The Magic Spectacles

by James P. Blaylock

  After a moment John realized that Mr. Deener wasn’t going to say anything.

  “So you’ve moved out here?” John said.

  “I’ve moved back home,” said Mr. Deener. He said it in a flat sort of voice, almost an echo. There didn’t seem to be anything much left inside him. He was like the flowers on the table. He had the appearance of Mr. Deener, but everything that ought to have been inside him had leaked out, into the marbles and goblins and henny-pennies.

  Mrs. Deener came into the room. She was pleasant looking and smiling, still wearing the yellow potholder gloves. But she didn’t seem to see anybody but Mr. Deener. He took the plate of food she gave him and said thank you, and then he put it down on the little table next to his chair. It was pork chops and mashed potatoes and cauliflower. All of it was covered with gravy that was perfectly white.

  Mr. Deener scooped up a fork full of potatoes and poked it at his mouth. The potatoes blinked away and were gone, just like that, into nothing. He nodded, though, as if he liked the mouthful of air that he had eaten, and he forked up some cauliflower, which also disappeared. He had the look on his face of someone who hadn’t eaten in ten years, but who had suddenly remembered how food used to taste, back in the good old days.

  He cleaned his plate that way. When he was done there wasn’t even a spot of gravy left. It was cleaner even than if Ahab had been at it. Mrs. Deener came back in and took the plate away, and Mr. Deener said the food was “delicious.” Then he went back to staring out the window.

  “Come with us” Polly said.

  Mr. Deener sat staring, his mind gone to the moon. “I’m home,” he said finally. “I’ve come home to stay.”

  “Mrs. Barlow’s been making doughnuts,” Danny said.

  “Mrs. Barlow?” said Mr. Deener, as if he barely remembered Mrs. Barlow, maybe from a dream.

  “Yeah,” John said. “You remember Mrs. Barlow – cakes, doughnuts, cookies, pies “. …

  Mr. Deener didn’t say anything for a long minute. Then he said, “I…I used to like a doughnut.”

  “Let’s all go for a nice walk,” Polly said. “We’ll find you a doughnut.”

  Mr. Deener didn’t budge.

  “Mrs. Deener could come along,” said John. “Maybe she’d like to come up to Aunty Flo’s for dessert.”

  Mr. Deener seemed to be made of stone. They could hear the sound of running water and of plates clanking together in the sink.

  “We were hoping to have another go at the moon ladder,” John said. “Or maybe you could try something else. I know, maybe you could make a flying carpet or build a moon car out of tin cans or something.”

  “Or maybe we could skate home on doughnut grease,” Danny said. “Maybe we could all put on nightshirts and catch dead fish out of a dead river. What did you do that was so bad, anyway? Why don’t you just forget about it?”

  Mr. Deener’s eyes were shut. Out in the kitchen, Mrs. Deener suddenly started to sing. She got the words wrong, started over, and then got the words wrong again. Mr. Deener squished his face up, looking as if he were going to pop. Suddenly there was a furious clanking noise from the sink as if an octopus were washing dishes, banging them all together at once. A tea kettle started to whistle. Pan lids rattled. Cupboard doors opened and closed with a bang. There was an orchestra of kitchen noises, and Mrs. Deener’s voice, singing like a madwoman.

  “There’s nobody in the kitchen!” Danny shouted in a voice even louder than all of Mrs. Deener’s noises. “There isn’t even a kitchen!”

  Mr. Deener smashed himself into his chair, remembering harder and harder. All at once there was the smell of flowers in the room, and the bouquet on the table stirred just a little, as if in a wind. The whole house was growing more solid. Colors were brightening. The tea kettle screeched. Suddenly they could hear heavy footsteps in the bedroom. It was Mrs. Deener in there too, moving around. There she was again, sewing something in the den. She was here, she was there – disappearing in one room, reappearing in another. The whole house, and Mr. Deener too, seemed ready to boil over.

  Suddenly, without warning, Danny snatched the bag of memories off Mr. Deener’s lap, turned around, and ran toward the front door.

  Chapter 17: The End of Mrs. Deener

  “What!” Mr. Deener shouted, leaping from his chair and holding onto his hat. “Stop! Thief!” He gestured helplessly and took a half step forward.

