“What are we going to do with it?” John asked, kicking dirt in to the pit full of hot coals in order to put out the fire.
“We’re going to feed it to the Deener,” Mrs. Barlow said.
Chapter 19: The Deener Blows His Top
Out on the front lawn, Mrs. Barlow put down the basket with the pie in it. Ahab lay down next to it, as if to guard it, and Mrs. Barlow shook the flour sack in Mr. Deener’s face. The periwinkles inside clattered together like marbles. Mr. Deener’s hand shot out and he grabbed the sack, quick as a snake striking, as if someone would try to snatch it away again.
“Mine,” he said.
“That’s right Deener,” Mrs. Barlow told him. “They’re yours. Time’s wasting. What’ll it be?”
“It’ll be mirrors and smoke,” Mr. Deener said. “The world is mirrors and smoke. Now the mirrors are broken and the smoke has blown away on the wind. There’s nothing left but to throw these into the deep ocean. Nothing else left.”
“We’re left,” Danny said.
“Nothing’s left!” He shook his head, his eyes clamped tightly shut. “I’ve made a hash of it. Breaking things up and casting them away. I had choices to make. Too many choices. I want to rest from them. No more choices. No more questions.”
He swung the bag slowly, back and forth, listening to the periwinkles clacking inside. For a long time he said nothing. Then, with a sigh, he said, “I loved her. That was worth something.”
“It was worth everything,” Mrs. Barlow said. “And yet I betrayed her.”
“You betrayed yourself. In your heart, Deener, you don’t have any enemies except yourself. Quit pulling your own hair out. Love was worth everything, wasn’t it? Do you think you’ve used it up? You can’t use it up. Blame isn’t worth dirt. It’s a fraud. But you keep carrying it around, like a fifty dollar bill. All this idiot magic, and you still haven’t got rid of it. That’s what you want to throw away, Deener – the blame.”
“Then I’ll truly have nothing,” Mr. Deener said.
“You’ll still have your memories,” Polly said. “The good ones. And you can get more good ones.”
“And you’ll have us,” John said.
“That’s right,” Danny said. “you’ll have us as friends. That’s a start.”
But he shook his head as if he wasn’t convinced, as if it was too late for starting. He had tried to give away all the old memories, all the old regrets, but he was still holding them in his hand, tied up in a sack. He rattled the bag again, listening to the clacking from inside. “Sounds like a lot of old bones,” he said.
Abruptly he stood up, planting his feet widely, as if the sea wind would knock him over. He opened his eyes a little, squinting out at the ocean. The sun dimmed and the sky grew dark. The wind blew fiercely, and the cries of the unseen seagulls were drowned by the sound of pounding surf, Waterspouts rose and fell beyond the waves, barely visible now in the twilight.
Taking the flour sack in both hands, he swung it slowly in a circle around his head. There was the sound of a low whump, whump, whump, as it passed through the air. The black waves rolled in toward shore over the murky rocks, higher and higher, as if within Mr. Deener himself a shadow was rising that would fill him with darkness. Around and around the sack swung as the sky grew darker and the ocean rose over the beach.
Suddenly Danny raised his hands as if he would grab the sack away, and John cried, “No!” at Danny and Mr. Deener both.
The sound of his voice seemed to break the spell. The spinning sack slowed, the tide fell away, the sun shone again. Mr. Deener let the sack fall at his feet. He looked utterly worn out, like a man come home at last from a dark journey. Suddenly he began to cry, and he hugged Polly to him. His glasses fogged up from the crying. He took them off and wiped them with the hem of his coat. Then he kicked the memory bag with the toe of his shoe. The bag flew open, and periwinkles rolled out of it.
Mr. Deener looked at them, horrified. “They’ve rotted!” he cried. “Black and rotten! I’ve waited too long!”
“They’re just periwinkles,” Danny said, picking one up. “See. It was just a bag full of snails.”
“Snails?,” Mr. Deener said flatly, taking the winkle from Danny and looked closely at it. “All my memories have turned into black snails.” He looked around, trying to make sense of things.
“No they didn’t,” Danny said. “We tricked you.”
