Twisting, he fell-jumped to the floor.
The boys, kicking, yelling, fell with him. They landed on their feet, toppled, collapsed, to be held, reared, set right, fistfuls of their shirts in Mr. Dark’s fists.
“Jim!” he said. “Will! What were you doing up there, boys? Surely not reading?”
“Dad!”
“Mr. Halloway!”
Will’s father stepped from the dark.
The Illustrated Man rearranged the boys tenderly under one arm like kindling, then gazed with genteel curiosity at Charles Halloway and reached for him. Will’s father struck one blow before his left hand was seized, held, squeezed. As the boys watched, shouting, they saw Charles Halloway gasp and fall to one knee.
Mr. Dark squeezed that left hand harder and, doing this, slowly, certainly, pressured the boys with his other arm, crushing their ribs so air gushed from their mouths.
Night spiraled in fiery whorls like great thumbprints inside Will’s eyes.
Will’s father, groaning, sank to both knees, flailing his right arm.
“Damn you!”
“But,” said the carnival owner quietly, “I am already.”
“Damn you, damn you!”
“Not words, old man,” said Mr. Dark. “Not words in books or words you say, but real thoughts, real actions, quick thought, quick action, win the day. So!”
He gave one last mighty clench of his fist.
The boys heard Charles Halloway’s finger bones crack. He gave a last cry and fell senseless.
In one motion like a solemn pavane, the Illustrated Man rounded the stacks, the boys, kicking books from shelves, under his arms.
Will, feeling walls, books, floors fly by, foolishly thought, pressed close. Why, why, Mr. Dark smells like… calliope steam!
Both boys were dropped suddenly. Before they could move or regain their breath, each was gripped by the hair on their head and roused marionettes—wise to face a window, a street.
“Boys, you read Dickens?” Mr. Dark whispered. “Critics hate his coincidences. But we know, don’t we? Life’s all coincidence. Turn death and happenstance flakes off him like fleas from a killed ox. Look!”
Both boys writhed in the iron-maiden clutch of hungry saurians and bristly apes.
Will did not know whether to weep with joy or new despair.
Below, across the avenue, passing from church going home, was his mother and Jim’s mother.
Not on the carousel, not old, crazy, dead, in jail, but freshly out in the good October air. She had been not a hundred yards away in church during all the last five minutes!
Mom! screamed Will, against the hand which, anticipating his cry, clamped tight to his mouth.
“Mom,” crooned Mr. Dark, mockingly. “Come save me!”
No, thought Will, save yourself, run!
But his mother and Jim’s mother simply strolled content, from the warm church through town.
Mom! screamed Will again, and some small muffled bleat of it escaped the sweaty paw.
Will’s mother, a thousand miles away over on that side-walk, paused.
She couldn’t have heard! thought Will. Yet—
She looked over at the library.
“Good,” sighed Mr. Dark. “Excellent, fine.”
Here! thought Will. See us, Mom! Run call the police!
“Why doesn’t she look at this window?” asked Mr. Dark quietly. “And see us three standing as for a portrait. Look over. Then, come running. We’ll let her in.”
Will strangled a sob. No, no.
His mother’s gaze trailed from the front entrance to the first-floor windows.
“Here,” said Mr. Dark. “Second floor. A proper coincidence, let’s make it proper.”
Now Jim’s mother was talking. Both women stood together at the curb.
No, thought Will, oh, no.
And the women turned and went away into the Sunday-night town.
Will felt the Illustrated Man slump the tiniest bit.
“Not much of a coincidence, no crisis, no one lost or saved. Pity. Well!”
Dragging the boys’ feet, he glided down to open the front door.
Someone waited in the shadows.
A lizard hand scurried cold on Will’s chin.
“Halloway,” husked the Witch’s voice.
A chameleon perched on Jim’s nose.
“Nightshade,” whisked the dry-broom voice.
Behind her stood the Dwarf and the Skeleton, silent, shifting, apprehensive.
Obedient to the occasion, the boys would have given their best stored yells air, but again, on the instant recognizing their need, the Illustrated Man trapped the sound before it could issue forth, then nodded curtly to the old dust woman.
