date of publication 2083 A.D.

                          By William Morrison

               Lending libraries have been known to make
           mistakes--but never one so potentially explosive
            as the time they sent Carrie the wrong volume.

    _Hypnotism, as anyone who has ever watched a snake charm a
    bird knows, is far older than homo sapiens. Yet only since the
    eighteenth century days of Dr. Mesmer has it emerged from priestly
    mumbo-jumbo into the realm of science. Even today, despite its wide
    medical usage, hypnotism is not wholly accepted. But in a hundred
    years...._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
               Fantastic Universe October-November 1953.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


It seemed incredible, thought Carrie Samason, that a simple postcard
like that could have involved her in so much trouble. If it had been
something important, like her getting a new hairdo, or rearranging the
living room, or buying a new evening gown, she might have expected all
sorts of perfectly amazing results to follow. But from the postcard and
the fact that she had sent James instead of going herself, she expected
nothing at all.

It had come, she remembered, that morning when she was so busy getting
Barbara ready to go back to college. All those clothes to try on,
and hems to let out and shoes to fit, and right in the middle of
everything, "Dear Madam," she was informed, "_The Perfect Hostess_ by
Wilhelmina Hoskins, which you reserved, is now being held for you.
Please call for it within the next 48 hours."

At first Mrs. Samason was annoyed. She had reserved the book three
months before and her feeling of need for it had long since died away.
Nevertheless, it occurred to her, a book which was in such demand that
you had to wait three months for it must be pretty good. It wouldn't
hurt to take a look at it. She spoke to James about it, but he was
only eleven and there was a baseball game in which he had to pitch and
he didn't have any time, and honest, Mom--

"Either you get that book for me or you don't receive your allowance
for next week," she said firmly.

James got the book for her. But on the way home he stopped off to play
baseball and when he finally arrived, she recalled, she hadn't asked
him about it.

The next morning she remembered it just as he was leaving for school.
"I put it in the parlor, Mom," said James and departed.

But she couldn't find it in the parlor and there were so many things to
do, like cleaning up the mess Barbara had left in her room and fixing
the rips in James' pants--she wondered if any other eleven-year-old on
earth could rip so much so often--that she forgot all about it for a
while.

It was as if there had been no postcard, no book. At least that was the
way it was for a time.

Two days later, when Bill came home from work, he dumped himself into
an easy chair and said, "Saw a funny thing today."

"I had a letter at last from Barbara," said Carrie absently, patting
her hair into place and wondering what her husband would think of her
if now, at the age of forty, she dyed her hair red.

Bill always told her that as a brunette she was both young-looking and
pretty. The question was, would he tell her the same thing if she were
a redhead? Probably not. Men were foolishly conservative about such
things.

"Barbara said school supplies are very expensive this year," she went
on. "She wants more money."

"It was really funny." If she could ignore his conversation he could
ignore hers right back. That was one of the unfortunate things, she
realized, that marriage taught a man. "You know that vacant lot with
the broken fence, where the kids play? Know who I saw playing baseball
there today?"

"James, of course. But, Bill, Barbara said--"

"James was pitching. But you'll never guess who was catching."

Bill was being silly, just like the big baby he was. At his age, to
think that a children's baseball game was important! But she didn't
mind humoring him. She guessed, "That big puffy-faced boy from down the
street, with the hair so blond it's almost invisible?"

"No." He leaned back, waiting for her to guess again.

"I'm sure I haven't any idea who it was," she said. "But does it
matter? According to Barbara--"

"It was Reardon, the cop. You know, the one with the stomach."

"Reardon?" She stared at him. "Why, he's been chasing them off that lot
every day. He _hates_ kids. You must be mistaken."

"I'm not mistaken. He was catching there, acting like a kid himself,
when who should come along out of a police car but Lieutenant Puffinger
from the local precinct. Well, you should have heard him when he saw
what Reardon was doing. I'll bet those kids learned a few words they
didn't know before. It seems that Reardon hadn't made his call from the
street box and the cars were scouting around trying to find out what
had become of him. And here he was playing baseball!"

