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....
Chapter 6
JIM NIGHTSHADE stopped at the corner 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's just there. The fifth house. Just one minute, Will," Jim pleaded, softly.
"Minute ...?" Will glanced down the street.
Which was the street of the Theater.
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 Theater, 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! 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 Theater, 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, thinking nothing at all, not 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. Three 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 his hands.
Don't look back! he thought.
I won't! I won't!
And looking only toward home, he walked that way. Quickly.
Chapter 7