“It tricked you, too,” John said to Danny. “You were going to grab the sack, weren’t you? You were going to stop him from throwing it away.”
“Of course I was going to stop him,” Danny said.
“What about what you said, about him making his own choices?”
“So it was a stupid choice. What can I say? And he didn’t choose that anyway, did he?”
“Black crawling things,” Mr. Deener said, bending over and poking at the periwinkles in the sand.
“You passed the test,” John said to him. “You didn’t throw everything away. It doesn’t matter what was in the bag.”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Barlow said. “Let’s eat.” And then, as if by accident, she reached across and knocked Mr. Deener’s glasses off his nose, saying, “Oh my!” The glasses fell on top of the scattered periwinkles. Immediately Mrs. Barlow stomped her foot down on the glasses, and the hard shells cracked them to pieces. “I am sorry!” she said, as Mr. Deener groped after them. He held up the empty frames and wiggled his fingers through them.
Just then Mrs. Barlow opened the basket and took out the plate with the marbleston pie on it. It was maybe the awfulest looking piece of food that John had ever seen, all patchy and burnt and with melted sugar glaze from the doughnuts bubbled up through the marbles like dried slime.
Mr. Deener looked closely at it, blinking his eyes rapidly. “It looks…” he started to say. “I mean, without my glasses…”
Mrs. Barlow winked at Danny, who pulled the doughnut monocle out of his pocket. “Try mine,” Danny said, slipping the monocle in front of Mr. Deener’s face.
“I say!” Mr. Deener said, peering at the pie through the monocle. “Cherry! Fat as anything too, and with a crust like a cloud.”
Vapor rose out of the pie, curling in a wispy line through the green glass lens in the monocle. Mr. Deener breathed deeply, smacking his lips. “Delicious!” he said. To John the pie smelled like something out of an incinerator. “I’m as hungry as two dogs!” he said. Then he looked at Ahab and said, “No offense.”
“Then don’t wait for company, Deener,” Mrs. Barlow said. “Dip in.”
While Danny held the monocle, Mr. Deener scooped out a handful of pie and took a huge bite, chomping it down and making a terrible crunching noise. “Mmm,” he said, as if he hadn’t eaten anything that good in years. He paused for a moment to dislodge something that was stuck in his teeth, then went back to eating.
He scooped out another piece, and then another, and as he gobbled it all down, Mrs. Barlow nodded and smiled, very happy with herself.
“Filling,” Mr. Deener said, pausing for a moment. “Very rich.”
“Nutritious,” Mrs. Barlow said. “Have another little dab.”
He ate another piece, chewing very slowly now. The pie was almost gone. A few more marbles lay in the bottom among broken pieces of crust. He put his hand on his stomach and groaned a little, then sat down on the rock again and waved the pie away.
“I’m full,” he said. “Not another bite.”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Barlow said. “I’ve seen you eat pies twice this size. One more little nibble?” She gathered the last bits of the pie together in her fingers and shoved them into Mr. Deener’s mouth. Then she wiggled his chin up and down, making him chew them up. “That’s right,” she said, “down they go.”
Mr. Deener swallowed, then staggered backward as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “Ooh!” he groaned. “I’ve got a bellyache.” He passed his hand in front of his eyes, then held it out in front of him as if he didn’t quite know what
it was. His eyes shot open, and a look of puzzlement came into his face, like a sleepwalker just waking up. His face began to bounce and twitch. He clutched his forehead with both hands and strode out toward the ocean, kicking through the shallow water until he was waist deep. “Cold!” he shouted. “Cold!” His arms jerked helplessly and his head bobbed up and down.
“He’s digesting them,” Mrs. Barlow said.
Polly nodded. “I don’t think they agree with him,” she said.
“They give him the fantods,” Mrs. Barlow said. “I wish I had a bi-carb to give him.”
Mr. Deener hooted something at the sky. His arms waved around his head like a windmill, and he came skipping back up into shallow water, his wet pants clinging to his legs. The waves sucked out to sea, leaving him high and dry. Hundreds of fish flopped around his feet, their scales glittering like jewels in the sunshine. Another wave washed through, rolling up around Mr. Deener’s knees, clutching at him, trying to drag him backward as it rushed away seaward again. He grabbed his stomach, reeling up the beach toward dry sand and making a fearful moaning noise.
