Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy

by Gardner Dozois

  Still the place was not finished. Workmen were always in the process of adding rooms, balconies, porches, turrets, whole wings; or in the process of dismantling or renovating what they had built just the month before. The construction had moved far away from the front of the house, where the widow mostly lived, but the distant sounds of saws and hammers and the men’s voices calling to one another—“Steady! Steady! Move it just a hair to the right, please, Bill”—could be heard day and night. They worked in shifts around the clock. Once a week the foremen took off their hats and gathered in the carriage entrance for payday. The widow towed from the house a child’s wagon full of heavy sacks, each full of enough gold pieces to pay each foreman’s workers the equivalent of three dollars a day. The foremen were all beefy men, but even they strained to heft the bags and tote them away. They never complained, though.

  “Aren’t you afraid?” I asked the widow, that first payday.

  “Of what, dear?”

  “Of one of those men breaking into the house, and robbing you.”

  “Oh, Pearl, you are a caution! You don’t need to worry about robbers, oh, no. Not in this house.”

  I suppose intruders would have quickly gotten lost, for many parts of the house simply did not make sense. Staircases led to ceilings and stopped. Doorways opened onto brick walls, or onto nothing, not even a balcony, just the outside air. Secret passageways no taller than the widow crisscrossed the house, so that she could pop in and out of sight without warning, as if she herself were a ghost. The widow told me the front door had never been opened, never even unlocked, since its hinges were hung.

  I found the outside of the house even more confusing. If I walked around any corner, I found arched windows, recessed balconies, turrets and witch’s caps and cupolas with red tile roofs, and miles of gingerbread trim. If I walked around the next corner, I found the same thing, only more of it. Many houses, I’m told, have only four corners to walk around, but Flatland House had dozens. Looking away from the house was no help, because no matter what direction I looked, I saw the same high cypress hedge, and beyond that, rolling hills of apricot, plum, and walnut trees stretching to the horizon. I never made it all the way around the place, but would give up and go back inside, and where I went inside always seemed to be the breakfast room, with the widow knitting in the wicker chair just where I left her. She always asked, “Did you have a good trip, dear?”

  In all those 150 rooms was not a single mirror. Which suited me just fine.

  I did get lonely sometimes. Most of the ghosts had little to say—to the living, anyway—beyond “Lovely day, isn’t it?” The few indoor servants seemed afraid of me, and none stayed in the house past sundown. The workmen I was forbidden to speak to at all.

  “Do you never have any visitors,” I asked the widow, “other than the workmen, and the ghosts, and the servants, and me?”

  “Goodness, that’s enough, wouldn’t you say? I know there are 473 ghosts, not counting the cats, and Lord only knows how many workmen coming and going. And don’t ever think of yourself as a visitor, Pearl dear. Consider this your home, for as long as you wish to stay.”

  The only ghost willing to spend time with me, other than the cats, was Mr. Dellafave. Three weeks into my stay at Flatland House, during a stroll around the monkey-puzzle tree, I asked him:

  “Mr. Dellafave, what did you do before…”

  His face had the look of someone expecting his feelings to be hurt but game not to let on.

  “…before you came here?” I finished.

  “Ah,” he said, smiling. “I worked for a bank, in Sacramento. I was a figure man. I added, mostly, and subtracted twice a week, and, on red-letter days, multiplied. Long division was wholly out of my jurisdiction, that was another floor altogether—but make no mistake, I could have done it. I was ready to serve. Had the third floor been swept away by fire or flood, the long division would have proceeded without interruption, for I’d had the training. But the crisis, like most crises, never came. I arrived at the bank every morning at eight. I went across the street to the saloon every day at noon for two eggs and a pickle and a sarsaparilla and the afternoon papers. I left the bank every day at five, and got back to the boardinghouse for supper at six. Oh, I was a clockwork, I was. ‘You can set your watch by Dellafave,’ that’s what they said at the bank and the saloon and the boardinghouse and, well, those are the only places they said it, really, because those are the only places where anyone took any notice of me at all. Certainly that streetcar driver did not. He would have rung his bell if he had; it’s in their manual. That was a sloppy business all around, frankly, a harsh thing to say, but there it is. I know the time had to have been 12:47 precisely, because I walked out of the saloon at 12:46, and the streetcar was not due to pass until 12:49. I was on schedule, but the streetcar was not. I looked up, and there it was, and I flung up my arms—as if that would have helped, flinging up my arms. When I lowered them, I was standing in what I now know as Mrs. Winchester’s potting shed. I was never an especially spiritual man, Pearl dear, but I considered myself fairly well versed on all the major theories of the afterlife…none of which quite prepared me for Mrs. Winchester’s potting shed. I didn’t even bring my newspaper.”

