Shadowland

by Peter Straub

  'Come on up and take your seats for the boxing match,' the kindly old pharmacist called to them.

  As they left their seats, the yelling cards and trumpet-playing rubber bands and coughing jars and snoring bottles swung outward. In the middle of the stage a roped-in boxing ring was occupied by a fat cartoon man with bristling jowls and a flat, malevolent head. Boos erupted from the persistent soundtrack. The man grimaced with cartoon ferocity, beat his chest, bulged his tattooed biceps.

  'Bluto,' Del said in delight, and Tom answered, 'No, I think . . . ' He could not remember what he thought.

  A bell rang with a clear commanding insistence, and the kindly old pharmacist, now wearing a flat tweed cap and a vibrant checked jacket, called out, 'Hurry and take your seats for the first round.' They scrambled up onto the stage and got into metal camp chairs placed just outside the ring.

  'It's the big fight, you know, the dirty scoundrel's comeuppance,' said the boxing fan. He had a monocle and protruding teeth, and a voice faintly, ridiculously English. 'Now, our hero is somewhere about. . . ah, yes. Chap's a trifle late.'

  A very familiar rabbit bounded into the ring and clasped his hands together over his head to the sound of mass cheering. The villain glowered. He spat on his gloves and smacked them together. The rabbit, who was nearly as tall as the man, darted toward the villain and clasped his arms around the obese waist. He bounced a couple of feet off the canvas, then rebounded once, and then took off so powerfully that he and the villain sailed straight into the air. Tom craned his neck: the pair of them were still going up. They were just a dot in the sky. Now they were plummeting down. They were going to crash. The rabbit produced a frilled parasol and floated back to the canvas; the villain splatted down and was as flat as a dime.

  He rose up and shook out his two-dimensional body. His flesh miraculously plumped. He slavered with rage, with the brute need to punish. The rabbit circled round him, lightly dancing on his big rear paws, landing short but stinging blows. The tattooed villain cocked back a fist suddenly as large as a ham, and brought it around in a whooshing haymaker. All his upper body bulged with effort. The breeze flattened the rabbit's ears; and the wind from the punch tore at Tom's hair, tugged at his shirt.

  More than the villain's upper body must have bulged.

  The rear of his boxing shorts split with an awful rending sound, revealing polka-dot underpants. The man's face flashed bright red, red as a stop sign, and he bent forward and clasped his gloved hands over his outthrust bottom; he minced pigeon-toed around the ring, face flashing like a neon sign.

  'Bit cheeky, what?' asked the boxing fan. 'But I fancy . . . '

  Bugs, who had momentarily disappeared, now returned astride a bicycle. He wore a frock coat, a topper like the Mad Hatter's, and swung a bell in his hand. The bicycle bobbed from side to side in rhythm with the ringing of the bell. A sign around his neck read: Stychen Tyme, Instant Tailor.

  Tyme. Tom thought. Now, who . . . ? He remembered. The Reverend Mr. Tyme, speaking pompous nonsense at his father's funeral. April; the brisk wind blowing sand over the graves, bobbling the flowers. His body went cold. He was aware, as if a great distance from his own feelings, that he was horrified. It could not have been an accidental reference.

  Bugs wheeled around the tattooed man, weaving a large needle this way and that. Occasionally he touched his fingers before his face and nodded, just as the Reverend Dawson Tyme had done: Tom's outrage broke. As Bugs sewed up the villain in a cocoon of thread, he was giving a running parody of the minister's manner. He bobbed his head, shook his fuzzy jowls, looked chummy and superior and pontificating all at once — almost, Tom could smell the little minty puffs of breath.

  When the tattooed Bluto (Snail?) was invisible, tied up like a wriggling worm, Bugs jumped from his bike and set to work on it with whirring, flying hands; in a second, it stood upright in a single column, the seat supporting an open book: a lectern. Bugs bowed, knitted his hands, preached a silent sermon over the bound body — his gestures were hilariously oily. Tom felt a vast and subversive relief, seeing the Reverend Mr. Tyme par­odied so deliriously.

  'Awful old bore, isn't he?' asked the boxing fan.