The Witch toppled forward with her seamed black wax sewn-shut iguana eyelids and her great proboscis with the nostrils caked like tobacco-blackened pipe bowls, her fingers tracing, weaving a silent plinth of symbols on the mind.
The boys stared.
Her fingernails fluttered, darted, feathered cold winter-water air. Her pickled green froes breath crawled their flesh in pimples as she sang softly, mewing, humming, glistering her babes, her boys, her friends of the slick snail-tracked roof, the straight-flung arrow, the stricken and sky-drowned balloon.
“Darning-needle dragonfly, sew up these mouths so they not speak!”
Touch, sew, touch, sew her thumbnail stabbed, punched, drew, stabbed, punched, drew along their lower, upper lips until they were thread-pouch shut with invisible thread.
“Darning needle-dragonfly, sew up these ears, so they not hear!”
Cold sand funneled Will’s ears, burying her voice. Muffled, far away, fading, she chanted on with a rustle, tick, tickle, tap, flourish of caliper hands.
Moss grew in Jim’s ears, swiftly sealing him deep.
“Darning needle-dragonfly, sew up these eyes so they not see!”
Her white-hot fingerprints rolled back their stricken eyeballs to throw the lids down with bangs like great tin doors slammed shut.
Will saw a billion flashbulbs explode, then suck to darkness while the unseen darning-needle insect out beyond somewhere pranced and fizzed like insect drawn to sun-warmed honeypot, as closeted voice stitched off their senses forever and a day beyond.
“Darning-needle dragonfly, have done with eye, ear, lip and tooth, finish them, sew dark, mound dust, heap with slumber sleep, now tie all knots ever so neat, pump silence, in blood like sand in river deep. So. So.”
The Witch, somewhere outside the boys, lowered her hands.
The boys stood silent. The Illustrated Man took his embrace from them and stepped back.
The woman from the Dust sniffed at her twin triumphs, ran her hand a last loving time over her statues.
The Dwarf toddled madly about in the boys’ shadows, nibbling daintily at their fingernails, softly calling their names.
The Illustrated Man nodded toward the library. “The janitor’s clock. Stop it.”
The Witch, mouth wide, savoring doom, wandered off into the marble quarry.
Mr. Dark said: “Left, right. One, two.”
The boys walked down the steps, the Dwarf at Jim’s side, the Skeleton at Will’s.
Serene as death, the Illustrated Man followed.
Chapter 44
Somewhere near, Charles Halloway’s hand lay in a white-hot furnace, melted to sheer nerve and pain. He opened his eyes. At the same moment he heard a great breath as the front door swung shut and a woman’s voice came singing in the hall:
“Old man, old man, old man, old man…?”
Where his left hand should be was this swelled blood pudding which pulsed with such ecstasies of pain it fed forth his life, his will, his whole attention. He tried to sit up, but the pain hammerblowed him down again “Old man…?”
Not old! Fifty-four’s not old, he thought wildly.
And here she came on the worn stone floors, her moth-fingers tapping, scanning braille book titles, as her nostrils siphoned the
shadows.
Charles Halloway hunched and crawled, hunched and crawled, toward the nearest stack, cramming pain back with his tongue. He must climb out of reach, climb where books might be weapons flung down upon any night-crawling pursuer…
“Old man, hear you breathing…”
She on his tide, let her body be summoned by every sibilant hiss of his pain.
“Old man, feel your hurt…”
If he could fling the hand, the pain, out the window where it might lie beating like a heart, summoning her away, tricked, to go seek this awful fire. Bent in the street, he imagined her brisking her palms at this throb, an abandoned chunk of delirium.
But no, the hand stayed, glowed, poisoned the air, hurrying the strange nun-Gypsy’s tread as she gasped her avaricious mouth most ardently.
“Damn you!” he cried. “Get it over with! I’m here!”
So the Witch wheeled swift as a black clothes dummy on rubber rollers and swayed over him.
He did not even look at her. Such weights and pressures of despair and exertion fought for his attention, he could only free his eyes to watch the inside of his lids upon which multiple and ever changing looms of terror jigged and gamboled.
“Very simple.” The whisper bent low. “Stop the heart!”
Why not, he thought, vaguely.
“Slow,” she murmured.
