put a move on her and want to make love. Well, that was one area he was good in. There again, nothing fancy or refined, but lots of stamina and staying power.

"Why don'tcha come inside and I'll show ya rude, Babe."

"Okay, in a couple minutes..."

After he left to go back in, she tried to recapture what she'd felt there for just a moment, but it was gone. The mood had changed, it had grown darker, and a chill was coming into the air. She rubbed her upper arms as she looked at the ball and she gave an involuntary shiver. Maybe it would be best to just toss the damn thing over the rail...

But she didn't.

That night, after making love with Raymond, as she hovered just on the ragged edge of drifting off into sleep, she again thought she heard the sound of horses' hooves and jingling harness.

The following week was hectic, even more bizarre than usual, and it was not until Friday that Laura really had any time to relax. Raymond was gone with some of his buddies on a fishing trip, which was really just an excuse to drink and be away from wives or significant others.

She arrived home from work, having picked up Chinese on the way, and the first thing she did was get a long, hot bath. She'd had dinner and was relaxing in her robe when she thought about the garden. It was a balmy evening, and she stepped onto the terrace in a very mellow mood from her bath and some decent food for a change.

Her attention, as always, was drawn to the ball, and, lying at the base of it, the desiccated remains of a male Cardinal. It was unusual enough to see a Cardinal here in the thick of the city. But here? On the eighteenth floor? She carefully knelt to examine the small body, expecting the gassy smell of decay and maybe a small crop of maggots, something she found especially distasteful. There seemed to be no marks upon its body, and if there had been maggots, they had already gone. There were some enterprising ants working the remains of the carcass, but little else.

It had been less than a week since she'd sat right here in this spot. How could a bird die here and decay and become a... a husk, in so little time? There was not even any odor from the bird, she noted. Strange. She stepped inside to get a paper towel and a plastic bag, not wishing to touch the bird with bare fingers. These things gathered from her kitchen, she stepped back out onto the terrace to find the Cardinal sitting atop the gazing ball, its head cocked to one side as it eyed her.

With a slight gasp, she stood, perfectly still, as they say, rooted to the spot and looking keenly for the Cardinal on the ground. The dead cardinal. It was gone.

As she looked up, the living Cardinal took flight, it seemed almost in slow motion, as her brain frantically tried, at super-speed, to deal with the reality of the situation. But, of course, two Cardinals took flight, one the flashy crimson of this world and one, retreating in the opposite direction, into the ball, of a darker, bruised, purplish hue never seen on this planet.

Her gaze chose to follow the darker, and as it sped away into that world of strangeness of color and dimension it startled the horses and one reared up, the man in the carriage sawing at the reins to control it. Briefly she heard him yell and heard the crack of the whip. For an instant, she smelled the horses and new-mown grass. Then, the horses back under control, the man driving the carriage looked directly at her and doffed his stovepipe hat as the carriage, now bent nearly double by the refraction of the glass, swept by.

Laura stepped away, almost as a reflex action, to get out of the way, and when she next opened her eyes and looked into the ball, all she could see was her own reflection and the building behind her. That other world, that other time had gone again.

She spent the weekend trying to see it again. She called in to her office and told them she was sick. Raymond remained gone and that, too, was fine. She tried wine, she tried food. She even got stoned on pot Saturday night, trying to capture back that mood, that moment when things changed and she could see the other world. The world of the ball. The world where everyone went about in carriages pulled by sleek horses and men tipped their hats to ladies.

Late Sunday evening she sat by herself, nearly in despair. It was past dark and her hopes seemed to be in vain. Perhaps it was all imagination and there really was nothing there. Dreaming of that relaxed and perfect world, she dozed briefly and when she awoke, the ball was glowing with a life of its own. She was afraid at first to move, for fear that what she was seeing would evaporate. For in the ball, she could see a huge country manor, and on the rolling acres of lawn before it a party seemed to be in progress.

Slowly, and with trepidation, she rose from her seat and approached the ball for a better look. She leaned forward...closer...closer...and now she could again hear and smell that place she so desired to visit. Then she felt herself falling, tumbling like Alice through the Looking Glass and into what must surely be the Mad Hatter's tea party. As she fell she put her hands out instinctively to break her fall, and even then she noted they were clad in white lace gloves.

