Something Wicked This Way Comes (10 page)

    The freaks exhaled.

    The old old man sighed.

    Yes, Will thought, they're breathing for him, helping him, making him to live.

    Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale - yet it looked like an act. What could he say, or do?

    '. . .lungs so. . .so. . .so. . .' someone whispered.

    The Dust Witch, back in her glass box?

    Inhale. The freaks breathed. Exhale. Their shoulders slumped.

    The old old man's lips trembled.

    '. . .heart beat. . .one. . .two. . .so. . .so. . .'

    The Witch again? Will feared to look.

    A vein ticked a small watch in the old man's throat.

    Very slowly now that right eye of the old man opened full wide, fixed, stared like a broken camera. It was like looking through a hole in space, with no bottom forever. He grew warmer.

    The boys, below, grew colder.

    Now the old and terribly-wise-with-nightmare eye was so wide and so deep and so alive all to itself in that smashed porcelain face that there at the bottom of the eye somewhere the evil nephew peered along and out at the freaks, internes, police, and. . .

    Will.

    Will saw himself, saw Jim, two little pictures posed in reflection on that single eye. If the old man blinked, the two images would be crushed by his lid!

    The Illustrated Man on his knees, turned at last and gentled all with his smile.

    'Gentlemen, boys, here indeed is the man who lives with lightning!

    The second policeman laughed; this motion shook his hand off his holster.

    Will shuffled to the right.

    The old spittle-eye followed sucking at him with its emptiness.

    Will squirmed left.

    As did the phlegm that was the old man's gaze, while his chill lips peeled wide to shape, reshape an echoed gasp, a flutter. From deep below the old man bounced his voice ricocheting off the dank stone walls of his body until it fell out his mouth:

    '. . .welcome. . .mmmmmm. . .'

    The words fell back in.

    'well. . .cummm. . .mmmm. . .'

    The policemen nudged each other with identical smiles.

    'No!' cried Will, suddenly. 'That's no act! He was dead! He'd die again if you cut the power - !'

    Will slapped his own hand to his mouth.

    0 Lord, he thought, what am I doing? I want him alive, so he'll forgive us, let us be! But, oh Lord, even more I want him dead, I want them all dead, they scare me so much I got hairballs big as cats in my stomach!

    'I'm sorry. . .he whispered.

    Don't be!' cried Mr Dark.

    The freaks made a commotion of blinks and glares. What next from the statue in the cold sizzling chair? The old old man's one eye gummed itself. The mouth collapsed, a bubble of yellow mud in a sulphur bath.

    The Illustrated Man banged the switch a notch grinning wildly at no one. He thrust a steel sword in the old man's empty glove-like hand.

    A drench of electricity prickled from the sere music-box tines of the ancient stubbled cheeks. That deep eye showed swift as a bullet hole. Hungry for Will, it found and ate of his image. The lips steamed:

    'I. . .sssaw. . .the. . .boysssssss. . .ssssneak into. . . hee tent. . .tttttt. . .'

    The desiccated bellows refilled, then pin-punctured the swamp air out in faint wails:

    '. . .We. . .rehearsing. . .sssso I thought. . .play. . .thissss trick. . .pretend to be. . .dead.'

    Again the pause to drink oxygen like ale, electricity like wine.

    '. . .let myself fall. . .like. . .I. . .wasssss. . .dying. . .The. . .boysssssssss. . .ssscreaming. . .ran!'

    The old man husked out syllable on syllable.

    'Ha.' Pause. 'Ha.' Pause. 'Ha.'

    Electricity hemstitched the whistling lips.

    The Illustrated Man coughed gently. 'This act, it tires Mr Electrico. . . .'

    'Oh, sure.' One of the policemen started. 'Sorry.' He touched his cap. 'Fine show.'

    'Fine,' said one of the internes.

    Will glanced swiftly to see the interne's mouth, what it looked like saying this, but Jim stood in the way.

    'Boys! A dozen free passes!' Mr Dark held them out. 'Here!'

    Jim and Will didn't move.

    'Well?' said one policeman.

    Sheepishly, Will reached up for the flame-coloured tickets, but stopped as Mr Dark said, 'Your names?'

    The officers winked at each other.

    'Tell him, boys.'

    Silence. The freaks watched.

    'Simon,' said Jim. 'Simon Smith.

    Mr Dark's hand, holding the tickets, constricted.

    'Oliver,' said Will. 'Oliver Brown.'

    The Illustrated Man sucked in a mighty breath. The freaks inhaled! The vast ingasped sigh might have, seemed to, stir Mr Electrico. His sword twitched. Its tip leaped to spark-sting Will's shoulder, then sizzle over in blue-green explosions at Jim. Lightning shot Jim's shoulder.

    The policemen laughed.

    The old old man's one wide eye blazed.

    'I dub thee. . .asses and foolssssss. . .I dub. . .thee. . .Mr Sickly. . .and. . .Mr Pale. . . !'

    Mr Electrico finished. The sword tapped them.

