The Science Fiction anthology. Andre Norton

for the dancing house—he simply hadn’t noticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. He had a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and the high-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of the house. At least, he called it buffeting; he’d never thought to watch from outside.

      He went in and threw his jacket on the sofa, there being no room left in the closets. Crossing the living room he stopped to twist a draw-pull.

      Every window slammed shut.

      “Tight as a kite,” he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward the closet at the foot of the stairs and then stopped again. Was that right? No, snug as a hug in a rug. He went on, thinking: The old devils.

      The downstairs closet was like a great watch case, a profusion of wheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-saw that went back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels had a curious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged from grandfather’s clocks and music boxes and they went around in graceful circles at the rate of 30 and 31 times an hour ... although there was one slightly eccentric cam that vacillated between 28 and 29. He watched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them for seven o’clock in the evening, April seventh, any year.

      Outside, the domed city vanished.

      It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear, the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a more satisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion. Looking through the window he saw only a garden.

      Instead of an orange sun at perpetual high noon, there was a red sun setting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which left the smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid a huge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon a garden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses.

      Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. And cocktails for two. Blast, he’d never be able to figure that one out! He watched as the moon played, Oh, You Beautiful Dolland the neon roses flashed slowly from red to violet, then went back to the closet and turned on the scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated rose as the moon shifted to People Will Say We’re In Love.

      He rubbed his chin critically. It seemed all right. A dreamy sunset, an enchanted moon, flowers, scent.

      They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rose really smelled—or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. But then, neither did the widow. He’d have to be confident, assertive. Insist on it. I tell you, my dear, this is a genuine realistic romantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icy fingers marching up and down your spine?

      His own spine didn’t seem to be affected. But then he hadn’t read that book on ancient mores and courtship customs.

      How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incredibly long and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amount of falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. “No” meant any number of things, depending on the tone of voice and the circumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later on this evening.

      He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker, thinking roguishly: Thou shalt not inundate. The risks he was taking! A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant Singing in the Rain. Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red sun continued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over and demolished several of the neon roses.

      The last wheel in the bedroom closet was a rather elegant steering wheel from an old 1995 Studebaker. This was on the bootleg pipe; he gingerly turned it.

      Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle of winds came to him.

      He went downstairs to watch out the living room window. This was important; the window had a really fixed attitude about air currents. The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose and the moon shook a trifle as it whispered Cuddle Up a Little Closer.

      He watched with folded arms, considering how he would start. My dear Mrs. Deshazaway. Too formal. They’d be looking out at the romantic garden; time to be a bit forward. My very dear Mrs. Deshazaway. No. Contrived. How about a simple, Dear Mrs. Deshazaway. That might be it. I was wondering, seeing as how it’s so late, if you wouldn’t rather stay over instead of going home....

      Preoccupied, he hadn’t noticed the winds building up, didn’t hear the shaking and rattling of the pipes. There were attic pipes connected to wall pipes and wall pipes connected to cellar pipes, and they made one gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance as high-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening the Studebaker valve wider and wider....

      The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sun shot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moon fell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day.

      The shaking house finally woke him up. He scrambled upstairs to the Studebaker wheel and shut it off.

      At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn’t the first time the winds got out of line.

      Why didn’t she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all down and went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months, about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April. Its days were thirty and it followed September. And all the rest have thirty-one. What a strange people, the ancients!

      He still didn’t see the orange car parked down the street.

      “Men are too perishable,” Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. “For all practical purposes I’m never going to marry again. All my husbands die.”

      “Would you pass the beets, please?” Humphrey Fownes said.

      She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. “And don’t look at me that way,” she said. “I’m not going to marry you and if you want reasons I’ll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse.”

      The widow was a passionate woman. She did everything passionately—talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionately red. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelry tinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes had never known anyone like her. “You forgot to put salt on the potatoes,” she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible for her to be, to explain why she couldn’t marry him. “Do you have any idea what people are saying? They’re all saying I’m a cannibal! I rob my husbands of their life force and when they’re empty I carry their bodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace.”