Then, she was seated in a carriage and she was wearing a peach-colored gown with a tightly-laced corset, petticoats and silk stockings. She looked around in bewilderment at the handsome man seated next to her, a stranger, and yet so familiar that she knew his name and that he was an assistant to the Governor of Virginia. She knew what he looked like under his clothes and what he liked in his wine glass.

In her left hand was a fan, which she began putting to use as she attempted to gather her wits. Henry, the man seated with her, took note and asked, "Bertie, are you not feeling well?"

Bertie. A pet name. In this world, she was Bertha Hamilton, second cousin to Alexander.

"I'm a little warm, Henry. My, it's certainly sultry today, isn't it?"

"Are you sure you're all right, my dear? You looked a little...peaked there, for a moment."

"Quite all right, Henry, thank you, dearest."

Henry took her hand and raised it to his lips, where he kissed the knuckles affectionately. "We'll be there in just a moment, Darling. Then we'll get you a julep."

It was as Henry was helping her from the carriage that she felt the world tilt and suddenly, she was again on the terrace, eighteen floors above the teeming streets of New York City, shivering in her bathrobe. There were tears on her cheeks, and, lingering in her hair, the smells of that other world, smells of leather and horses and a man named Henry...

After that, Laura couldn't go back to work. She plead sickness, but she knew it was only a matter of time before they sent someone to check on her. And, of course, company rules being what they were, she'd have to see the doctor and get a release...she spent her days in contemplation of the gazing ball, wondering what it really was. A time portal? A dimensional rift, that allowed her to slip into some other identity? She retained every memory of that other side, and, knowing what she now knew about Henry, she lusted to return to him.

Meanwhile, Raymond languished on the couch. She told him she didn't want him to catch whatever it was she had that was making her feel so lousy. In truth, she didn't think she could stand to be touched by him again. Ever again.

On a Wednesday, almost two weeks after her first carriage ride, it happened again. It was strange, too, because she hadn't even been trying. She just walked past the gazing ball and heard the carriage and horses coming. Then she was standing there as it pulled up, a beautiful thing, painted white, with gold pinstriping and a surrey top. Henry stepped down and, smiling, reached for her hand. With his assistance, she stepped up and into the carriage and they were on their way. Again, she felt that falling sensation, but only faintly, this time.

From the kitchen, looking out to the terrace, Raymond watched in horror as Laura stepped calmly up onto the railing and, with no hesitation, and before he could even yell, off into emptiness. There was not even a scream.

In the garden at Henry and Bertie's estate in the Virginia countryside, there was a purple gazing ball. One day, a few days after Bertie's sick spells were over, she was in the garden, and as she gazed into the ball, she saw a man, someone she had once known, she felt sure, gazing sadly back at her. But his face was distorted and she couldn't be sure who he was, or if it might have been just her imagination having a flight of fancy on this clear, gorgeous spring day.

Raymond stood sadly after the others had departed, gazing down into the open grave, at the expensive bronze coffin. In spite of the fact that he knew Laura had always considered his station in life to be well below hers, he had, in his own way, really loved her.

Now, he would have to find somewhere else to live, someone else to love, someone to be with, for he was not a man to live alone. He thought briefly about the things that didn't add up about Laura's suicide. He knew she'd been feeling down, but she'd never given any indication.

And then there had been the matter of her remains. The medical examiner could give no reason why her body had been completely dried to an eleven-pound husk before the ambulance even arrived. Drugs had been ruled out, booze had been ruled out... and Raymond had been ruled out, too.

The only thing positive to come from all this was the fifty thousand dollar life insurance policy she'd left, naming him beneficiary.

Raymond tossed his single rose on Laura's casket and walked dejectedly through the light rain to his new Corvette. Overhead, a Cardinal flitted from tree to tree, pacing him. When he arrived home and began cleaning out the apartment, the first thing to go into the dumpster would be the purple gazing ball.

Copyright © 2002 Kenneth J. Crist
All rights reserved

About the Author

Kenneth James Crist is a retired police officer living in Wichita, KS and the owner/editor of Black Petals, a Horror/Science Fiction print magazine. He began writing in 1994 and has had about 50 short stories and poems published. He has also placed four novels with an agent and is working on two more.

In November his story, "Green Thumb" will run on The-Swamp.net. Readers and writers may visit the Black Petals domain at www.blackpetalls.com for guidelines and sample stories. Email comments can be sent to blkpts@sctelcom.