Chapter the 10th
Kevin paced back and forth in the living room of the doll house while Sheila, absorbed with the piano, filled the house with sad-sounding music. The train cars that had found him in Morley’s Toy Store ran a route under the piano and around the potted plants and piles of books. Kevin ached for the company of Edmund and the other choirboys and for the adventure they were surely having on the pirate ship. These boys had treated Kevin with more respect than anybody else he knew and they seemed to like the treasure map he drew for them. It was terribly unfair that he was missing out on all that for a girl who wouldn’t look up from the piano to talk to him.
“You are missing out on the treasure hunt,” said a man whose voice was vaguely familiar.
Suddenly, the three people dressed in black were hovering around Kevin.
“Those boys pulled away as fast as they could, because they didn't want you aboard,” said a woman.
“They just used you to get the treasure map, you know,” said another man.
“Yea, I know,” said Kevin to himself.
“Just think of all the treasure the boys will find thanks to you,” said the first man.
“I’m thinking about it all the time,” Kevin muttered.
“It’s all Sheila’s fault, you know,” said the second man.
“She’s always spoiling you fun,” added the woman.
A train car ran into Kevin’s foot, then changed course and went around him. Sheila stopped playing for a brief moment and then picked up more or less where she left off.
“You know she’s ignoring you because she doesn’t like you,” said the older man.
“She thinks music is more important than you,” said the woman.
Kevin wondered how those people knew every thought that was going through his mind.
“I suppose you thought Edmund and Nigel were your friends,” said the younger man.
“Yea.”
“You know they'll never share as much as one piece of golden light with you when they find the treasure,” said the woman.
“They sent you after Sheila just to get rid of you,” said the younger man.
“Yea, I know,” said Kevin.
“What are you grumbling about?” Sheila asked, her elbows resting by the candle on the music stand.
Kevin stopped in his tracks, suddenly embarrassed that his muttering had been overheard.
“I missed the boat because of you,” Kevin pouted.
“It isn’t my fault you missed it,” said Sheila.
“Yes it is.”
Sheila glared at Kevin with more fury than Kevin thought she was capable of.
“I almost didn’t get into that store because of you,” Sheila accused him. “Do you have any idea where I’d be if Nigel didn’t help me? I suppose I’d still be all alone in a world in that candle store with no idea of where I was or how I’d get home.”
Kevin opened his mouth to fling an accusation back at Sheila but he closed it again when he realized that, much as he hated to admit it, she was right.
“You’re right,” said Kevin, “it is my fault. I should have stuck with you. I got carried away when the toy store opened.”
Sheila turned around on the piano bench and faced Kevin with a face quivering with anxiety.
“Kevin, do you have any idea where we are now?”
“I think I know whose house we’re in,” Kevin replied. “Karen and I and Michael and Scott got invited here for a party last time we were in Carelin. This really cool family lives here. One of the girls played the piano and everybody played something and Scott played his harmonica. So I’m sure we’re welcome to use this house while we’re here. Why, I’ll bet it’s okay to raid the refrigerator. Are you hungry?”
“Yea, but I’ll have more of an appetite if we pick up the scraps of food and drink these people left,” said Sheila.
“You sound like my sister,” said Kevin.
But Kevin picked up the plates with half-eaten sandwiches and half-drunk cups and took them back into a small kitchen where so many used plates and pots and pans were strewn about that he could hardly see the counter or the sink. Perched precariously on top of a couple of frying pans was a plate piled high with sandwiches, much like the plate Amarilla had brought in the last time he was there. He picked up the plate and then, seeing two glasses of water, he decided to bring them in. Sheila raised her eyebrows when Kevin returned with the platter.
“Here, pick one,” Kevin suggested.
Sheila took a sandwich off the top but frowned when she didn’t see anything between the slices of bread.
“I don’t want to complain—“ Sheila began.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” said Kevin. “You have to say what kind of sandwich you want.”
Sheila gave Kevin an odd look, but she said: “Uh—crabmeat.”
Kevin winced but that was her choice.
“I’ll take peanut butter and jelly,” said Kevin as he took a sandwich for himself.