  Danny pulled open the door and stood there, ready to run. “Come on and get them!” he shouted, holding up the bag.

  “Yeah!” John said. “Go get him, Mr. Deener!”

  Polly grabbed Mr. Deener’s arm and tugged on it, trying to pull him forward. “Don’t be a chicken!” she yelled. “Don’t just give up!”

  But all of the fire went out of Mr. Deener’s eyes, and he slumped back down in the chair like a heap of wet ashes and began muttering. The smell of the flowers faded, the tea kettle hissed and fell silent, the light in the room dimmed.

  Mrs. Deener floated out of the kitchen, drifting past them like an airborne jellyfish. Her feet were three or four inches from the floor. Her head was cocked over sideways and her eyes were nearly closed. She sailed in through the den door, and John heard her bumping around among pieces of furniture. There was a heavy thud, as if she had knocked finally into the wall.

  Out over the sea the sun turned dark. The house fell into shadow. John could see stars shining overhead, right through the ceiling – stars that were perfectly round, like glass marbles, like holes cut out of a black paper sky.

  After a time, Mr. Deener began to hum. He sat up a bit straighter, and his fingers traced patterns on the arm of his chair. Slowly the darkness lifted. He hummed louder. The sun shone again. The walls of the house turned solid. The stars disappeared. He began to sing a song without words, but with a lot of tum-tee, tum-tee, turns. The tea kettle started up and Mrs. Deener reappeared in the den door, still floating, but with her eyes wide open now. She waved her potholder-covered hands like a dancing puppet as she headed back in toward the kitchen. Her jaw clacked up and down, and a hollow-sounding noise came out of her throat.

  “Would…you…like…sup-per…Art-ty?” she croaked, hovering in the air behind his chair. “Some… nice… white… grave-ey… and… spuds?”

  Mr. Deener nodded happily and said, “Why, yes, my dear,” without looking around, and she drifted on into the kitchen where pots and pans immediately began clanking and the oven door banged open and shut like the windblown doors in the cave with the shadow in it. “I love a mashed spud,” Mr. Deener said, smacking his lips.

  “Let’s get out of here,” John said. He shuddered. This was worse than he had imagined. They weren’t going to talk Mr. Deener into anything. His head was full of pond water, like one of the jars out on the back lawn.

  “Come on,” John said, and he and Polly went out through the door, following Danny. “I’ve got an idea,” he said when they were out on the front walk again.

  (Chapter 17 continues after illustration)

  “Good,” Danny said. “What is it? I hope it’s not a moon car built out of tin cans again. That was one of the dumbest. …”

  “Never mind that,” John said “I’ll show you what it is.” He headed around the side of the house, toward the back yard where Mrs. Barlow’s china plates were lined up on the lawn, one after another. “Watch this,” he said, and he jumped on one of the plates, cracking it in half. He knew what needed to be done. Mr. Deener didn’t need his sympathy any more. Mr. Deener didn’t need anybody’s sympathy. Mrs. Barlow was right. He needed someone to shout into his ear and wake him up.

  “All right!” Danny said. “Now you’re talking!” And he swung the flour bag full of marbles, knocking apart the pyramid of jars.

  Polly picked up a plate and zingoed it off across the lawn and into the ocean, and John kicked another like a football. Danny picked up two more and banged them together like cymbals. They went after the rest of the bottles of pond water and mint tea next, unscrewing th
e lids and dumping water out onto the lawn. Right then Ahab came running from the woods. There were a dozen henny-pennies on his back. Two more rode on his head, steering him by pulling on his ears. They ran through a glass bowl full of green cheese, knocking it flying, then kicked over the jars of glass chips. Other henny-pennies threw stones at mirrors and glass bottles and swung like apes on the strings of prisms until they came clattering down in a heap.

  Mrs. Barlow got up from her bench to help. “That’s it!” she shouted. “Wreck the house! We’ll fix his wagon! Well clean his plow!” She picked up the last whole plate and held onto it, keeping it safe while she watched the rest of them destroy Mr. Deener’s apparatus.

