Shadowland

by Peter Straub

  8

  Go to sleep, boy. Tom found himself back on the train going north from Boston. Coleman Collins, not Del, sat beside him, saying, 'Of course, this isn't your train. This is Level One.'

  'Trance,' Tom said. 'Voice.'

  'That's right. Wonderful memory. While we're here, I want to thank you for all you've done for Del. He's needed someone like you for a long time.'

  A wave of sick feeling, disguised as friendliness, flowed from the magician, and Tom knew he was in deeper trouble than any the troll-like men could have caused him.

  'Would you like to see Ventriloquism? That's fun. I always enjoy Ventriloquism.' He smiled down at the boy as they swayed along in the crowded train. 'This is all very elementary, of course. I hope you'll stay long enough for me to show you some of the more difficult things. It's all within your power, I assure you.' 'We'll be with you all summer.' 'Two and a half months is not long enough, little bird. Not nearly. Now. Where should that voice come from? Up there, I fancy.' He lifted his distinguished face and nodded at a grille set in the car's ceiling.

  Instantly a hysterical voice crackled out: 'EMER­GENCY! EMERGENCY! BRACE YOURSELVES AGAINST THE SEAT IN FRONT OF YOU! BRACE YOURSELVES. . . '

  The magician was gone. A fat woman in the aisle beside Tom's seat shrieked; she had been holding a paper carton containing several cups of coffee. As she shrieked, the coffee sailed upward, spinning into the air.

  Now many were shrieking. Tom folded his head down between his knees and felt hot coffee spattering his back. The jolt knocked him off the seat entirely, and the noise of the wreck was a nail driven into his eardrums. He could see the woman staggering backward down the aisle, her face caught in an expression between terror and dismay. The railroad car lifted its nose into the air and began to tilt sideways. 'They broke my leg!' a man yelled. 'Jeeesus!' His yell was the last thing Tom heard before the sound of an explosion going off loud as a bomb a short distance down the track. 'Light,' came the voice of the magician. A shattering burst of whiteness, caused by another explosion, flashed through the car. Inches from Tom's head, a Dixie cup shot up into flame. Tom batted it away, but could not see where it went. 'Jeesus!' screeched the man with the broken leg. The uptilted car swayed far over to the right and began to topple.

  All about Tom, who was now lying faceup in the aisle, the burns on his back singing like an open wound, people groaned and screamed: the car sounded like a burning zoo.

  He gripped one of the seat supports and thought: I'm going to die here. Didn't a lot of people die?

  When the car struck the ground, the screams inten­sified, became almost exalted.

  9

  Tom opened his eyes. He was lying in the hollow where Pease and Thorn and the others had labored over their badger-baiting. Coleman Collins, looking ruddy and healthy and ten years younger in his outdoorsy clothes, took a pull off a bottle and winked at him from where he sat beside the shredded mound.

  'That wasn't just magic,' Tom said.

  'What is 'just magic'?' The magician smiled at him. 'I'm sure there is no such thing. But you went to sleep. I imagine that you were dreaming.' He lifted a knee and extended an arm along it. He looked like a scoutmaster having a chat around the fire with a favored boy.

  'I was up there — ' Tom pointed. 'You said, 'All right. You've had your blood.' Then you saw me. And you said, 'There's another one to throw in the pit. Go to sleep, boy.''

  'Now I know you are tired,' Collins said, leaning against what was left of the mound. 'You have had a very long day. I promise you, I never said any of those things.'

  'Where are all the others?' Tom sat up and looked around the clearing. Firelight showed a mound of earth where the pit had been.

  'There are no others. There is just you and me. Which is, I assume, what you wanted.'

  'Mr. Peet,' Tom insisted. 'He was here. And a lot of others — with funny names, like a bunch of trolls. Thorn and Snail and Rock and Seed . . . You were all trying to get a badger to come out of its house. There were two dogs — Mr. Peet shot one of them.'

  'Did he, now?' The magician shifted his position against the mound and looked indulgently toward Tom.

  'I assumed that you followed me because you wanted to talk. You disobeyed me, that is true. But any good magician knows when to break the rules. And in doing so you demonstrated courage and intelligence, I thought — you were curious, you wanted to see what the terrain was like.'