“Kevin,” said Sheila. “Now that you’ve told me whose house this is, can you tell me where this house is?”
“Uh—no,” said Kevin.
“Then—are we lost in what that kid called the Dark Lake?”
“ I’m afraid so.
“What is this all about?” asked Sheila.
“Where we are, nobody knows what everything is all about,” Kevin replied, “but I’ll tell you what I can.”
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Shawn's arms ached from holding on so tightly to the edge of the car as it careened through the dark. The escargots, steak and lobster had turned his stomach into an active volcano. Not until he was convinced that the ride would never end and he was going to die of a nervous breakdown did the car finally slow down. As it did so, Shawn saw a dim light up ahead. The car pulled into what looked like a New York subway station. A few scattered people stood on the platform. There was no sign that announced the name of the station. Shawn was beyond caring where he was by then as long as he was out of the car, so Shawn hopped out. As soon as he stepped on the platform, the cars started up again and disappeared into the tunnel.
When Shawn looked about at the other people in the station, he began to wish he had stayed on the roller coaster. An old woman with a face that resembled an insect too much for Shawn’s comfort, sat on a bench against the yellow tile wall and banged continuously on a typewriter set on a blanket that covered her legs and feet. A man wearing an outlandish hat stood in the middle of the platform, reading a newspaper. On second glance, Shawn realized that it was not a hat he was wearing. Rather, a small tree appeared to be growing out of the man's head. Farther down the platform, a man in a blue uniform with a wispy goatee was waiting for a train. Somehow the goatee made the man's face look like a goat's.
While keeping an eye out for these strange people in case they tried anything, Shawn strolled over to the advertising posters, many of which were faded and torn. One of the posters pictured what was left of a smiling woman advertizing a brand of lipstick. Another poster advertized a circus with pictures of a purple hippopotamus balancing on a ball and a green brontosaurus walking a tight rope. Either the animals were Shawn's own missing plastic ones or they were twin brothers.
In contrast to the tattered posters, two other posters on the wall were shining new. One pictured a pirate ship and a bearded pirate with a parakeet on his shoulder that announced: “The Buccaneer's Trading Company - the best in freight forwarding and hunting for buried treasure.” The other poster took Shawn's breath away. It announced the premier run of the Corelee-Carelin Train Line and pictured a steam engine stirring up a cloud of dust. An engineer with a beard hanging out of the window all the way to the ground waved happily. One picture on the poster showed the inside of a luxury car, the very one in Shawn's collection. That was too much. Shawn grabbed the paper and ripped it off the wall.
“I wouldn't do that if I were you,” said a man with a deep voice.
Shawn jumped half a mile, tried to pull his nerves together, and then turned around. The man with the tree growing out of his head was standing near by, but he still had his face buried in his newspaper and he didn’t seem to be paying attention to Shawn.
“Was that you speaking to me?” Shawn asked him.
The tree-man turned a page in his newspaper.
“I might have said something to the effect that you should not tear off advertizing posters in this station,” he replied.
Shawn crunched the paper up into a ball and tried to make himself look cool.
“It was advertizing my own company,” said Shawn. “Without my permission.”
“That may be, but the poster might have been advertizing someone else's company as well,” said the man, his face still buried in the newspaper.
“It was not!”
“Very well,” said the tree-man, “You can go it alone if you like.”
“Thank you very much.”
Shawn ripped the poster into smaller pieces and stomped away toward the exit. But when he did not see an exit sign anywhere, he circled back to the tree-man.
“Where are we anyway?” he asked the strange-looking man.
“If you are the sole owner of your company, you don't need to ask.”
“I asked you a simple question,” said Shawn, his patience wearing thin.
The tree-man persisted in keeping his eyes on his newspaper.
“And I gave you a simple answer,” the man replied.
“Then I will give you a complex question,” said Shawn. “Can you tell me what station this is, where it is, and how I can get out of here?” Shawn asked him.
“That depends on where you want to go,” said the tree-man.
“I'm trying to get to Morley's Toy Store.”
“Okay.”
But the tree-man showed no inclination to elaborate on that answer.