"Imagine that!" said Carrie. But her heart was still elsewhere. She
said, "Barbara says...."

So they talked of how much money to send Barbara. And Carrie thought
that nobody could tell _her_ how to manage a husband. You pretended to
listen to him and whatever he said you let go in one ear and out the
other, while you kept your mind on the really important thing. But she
was to remember Reardon later.

       *       *       *       *       *

The next day there was a rumpus at the school. What happened there
was even more incredible than the doings of Reardon. The local
Superintendent was proud of his neatly operated educational system, and
had set that date for showing around a group of distinguished visitors.

Neither the newspapers nor Carrie ever managed to get straight at
exactly what point things had begun to go wrong. When they tried
to trace the events of that day practically all the distinguished
visitors, including two college presidents, the president of the Board
of Education, a Professor of Educational Psychology and two heads of
Normal Schools gave different and conflicting stories.

What did come out, however, was that all six visitors had distinguished
themselves in a quite unexpected way. They had run around the school
madly waving torches and yelling, "Down with school! Down with school!
Burn the place down!"

The firemen had arrived in time to prevent much damage but the
incendiaries had been rounded up only with great difficulty after
school had been dismissed. The President of the Board of Education had
beaten up the Superintendent and the two college presidents had ganged
up on one of the hastily summoned policemen. Later on they could give
no reason for why they had done so.

"It's a crazy world," thought Carrie wisely. "You never know what sort
of lunatic you'll run into next." And then she put it out of her mind
and turned to a more important problem. What could she have for dinner
that night that would please Bill and not make him say, "You _know_ I
never eat spinach,"--or broccoli or her new sauce or whatever it was he
was never eating that week?

All the same it didn't surprise her greatly when Bill came home the day
after and said, "You'll never guess what happened at the office."

"Somebody else went crazy."

"Nobody went crazy. We all slept."

"What?"

"We all slept. At ten o'clock Mr. Elvergard came in and said, 'All
right, boys and girls, we've been working too hard, all of us. Let's
take a nice long rest today, shall we? Put your pretty little heads on
your pretty little desks. One, two, three, snooze!'"

"You're joking!"

"Cross my heart and hope to die. We all fell asleep and we stayed
asleep till four-thirty and then he woke us up and sent us home early
so we wouldn't get caught in the worst of the subway rush."

Carrie looked at him and said absolutely nothing. What had happened at
school had been bad enough. But this was absolutely incredible. There
were times when Bill was a great kidder and she wasn't sure whether to
take him seriously or not. This appeared to be one of the times when he
was not to be taken seriously. Even if there were the faintest chance
that he was telling the truth she thought it best not to encourage him
by pretending to believe a story like _that_.

It was harder, however, to take things as a joke when something just
as silly happened to her. In this case she could remember almost every
word exactly, without having the slightest idea of what had caused the
whole conversation to take so unexpected a turn.

The usual group was in for bridge. They had been playing for about half
an hour--that skinny Mrs. Cayley munching away daintily at all the
richest cakes as if she thought they might put some decent flesh on
her, Mrs. Munro making a great fuss about the fact that the special
candies she was eating were non-nutritive and therefore non-fattening,
the others just eating normally and too much as the mood struck them.
Mrs. Munro was dummy, and by some shrewdly ill-timed advice managed to
make her partner go down three.

Her partner was furious but Mrs. Munro just giggled. "You'll never
guess whom I saw with somebody else's wife," she said in her loud
whisper.

"Really?" said Mrs. Cayley. "Janet's husband?"

"Not in a million years. It was _my_ husband!"

Carrie sat up as if she had received an electric shock. This was a new
sort of gossip.

"Well, at least your Bruce has good taste in women," said Mrs. Cayley
generously. "Now, when _my_ husband steps out--well, really, I'm
ashamed of him. Of course, I suppose he does the best he can, poor
dear."

