Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [92]
And there is more to note. A distinct odor clouds the air around the balloon. It mixes the wood-pulp smell of the paper with another, faintly medicinal scent, possibly that of ether. (Is this due to the manner in which Dunn suspends his creations?) Underneath the combined smells, I perceive a third—damp, earthy. The balloon’s surface produces a low and constant crackling as it shifts in the currents of air wafting into the room through its windows. I went to touch the thing, to add its texture to my catalogue of impressions, only to hesitate with the tips of my fingers a hairsbreadth from its paper. I was seized by the most overpowering repugnance, such that the hairs from the back of my hand right up my forearm stood rigid. I swear, my flesh actually shrank from the thing. For the briefest of instants, I wanted nothing more than to see the balloon destroyed—torn apart, set alight. It was the kind and intensity of response I would have expected at confronting an especially loathsome insect, not an eccentric’s amusement. I dropped my hand and decided my investigations had proceeded far enough for the moment.
Such a curious reaction—a consequence of the day’s travel?
IV
Given his response to the balloon in his chamber, Coleman did not expect that he would be able to sleep in its presence, and he intended to ask Dunn to have it removed after dinner. At the conclusion of the meal, however, Dunn retreated to the library with Cal, whose preparations for their imminent work together the man declared must be seen to, posthaste. Not to mention, removed from close quarters with the thing, Coleman’s initial antipathy towards it seemed vague, ridiculous. He could wait, he decided, for morning.
Once he was outside the door to his room, though, the self-assurance of minutes before felt cavalier, reckless. So he was relieved when he found the balloon had drifted to the window, where its presence was, if not pleasant, not as repellent.
V
“Do you believe Mr. Dunn?” Isabelle asked.
“Heavens, no.” Coleman laughed. “A meeting with old Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew himself, on the eve of the battle at Gettysburg? Tutelage in the secret arts of Simon Magus? A saving intercession in his later life by the spirits of his mother, Paracelsus, and Swedenborg? It’s like a distillation of every melodrama produced these last fifty years. No, I suspect Mr. Dunn’s narrative is no more than a way for him to align his past acts with his present practices.”
Isabelle frowned, but did not reply. She inclined towards a bush whose name Coleman didn’t know but on whose branches a large orange-and-black butterfly moved its wings.
“I am much more interested,” Coleman said, “in our host’s reluctance to describe the means by which he fashions his balloons.”
VI
“You are preoccupied today,” Isabelle said.
“Am I?” Coleman turned his gaze from the blue sheet of the Hudson.
She nodded. “Since Mr. Dunn’s recitation of his years as an arms merchant last night, your thoughts have been elsewhere, I believe.”
Coleman smiled. “I fear I am not as cryptic as I would like.”
“Or I am becoming more adept at deciphering you.”
One of Dunn’s balloons had drifted near. Coleman raised his hand to push it away, only to find himself once more hesitating before his fingers touched its papery surface, his skin literally crawling at the thing’s proximity. Instead, he stood from the bench upon which he and Mrs. Earnshaw had admired the view from Dunn’s garden and set off at a slow pace along its paths. Isabelle hurried after him.