Yes, he thought.
“Slow, very slow.”
His heart, once bolting, now fell away to a strange, ease, disquiet, then quiet, then ease.
“Much more slow, slow…” she suggested.
Tired, yes, you hear that, heart? he wondered.
His heart heard. Like a tight fist it began to relax, a finger at a time.
“Stop all for good, forget all for good,” she whispered.
Well, why not?
“Slower… slowest.”
His heart stumbled.
And then for no reason, save perhaps for a last look around, because he did want to get rid of the pain, and sleep was the way to do that… Charles Halloway opened his eyes.
He saw the Witch.
He saw her fingers working at the air, his face, his body, the heart within his body, and the soul within the heart. Her swamp breath flooded him while, with immense curiosity, he watched the poisonous drizzle from her lips, counted the folds in her stitch-wrinkled eyes, the Gila monster neck, the mummy-linen ears, the dry-rivulet riversand brow. Never in his life had he focused so nearly to a person, as if she were a puzzle, which once touched together might show life’s greatest secret. The solution was in her, it would all spring clear this moment, no, the next, no, the next, watch her scorpion fingers! hear her chant as she diddled the air, yes, diddled was it, tickling, tickling, “Slow!” she whispered. “Slow!” And his obedient heart pulled rein. Diddle-tickle went her fingers.
Charles Halloway snorted. Faintly, he giggled.
He caught this. Why? Why am I… giggling… at such a time!?
The Witch pulled back the merest quarter inch as if some strange but hidden electric light socket, touched with wet whorl, gave shock.
Charles Halloway saw but did not see her flinch, sensed but seemed in no way to consider her withdrawal, for almost immediately, seizing the initiative, she flung herself forward, not touching, but mutely gesticulating at his chest as one might try to spell an antique clock pendulum.
“Slow!” she cried.
Senselessly, he permitted an idiot smile to balloon itself up from somewhere to attach itself with careless ease under his nose.
“Slowest!”
Her new fever, her anxiety which changed itself to anger was even more of a toy to him. A part of his attention, secret until now, leaned forward to scan every pore of her Halloween face. Somehow, irresistibly, the prime thing was: nothing mattered. Life in the end seemed a prank of such size you could only stand off at this end of the corridor to note its meaningless length and its quite unnecessary height, a mountain built to such ridiculous immensities you were dwarfed in its shadow and mocking of its pomp. So with death this near he thought numbly but purely upon a billion vanities, arrivals, departures, idiot excursions of boy, boy-man, man and old-man goat. He had gathered and stacked all manner of foibles, devices, playthings of his egotism and now, between all the silly corridors of books, the toys of his life swayed. And none more grotesque than this thing named Witch Gypsy Reader-of-Dust, tickling, that’s what! just tickling the air! Fool! Didn’t she know what she was doing! He opened his mouth.
Of itself, like a child born of an unsuspecting parent, one single raw laugh broke free.
The Witch swooned back.
Charles Halloway did not see. He was far too busy letting the joke rush through his fingers, letting hilarity spring forth of it’s own volition along his throat, eyes squeezed shut; there it flew, whipping shrapnel in all directions.
“You!” he cried, to no one, everyone, himself, her, them, it, all. “Funny! You!”
“No,” the Witch protested.
“Stop tickling!” he gasped.
“Not!” she lunged back, frantically. “Not! Sleep! Slow! Very slow!”
“No tickling is all it is, for sure,” he roared. “Oh, ha! Ha, stop!”
“Yes, stop heart!” she squealed. “Stop blood.” Her own heart must have shaken like a tambourine; her hands shook. In mid-gesticulation she froze and became, aware of the silly fingers.
“Oh, my God!” He wept beautiful glad tears. “Get off my ribs, oh, ha, go on, my heart!”
“Your heart, yesssssss!”
“God!” He popped his eyes wide, gulped air, released more soap and water washing everything clear, incredibly clean. “Toys! The key sticks out your back! Who wound you up!?”