“WHERE AM I IN RELATION TO Morley’S TOY STORE?” Shawn yelled.
“Somewhere on the way to the store,” said the insect-woman, all the while typing as furiously as ever.
“That’s a big help.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Shawn walked away briskly, no longer caring if he walked straight into a blank wall. Instead, he tripped over a flight of stairs he could have sworn was not there a minute ago. Glad to get away from that platform, he climbed the stairs until he reached a platform that was even darker and dingier than the last one. A few people were milling about aimlessly, presumably waiting for the next train. A bearded dwarf dressed in a threadbare suit leaned against a pillar. Shawn avoided him. The rest of the people looked ordinary. In front of a wall, there was a mountain of magazines and newspapers, but nobody was there to sell them. Out of curiosity, Shawn picked up a newspaper called the Carelin Gazette. Its headline read: QUEEN MOTHER GOES TO HER REWARD. Shawn recognized the deceased's picture but couldn't place her at first. Then, with a chill, he remembered that the woman had lived just up the street from his house, and that it was her house that was invaded by the three mysterious people dressed in black. Shawn threw the paper away and picked up a magazine from the next pile. Like a mirror, the magazine’s cover reflected Shawn’s face except that he was wearing an engineer's cap and holding a model engine in his hand. The caption read: RAILROAD KING SHAWN I LAUNCHES DARING NEW VENTURE IN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION.
“You can have that for three match sticks!” announced a cheerful voice.
Shawn looked at the salesman who appeared to have popped out of the newspapers as if they were a cave. With his plump, cheerful face, he looked like Humpty-Dumpty. Shawn dropped the paper on its stack and backed away.
“No thank you,” he gasped.
The small, plump man shook the newspapers off his back as if he were a dog shaking off snow.
“Well,” said the vender, picking up another magazine. “Let's try another one. How about this?”
Shawn recoiled as soon as he saw yet another newspaper with his picture on the cover. This time he was wearing a vested suit and he sat with his feet propped up on a desk with a telephone in one hand and a cigar in the other. The caption read: THE NEWEST FILTHY RICH BUSINESS TYCOON ON THE SCENE.
“No!” said Shawn, throwing the newspaper away from him.
“Oh come now,” said the vendor, smiling as if there were not a problem in the world, “we've got to find the magazine you want eventually. After all, we have any magazine you could ever possibly want.”
“I don't want anything here!” Shawn yelled so all could hear.
Several faces turned in Shawn’s direction.
“Oh dear,” said the vender as he hurriedly leafed through another stack of magazines, “that's the one request I can't meet. Are you sure you don't want to be the author of the latest self-help book?”
“No!” Shawn answered coldly.
Shawn looked about him, searching for a way to get away from the vendor. The stairs he had taken up to this platform were nowhere to be seen, neither was there any exit sign. Several people continued to stare at Shawn with curiosity.
“Do you mean really want nothing?” the vendor asked him, the smile vanishing.
“Yes.”
“Absolutely nothing?”
“I said I want NOTHING,” Shawn insisted.
“Hmm. Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even the commemorative issue of your life?”
“I don't want to die!” Shawn yelled.
Everybody on the platform froze. In the silence, Shawn was no longer sure that he was in the land of the living.
“Boy, you sure are set on wanting nothing,” said the vendor as he threw magazines and newspapers in all directions in his search. “Are you sure about that?”
“Actually,” said Shawn, “what I want is to get to Morley's Toy Store.”
“Mom!” cried a boy, “did you hear that?”
“Sh-h, I heard that,” said the mother.
“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to get to Morley’s Toy Store?” asked the Humpty-Dumpty magazine vendor, his broad smile fully restored. “Why that store is much, much, much better than nothing.”
The vendor dug deeply into his stack of papers, pulled one out and handed it to Shawn. Shawn’s eyes just about bugged out when he saw feature articles on the new toy train engines that Morley’s was featuring.
“That will be three match sticks,” said the vendor.
“What?” cried Shawn.
“I said: that will be three match sticks. That is the price of that paper.”
“Uh—do you accept MasterCard or Visa?”