  The web of light that encircled the house shimmered and shuddered. The air was full of the noise of tea kettles and slamming cupboard doors. Pink soap bubbles poured out of every window, bursting in the air. The chimney faded and vanished, and the roof along with it. The garage blinked away. The windows were nothing but dark holes, and the wood siding on the house seemed to crumble into termite dust and blow away on the sea wind.

  In the space of a few moments, the whole house was gone, and Mr. Deener sat smashed into his favorite chair, holding onto the stuffed arms of the thing as if he were holding onto a rowboat on a tossing sea. The ghost of Mrs. Deener drifted back and forth where the kitchen had been, moving her arms as if she were still opening cupboard doors and stirring pans on the stove.

  Slowly she lost all color and substance, and the grass and sky and sea shone through her. There was a small pop, like the bursting of one last soap bubble, and then there was nothing left of her but an apron and two potholders floating over the meadow.

  Chapter 18: The Marbleston Pie

  The sea wind caught the apron and the potholders and blew them away over the treetops like leaves, and the last little bits of Mrs. Deener were gone. For some reason Mrs. Barlow was crying again. A half hour ago she had been sad that Mrs. Deener had come back; now she seemed to be sad that Mrs. Deener was gone. She looked out at where Mr. Deener sat alone in the wind, heaved a great sigh, wiped her eyes, and took the bag of memories from Danny.

  “I’ve been saving them up,” she said, looking into the bag, “so that the Deener can one day have them back, when he’s ready for them. Maybe I kept them too long.” She caught sight then of the doughnut monocle in John’s hand and asked, “What’s that thing?”

  “That’s what’s left of the magic spectacles,” John said, holding it in the air like a sceptre. “We took it from the goblins.” “Keep it safe,” she said. “We might need it yet.”

  “Let me carry it,” Danny said, taking the doughnut monocle. John let him have it without arguing.

  Mrs. Barlow stood thinking, then held the bag of memories up and looked at it, then stood thinking again. Finally she shrugged her shoulders and pointed at the ocean. “Fetch me a pile of periwinkles off the rocks. And while you’re at it, bring me the Deener’s hat. I’ll get things going back in the woods. We’ll give it one last try.” She walked away then, still deep in thought.

  “His hat?” Danny said to John.

  “Periwinkles?” Polly asked.

  John shrugged. Mr. Deener sat now on top of a moss-covered rock in the grass. His chair was gone. His eyes were still smashed shut. His hair stuck straight out under the brim of his hat. The henny-pennies landed on his shoulders and tugged on his ears. One of them climbed up onto his nose and pushed one of his eyelids open as if he were opening a garage door. Ahab licked his face.

  “Mr. Deener!” John shouted.

  He wouldn’t budge.

  The henny-pennies yammered at him with their tiny voices, and Mr. Deener clapped his hands over his ears, nearly squashing one of the little men. He kept his hands there, pressing out the sound of their yelling.

  They swarmed around, shouting “Deener! Deener! Deener!” but Mr. Deener might as well have been a lump of painted chalk.

  The wind blew off the ocean, and the sun and the moon hung in the sky, unmoving. It was as if the world was stopped dead. Goblin steam rose out of the hilltop behind them, and the door to the caves stood open. There was a rumbling back in the hills, as if the ground was unsettled, and the sound of the waves rose and faded as if it came from a radio and someone were turning the volume up and down. The land passed in and out of shadow, even though there were no clouds in the sky. Mr. Deener sat there as ever, seeing and hearing nothing. Mrs. Barlow waved at them from up at the edge of the forest. She pointed to her head.

  “Oh, yeah,” John said, “his hat.” He shrugged, there was no use asking for it. He simply reached out and took it.

  Mr. Deener clapped his hand to his head, but it was too late. When his ear was uncovered, the henny-pennies yammered at him like little pieces of his conscience, giving him advice. He closed his ears and sat unmoving again, his eyes mashed shut, as if all his magic had turned him at last into stone and he would sit forever here at the edge of the ocean, at the uttermost end of all things.