And the largest roar of all, flung at the woman, burnt her hands, seared her face, or so it seemed, for she seized herself as from a blast furnace, wrapped her fried hands in Egyptian rags, gripped her dry dugs, skipped back, gave pause, then started a slow retreat, nudged, pushed, pummeled inch by inch, foot by foot, clattering bookracks, shelves, fumbling for handholds on volumes that thrashed free as she scrambled them down. Her brow knocked dim histories, vain theories, duned-up time, promised but compromised years. Chased, bruised, beaten by his laugh which echoed, rang, swam to fill the marble vaults, she whirled at last, claws razoring the wild air and fled to fall downstairs.
Moments later, she managed to cram herself through the front door, which slammed!
Her fall, the door slam, almost broke his frame with laughter.
“Oh God, God, please stop, stop yourself!” he begged of his hilarity.
And thus begged, his humor let be.
In mid-roar, at last, all faded to honest laughter, pleasant chuckling, faint giggling, then softly and with great contentment receiving and giving, breath, shaking his happy-weary head, the good ache of action in his throat and ribs, gone from his crumpled hand. He lay against the stacks, head leaned to some dear befriending book, the tears of releaseful mirth salting his cheeks, and suddenly knew her gone.
Why? he wondered. What did I do?
With one last bark of mirth, he rose up, slow.
What’s happened? Oh, God, let’s get it clear! First, the drug store, a half-dozen aspirin to cure this hand for an hour, then, think. In the last five minutes you did win something, didn’t you? What’s victory taste like? Think!
Try to remember!
And smiling a new smile at the ridiculous dead-animal left hand nested in his right crooked elbow, he hurried down the night corridors, and out into town…
III
Departures
Chapter 45
The small parade moved, soundless, past the eternally revolving, ending-but-unending candy serpentine of Mr. Crosetti’s barber pole, past all the darkening or darkened shops, the emptying streets, for people were home now from the church suppers, or out at the carnival for the last side show or the last high-ladder diver floating like milkweed down the night.
Will’s feet, far
away below, clubbed the sidewalk. One, two, he thought, someone tells me left, right. Dragonfly whispers: one-two.
Is Jim in the parade?! Will’s eyes flicked the briefest to one side. Yes! But who’s the other little one? The gone-mad, everything’s-interesting-so-touch-it, everything’s red-hot, pull-back, Dwarf! Plus the Skeleton. And then behind, who were all those hundreds, no, thousands of people marching along, breathing down his neck?
The Illustrated Man.
Will nodded and whined so high and silently that only dogs, dogs who were no help, dogs who could not speak, might hear.
And sure enough, looking obliquely over, he saw not one, not two, but three dogs who, smelling the occasion, their own parade, now ran ahead, now fell behind, their tails like guidons for the platoon.
Bark! thought Will, like in the movies! Bark, bring the police!
But the dogs just smiled and trotted.
Coincidence, please, thought Will. Just a small one!
Mr. Tetley! Yes! Will saw-but-did-not-see Mr. Tetley! Rolling the wooden Indian back into his shop, closing for the night!
“Turn heads,” murmured the Illustrated Man.
Jim turned his head. Will turned his head.
Mr. Tetley smiled.
“Smile,” murmured Mr. Dark.
The two boys smiled.
“Hello!” said Mr. Tetley.
“Say hello,” someone whispered.
“Hello,” said Jim.
“Hello,” said Will.
The dogs barked.
“A free ride at the carnival,” murmured Mr. Dark.
“Free ride,” said Will.
“At the carnival!” cracked Jim.
Then, like good machines, they shut up their smiles.
“Have fun!” called Mr. Tetley.
The dogs barked joy.
The parade marched on.
“Fun,” said Mr. Dark. “Free rides. When the crowds go home, half an hour from now. We’ll ride Jim round. You still want that, Jim?”
Hearing but not hearing, locked away in himself, Will thought, Jim, don’t listen!
Jim’s eyes slid: wet or oily, it was hard to tell.
“You’ll travel with us, Jim, and if Mr. Cooger doesn’t survive (it’s a near thing for him, we haven’t saved him yet, we’ll try again now) but if he doesn’t make it, Jim, how would you like to be partners? I’ll grow you to a fine strong age, eh? Twenty-two? twenty-five?”. Dark and Nightshade, Nightshade and Dark, sweet lovely names for such as we with such as the side shows to run around the world! What say, Jim?”
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