{"id":3136,"date":"2022-03-13T16:45:35","date_gmt":"2022-03-13T16:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=3136"},"modified":"2022-03-18T22:26:39","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T22:26:39","slug":"what-of-the-night-by-manly-wade-wellman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=3136","title":{"rendered":"What of the Night by Manly Wade Wellman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What of the Night<\/em><\/strong> by Manly Wade Wellman (F&SF<\/em>, March 1980) opens with a man called Parr taking shelter in a disused Southern Highlands house when his car breaks down. After he eats he falls asleep on the dank and dirty sofa.
When he wakes he sees a glow of light, and a young woman called Tolie asks if he is alright. Parr is instantly smitten by her, and then he notices that the surroundings are clean and in good order. Tolie introduces Parr to the owner of the house, Mr Addis, and another man called Fenton. The latter serves them all a thimbleful of drink (they toast \u201cunity and Sitrael\u201d), and then Parr is invited to see Addis\u2019s room. There, Parr sees Addis has books on magic (one is by John Dee, \u201cthe Queen\u2019s Sorceror\u201d) and also has a pentacle painted on his desk, \u201cto help his work\u201d.
After this the pair return to the living room for a second round of drinks and toasts, and then Parr visits Tolie and Fenton\u2019s rooms. When Parr is in the latter\u2019s room, he realises that Fenton is in love with Tolie and jealous of him.
During this experience Parr asks twice if he is dreaming, and also learns that the occupants of the house do not know what he means by \u201cKorea\u201d and \u201ctelephone\u201d. He eventually asks them if they are haunting the house: Addis partially dodges the question and suggests they have their fifth drink. As they prepare to do so, Fenton declares his feelings for Tolie and knocks the drink out of Parr\u2019s hands: he tells Parr if he has the fifth drink he will be trapped here. Parr flees.
Some time later Parr stumbles into to a local town, where he learns that the house has been deserted for ninety years. He also learns of Addis\u2019s strange habits and death, and the deaths of Tolie and Fenton when they stayed overnight at the house.
Most haunted house tales would stop there, but there is an effective coda in this story where the local preacher takes Parr back to the house to recover his car (no-one else from the town will take him). When they go inside the gloomy house Parr asks the preacher to perform an exorcism. The preacher says that isn\u2019t a ritual he knows, but he conducts a baptism, a communion (both for Parr), and then the rites for the dead: each of these acts unburdens and lightens the house:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally they both stood and Preacher Ricks repeated the service for the burial of the dead. The gloom seemed to thicken itself around them. But at last the hushed voice came to, \u201cCome, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you.\u201d Then light suddenly stole into the room. Parr, looking sidelong at the open door, saw sunshine in the yard that had been so shadowed.
Preacher Ricks cleared his throat. \u201cDo you think it looks sort of different in here?\u201d he asked Parr. \u201cLike as if it had somehow cleared up?\u201d
\u201cIn here and outside both,\u201d replied Parr. \u201cMaybe you\u2019ve truly put those spirits to rest.\u201d
\u201cLet\u2019s devoutly hope so.\u201d
They walked out. No haze, no shadows.
\u201cBring your car along behind mine, back to Sky Notch,\u201d said Preacher Ricks. \u201cWe\u2019ll see if some kind soul there won\u2019t let us have some breakfast.\u201d  p. 64<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A quietly effective and atmospheric piece.
*** (Good). 5,100 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What of the Night by Manly Wade Wellman (F&SF, March 1980) opens with a man called Parr taking shelter in a disused Southern Highlands house when his car breaks down. After he eats he falls asleep on the dank and dirty sofa.When he wakes he sees a glow of light, and a young woman called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[720],"tags":[730,24,25,762,721,12],"class_list":["post-3136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-manly-wade-wellman","tag-730","tag-3-2","tag-fsf","tag-haunted-house","tag-manly-wade-wellman","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3136"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3216,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions\/3216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}