  Terrain meant more than the land they sat on. Tom nodded.

  'I think also you must have read some of my posters — relics of my public career. Isn't that right?'

  'I noticed them,' Tom admitted. He thought he trusted Coleman Collins less than anyone else on earth.

  'You will hear all about it — this is to be the summer of my unburdening.' Collins drew up his knees and looked soberly at Tom over their tops, where he had knit his hands together. Suddenly he reminded Tom of Laker Broome. 'As for now, I want to say something about Del. Then there is a story I want you — only you — to hear. Then it will finally be your bedtime.

  'My nephew has had an unsettled life. He was on the verge of flunking out of Andover when the Hillmans moved. Now, you may not think much of the Hillmans — you see, I am being very frank with you — but for all their faults, they want to protect Del. And he does need protection. Without a good anchor, without a Tom Flanagan, he will pound himself against the rocks. He needs all my help, all your help too. Watch out for him. But also watch him.'

  'Watch him?'

  'To make sure he does not go off the deep end. Del does not have your healthy relationship with the world.' He drew his knees in tighter. 'Del stole that owl from Ventnor School. Had you guessed?'

  'No,' Tom said.

  'I heard about the theft from the Hillmans. They know he took it, too. But they did not want him expelled from yet another school.'

  'Another boy took it. Some kids saw him do it.'

  'Del wanted another boy to take it. Del is a magician too: a better one than he knows, though nothing like the magician you could be. Del stole that owl, no matter whose hands were around it. Watch out for Del. I know my nephew.'

  'That's plain crazy,' Tom said, though a tiny area of doubt had just opened up within him. 'And here's something else that's crazy — all that stuff about my being better than Del. Del is better than I'll ever be. Magic is all he really cares about.'

  'He is better at things you will learn very quickly. But you have within you powers you know nothing of, my bird.' He looked at Tom with a kind of fatherly omni­science. 'You are not convinced. Would you like proof, before your story? You would?' He turned his head. 'There is a fallen log over there — see it? I want you to pick it up.' When Tom began to stand, he said, 'Stay where you are. Pick it up with your mind. I will help you. Go on. Try it.'

  Tom saw the edge of the log just protruding into the clearing. It was one that Thorn had not thrown on the fire, perhaps three feet long, dry and gnarled. He thought of a pencil on his desk, jerking itself upward, at the end of one of Mr. Fitz-Hallan's classes.

  'Are you afraid to try?' Collins asked. 'Humor me. Inside yourself, say, Log, go up. And then imagine it lifting. Please try. Prove me wrong.'

  Tom wanted to say, I won't, but realized how childish it would sound. He closed his eyes and said to himself, Log, go up. He peeked: the log reassuringly sat on the grass.

  'I didn't know you were a coward,' said the magician.

  Tom kept his eyes open and thought about the end of the log rising. Still it did not move. Log, go up, he said to himself. Log, go up! The end of the log twitched, and he stared at Collins' amused face. 'A mouse?' said the magician. Up! Tom thought, suddenly full of rage, and knowing that it would not move. UP!

  But the log obediently stood on end, as if someone had pulled a wire. UP! It rose and wavered in the air; then Tom felt a wave of helpless blackness invading his mind like nausea, and the log began to spin over and over, accelerating until it blurred. No. Enough, Tom said in his m
ind, and the log thumped back down on the grass. He looked at it in dumb shock. His eyes hurt; his stomach felt as though he had eaten spiders. He wanted to run — he feared that he would be sick. He heard handclaps, and saw that Collins was applauding. 'You did that,' Collins said, and Tom's mouth tasted black.

  'I just gave you the tiniest nudge, remarkable boy. Now, listen to the story. One day in a forest, a sparrow joined another sparrow on a branch. They discussed sparrow matters for a time, brightly, inconsequentially, as sparrows do, and then the second sparrow said, 'Do you know why frogs jump and why they croak?' 'No. And I don't care,' said the first sparrow. 'After you know, you'll care,' his companion promised. And this is what he told him. But I shall tell it my way, not the sparrow's.'

