Something Wicked This Way Comes

It was such a block of ice as he remembered from travelling magician’s shows when he was a boy, when the local ice company contributed a chunk of winter in which, for twelve hours on end, frost maidens lay embedded, on display while people watched and comedies toppled down the raw white screen and coming attractions came and went and at last the pale ladies slid forth all rimed, chipped free by perspiring sorcerers to be led off smiling into the dark behind the curtains.

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD

And yet this vast chunk of wintry glass held nothing but frozen river water.

No. Not quite empty.

Halloway felt his heart pound one special time.

Within the huge winter gem was there not a special vacuum? a voluptuous hollow, a prolonged emptiness which undulated from tip to toe of the ice? and wasn’t this vacuum, this emptiness waiting to be filled with summer flesh, was it not shaped somewhat like a. . .woman?

Yes.

The ice. And the lovely hollows, the horizontal flow of emptiness within the ice. The lovely nothingness. The exquisite flow of an invisible mermaid daring the ice to capture it.

The ice was cold.

The emptiness within the ice was warm.

He wanted to go away from here.

But Charles Halloway stood in the strange night for a long time looking in at the empty shop and the two sawhorses and the cold waiting arctic coffin set there like a vast Star of India in the dark. . . .

6

Jim Nightshade stopped at the comer of Hickory and Main, breathing easily, his eyes fixed tenderly on the leafy darkness of Hickory Street.

‘Will. . .?’

‘No!’ Will stopped, surprised at his own violence.

‘It is just there. The fifth house. Just one minute, Will,’ Jim pleaded, softly.

‘Minute. . .?’ Will glanced down the street.

Which was the street of the Theatre.

Until this summer it had been an ordinary street where they stole peaches, plums and apricots, each in its day. But late in August, while they were monkey-climbing for the sourest apples, the ‘thing’ happened which changed the houses, the taste of the fruit, and the very air within the gossiping trees.

‘Will! it’s waiting. Maybe something’s happening!’ hissed Jim.

Maybe something is. Will swallowed hard, and felt Jim’s hand pinch his arm.

For it was no longer the street of the apples or plums or apricots, it was the one house with a window at the side and this window, Jim said, was a stage, with a curtain—the shade, that is—up. And in that room, on that strange stage, were the actors, who spoke mysteries, mouthed wild things, laughed, sighed, murmured so much; so much of it was whispers Will did not understand.

‘Just one last time, Will.’

‘You know it won’t be last!’

Jim’s face was flushed, his cheeks blazing, his eyes green-glass fire. He thought of that night, them picking the apples, Jim suddenly crying softly, ‘Oh, there!’

And Will, hanging to the limbs of the tree, tight-pressed, terribly excited, staring in at the Theatre, that peculiar stage where people, all unknowing, flourished shirts above their heads, let fall clothes to the rug, stood raw and animal-crazy, naked, like shivering horses, hands out to touch each other.

‘What’re they doing I thought Will. Why are they laughing? What’s wrong with them, what’s wrong!?

He wished the light would go out.

But he hung tight to the suddenly slippery tree and watched the bright window Theatre, heard the laughing and numb at last let go, slid, fell, lay dazed, then stood in dark gazing up at Jim, who still clung to his high limb. Jim’s face, hearth-flushed, cheeks fire-fuzzed, lips parted, stared in. ‘Jim, Jim come down!’ But Jim did not hear. ‘Jim!’ And when Jim looked down at last he saw Will as a stranger below with some silly request to give off living and come down to earth. So Will ran off, alone, thinking too much, knowing what to think.

‘Will, please. . .’

Will looked at Jim now, with the library books in his hands.

‘We been to the library. Ain’t that enough?’

Jim shook his head. ‘Carry these for me.’

He handed Will his books and trotted softly off under the hissing whispering trees. Tlree houses down he called back: ‘Will? Know what you are? A darn old dimwit Episcopal Baptist!’

Then Jim was gone.

Will seized the books tight to his chest. They were wet from the hands.

Don’t look back! he thought.

I won’t! I won’t!

And looking only toward home, he walked that way.

Quickly.

7

Halfway home, Will felt a shadow breathing hard behind him.

‘Theatre dosed?’ said Will, not looking back.

Jim walked in silence beside him for a long while and then said, ‘Nobody home.’

‘Swell!’

Jim spat. ‘Dam Baptist preacher, you!’

And around the corner a tumbleweed slithered, a great cotton ball of pale paper which bounced, then clung shivering to Jim’s legs.

Will grabbed the paper, laughing, pulled it off, let it fly! He stopped laughing.

The boys, watching the pale throwaway rattle and flit through the trees, were suddenly cold.

‘Wait a minute. . .’ said Jim, slowly.

All of a sudden they were yelling, running, leaping. ‘Don’t tear it! Careful!