That was the way it went the rest of that afternoon. When Carrie
thought back to it later she shuddered. She had never before taken part
in such a gossip session and she hoped that she never would again. Each
of them had chatted, not about some absent individual but about herself
and her own relations. What skeletons had popped out of the closets!

It was the morning after that Barbara's letter came. "We had the
funniest basketball game last night," wrote Barbara. "Our team was
playing the girls from State College and right in the middle of the
game, when it was so exciting and we were all yelling like mad, our
captain, instead of shooting at the basket, suddenly stopped and said,
'This is no fun, girls. Let's aim for something big.'

"And she turned right around and threw the ball as hard as she could
at Professor Hazlehurst's head, the one who teaches chemistry. You
know--I've told you about him. And then all the players began to throw
the ball at people in the crowd.

"You can imagine the uproar! The referees were blowing their whistles
and all the girls were yelling and rushing to get out and I was afraid
some of them would get hurt. But at last President Newsom managed to
quiet things down and they stopped the game.

"They've called in Professor Griggs, who teaches Psychology, but she
admits that she hasn't the slightest idea why it happened. Some of the
girls say it was gamblers and they bribed the players but that's _so_
silly. Nobody ever bets on _our_ games.

"It's just one of those mysteries that it looks as if they'll never
solve."

Carrie read with amazement, going back again and again to make sure
that she hadn't misinterpreted Barbara's straggly script. She hadn't.
Toward the end of the letter Barbara added something that surprised her
almost as much as the account of the basketball game.

"You'll never guess who wrote to me--_your dear son, James_! It's the
first time in his life he ever had anything to say to his sister. It
must have been quite a sacrifice for him to spare the three cents for
the stamp. But seriously, Mother, I was _touched_. He's _really_ a very
good kid at heart. He didn't say much but from him the very idea of
writing means a lot. I've misplaced the letter now but I'll let you see
it later. It was so very amusing."

She would have to say something nice to James, thought Carrie. He was,
she agreed with Barbara, a most thoughtful boy. He had changed of
late. Not that he behaved very differently about hanging up his coat
or leaving his shoes in the middle of the floor at night but there was
something about him, she couldn't tell what, that made her feel he was
a treasure among sons, a joy and a comfort.

       *       *       *       *       *

She was aware of a feeling of pride in him that night when she and Bill
left him staring at the television set. He had promised faithfully to
go to bed at 9:30 and as she kissed him she said, "Don't forget to have
a glass of milk and some jam and bread."

"And don't forget to go to bed at nine-thirty," growled Bill.

"He won't forget," said Carrie. "He promised. Goodnight, dear."

As he closed the door behind them Bill said, "Bet he stays up till ten
at least."

"You don't appreciate him," replied Carrie. "He's an extraordinary
boy."

"No different from any other kid--except that he's ours."

"He's very much different. I'm afraid you're not very perceptive about
these things."

Bill growled again, something unintelligible this time, and the
conversation died down. _The romance is out of our marriage_, thought
Carrie. _A husband like Bill is never very polite. Except, of course,
to other men's wives. He takes me for granted, just as he takes his
children._

_Bet he won't behave to the others tonight as casually as he behaves to
me. I remember that time Mrs. Gamber was over at the Munros'. You would
have thought that woman was a poor delicate fragile little flower who
had to be tenderly cared for. Whereas we all know she has the strength
of a horse. Looks a little like one too. What any man can see in
her...._

"Why, hello, Mrs. Gamber," she said as they entered the Munro house. "I
was hoping so much that we'd find you and your husband here again this
evening. Clara said that you were afraid you wouldn't be able to get
out. How is little Elsie?"

"Much better, thank you."

So much for formal politeness. Bill, of course, was all set to treat
her with his usual tenderness when Clara Munro said, "They have the
most wonderful program on tonight. Let's look at it for a while."

Carrie didn't mind at all. At least looking at the screen would keep
Bill from worrying too much about Mrs. Gamber. Although, goodness
knows, if they had meant to watch television they might just as well
have stayed home with their own son.