    'A. . .sssshort. . .sad life. . .for you both!'

    Then his mouth slit shut, his raw eye glued over. Containing his cellar breath, he let the simple sparks swarm his blood like dark champagne.

    'The tickets,' murmured Mr Dark. 'Free rides. Free rides. Come any time. Come back. Come back.'

    Jim grabbed, Will grabbed the tickets.

    They jumped, they bolted from the tent.

    The police, smiling and waving all around, followed at their leisure.

    The internes, not smiling, like ghosts in their white suits, came after.

    They found the boys huddled in the back of the police car.

    They looked as though they wanted to go home.

She could feel the mirrors waiting for her in each room much the same as you felt, without opening your eyes, that the first snow of winter has just fallen outside your window.

    Miss Foley had first noticed, some years ago, that her house crowded with bright shadows of herself. Best, then, to was ignore the cold sheets of December ice in the hall, above the bureaus, in the bath. Best skate the thin ice, lightly. Paused, the weight of your attention might crack the shell. Plunged through the crust, you might drown in depths so cold, so remote that all the Past lay carved in tombstone marbles there. Ice water would syringe your veins. Transfixed at the mirror sill you would stand forever, unable to lift your gaze from the proofs of Time.

    Yet tonight, with the echo of the running feet of the three boys dying away, she kept feeling snow fall in the mirrors of her house. She wanted to thrust through the frames to test their weather. But she was afraid that doing this might cause all the mirrors to somehow assemble in billionfold multiplications of self, an army of women marching away to become girls and girls marching to become Infinitely small children. So many people, crammed in one house, would provoke suffocation.

    So what must she do about mirrors, Will Halloway, Jim Nightshade, and. . .the nephew?

    Strange. Why not say my nephew?

    Because, she thought, from the first when he came in the door, he didn't belong, his proof was not proof, she kept waiting for. . .what?

    Tonight. The carnival. Music, the nephew said, that must be heard, rides that must be ridden. Stay away from the maze where winter slept. Swim around with the carousel where summer, sweet as clover, honey-grass, and wild mint, kept its lovely time.

    She looked out at the night lawn from which she had not yet retrieved the scattered jewels. Somehow she guessed this was a way the nephew had of getting rid of the two boys who might stop her using this ticket she took from the mantel:

    CAROUSEL. ADMIT ONE.

    She had waited for the nephew to come back. With time passing, she must act on her own. Something must be done not to hurt no, but slow down interference from such as Jim and Will. No one must stand between her and nephew, her and carousel, her and lovely gliding ride-around summer.

    The nephew had said as much, by saying nothing, by just holding her hands, and breathing baked-apple-pie scent from his small pink mouth upon her face.

    She lifted the telephone.

    Across town she saw the light in the stone library building, as all the town had seen it, over the years. She dialled. A quiet voice answered. She said:

    'Library? Mr Halloway? This is Miss Foley. Will's teacher. In ten minutes, please, meet me in the police station. . . .Mr Halloway?'

    A pause.

    'Are you still there. . .?

'I'd have sworn,' said one interne. 'When we first got there. . .that old man was dead.

    The ambulance and the police car had pulled up at the same moment at the crossroads, going back into town. One of the intermes had called over. Now one of the policemen called back:

    'You're joking!

    The internes sat in their ambulance. They shrugged.

    'Yeah. Sure. Joking.'

    They drove on ahead their faces as quiet and white as their uniforms.

    The police followed, with Jim and Will huddled in back, trying to say more, but the police started talking and laughing, retelling everything that happened to one another, so Will and Jim wound up lying, giving wrong names again, saying they lived around the comer from the police station.

    They let the police drop them at two dark houses near the station and they ran up on those porches and grabbed the doorknobs and waited for the prowl car to swing off around the corner into the station, and then they came down and followed and stood looking at the yellow lights of the station all sun-coloured at midnight and Will glanced over and saw the whole evening come and go in Jim's face and Jim watching the police station windows as if at any moment darkness might fill every room and put the lights out forever.

    On my way back into town, thought Will, I threw away my tickets. But  - look. . .

    Jim still has his, in his hand.

    Will trembled.

    What did Jim think, want, plan, now that dead men lived and only lived through the fire of white-hot electric chair machines? Did he stiff very much love carnivals? Will searched. Faint echoes, yes, they came, they went in Jim's eyes, for Jim, after all, was Jim, even standing here with the calm light of Justice falling on his cheekbones.

    'The Chief of Police' Will said. 'He'd listen to us - '

    'Yeah,' said Jim. 'He'd wake just long enough to send for the butterfly net. Hell, William, hell, even I don't believe what's happened the last twenty-four hours.'

    'But we got to find someone higher up, keep trying, now we know what the score is.'