  “But why—”

  He held up a hand, like a serene police officer at an intersection. “I have no idea, Pearl, why I came here. None of us does. And I don’t mean to imply that we’re unhappy, for it is a pleasant place, and Mrs. Winchester is quite good to us, but our leaving here seems rather out of the question. If I were to pass through that cypress hedge over there, I would find myself entering the grounds through the hedge on the other side. It’s the same front to back, or even up and down.”

  “I guess Mrs. Winchester is the magnet, and you and the others are…”

  “The filings, yes. The tacks pulled from the carpet. I stand in the tower sometimes—if you can call it standing—and I look over all these rooftops and chimneys, all connected to the same house, and I’m forced to admit that this is more room than I allowed myself in life. If the boardinghouse were the front door of Llanada Villa, the bank would be at the carriage entrance, and the saloon would be at the third sunporch, the one that’s been walled in and gets no sun. Which is such a small fraction of the house, really. And yet the whole house feels such a small part of the Earth, and I find myself wishing that I had ventured a bit farther, when I could.”

  We walked together in silence—well, I walked, anyway—while I reflected that the owner of the house seemed quite unable to leave it herself. And what about me? Could I leave Flatland House, and were I to leave it, where would I go? Professor Van Der Ast’s seemed much farther away than a single continent.

  “You’d best get inside, Pearl. The breeze from the bay is quite damp today.”

  I moved my face toward Mr. Dellafave’s cheek, and when he began to blur, I figured I was close enough, and kissed the air.

  “Shucks,” he said, and dissipated entirely.

  I felt no bay breeze, but as I ran back to the house I clutched my shawl more tightly anyway.

  THE next day, the earthquake struck.

  The chandeliers swayed. The organ sighed and moaned. The crystal chittered in the cabinets. One nail worked its way free and rolled across the thrumming floorboards. A rumble welled up, not from below the house, but from above and around the house, as if the sound were pressing in from all sides. The ghosts were in a mad whirl, coursing through the house like a current of smoke overhead, blended and featureless but for the occasional startled face. I lurched along the walls, trying to keep my balance as I sought the exit nearest me, the front door. Once I fell and yelped as my palms touched the hot parquet.

  Plaster sifted into my eyes as I stumbled through the entrance hall. I knew my mistake when I saw that massive front door, surely locked, the key long since thrown away or hidden in a far scullery drawer of this lunatic house. If the entire edifice were to shake down and crush me, this slab of swirling dark oak would be t
he last thing standing, a memorial to Pearl.

  The grandfather clock toppled and fell just behind me, with the crash of a hundred heavy bells. I flung myself at the door and wrenched the knob. It turned easily, as if oiled every day, and I pulled the door open with no trouble at all. Suddenly all was silent and still. A robin sang in the crepe myrtle as the door opened on a lovely spring day. A tall black man in a charcoal tailcoat stood on the porch, top hat in hand, and smiled down at me.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I was beginning to fear that no one was at home. I hope my knock didn’t bring you too dreadfully far. I know this house is harder to cross than the Oklahoma Territory.”

  “Your knock?” I was too flabbergasted to be polite. “All that was your knock?”

