CHAPTER 10
The learning of magic was by no means easy. The days went by withChris's mornings and afternoons spent in Mr. Wicker's study, readingbooks too heavy for him to lift, learning incantations by heart, andhow to blend simple formulae over the fire. He had told his master atonce about Simon Gosler, his horde of money and his hiding places forit. Mr. Wicker though interested and attentive, gave Chris theimpression that what he had been told was not new to him. At timesChris was allowed to run about the large vegetable garden and climbthe orchard trees, but he was told that the moment had not yet comewhen he could wander at will in early Georgetown.
Chris had tried it once, rebellious and bored at the now familiarground, but it was as if an invisible wall kept him in the confines ofMr. Wicker's land, a slippery glass wall he could feel but not see,and in which he could discover no chink in which to put his toe tofind the height of it. So there was nothing left to do but to work asfast and as well as he could. "There are rumors," Mr. Wicker had toldhim quietly, too quietly, "that Claggett Chew is preparing his ship,the _Venture_, for a voyage East. There is much activity about hisship, and he is laying in stores, so I am informed. We must getforward with all haste, for his ship is a fast one--faster than the_Mirabelle_."
Chris therefore threw himself into all the preliminaries of his task.His head swam when he laid it on his pillow at night, and Becky Boozerwould stand with her hands on her barrel-sized hips, shaking her hatuntil its plumes and roses waved madly, over "her boy's" shadowed eyesand weary air.
For Chris was now as accepted a member of the household as Mr. Wickerhimself, and had it not been for the robust guffaws of Ned Cilley, andthe ministrations of the now devoted Becky, Chris's days would havebeen tedious indeed.
One afternoon when he returned, after a rest, to Mr. Wicker's study,he saw that there was something new in the room. A bowl with agoldfish in it stood on the table, but Mr. Wicker was not to be seen.Now, however, Chris was not the boy he had been a few weeks before. Hewent straight to the bowl and addressed the fish.
"Sir," he said to the goldfish, "I am here. What shall I do first?"
The goldfish might almost have been said to have changed itsexpression and smiled, before, brushing a drop of water from hissleeve, Mr. Wicker stood beside the table smiling.
"How you have improved, my boy!" he exclaimed. "It is now time for youto try, and this is as good a change as any."
All at once, at the imminent prospect of really changing himself intosome other form, Chris became frightened and his hands grew cold.
"Oh, sir! Do you really think I know how?" he cried, gazing up intothe face of his master. "Suppose I change and can't change back?"
Mr. Wicker shook his head with a smile.
"Never fear, Christopher. You know enough to start, and I feelreasonably sure that you will be quite able to change back again. Ifyou get stuck I can help you. Come now," he said, putting out his handto touch Chris's shoulder in a reassuring way, "here you go. RememberIncantation Seventy-three, Book One."
Chris stared at the fishbowl, empty now. He remembered Incantation 73,Book One, quite well, but his knees began to tremble and he stood asif paralyzed. Mr. Wicker waited patiently beside him for a few momentsfor Chris to get up his courage.
Then as nothing happened, with a voice like a whip Mr. Wicker said:"Start at once!"
Chris was so startled at his usually gentle master's tone that withoutfurther thought or effort on his part, he began intoning to himselfthe words and sounds of Incantation 73, Book One. As he went on,concentrating on becoming a goldfish in the bowl on the table, hebecame aware of a humming sensation in his head. This grew until itseemed that all his body was filled with the strange new vibration,tingling from his feet to the crown of his head. The sensation spread,faster and faster. His head swam and he felt faint and a little sick,but he persisted through the final words. Somewhere deep inside himthere seemed a sudden lurch, and then a wonderfully cool, liquidsensation. He felt buoyant and rested and looked about, only to get awavery, enlarged glimpse of Mr. Wicker, looking more like a reflectionin a circus mirror than himself. With a light twist of his body Chrisfloated over, to see that the room looked the same, and rolling back,could see that Mr. Wicker was peering in at him from above and smilingbroadly.
"Good Lord--I'm a fish!" Chris said, and he heard the words muffled asthey came back to him through the water of his bowl. Well, what do youknow? he thought, not without a feeling of pride, and commencedexperimenting with his tail and fins with such enthusiasm and delightthat some little time elapsed before Mr. Wicker's voice boomed closeby.
"Better come back now. Take it slowly, son. Seventy-four, Book One:The Return."
The same strange sensations flooded Chris as he made the change backto his own shape, but when he stood once more on his own two feet onthe carpet in Mr. Wicker's study, he was pleased and happy despite hisweakness. Mr. Wicker took hold of his arm and helped him to a chair,and taking a small vial from the cupboard at the end of the room, hedropped a pellet into it and handed it to Chris.
"This will seem to smoke. Sniff the smoke and drink the liquid thatremains," he said.
Chris did as he was told, and his momentary weakness vanished, leavinghim quieted and as strong as usual.