“I think they’re making him sick,” Danny said.
“If only he can keep them down…” Mrs. Barlow started to say, but just then came a tremendous explosion from behind them, like a volcano erupting. The ground shook, and there was a tearing noise and a sound like an enormous tea kettle going off, louder and louder and louder until the whistling filled the air like the sound of the wind at the end of the world.
And then, as if the earth were blowing its top, the entire hill of caves flew into the air, end over end, sailing up into the sky on a tremendous, uprushing billow of steam.
Chapter 20: The Return of Mr. Deener
The earth beneath the hill looked like an ant colony under glass. Goblins ran this way and that way, up and down sunlit pathways that had once been dark tunnels. The heavy wood and iron doors toppled to the ground in clouds of rusty dust, shaking the earth. Some of the goblins tried to flee into the woods, but fell in the sunshine and simply evaporated into the air, leaving behind them black, goblin-shaped blotches.
A night-dark shadow lay over the ground like a heavy, low fog, right at the center of the hill. It surged back and forth, as if blown by a great wind, and dark swatches of it tore off and blew away, stretching into ghostly heads with wide, gaping mouths and hollow eyes. A terrible moaning noise came from the mouths of the ghosts, and from the shadow on the ground arose the sound of doors slamming, faster and faster and faster. The goblins that were left fled away from it with wild cries that echoed down toward the sea.
John knew what the shadow was; it was the thing he and Polly had seen in the cave. And right then, like the sudden touch of fear and sorrow, something wintery-cold and dark ran through him. His heart beat in his chest, and he threw his hands in front of his face. Ahab howled. Mr. Deener shouted one long, drawn-out, “Noooo!”
At the sound of Mr. Deener’s voice, the shadow tumbled up into the air like dirty smoke. For a moment the moon was blotted out and there sounded a thin and distant cry, like the windy shriek of a goblin flute. John put down his hands. The fear and the sorrow had passed away, swallowed by the moon. The sky was clear.
There was nothing left of the caves but toppled doors and the crawling shapes of the last few goblins. Like bad dreams, the goblins faded and vanished. The stony pathways disappeared, and the hundreds of wood and iron doors blinked away with a sound like the faint and distant popping of soap bubbles.
Where once the caves had stood, green grass billowed in the wind. At the far edge of the grass stood the fountain, with the oak woods rising behind it. Water flowed from the fountain now, and the sunlight shone on the spray as it blew away on the breeze. Beyond the fountain and woods lay the meadow, and beyond that stood the house with its diamond-paned windows and its weather vane like the skeleton of a fish.
John thought suddenly of Kimberly’s treasure can, and the words written on it: “East, West, Home’s Best,” and he knew that what he was looking at now, from down at the edge of the sea, was the very scene that was painted on the lid of the can. Right then it seemed to him that he could see the window again, hanging small and distant over the meadow.
Mr. Deener lay on his back, staring at the sky. Sycamore leaves lay scattered on the ground roundabout him, but there wasn’t a henny-penny man to be seen. Mrs. Barlow took his hand and rubbed it, and he blinked his eyes and sat up.
“It is a brand new day,” he said, looking around. Then he stretched and yawned and said, “My heart feels like an alligator.”
“Good man,” Mrs. Barlow said. “How’s your stomach?”
“Never better,” he said.
“Teeth loose?”
“What?” he asked. “Why should my teeth be loose? I have the teeth of a hippopotamus.” Then he winked at John and scratched his head. He stood up. “I’ve been thinking about the car built of tin cans,” he said. “I believe you to be a man of science, and with your help I think we can build the thing, although I’m not certain we can get to the moon in it unless we have a driver.” He looked hard at Danny.
Danny shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll drive.”
“Well, that’s settled then.” Mr. Deener dusted off the seat of his pants. He shook Danny’s hand and then shook John’s hand. His grip was strong, and his eyes were clear. “I want to thank you both,” he said. Then he hugged Polly again and wiped a tear from his eye. “You’ll be staying,” he told her. “You and Flo.” It wasn’t a question. He was simply telling the truth.