  He laughed as he stepped inside, so softly that it was just an openmouthed smile and a hint of a cough. “That? Oh, my, no. That was just my reputation preceding me. Tell me, pray, might the mistress of the house be at home?”

  “Where else would I be, Wheatstraw?” asked the widow, suddenly at my elbow and every hair in place.

  “Hello, Winchester,” the visitor said.

  They looked at each other without moving or speaking. I heard behind me a heaving sound and a muffled clang. I turned just as the grandfather clock resettled itself in the corner.

  Then the widow and the visitor laughed and embraced. She kicked up one foot behind. Her head did not reach his chin.

  “Pearl,” the widow said, “this is Mr. Petey Wheatstraw.”

  “Pet-ER,” he corrected, with a little bow.

  “Mr. Wheatstraw,” the widow continued, “is a rogue. My goodness,” she added, as if something had just occurred to her. “How did you get in?”

  We all looked at the front door. It was closed again, its bolts thrown, its hinges caked with rust. No force short of dynamite could have opened it.

  The man Wheatstraw nodded toward me.

  “Well, I’ll be,” the widow said. “She makes as free with my house as a termite, this one does. Well, you haven’t come to see me, anyway, you old good-for-nothing,” she said, swatting him as she bustled past. “It’s a half hour early, but you might as well join us for tea.”

  Wheatstraw offered me an arm and winked. This was far too fresh for my taste, but I was too shaken by the not-quite-earthquake to care. As I took hold of his arm (oak-strong beneath the finery), I felt my muscles complain, as if I had done hard work. I looked over my shoulder at the seized-up door as Wheatstraw swept me down the hallway.

  “I heard you were here,” Wheatstraw said.

  “How?”

  “Oh, you’re a loud one, Miss Big Feet, clomp clomp clomp.” He winked again. “Or is that just your reputation I heard?”

  Something was wrong with the corridor, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Then I realized that it was empty. Everything in the house was back to normal—paintings returned to their nails, plaster returned to the walls—except the ghosts, which were nowhere to be seen. I was so used to them flitting past me and over me and through me, even gliding through my bedroom wall, then retreating with apologies, like someone who didn’t realize the train compartment was occupied, that their presence hardly bothered me at all. Their absence gave me a shiver.

  “They’ll be back after I’m gone,” Wheatstraw said.

  I laughed. “You telling me you scared off the haints? I mean, are you saying that Mrs. Winchester’s, uh, guests don’t like you?”

  “I’m sure they have nothing against me personally. How could they? Once you get to know me, I’m really a fine fellow, full of learning and grace and wit, a decent dancer, a welcome partner at whist. I never snort when I laugh or drag my shirtsleeves in the soup. No, it must be my business affiliation. The company I represent. The Old Concern. My father-in-law’s firm, actually, and my inheriting is out of the question. But these days we all must work for somebody, mustn’t we?”

  I thought of Sally Ann the Circassian Princess, and of Farethewell’s hand on mine. “True enough,” I said.

  WHEATSTRAW set down his teacup and saucer with a clatter, and said, “Well, enough chitchat. It’s question time.”

  “Oh, Petey,” the widow said. “Must you? We were having such a nice visit. Surely that can wait till later.”

  “I am in no hurry whatsoever, Winchester, but my father-in-law is another story. You might say that impatience rather defines my father-in-law. It is the cause of his, uh, present career. Pearl, please pay close attention.”

  I said nothing, having just shoved another chocolate cookie lengthwise into my mouth. I never quite realized that I was always a little hungry at Professor Van Der Ast’s, until I came to Flatland House.

  Wheatstraw rummaged in the inside pocket of his jacket and produced an atomizer. He opened his mouth and sprayed the back of his throat. “La la la la la,” he said. “La la la la laaaaa. Pitch-perfect, as ever. Winchester?” He offered her the atomizer. “Don’t, then. Now: Pearl.”

  He began to sing, in a lovely baritone:

  Oh, you must answer my questions nine

  Sing ninety-nine and ninety

  Or you’re not God’s, you’re one of mine

  And you are the weaver’s bonny.