“I—er—I accept your mastery of cards,” said the vendor, “but your mastery won’t buy that paper. The charge is three match sticks.”
Shawn dug into his pocket and pulled out his cigarette lighter.
“I don’t have any matches,” said Shawn, “but I can give you a light with this.”
The vendor looked at the lighter curiously.
“I don’t see any matches in that.”
“Look,” said Shawn as he flipped open the lighter.
The vendor frowned.
“Still don’t see any matches.”
“I didn’t say there were any matches,” Shawn explained with strained patience. “I said this was a lighter.”
“Doesn’t look like one.”
“Well, what does this look like?”
Shawn struck the lighter and suddenly the platform turned completely dark except for the flame of the lighter. Several people cried out.
“You stole the light!” the vendor charged.
“Get him!” cried another man.
Shawn threw the lighter as far away from him as he could and slipped off in the opposite direction. As he had hoped, the people went after the lighter. Shawn walked on in the direction he was walking, all the while expecting to hit a blank wall before long, but he didn’t. The cries of the people on the platform died down as Shawn continued on in the darkness. Just as he had reached the point of deciding he should turn back, he heard the sound of an approaching train. A few seconds later, the engine’s headlight appeared in the tunnel. The lit sign across the top read: Carelin Local. Shawn thought he might have to run back to the station to catch the train, but it slowed down right where he stood and came to a stop. To Shawn’s relief, this train looked like a normal subway train such as he was used to in New York. A few people were on the train, including half a dozen billy goats dressed in blue police uniforms. These officers, along with most of the passengers got off the train. Shawn stepped into a car that had been emptied completely. A loud whistle pierced the air. One of the billy goats pointed right at Shawn and the other officers chased after him.
“Close, doors,” Shawn ordered.
To his surprise, the doors obeyed him and closed right in the faces of the officers and the train started up. As the train gathered speed, Shawn sat down. The lights were dim, too dim to read by, but that was not a problem since Shawn didn’t have any reading material with him anyway. The train gathered more speed and then, suddenly, Shawn found himself hanging on to the nearest post for dear life as the train accelerated its pace to roller coast level and took its first plunge.
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“If you tried to tell me all this back in Milton,” said Sheila, “I would never have believed you.”
“I know,” said Kevin. “But you do believe me now, don’t you?”
Sheila sighed. The two train cars continued to roll about the living room with no discernable pattern.
“I don’t have any choice. It’s getting dark in here. Where’s the light switch?”
By this time, Kevin could hardly see Sheila a few feet away.
“I don’t know,” said Kevin, “I don’t think they have any electricity around here.”
Both children groped about along the walls without finding a light switch. Sheila did find a kerosine lamp, but neither she nor Kevin knew how to light it.
“We could light my candle, if we can find a match,” Sheila offered.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to try and light that candle, yet,” said Kevin.
“Suit yourself. The rules around here are pretty odd if you ask me.”
“I agree,” said Kevin. “The rules don’t seem to stay the same, either. When I talked with Nigel and Edmund and Geoffrey the other day, they didn’t seem to understand some of the things that are happening to them, either. Like I said, you kind of have to go with the flow around here”
“Like take it on faith?” asked Sheila with an edge to her voice.
“Faith? I never thought of it that way.”
“I wasn’t thinking of faith in God or anything,” said Sheila. “I was thinking of faith in Carelin. Like if a house in Carelin gets covered with a cloud and you haven’t any idea where the house is going—if anywhere—you still have faith that the house will end up in some place that will be all right.”
“Hmm. Last time I was here, a train and then a river took me to a place where I met Edmund and the other choirboys and we did some stuff that helped stop the blizzard and make Dornal better,” said Kevin. “So, things did turn our pretty good, even though they got pretty weird. But something different is happening now. It’s not like the last time or the time before when Michael and Scott got here. This time, we’ve run into some mean kids. Last time, everybody I met here was nice, except for the king.”
“Why would the king be the only lousy person around?” asked Sheila.
“I don’t know. Aunt Edith—she’s the mother of this family—she said the kings and queens of Carelin had always been nice until Perezvon XXVI came along. I sure wish that family were here now. After all, it is their house. They would know what to do.”