  'Yes. Yes,' Tom said. This is what magic can do, it came to him: magic existed in the teeth of all the

  hypocrites and bores, in the teeth of all the proprieties too. He had scarcely ever felt so good.

  Bugs's hands went a flurrying over the bicycle again: a hammer rang, nuts and bolts flew out. Sparks sprayed comically overhead. When he raised it up, he held a rifle. Bugs ripped off the frock coat, turned it inside out, and it was a military uniform. A bugle zipped from a side pocket, and Bugs blew taps. The rifle went to his shoulder, he sighted over the bicycle seat, and fired a salute. Then he jammed the rifle barrel-first into the ground, jerked it sharply toward him, and the wrapped body fell through a trapdoor.

  The rabbit danced clog-footed for a moment, shook the rifle until it became a bicycle again, mounted and rode off until he was a speck in the misty green distance.

  'Hope you enjoyed it,' Cole Collins said.

  Tom turned euphorically toward the boxing fan and saw that now he was the magician again, in his striped suit. He looked tired and jovial: any elderly uncle showing nephew and nephew's friend a good time.

  'I see you did,' Collins said. He extended his hand and set it carefully on Tom's head. 'You wonderful child.'

  Tom's expression of joy turned rigid.

  'Do you know what day it is?'

  Tom shook his head, and the magician gently lifted his hand.

  'It is Sunday. I would be very remiss if I did not include some religious instruction in this little show. On Sundays, it is always best to display a little piety.'

  He clapped his hands, and the wing of the set before them began to revolve. The music which had buzzed cheerily about them altered; settled into a smoother, still pumping rhythm. Tom began to tap his foot, and the magician nodded approvingly.

  The set revolved completely, showing a long refectory table with wine goblets and plates; the table sat before a window showing a long green Italian distance, a brilliant sunset. Thirteen robed men sat behind the table, their heads and bodies in attitudes as familiar as the rabbit, but not as immediately recognizable.

  Del laughed out loud. Then Tom did recognize the scene and the postures — eleven men leaning or looking toward the tall bearded man in the middle, one self­consciously looking elsewhere.

  'It's that painting,' he said. Collins smiled.

  The music tightened up, became a fraction louder. A piano hit a rolling stride. The men at the table began moving their hands in unison, then rose, danced in front of the table and sang:

  La ba la ba, la ba la ba!

  La ba la ba, la ba la ba!

  We got fish for suppah,

  First one thing, then anothah,

  We got fish for suppah,

  First one thing, then anothah.

  We ain't got no menu,

  But our fish will send you.

  We got fish for suppah,

  First one thing, then anothah.

  Last night we had bread and fish,

  Tonight we got fish and bread.

  Tomorrow night we gonna change the dish,

  And have plain fish instead.

  Ah!

  We got fish for suppah,

  But first one thing, then anothah,

  We got fish for suppah,

  First one thing an' anothah.

  A saxophone slipped out from beneath a robe as easily as Bugs's bugle from his military jacket. The squat bearded man holding it breathed out a solo while others waved their hands and did a buck-and-wing. Another disciple produced a trumpet and blasted. Strutting and hand-waving from the disciples: after the chorus they all showed their teeth and shouted:

  AH!

  We got fish for suppah,

  But first one thing, then anothah,

  [the stage began to revolve again]

  We got fish for su
ppah,

  But first one thing an' anothah.

  [men and table now out of sight]

  The music had ended. They were looking at a flat black wall. 'Simple pyrotechnics,' Collins said. 'Now, would you like to advance to Level Three and fly?'

  'Oh, yes,' both boys said at once.

  14

  Then all blew away like dust, like'a dream, and it was night, much colder than before —

  and he was skimming, naked and wrapped in a fur blanket, along in a sleigh with Coleman Collins. Snow blew in a tempest about them, half-obscuring the horse ahead. They were following a track through dark trees, going up; plunging blindly on, the horse flickered gray against the surrounding white.