  Tom saw the log whirling wildly, sickly, in midair.

  10

  'The Dead Princess'

  A long time ago, when we all lived in the forest and none of us lived anywhere else, a group of sparrows was flying across the deepest and darkest part of the wood, aimlessly flying far from their normal haunts until they began their search for food.

  As sparrows do, they paid little attention to anything, and were content to wrangle and chatter with each other, zipping here and darting there, commenting. 'It's quiet,' said one sparrow, and another answered, 'Yes, but it was much quieter yesterday,' and another promptly dis­agreed — and soon they were all agreeing or disagreeing.

  Finally they circled through the air above the trees, listening to see how quiet things really were, in order to argue about it more accurately. The sparrows were now, as they had not properly realized before, almost over the palace of the king who ruled all that part of the forest. And there was no noise at all.

  Which was odd indeed. For if the forest was normally full of noises the sparrows had known all their lives, the palace was a virtual beehive — horses trampling in their stables, the dogs woofing in the courtyards, the servants gossiping in the open spaces. Not to mention the pots rattling in the kitchen, the banging from the palace workshops, the bing bing bing of the blacksmith . . . Instead of all these sounds the sparrows should have heard, only silence met their ears.

  Now, sparrows are as curious as cats, so naturally they all flew down to have a look — they had forgotten all about their argument. Down they came, and down, and down, and still they heard no noise. 'Let's get away,' said one of the younger sparrows. 'Something terrible has hap­pened here, and if we get too close, it may happen to us as well.'

  Of course no one paid any attention. Down they came, down, down, until they were within the walls of the palace. Some sat on the windowsills, some on the cob­blestones, some on the rain gutters, some on the stable doors; and the only sounds they heard were those they made themselves.

  Then they saw why. Everything else in the palace was asleep. The horses slept in the stables, the servants slept leaning against walls, the dogs slept in the courtyards. Even the flies on the doorknobs slept.

  'A curse, a curse!' shouted the young sparrow. 'Let us go, let us go now, or we shall be just like them.'

  'Stop that, now,' said one of the oldest sparrows, for he had finally heard something. This was the faint sound of a human voice, and not just anybody's, but the king's. Woe is me, woe is me — that was what the king was saying to himself far up in one of the turrets, so despairingly that all of the sparrows immediately felt sad in sympathy.

  Then another, very brave sparrow heard another sound. Someone was pacing up and down in the long building beside them. He slipped around the door to see who besides the king was left awake. The sparrow saw a long dusty room with an enormous table right in its center. Beams of light filtered down from the ranks of high windows, each falling in turn upon the back of a woman in a long rich gown who was slowly moving away from him. When she reached the rear of the dining room, for that was what the brave sparrow had entered, she turned about all unseeing and came back toward him. She wrung her hands together; she worked and knotted her brows. The sparrow's whole little heart went out to her, and he thought that if he could help this distraught beautiful lady in any way, he would do it on the spot. Of course, he knew that she was the queen — sparrows are intensely conscious of rank. When she saw him standing before the door, he cocked his head and looked at her with a glance so intelligent and kindly that she stopped in her tracks.

  'Oh, little sparrow,' the queen said, 'if you only understood me.' The sparrow cocked his head even farther. 'If you understood me, I would tell you of how our daughter, Princess Rose, sickened and died. And of how her death took all the life from the palace — from our kingdom too, little sparrow. I would tell you of how all the animals first fell asleep, so soundly that we could not awaken them, and then of how all the people but the king and I succumbed to the same illness and fell asleep where they stood. And most of all, little sparrow, I would tell you of how the death of my daughter is causing the death of the kingdom, for as you see us now, we are surely all dying, every one, in palace and in forest, king and commoner, wolf and bear, horse and dog. Ah, I almost think you understand me,' she said, and turned her back on the sparrow and continued her sad pacing. The sparrow nipped around the heavy oaken door and joined his fellows. He whistled to them all to be quiet, and then told them exactly what the queen had said. When he had finished, one of the older sparrows said, 'We must do something to help.'

  'Us? Us? Help?' the younger sparrows all began to twitter, hopping about in agitation. For it was one thing to witness interesting and entertainingly tragic events, an­other to try to do something about them.