But Clara was right about one thing. The program was
wonderful--unexpectedly wonderful.

The master of ceremonies came out and announced the famous
personalities he was going to display within the next few minutes, and
then there were the usual commercials and after that the first dramatic
sketch. It was a love scene between the current great lover and a very
famous leading lady. It would have brought tears to the most callous
viewer's eyes. Only....

       *       *       *       *       *

Only, the great lover suddenly became an exact duplicate of Bill, and
the leading lady was Mrs. Gamber. Carrie rubbed her eyes but that was
how they looked. Then she stared around at Bill and Mrs. Gamber then in
the room with her, then at Clara Munro and the others. No one seemed to
see anything strange.

She felt that she couldn't stand it. At the most tender moment her
fists clenched and she found herself standing up. "_Stop_ it!" she
shouted.

The great lover, who looked like Bill, seemed to turn and look right at
her. And then the telephone rang and he no longer looked like Bill at
all. He wore a six-shooter and a ten-gallon hat and chaps and spurs.
He answered the phone, and said, "Them diamond-backed owl-hoots are
raiding the Bar-B spread, pardner, down in Red-Eye Gulch. Gotta act
fast to stop them, pardner."

Carrie's eyes opened wide. The tone was caressing, full of tender
passion. But the words....

The leading lady had changed too. She no longer looked like Mrs.
Gamber. She replied happily, "If we spur our hosses, pardner, we can
ambush them galoots at Bald-eagle Pass. Shake a leg, pardner, and we'll
larn them rattlers a lesson they'll never furgit."

The scene blacked out. After a second or two a perspiring master of
ceremonies appeared and stammered, "Ladies and gentlemen, due to
technical difficulties beyond our control we--er--cannot bring you the
rest of this touching love scene. However, I know you'll just love our
next attraction, a juggling act by that famous foursome, the Juggling
Jugheads."

Everything that the Juggling Jugheads touched seemed to be under a
curse. It dropped--dropped and shattered. Carrie had never been part of
such an embarrassed audience. It was the most painful thing, outside of
seeing Bill and Mrs. Gamber, that she had ever witnessed.

Next came a comedy act. This was even worse. A famed star of slick
sophisticated comedy told jokes and made puns of which James would have
been ashamed. Carrie hid her head in her hands.

She said suddenly, "This is just _too_ awful. Clara, please turn it
off."

Clara Munro was looking dazed herself. She turned off the set and said,
"What on earth happened to them? In that first scene the hero and
heroine looked like you, Carrie, and Mr. Gamber."

"Like _me_?"

"Like _you_, Clara," said Mr. Munro.

Carrie said, "I think we must all be seeing things. Anyway, they're
usually so _good_. And tonight they were terrible."

"There seems to be some sort of insanity abroad," said Bill. "And it
almost looks as if it's catching."

That was it, she thought. It _was_ catching. She wondered where it
would strike next.

When they got home that night they found James peacefully asleep.
The glass from which he had drunk his milk was in the kitchen sink,
along with the knife he had used to spread his jam. He had been a very
obedient boy, thought Carrie, and once more her heart warmed to him.

But he had his weaknesses. She realized that the next day when she
was once more reminded of the book. It happened in the afternoon,
after she had read another of Barbara's letters. Barbara was writing
with a frequency little short of amazing. The basketball incident in
the college was still the subject of discussion and she just _had_
to tell her mother how exciting things were. But behind that, felt
Carrie, there was something else. Barbara was developing a sense of
responsibility. She was growing up at last.

Why, it was just a little while ago, the thought, that Barbara was a
tiny infant. And now she'll be graduating from college and getting
married--and....

It was thus the most natural thing in the world for her to begin
planning the details of Barbara's wedding. Maybe it would be a morning
wedding, she thought. How many people should they invite? What sort of
food should they serve and what arrangements should they make about a
reception?