  The magician turned his face to Tom, and the boy shrank back against the cold metal edge of the sleigh. The face was bone, hard and white as a skull. 'I have taken you aside,' were the words that came from this appari­tion. 'Everything is just as it was, but we have stepped aside for a moment. For a private word.' The face was no longer bone, but animal — the face of a white wolf. 'I forbid you nothing. Nothing,' uttered the awful face. 'You may go anywhere — you may open any door. But, little bird, remember that you must be prepared to accept whatever you find.' The long jaws spread in a smile filled with teeth.

  The horse drove madly on through the buffeting wind and snow.

  'What night is this?' Tom cried out.

  'The same, the very same.'

  'And did I fly?'

  The wolf laughed,

  You may open any door.

  Uphill into deeper night and tearing cold; the horse working against the snow.

  'It is the same night, but six months later,' said the wolf. 'It is the same night, but in another year,' and laughed. Tom's whole body suffered wkh the cold, tried to flee back into itself.

  'Did I fly?'

  Collins said through his wolfs face, 'You are mine. Nothing that is in magic will be unknown to you, boy. For you are no one else's but mine.'

  The trees fell behind them, and they seemed to streak upward through an utter barrenness.

  We got fish for suppah: Jesus doing a buck-and-wing.

  The wolf said: 'Once I was you. Once I was Del.' He turned and grinned at the freezing boy wrapped in fur. 'But I learned from a great magician. The great magician became my partner, and together we toured Europe until he did an unspeakable thing. After he did the unspeak­able thing, we could no longer remain together — we had become mortal enemies. But he had taught me all he knew, and I too was a great magician by then. So I came here, to my kingdom.'

  'Your kingdom,' Tom said.

  The wolf ignored him. 'He taught me to do one thing in particular. To put a hurtin' on things. His words. He spoke that way. And finally I put a hurtin' on him.' The long teeth glittered.

  'Did you put a hurtin' on the train?' Tom asked.

  The wolf lashed the horse: not a wolf, but a man with a wolfs head. 'No one but you will understand your future. You will be as the man who brings forth diamonds, and they say, is this pitch? You will be as he who brings forth wine, and they say, is this sand?' The long snout swiveled toward Tom. 'When that happens, boy, put a hurtin' on them.'

  The horse reached the top of the rise and halted. It steamed in the frigid air, hanging its neck. Tom saw foam spring out on the horse's flanks.

  'Look down,' the figure beside him commanded.

  Tom looked over the steaming, foaming horse into a long white vista. The land dropped, the green firs re­sumed. At the bottom of the valley lay a frozen lake. Above it, on the far end, Shadowland sat on its cliff like a jeweled dtollhouse. Its windows gleamed.

  'Pretend that is the world. It is the world. It can be yours. Everything in the world, every treasure, every satisfaction, is there.

  'Look.'

  Tom looked toward the shining house and saw a naked girl in an upper window. She raised her arms and stretched: he could not see her. anything like as clearly as he wished, but what he saw was like a finger laid against his heart. Shock and tenderness vibrated together in his chest. Seeing the girl was nothing like looking at nude photographs in a magazine — those acres of spongy flesh had only a fraction of the voltage this girl sent him.

  'And look.'

  At another window men gambled: one player raked in a huge pile of bills and coins. Tom looked back to see the girl, but where she had been was only incandescent brightness. Are you his too, Rose?

  'And look,' the man with the wolfs face commanded.

  Another window: a boy opening a tall door, hesitating for a moment, outlined in light, then suddenly engulfed in light. Tom understood that this boy — himself? — was un­dergoing an experience of such magnitude,.such joy, that his imagination could only peer at its dimmest edge; swallowed by light, the boy, who might be himself, had found an incandescence and beauty greater than the girl's — so great that the girl must be a part of it.

  'And now look,' he was commanded.

  In the gleam of another window he saw only an empty bright room with green walls. The column of a pillar. The big theater.

  Then he saw himself flow past the window, many feet above the ground. His body sailed past, must have turned in the air, floated before the window again and spun over as easily as a leaf.

  'I did,' he breathed, not even feeling the cold now.

  'Of course you did,' the magician said. 'Alis volat propriis.'

  Laughter boomed from the magician, from the hillside, from the valley, from even the steaming horse and the frigid air.