She nodded and took his arm. Mrs. Barlow took the other one. With John, Danny, and Ahab following, they set off across the grass. Danny carried the doughnut monocle, but they left the basket and pie plate behind, along with the rest of the broken-up apparatus. By the time John remembered it and turned around, the sea had washed across the beach, and all of it was gone. Another wave rolled through, sweeping the beach clean of everything, even rocks. The sound of the seagulls was gone, too, and although the vast ocean still shimmered in the sunshine, it looked flat and still now.
In the dark patches of ground where the goblins had fallen, scattered bits of trash lay in the grass – broken bottles and rusty coat hangers, old clocks and radio tubes, broken phonograph records and scraps of old clothing. Mr. Deener kicked through some of it, as if he might find something useful or memorable there, but he didn’t bother to pick any of it up.
Aunt Flo stood on the meadow, shading her eyes with her hand, watching them approach through the grass and wildflowers. The Sleeper lay nearby on his bed, dressed in his nightcap and nightgown. It seemed as if Mr. Deener couldn’t quite bring himself to look at the Sleeper. He looked in the other direction, toward the now-distant ocean. It was a faraway look, as if he could still see the little house on the bluffs where he had lived for a time with the ghost of his wife.
“Look,” Danny said, pointing at the bed. Now that they were closer, the Sleeper didn’t look like Mr. Deener anymore; he didn’t look like a man at all. He was nothing more than a bundle of straw and rags dressed up in night clothes. Like the goblins and the moon ladder and the rest of Mr. Deener’s magic, there was nothing to the Sleeper but junk and fakery.
The open window hung over the meadow again. Sunlight glinted from the sea-green glass, and the window curtains blew outward on the breeze. Ahab ran toward it, barking happily. Through it came the smell of cherry pies baking in the oven. The smell seemed almost to knock Mr. Deener over backward. “Pie!” he said.
“In we go,” Mrs. Barlow said, helping Ahab through the window. “Dogs first.” There was the sound of Ahab jumping down into the room, and then he stuck his head back out the window and barked.
“Okay, okay,” John said. There was no time to waste. He boosted himself over the window sill. Ahab licked his face, as if he was so happy to be home that he couldn’t help himself; he had to lick something. John pulled himself forward, leaning into the room, trying to wiggle through. Ahab licked him again, a
nd he let go to wipe his face and tumbled down onto the wooden floor.
Just then he heard his mother say something from out in the living-room. It was as if he had never been gone at all. “Hurry,” he said to Danny, grabbing his arms and dragging him through the window.
“What?” he shouted to his mother. “Just a second.”
“I said did you ask Danny about my Christmas pin?” Her footsteps sounded on the floor of the hall.
Just then Mrs. Barlow appeared in the window. Mr. Deener helped push her from behind. She was a tight fit. John grabbed onto her arms and pulled. Danny dragged the beanbag chair across and under the window just as she popped through, falling face-first into the chair. “Oomph,” she said.
“What on earth?” Their mother stood in the hallway, looking in through the open bedroom door. Their father stood behind her. Their mouths were open in disbelief.
“We’re having some friends in,” John said.
“Through the window?” his mother asked. “What’s wrong with the door?”
“You can’t get here through the door,” Danny said, helping Mrs. Barlow out of the chair.
“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” she said, smoothing her clothes.
Mr. Deener looked in at the window then. He waved and said hello, and then, without waiting to be invited, he tilted across the window sill, kicking his feet as if he were swimming. Buttons popped off his coat. “Terribly sorry,” he said, falling into the beanbag chair and rolling off onto the floor. “The boy’s right. Door won’t work in this case.” His hair was wild when he stood up, and his coat and vest were pushed up under his armpits.
“Mr. Deener,” he said, by way of introduction, and he put his hand out. “Artemis Deener.” John’s father shook it.
“Artemis Deener?” John’s mother said. “Didn’t you used to. …Didn’t we buy. … Aren’t you…?”
“That’s entirely correct. I’ve come back. Your sons were kind enough to invite me in. Is that a cherry pie I smell cooking?”
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