Something Wicked This Way Comes

In one of the softly lit front windows, someone stood looking out.

A boy, no more and no less than twelve years old.

‘Will!’ cried Jim, softly. ‘That boy—’

‘Her nephew. . .?’

‘Nephew, heck! Keep your head away. Maybe he can read lips. Walk slow. To the corner and back. You see his face? The eyes, Will! That’s one part of people don’t change, young, old, six or sixty! Boy’s face, sure, but the eyes were the eyes of Mr Cooger!’

‘No!’

‘Yes!’

They both stopped to enjoy the swift pound of each other’s heart.

‘Keep moving.’ They moved. Jim held Will’s arm tight, leading him. ‘You did see Mr Cooger’s eyes huh? When he held us up fit to crack our heads together? You did see the boy, just off the ride? He looked right up near me, hid in the tree, and boy! It was like opening the door of a furnace! I’ll never forget those eyes! And there they are now, in the window. Turn around. Now, let’s walk back easy and nice and slow. . . .We got to warn Miss Foley what’s hiding in her house, don’t we?’

‘Jim, look, you don’t give a darn about Miss Foley or what’s in her house!’

Jim said nothing. Walking arm in arm with Will he just looked over at his friend and blinked once, let the lids come down over his shiny green eyes and go up.

And again Will had the feeling about Jim that he had always had about an old almost forgotten dog. Some time every year that dog, good for many months, just ran on out into the world and didn’t come back for days and finally did limp back all burred and scrawny and odorous of swamps and dumps; he had rolled in the dirty mangers and foul dropping-places of the world, simply to turn home with a funny little smile pinned to his muzzle. Dad had named the dog Plato, the wilderness philosopher, for you saw by his eyes there was nothing he didn’t know. Returned, the dog would live in innocence again, tread patterns of grace, for months, then vanish, and the whole thing start over. Now, walking here he thought he heard Jim whimper under his breath. He could feel the bristles stiffen all over Jim. He felt Jim’s ears flatten, saw him sniff the new dark. Jim smelled smells that no one knew, heard ticks from clocks that told another time. Even his tongue was strange now, moving along his lower, and now his upper lip as they stopped in front of Miss Foley’s house again.

The front window was empty.

‘Going to walk up and ring the bell,’ said Jim.

‘What, meet him face to face?!’

‘My aunt’s eyebrows, Will We got to check, don’t we? Shake his paw, stare him in his good eye or some such ,and if it is him—’

‘We don’t warn, Miss Foley right in front of him, do we?’

‘We’ll phone her later, dumb. Up we go!’

Will sighed and let himself be walked up the steps wanting but not wanting to know if the boy in this house had Mr Cooger hid but showing like a firefly between his eyelashes.

Jim rang the bell.

‘What if he answers?’ Will demanded. ‘Boy, I’m so scared I could sprinkle dust. Jim, why aren’t you scared, why?’

Jim examined both of his untrembled hands. I’ll be darned,’ he gasped. ‘You’re right! I’m not!’

The door swung wide.

Miss Foley beamed out at them.

‘Jim! Will! How nice.’

‘Miss Foley,’ blurted Will. ‘You okay?

Jim glared at him. Miss Foley laughed.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

Will flushed. ‘All those darn carnival mirrors—’

‘Nonsense, I’ve forgotten all about it. Well, boys, are you coming in?

She held the door wide.

Will shuffled a foot and stopped.

Beyond Miss Foley, a beaded curtain hung like a dark blue thunder shower across the parlour entry.

Where the coloured rain touched the floor, a pair of dusty small shoes poked out. Just beyond the downpour the evil boy loitered.

Evil? Will blinked. Why evil? Because. ‘Because’ was reason enough. A boy, yes, and evil.

‘Robert?’ Miss Foley turned, calling through the dark blue always-falling beads of rain. She took Will’s hand and gently pulled him inside. ‘Come meet two of my students.’

The rain poured aside. A fresh candy-pink hand broke through, all by itself, as if testing the weather in the hall.

Good grief, thought Will, he’ll look me in the eye! see the merry-go-round and himself on it moving back, back. I know it’s printed on my eyeball like I been struck by lightning!

‘Miss Foley!’ said Will.

Now a pink face stuck out through the dim frozen necklaces of storm.

‘We got to tell you a terrible thing.’

Jim struck Will’s elbow, hard, to shut him.

Now the body came out through the dark watery flow of beads. The rain shushed behind the small boy.

Miss Foley leaned toward him, expectant. Jim gripped his elbow, fiercely. He stammered, flushed, then spat it out:

‘Mr Crosetti!’

Quite suddenly, clearly he saw the sign in the barber’s window. The sign seen but not seen as they ran by:

CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF ILLNESS.

‘Mr Crosetti!’ he repeated, and added swiftly. ‘He’s. . .dead!’

‘What. . .the barber?’

‘The barber?’ echoed Jim.

‘See this haircut?’ Will turned, trembling, his hand to his head. ‘He did it. And we just walked by there and the sign was up and people told us—’