  'Don't wait to be a great man . . . ' came the magi­cian's floating voice, and Tom lapsed back and fell through the fur and metal, falling through the hillside and the laughing horse and the wind.

  ' . . . be a great bird.'

  He remembered.

  In the big green room. Coleman Collins before himself and Del, saying, 'Sit on the floor. Close your eyes. Count backward with me from ten. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. You are at peace, totally relaxed. What we do here is physiologically impossible. So we must train the body to accept the impossible, and then it will become possible.

  'We cannot breathe in water. We cannot fly. Not until we find the secret muscles that enable us to do so.

  'Spread, your hands, boys. Spread your arms. I want you to see your shoulders in your minds. See those muscles, see those bones. Think of those shoulders opening, opening . . . think of them opening out.'

  Tom remembered . . . saw what he had seen. His muscles flaring and widening, something new and reckless moving in his mind.

  'When I say one, you will inhale; when I say two, you will exhale and think very calmly about rising an inch or two above the floor. One.'

  Tom remembered filling his chest with air: the new sensation in his mind began to burn bright yellow.

  'Two.'

  Within the memory of the theater, another memory bloomed: Laker Broome crazily sweeping through aisles of boys in chapel, jabbing his finger, shouting. Hatred filled him, and he pushed all the air from his lungs. The wooden floor had seemed to tremble beneath him.

  'Just let your mind roam,' came the strong quiet voice.

  He had seen himself floating up like a helium-filled balloon: then he had again seen. Laker Broome standing like an actor before the smoke-filled auditorium, giving him useless orders; seen the Reverend Mr. Tyme prancing at his father's funeral; seen Del, levitating in a dark bedroom. Then he had seen the most disturbing images of all, tanks and soldiers and bloody corpses and women with the heads of beasts all lacquered on a ceiling above him, images filled with such horror and disgust that they seemed to whirl about the image of a man in belted raincoat and wide-brimmed hat who made them dance. . . .

  Why, yes, he had thought. Like that. And suddenly weightless, had rolled over on his back and not touched the ground. His mind felt like fire.

  Then another image rammed into his mind, even more horrifying than the last: he saw the auditorium full of boys and masters, himself and Del onstage as Flanagini and Night
. He was far above them all, and his eyes hurt, his head was bursting with pressure. His long spidery body felt as though needles had pierced it. He was seeing with Skeleton Ridpath's eyes, and his body was Skeleton's, just before the fire.

  He had collapsed heavily onto the wooden floor. Blood burst from his nose.

  'So now you see,' Collins had whispered to him.

  'Don't you know now that you could breathe in water?' Collins said. Tom's whole body ached; the cold tore at him.

  'The secret is hate,' Collins said mildly. 'Rather, the secret lies in hating well. You have the germ of quite a good hater in you.'

  Tom tugged the fur robe more tightly about him. His ears were cold enough to drop from his head.

  'I want to show you one thing more, little friend.'

  'But I didn't really fly,' Tom said. 'I just went up . and I rolled over — '

  'One thing more.'

  The icy wind ripped at them, and pulled Collins' face back into the wolfs visage. He snapped his whip up into the air, hauled at the reins with his other hand, and cracked the whip down as the horse plunged around in the snow.

  When the whip landed, the horse screamed and took off downhill like a cannonball. The wolf-face turned and grinned at him just as the wind blurred Tom's eyes, and the world turned as misty as the walls of the big theater. Tom pulled the fur robe up over his face and inhaled its cold, dusty, slightly gamy aroma until he felt the sleigh begin to slow down.

  They were on level ground. A wide plain of snow lay in moonlight like a room without walls. In the center of the plain stood a tall burning building.

  Tom stared at the blazing building as they drew nearer to it: burning, it seemed to diminish in size. They trotted ten feet nearer, close enough now to feel the heat pouring from the blaze.

  'Do you recognize it?'

  'Yes.'

  'Get out of the sleigh,' the magician ordered. 'Walk closer to it.'

  He did not move at first, and Collins clutched one of his elbows through the robe and yanked him across his body and dumped him out into the snow. The robe slithered, and Tom snatched at it to keep its warmth about him. He stood up; his burning feet barely cracked the snow's hard surface.