It was these questions that reminded her of the book. _The Perfect
Hostess_ would have all the answers if anything would. But where was
_The Perfect Hostess_ hiding?

She began to make another search for it. But _The Perfect Hostess_
seemed to be a canny book. It was nowhere she looked, not in the parlor
nor in the hallway nor in the bookcases, which she explored in the vain
hope that some spasm of neatness had struck her son.

"The little silly must have put it in his own room," she muttered
finally. She climbed the stairs to look there.

It was not on any of the shelves with his games or his other books. But
when she lifted his pillow, she saw it at last. She opened the cover,
and her library card stared her in the face. Then the book opened to
the middle, apparently of its own accord, and a dirty thumbprint looked
up at her. Obviously, James had been reading _The Perfect Hostess_.
What on earth had got into him to do it?

At that moment she heard the front door slam, and the next moment he
was bouncing up the stairs. She turned around and faced him sternly.
"James, what do you mean by hiding this book? You told me you put it in
the parlor."

He said hoarsely, "Look, Mother," and made a sudden motion with his
right hand. Carrie felt her eyes glazing when suddenly the front door
bell rang. That roused her. She closed her eyes and shook her head. For
a moment she had had the queerest feeling.

James said, "Mother--please, mother," and made the same motion again.

This time it was a bellowing voice that saved her. "_Vegetables!_" it
called. The voice's owner had grown impatient of waiting and had opened
the front door. "_Vegetable order!_"

James was about to make the motion a third time when Carrie acted.
Whatever possessed her to do such a thing she didn't know. It was as if
some hidden person had given her a command and she had misunderstood
it. She slapped his face as hard as she could, and James fell back on
the bed. She stood there, horrified at herself, when for a third time
the voice called, "_Vegetables! Say, lady, I can't stand here waitin'
all day!_"

She ran down the stairs and said breathlessly, "Put them down. I'll pay
you tomorrow. I have no time now. Please come back tomorrow. No, wait.
Stay here for just another minute, and yell 'Vegetables' again after I
go back upstairs."

Then she ran upstairs again, leaving him scratching his head in
bewilderment.

James was picking himself off the bed, looking more frightened than
angry. He made a motion with his hand once more, but uncertainly this
time and Carrie did not let him finish it. She didn't even need the cry
of, "_Vegetables!_" to save her. She leaped at him and held his hands
down to his sides. Then she tried to tie him down with a pillow case.
James was strong for his age and he struggled hard but she was more
desperate than he and she won.

"Stay there," she ordered. Then she picked up the book again.

"_The Perfect Hypnotist_," she read. "By William Haskins. 2083. U. S.
Govt. Press."

Why--_2083_ was the date of publication, wasn't it? Impossible! The
book had been handed out by mistake, of course, for _The Perfect
Hostess_, but _2083_--incredible. It wasn't due to be written and
published for another hundred years. You just couldn't confuse a book
with something so far from coming into existence.

       *       *       *       *       *

In a trance, she turned the page. "Hypnotism is no subject for the
uninitiated," she read. "It is a useful but at the same time a most
dangerous weapon in the arsenal of psychological treatment. The
enormous advances made in the past century, especially from 1978
on...." The past century--the more than a century yet to come, she
thought.

Impossible, she told herself again. This was _not_ published in 2083.
Or rather, it _wouldn't_ be published until 2083. Why, the important
discoveries wouldn't begin to be made until 1978. Then, what was it
doing here?

"This book is therefore not meant for general circulation and should be
kept out of the hands of all but qualified medical men...."

It should, should it? She looked at the list of chapters. _Hypnotism,
General_--_Hypnotism, Direct_--_Hypnotism at One Remove_--_Hypnotism
at Second Remove_--_Specifically Directed Hypnotic Acts_--_Generally
Directed Hypnotic Conduct_--_Hypnotism as Therapy_--_Mass
Hypnosis_--_Hypnotism via Electromagnetic Waves_--_Reverse
Electromagnetic Effect_....