    'Okay, what's the score? What's the carnival done so bad? Scared a woman with a mirror maze? So, she scared herself the police'd say. Burgled a house? Okay, where's the burglar? Hiding inside an old man's skin? Who'd believe that? Who'd believe an old old man was ever a boy of twelve? What else is the score? Did a lightning-rod salesman disappear? Sure, and left his bag. But he could've left town - '

    'That dwarf in the side-show - '

    'I saw him, you saw him, looks kinda like the lightning-rod man, sure, but again, can you prove he was ever big? No, just like you can't prove Cooger was ever small, so that leaves us right here, Will, on the sidewalk, no proof except what we saw, and us just kids, the carnival's word against ours, and the police had a fine time anyway there. Oh gosh, it's a mess. If only, if only there was still some way to apologize to Mr Cooger - '

    'Apologize?' Will yelled. 'To a man-eating crocodile? Jehoshaphat! You still don't see we can't do business with those ulmers and goffs!'

    'Ulmers? Goffs?' Jim gazed upon him thoughtfully, for that was how the boys talked of the creatures who dragged and swayed and slumped through their dreams. In the bad dreams of William, the 'ulmers' moaned and gibbered and had no faces. In the equally bad dreams of Jim, the 'goffs', his peculiar name for them, grew like monster meringue-paste mushrooms, which fed on rats which fed on spiders which fed, in turn, because they were large enough, on cats.

    'Ulmers! Goffs!' said Will. 'You need a ten-ton safe to fall on you? Look what happened to two folks already, Mr Electrico, and that terrible crazy dwarf! All kinds of things can go wrong with people on that darn machine. We know, we seen it. Maybe they squashed the lightning-rod man down that way on purpose, or maybe something went wrong. Fact is, he wound up in a wine press anyway, got run over by a steam-roller carousel and's so crazy now he doesn't even know us! Ain't that enough to scare the Jesus out of you, Jim? Why, maybe even Mr Crosetti - '

    'Mr Crosetti's on vacation.'

    'Maybe yes, maybe no. There's his shop. There's the sign: CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF ILLNESS. What kind of illness, Jim? He eat too much candy out at the show? He get seasick on everybody's favourite ride?'

    'Cut it, Will.'

    'No, sir, I won't cut it. Sure, sure, the merry-go-round sounds keen. You think I like being thirteen all the time? Not me! But for cri-yi, Jim, face it, you don't really want to be twenty!'

    What else we talked about all summer?'

    'Talk, sure. But throwing yourself head first in that taffy machine and getting your bones pulled long, Jim, you wouldn't what to do with your bones then!'

    'I'd know,' said Jim, in the night. 'I'd know.'

    'Sure. You'd just go away and leave me here, Jim.'

    'Why,' protested the other, 'I wouldn't leave you, Will. We'd be together.'

    'Together? You two feet taller and going around feeling your leg-and-arm-bones? You looking down at me, Jim, and what'd we talk about, me with my pockets full of kite-string and marbles and frog-eyes, and you with clean nice and empty pockets and making fun, is that what we'd talk, and you able to run faster and ditch me - '

    'I'd never ditch you, Will - '

    'Ditch me in a minute. Well, go on, Jim, just go on leave me because I got my pocket knife and there's nothing wrong with me sitting under a tree playing mumblety-peg while you get yourself plain crazy with the heat of all those horses racing around, but thank God they're not racing any more - '

    'And it's your fault!' cried Jim. He stopped.

    Will stiffened and made fists. 'You mean I should've let young mean-and-terrible get old mean-and-terrible enough to chew our heads off? Just let him ride around and hock his spit in our eye? and maybe you with him, waving good-bye, going around again, waving so long! and all I got to do is wave back, Jim, that what you mean?'

    'Sh,' said Jim. 'Like you say, it's too late. The carousel's broke - '

    'And when it's fixed, they ride old horrible Cooger back, make him young enough so he can speak and remember our names, and then they come like cannibals after us, or just me, if you want to get in good with them and go tell them my name and where I live - '

    'I wouldn't do that, Will.' Jim touched him.

    'Oh, Jim, Jim, you do see, don't you? Everything in its time, like the preacher said only last month, everything one by one, not two by two, will you remember?'

    'Everything, ' said Jim, 'in its time. . .'

    And then they heard voices from the police station. In one of the rooms to the right of the entrance, a woman was talking now, and men were talking.

    Will nodded to Jim and they ran quietly over to pick their way through bushes and look into the room.

    There sat Miss Foley. There sat Will's father.

    'I don't understand,' said Miss Foley. 'To think Will and Jim would break in my house, steal, run off - '

    'You saw their faces?' asked Mr Halloway.

    'When I screamed, they looked back under the light.' She's not mentioning the nephew, thought Will. And she won't, of course.

    You see, Jim, he wanted to shout, it was a trap! The nephew waited for us to come prowling. He wanted to get us in so much trouble, no matter what we said to anybody, police, parents, that nobody'd listen to us about carnivals, late hours, merry-go-rounds, because our word'd be no good!

    'I don't want to prosecute,' said Miss Foley. 'But if they are innocent, where are the boys?'

    'Here!' someone cried.

    'Will!' said Jim.

    Too late.

    For Will had jumped high and was scrambling through the window.

    'Here,' he said, simply, as he touched the floor.