"There now," Mr. Wicker said, rubbing his hands with immensesatisfaction, "that was not so bad, was it? A peculiar feeling, but asyou come to do it more often and more quickly, the change will comemore rapidly and in time you will be scarcely aware of the sensationsat all." He looked at his pupil with pride. "You will do famously, myboy. In another moment, when you have rested, we shall try anotherone."
From that time, Chris became increasingly proficient, and as hisability grew he began to find magic a wonderful game, which he and Mr.Wicker played together. They played this new and unique form ofhide-and-seek, each one taking a new shape, turn by turn, as achallenge to the other's powers of imagination and detection. SoonChris could turn himself into a limited number of things, for even Mr.Wicker's magic had a limit: a singing bird in a cage, a part of thepattern in the brocaded curtains, or a section of the design in theIndian rug. The bluebottle fly or the goldfish became as easy assaying "Eureka!" and on one occasion Chris turned himself into thechair on which Mr. Wicker was sitting, and then walked across the roomon his four wooden legs carrying Mr. Wicker, who laughed more heartilythan he had in years at this display on the part of his student.
One day Chris wandered alone into the dusty shop. The time had nearlycome when he could walk about in early Georgetown and know that itwould still be the Georgetown of the past, and not the one into whichhe had been born. This afternoon, a rainy one, he had tired ofchanging himself into and out of objects. Mr. Wicker was busy, andBecky Boozer had gone off to market accompanied by Ned Cilley. Chrisfelt somewhat forlorn and lonely, as any boy might, and kicked an oldpiece of wood ahead of him into the darkness of the shop.
Going up to the shop window, he stood with his hands thrust into hispockets staring glumly first out the window and then, idly, at thethree objects he had once loved to contemplate, the _Mirabelle_ in herbottle, the coil of heavy rope, and the carved wooden figure of theNubian boy.
Without interest at first, Chris stared at the little Negro boy, sogaily dressed in full red trousers, gilded jacket and white turban.The figure's shoes, carved in some Eastern style, had curvedup-pointing toes. Then all at once the idea came to Chris. If he wasto be a magician, could he make this boy come to life?
The prospect excited him wildly, for he had no companion with whom tolaugh and share jokes. Grown people, however gay and kind, were neverquite the same. The more he thought of it, the more Chris knew it hadto be attempted. He squatted on his haunches, examining the carvedwooden figure attentively, and felt convinced that, once alive, theboy would be an ideal and happy companion.
But how did one change inanimate to animate? Chris got up and stoleback to Mr. Wicker's door. He heard the magician going up the spiralstaircase to his room above, and af
ter changing himself to a mouse toslip under the door and see that the room was really empty, Chrisresumed his proper shape and opened the doors of the cupboard at thefar end of the room.
On its top shelf was Book Three, a book a foot thick and bound inheavy brass studded with semi-precious stones in the form of signs andsymbols. With difficulty, standing on tiptoe, Chris lifted it down,and placing it on the floor, turned over page after page.
The afternoon, rainy before, increased in storm. Dusk came two hoursbefore its time; thunder snarled in the sky.
At last Chris found it. There were the words, and there the charm.Certain elements were to be mixed and poured at the proper time. Hehurried, memorizing as he closed the book, and hoisted it once more toits high shelf. Looking about, he found the ingredients that had beenlisted, and in an empty vial poured first two drops of this, and thenseventeen of that, and ran to heat it at the fire.
Mr. Wicker began moving about upstairs; the floorboards creaked, andstill Chris could not leave until the potion fumed and glowed.
After what seemed an endless time, amid a growing grind of thunder andin the almost darkened room, the phial in Chris's hand gave off anarching rosy glow. Chris, his cheeks hot from excitement and the fire,tiptoed out just as Mr. Wicker's step creaked on the topmost tread ofthe spiral stair. With infinite caution Chris closed the door silentlybehind him, and running lightly forward, reached the figure of theNegro boy.
The words came out, interrupted by peals and cracks of thunder. Theshop was black except for the paler crescent of the bow window givingonto the street. With a crash of thunder all but drowning out hiswords, the boy shouted in the emptiness of the shop as he poured therosy liquid on the figure made of wood.
And then, appalled at his audacity, Chris dropped the phial whichsplintered on the floor. Watching there in the darkness, he shook sowith nerves that he had to kneel.
For in the blackness lit only by the lightning and its own eerie glow,the wood was changing as he watched.
It was as if the stiffness melted. Under his eyes the wooden folds ofcloth became rich silk, embroidery gleamed in its reality upon thecoat, and oh! the face! The wooden grin loosened, the large eyesturned, the hand holding the hard bouquet of carved flowers moved, andlet the bouquet fall. The feet of the boy twitched and shifted intheir pointed shoes.
Aghast, Chris remained frozen as the boy moved slowly, and a final_Boom!_ of thunder seemed to split the sky apart. Outside, the rainpoured down as if over some skyward dam.
The boy looked down at Chris with a radiant smile and put out hishand.
"I'll help you up," he said to the kneeling boy in front of him. "I amAmos."
And as they turned, the light and the dark hands holding firm, thefirelight was streaming from the distant door and Mr. Wicker waited.
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