  Polly stepped down toward the water, walking out among the black rocks along the shore. John and Danny followed, carrying the hat, and together they plucked periwinkles off the rocks and dropped them in until the hat was full. The periwinkles looked like black snails. Waves rolled up to their feet, never quite touching them, and then soaked away into the sand. The rocks and sand stayed dry, as if the water wasn’t water at all, but was just a dark and restless shadow.

  They carried the hat up the beach, walking past Mr. Deener. Even the henny-pennies had deserted him. Mrs. Barlow worked in the weedy garden. She had kicked aside the pieces of clinker flower and scooped a hole out of the dirt, then lined the hole with rocks. Henny-penny men flew back and forth through the forest trees, gathering up twigs and dried leaves and dumping them into the hole. The flour sack lay empty nearby along with the plate that Mrs. Deener had saved from destruction.

  “Where did the marbles go?” Danny asked, handing her the hat full of periwinkles.

  She nodded at a round bundle lying against a fallen log. It was her apron, gathered around the marbles, the apron strings tying it closed.

  “We’re going to bake the Deener one last pie,” she said.

  “A periwinkle pie?” John asked. It sounded horrible, especially when there was a basket full of doughnuts to eat.

  “Nope,” Mrs. Barlow said. “We’ll bake him a marbleston pie. It’s like a cottleston pie, only it’s stuffed with marbles instead of cottles.”

  “What’s a cottle?” Polly asked.

  “Nobody knows,” Mrs. Barlow said, dumping the periwinkles into the flour sack. She winked, closing up the top of the bag and hefting it in her hand. “Just heavy enough,” she said. “Now, give me that basket of doughnuts.”

  John opened the doughnut basket that Mrs. Barlow had brought down from the house. She took out the doughnuts one by one, smashing them flat between her hands and then laying them into the hat, one over the other until the inside was lined with flattened doughnuts. Danny lit a fire in the pit, and he and Polly threw sticks onto the fire until it was burning. Mrs. Barlow said that they would want hot coals and not flames, so they let the fire burn down until the bottom of the pit was red and glowing.

  They found a round flat rock that they laid carefully over the coals, and Mrs. Barlow set the doughnut-lined hat upside down on the rock and poured all of the fishbowl marbles into it. Then she flattened more doughnuts, laying them over the marbles like the top crust of a pie. After soaking her apron in cold water, she folded it up and laid it over the crust, spread an inch of dirt on it, and then heaped hot coals on top so that the pie would cook evenly, from top to bottom.

  Soon the pie started to smoke, and there was the terrible smell of burning hat. Voices mumbled out from inside it, rising and falling, gobbling and yammering, shouting snatches of words that made no sense but were full of pain and regret and sadness.

  Shapes appeared in the rising smoke. The ghostly outlines of old automobiles and faces swirled up into the air, st
retching and pulling themselves into smoky wreaths in the sea wind. The gray images of plates of food and of radios and television sets rose like spirits from a grave. The shapes of houses and trees and shoes and fishing poles wisped out, followed by a furry-looking dog with no tail. The dog seemed to look out at the ocean, and as if he suddenly saw Mr. Deener sitting out there alone, he opened his mouth in a silent bark before disappearing forever in the air over the forest.

  Flames licked up along the sides of the hat, and the brim suddenly caught fire like a burning wheel. The marbles inside glowed like a hot red circle, and the smoke poured out, streaming up into the sky.

  “Done,” Mrs. Barlow said at last. She shoved two sticks into the flames, one on either side of the hat, and lifted it out of the pit. The burning brim fell away onto the ground, and John stamped it out in the dirt.

  “All the pie that’s fit to eat,” Mrs. Barlow said. “Enough is as good as a piece. Hand me that plate.”

  Danny did, and Mrs. Barlow set the plate on top of the pie and then flipped the whole thing over so that the pie sat on the plate with the round side up. Mr. Deener’s hat was a wreck, what was left of it. She pulled fragments of it away from the doughnut crust, which was scorched black in the spots where the hat had burned through. Finally the pie sat there finished, round on top, like the hill with the caves in it, exactly the size and shape of Mr. Deener’s head. Hot marbles shone from between the rings of doughnut crust.

  “We’ll let it cool for a bit,” Mrs. Barlow said. “Some pies are good hot, but this isn’t one of ‘em.”