  'Of course we must help,' said the oldest sparrow.

  'Help? Us?' the youngest sparrows twittered. 'What can we do?'

  'There is only one thing we can do,' said the oldest sparrow. 'We must go to the wizard.'

  Now, that really pitched them into consternation, and there was a lot of hopping about and quarreling. Even the youngest sparrows had heard of the wizard, but they had certainly never seen him. Besides that, the very mention of him frightened them. One thing everybody knew about the wizard was that while he was fair, he always made you pay for any favor he did you.

  'It is the only thing,' said the oldest sparrow.

  Where does he live? Is it far? Can we find him? Does he still live? Will we get lost? A thousand chirping questions.

  'I once saw where he lived,' said the oldest sparrow. 'And I believe that I can find it again. But it is a long way away, clear across the forest and on the other side.'

  'Then let us follow you now,' said the brave sparrow, and they all lifted up and circled away from the dreadful quiet of the palace.

  For hours they flew over the thick trees and wide meadows of the forest, over foaming rivers and wandering valleys. Over the caves of bears and the dens of foxes, over hollow logs where ants dozed, over packs of wild ponies asleep on rock cliffs.

  Finally they saw a little curl of smoke coming up through the heads of the trees, and the oldest sparrow said, 'That is the wizard's house.' And they began to circle down, down, down through the trees. And finally saw a nondescript little wooden house with two little windows set beside the front porch.

  One by one the sparrows landed on a branch outside one of the windows; when the branch was so full of sparrows it bent, they landed on the next higher; and so on, until sparrows filled the entire tree. Then they all began to sing at once.

  The door of the little wooden cottage opened, and the wizard stepped out into the light. He was an old, old man, with skin the color of milk. The dark robes he wore were covered with the moon and stars; once they had been impressive, but now the robes were so threadbare you could see the fabric right through the stars. He looked up at the tree with his clear old eyes and said, 'I see that the sparrows have come to visit. What do they want, I wonder?'

  Then the oldest sparrow looked at the brave sparrow, and this fellow spoke up — his voice may have trembled, because the wizard frightened him, and now that they were actually here he wished they were somewhere el
se, but he told the wizard the entire story, just as the queen had told it to him.

  'I see,' the wizard said. 'And you wish me to give life back to Princess Rose?'

  'That is right,' said the sparrows.

  'It is not difficult,' said the wizard, 'but you must agree to sacrifice something before I will do it.'

  Then all the sparrows began to chirp and protest.

  'Would you give up your wings?'

  Another loud wave of twittering. 'No, that is impossi­ble,' said the oldest sparrow. 'Without our wings we could not fly.'

  'Would you give up your feathers?'

  The sparrows' noises were even louder after this ques­tion. 'No, we cannot,' said the oldest sparrow. 'Without our feathers, we would freeze to death in the winter.'

  'Would you give up your song?'

  The sparrows were quiet for a moment, and then burst out louder than before. 'Yes,' the sparrows said. 'That will be our sacrifice.'

  'It is done,' said the wizard. 'Return to the palace.'

  As one bird, their nervousness giving them added speed, they lifted off the tree and wheeled about over the wizard's cottage and began the long flight across the forest.

  Hours later, when they reached the palace, all was as it had been — all the inhabitants of the palace save the queen and king still slept. The sparrows looked at each other uneasily, wondering if the wizard would take their sacri­fice but give nothing in return.

  Then, from down under the palace, they heard a dusty little voice calling: Momee! Daddee! Momee! Daddee!

  And a great wooden door set right down into the ground opened up, and a little girl wandered out, rubbing her eyes.

  So the horses woke up in the stables, the dogs woke up in the courtyards, the flies spun awake off the doorknobs, the servants stirred and yawned; and in the deep forest, foxes too yawned and stretched, bears shook their mas­sive heads, wolves stirred beneath trees. At that instant every sparrow in the palace began to feel a transformation within himself: just as if a cold hand had thrust itself down in their innards and were moving bits and pieces about. Their minds grew fuzzy; their bodies plumped out, altered in substance, their beaks softened and spread, their feet grew.