The list was incredible. The book looked thin enough, but there were
over a thousand pages in it. It was full of information. Too full.

She still didn't understand how it had got to the library shelves
but at least one thing was clear. James must have started reading it
that very first day when he had got it for her. He must have realized
what it was and hidden it so that he might have a chance to study it.
_Hypnotism Direct_--that had been Reardon. _Hypnotism at Second and
Third Removes_--that had been Bill acting on his office, herself
on her bridge group, Barbara on her college mates. The _Reverse
Electromagnetic Effect_--that had been all those weird happenings over
television.

She stared at her bound and gagged son. If it hadn't been for that
postcard and if she had gone for the book herself instead of sending
James, this wouldn't have happened. As it was the book had turned him
into a little monster.

Her own child! And she had thought that he was becoming such a fine
upstanding young man of late! Had he hypnotized her into thinking that?
Probably. Just as he had tried to hypnotize her again before. Let her
untie his hands and he'd snap his fingers and in a moment her eyes
would glaze....

She shuddered. She couldn't let him loose. But she couldn't leave him
there like that either. You can't keep a child bound and gagged for
the rest of his or your natural life. You can't do it for more than a
few hours. Sooner or later, even if it were only to permit him to eat,
she'd have to untie him and then....

She stared down at the book in her hands. How _had_ it got here? Had
some irresponsible person in the year 2083 or so read it, just as James
had done, and then gone around hypnotizing people at random? Perhaps
he had hypnotized someone who could operate a time machine and the
bewildered scientist had sent it backward in time.

She caught herself up short. Such speculations, to a practical woman
like Carrie, were silly. The important thing was that here, before
her, were a thousand pages of useful but dangerous information--how
dangerous she could only guess. So far James had done little actual
harm but let his resentment be aroused, let him want really to revenge
himself on some one, and he'd be the most dangerous human being alive.

Her eyes ran down the list of chapters again. They seemed endless.
_Hypnotism by Gesture_--_Hypnotism by Mechanical Means_--_Hypnotism by
Autosuggestion_--_Posthypnotic Suggestion_--and finally a whose series
on _Erasure_.

_Erasure_--that sounded interesting. What were you supposed
to erase? There were different sub-headings--_Erasure of
Susceptibility_--_Erasure of Specific Directives_--_General Erasure_.

She sat down and read with a concentration she had not shown in years.

Two hours later she thought she knew what to do. First she did what the
book said was necessary to protect herself. Then she said, "James, look
at me."

James looked and she began to erase. An hour later she decided he was
safe and untied him.

Then she sat down and wrote Barbara a letter. She knew that
after Barbara had read it through a few times, the first time in
bewilderment, the second and third times with a feeling of obedience,
she would follow her mother's instructions perfectly and end by
burning the letter, just as she had burned the one James sent her.

Of those most directly affected that left only Bill. Reardon? He was
all right, she thought. James had victimized him after reading no more
than the first chapter or two. He hadn't yet read enough then to be
really dangerous. But Bill....

She had a little talk with her husband directly after supper. It was
short, it was simple, it was sweet. When she had ended Bill remembered
nothing and felt fine. He _was_ fine.

There was one more chapter to apply, the one on _Autoerasure_. That
required careful planning, carefully thought-out suggestions. When she
had completed all she had ordered herself to do she threw the book
into the furnace and watched it burn, stirring the fragments to make
sure that it was completely consumed.

_All_ was forgotten. _All_ was fine. Nothing had ever happened.

A few weeks later there came a postcard. "Dear Madam," it read. "The
book, _The Perfect Hostess_, by Wilhelmina Hoskins, which is charged to
your card, is now two weeks overdue. Please return it at your earliest
convenience. There is a charge of one cent for each day overdue."

What on earth were they talking about? Carrie wondered vaguely. She
hadn't been to the library in months. "James," she called, "Did you
ever get me a library book called _The Perfect Hostess_?"

"Gosh, no, Mom," said James.