him to withdraw from school. The narrator spends
the next few years in various parts of Europe living
a dissolute lifestyle of drink and gambling, con-
stantly pursued by his former victim. At last there is
a confrontation at a party, followed by a sword fight
in which he kills his doppelgänger and realizes that
by doing so he has also killed himself. Whether the
blood is literally his and he has committed suicide,
or whether by killing the other man he has become
a murderer is never revealed with certainty.
The story can be interpreted in various fash-
ions. At one extreme, the entire sequence of
events may be a product of Wilson’s guilty imagi-
nation. Although there are indications that the
external world does recognize his alter ego’s exis-
tence, we have only the narrator’s word for that
corroborative evidence. Certainly he has led a life
of such dishonor and dissolution that it is entirely
possible his guilt has become on some level un-
bearable. At the opposite extreme, the second Wil-
son may have been intended as his double from the
outset, sent by some unknown power to balance
his life and to bring retribution. A third interpreta-
tion is that the two were, in fact, originally distinct
individuals, although through luck and coinci-
dence very similar in appearance, and that their
childhood rivalry caused the second Wilson to imi-
tate his tormentor so completely that some sort of
physical and metaphysical change did, in fact, take
place, making the two somehow one. Regardless of
the interpretation, the story remains one of the
most effective tales of psychological horror ever
written.
“The Willows”Algernon Blackwood(1907)
The possibility that the world is not what it seems,
that we are not as much in control of human des-
tiny as we think we are, has appealed to horror and
science fiction writers as diverse as H. P. LOVE-
CRAFTand Robert A. Heinlein. This early story by
the British writer Algernon BLACKWOODis one of
the earliest and most effective to suggest that we
may share the planet with beings so far in advance
of ourselves that we can only perceive faint hints
of their existence and that we would be better off if
we avoided being noticed in return. It was almost
certainly an influence on Lovecraft’s Cthulhu
Mythos stories, which in turn have inspired scores
of other writers.
The unnamed narrator and his friend, identi-
fied only as the Swede, are taking a prolonged trip
by canoe down the Danube and have reached a
relatively unpopulated part of Hungary when a vi-
olent storm threatens to swamp their small boat.
Despite warnings from the few people they en-
counter, they choose to shelter on a large island
covered by willow trees, even after the narrator
senses an unspecific psychic menace. As the hours
pass the sense of danger grows much stronger, per-
ceived by both, although in different ways. One
has a vision in the darkness of a long stream of
nonhuman intelligences rising from the ground to
disappear into the sky and suspects that the wil-
lows have actually moved, encroaching on their
camp. The Swede keeps his own counsel, but it is
evident that he has also been affected by the atmo-
sphere of the island.
The threat in this story is not directly inimical.
It is so different from humans that motivations are
impossible to perceive. On the one hand, they are
unwelcome on the island, but on the other, events
conspire to prevent them from leaving. Their
canoe is sabotaged, and their minds are affected so
that they are hesitant to attempt an escape. The
Swede is convinced that a sacrifice is required,
while the narrator is less certain. Their escape is
equally subject to chance. Another man passes
through the area and is killed under mysterious cir-
cumstances. Blackwood’s story is frightening not so
much because of what happens as because of what
it suggests, that on a cosmic scale, the fate of indi-
vidual humans, or humanity as a whole, may not
be particularly significant.Wilson, F. Paul(1946– )
The physician and writer F. Paul Wilson began
publishing science fiction in the early 1970s and
wrote primarily in that field for the next 10 years.
His first significant book outside the genre was The
Keep (1981), a clever and very tautly written
thriller set during World War II. In German occu-
pied eastern Europe a unit of military and gestapo
officials occupy a decaying castle as their tempo-
rary base, but some of the soldiers disturb magical384 “The Willows”