  “Now, Pearl, when I say, ‘one of mine,’ please understand that I speak not for myself but for the firm that I represent.”

  “And when you say ‘God,’” I said, speaking carefully, “you speak of the firm that you do not represent.”

  “In a clamshell, yes. Now, if you’re quite done interrupting—”

  “I didn’t interrupt!” I interrupted. “You interrupted yourself.”

  He slapped the table. “The idea! As if a speaker could interrupt himself. Why, you might as well say that a river could ford itself, or a fence jump itself.”

  “Or a bore bore himself,” the widow said.

  “You’re not helping,” Wheatstraw said.

  “And I’m not the weaver’s bonny,” I said, becoming peevish now, “whatever a weaver’s bonny is.”

  “Well,” Wheatstraw said, “a weaver is a maker of cloth, such as aprons are made with, and gags, and a bonny is a beauty, a lovely creature, a precious thing.”

  “I don’t know any weavers,” I said, “except my friend Sally Ann taught me to sew a button. And I’m not beautiful, or lovely, or precious.”

  “Granted, that does seem a stretch at the moment,” Wheatstraw said. “But we mustn’t always take things so literally. When you say, ‘I’m a silly goose,’ you don’t mean you expect to be plucked and roasted, and when you say, ‘I’m fit to be tied,’ you aren’t asking to be roped and trussed, and when you say, ‘Well, I’m damned,’ you don’t mean…”

  His voice trailed off. A chill crept into the room. The sunlight through the bay window dimmed, as if a cloud were passing.

  “…anything, really,” Wheatstraw continued, and he smiled as the sun came out. “So, for purposes of this song, if no other, who are you?”

  I folded my arms and forced my shoulders as far as I could into the padding of the love seat and glared at Wheatstraw, determined to frown down his oh-so-satisfied smile.

  “I’m the weaver’s bonny,” I mumbled.

  Am not, I thought.

  “Fine and dandy,” Wheatstraw said. “Now, where was I? I’ll have to go back to Genesis, as Meemaw would say.” He cleared his throat.

  Oh, you must answer my questions nine

  Sing ninety-nine and ninety

  Or you’re not God’s, you’re one of mine

  And you are the weaver’s bonny.

  Ninety-nine and ninety what?, I wondered, but I kept my mouth shut.

  What is whiter than the milk?

  Sing ninety-nine and ninety

  And what is softer than the silk?

  Oh, you are the weaver’s bonny

  What is higher than a tree?

  Sing ninety-nine and ninety

  And what is deeper than the sea?

  Oh, you are the weaver’s bonn
y

  What is louder than a horn?

  Sing ninety-nine and ninety

  And what is sharper than a thorn?

  Oh, you are the weaver’s bonny

  What’s more innocent than a lamb?

  Sing ninety-nine and ninety

  And what is meaner than womankind?

  Oh, you are the weaver’s bonny.

  It was a short song, but it seemed to last a long time; as I sat there determined to resist, to be defiant and unamused, I realized I wasn’t so much listening to it as being surrounded by it, filled by it, submerged in it. I was both sleepy and alert, and the pattern in the parquet floor was full of faces, and the love seat pushed back and kneaded my shoulders, and the laces of my high-topped shoes led into the darkness like tracks in the Lookout Mountain tunnel. I could not vouch for Wheatstraw being a decent dancer as he claimed (though I suspected decent was hardly the word), but the man sure could sing. And somewhere in the second hour of the song (surely, I think now upon telling this, some lines were repeated, or extended, or elaborated upon), Wheatstraw’s voice was joined by a woman’s, his voice and hers twined together like fine rope. That voice was the widow Winchester’s: And you are the weaver’s bonny.

  I sucked air and sat up as if startled from a dream, but felt less alert than a second before. The song was over. The widow pretended to gather up the tea things, and Wheatstraw pretended to study his fingernails.