“Wishing isn’t going to bring them here,” said Sheila.
“I guess not—Hey! Maybe it will!”
“What?”
“Maybe wishing can bring them here. Let’s try wishing real hard that they’ll come home.”
“I’m not good at wishing,” said Sheila. “I haven’t gotten anything I wanted in a year. All I’ve done is lost everything I had.”
“I’m sorry,” Kevin said awkwardly, “But—maybe this time you’ll have better luck at wishing. Remember how I said that everybody in the family likes music? I bet it’ll help if you play the piano. Make music your wish.”
“Okay.”
Sheila carefully moved through the dark until she found the piano bench. A few seconds later, she was playing a sad piece that made Kevin feel like wishing that the family would come. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine Uncle Martin and Aunt Edith and Amarilla and Roger and Samantha all gathered in the living room and playing their instruments in an oddball concert such as he heard last time he was in the house.
“They will never find this house,” a man said in Kevin’s ear.
“We have this house in our clutches already,” said a woman.
“And we aren’t about to let it go,” said another man.
Sheila suddenly stopped playing the piano.
“Kevin, are these the people who live here?” she asked.
“No!” Kevin cried out. “Don’t listen to them! Keep playing.”
“That music won’t do any good,” said the first man, as soon as Sheila resumed playing the piece.
“That means the music won’t do you any good,” said Kevin stoutly. “Sheila! Keep playing!”
And Kevin listened to the music for all it was worth to keep himself from listening to the voices that continued to murmur in his ear.
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Michael flew awkwardly over the smokestacks along the Monangahela River, as he tried to adjust to his crow shape. A few smokestacks spewed out orange-black fire, but most were stone cold, ensuring the continued unemployment of many. Then Michael flew over the shopping mall where he saw his sister walk out the door with a shopping bag under her arm that meant more noise pollution for the Bullinger household. Michael didn’t want to go back there, in either human or crow form. Michael flew low, squawked and waved his wings. His sister didn't recognize him, of course. She turned away as if he were a bird of bad omen and hurried to the bus stop. Michael flew back toward Main Street where several kids he knew were making cawing noises and laughing at him. He was about to swoop down and peck out the eyes of the boy who was mocking him the most when he saw Amarilla, Roger, and Samantha walking down the street with Father Clement. Not wanting to encounter them, Michael pushed himself northwards toward the school. To his dismay, the school was still there, but at least he had the satisfaction of seeing his school's baseball team come off the field with defeat written all over their faces. Exhausted from his exertions so far, Michael perched himself on a tree for a moment to rest his wings. But tired as he was, he was too restless to remain for long. After a short rest, he was off and flying again.
Without warning, a dark cloud suddenly overtook Michael. Not only could he see nothing, he could hardly think. He feared that his bird's brain was taking over. Either that or he was just too tired to think any more. He had no idea of where he was going or even of where he wanted to go. All he could do was let his wings take him wherever they wanted to take him.
Just as suddenly, a street appeared below where trees blossomed in many different colors. The houses, too, were in full bloom with fresh coats of paint on them. Michael looked for one house in particular but could not find it. He tried to let instinct lead him to that house, but instead he found himself flying over the house of a woman who used to bawl him out for not delivering the newspaper to her satisfaction. The church and the house that used to flank the woman’s house, however, were replaced by two strange houses. Michael knew he didn’t want to land there, so he flew off in a different direction and tried once more to follow his instinct to the house he wanted. Just when he caught a glimpse of the church that should have been next to the woman’s house, a dark cloud wrapped itself around him again. A few seconds later, Michael bumped into a window pane that dazed him. He thought he heard the sound of a piano as he floundered in the air and then landed on something that felt like a roof.
“That girl turned you into a crow,” a man said into Michael’s ear.
“That brother of hers is laughing at you; he thinks it’s so funny that you are a crow,” said a woman.
“You should attack them now and get your revenge,” said another man.
Mindless anger filled Michael’s birdbrain and he swooped down for the kill. But the sound of music from within the house sent Michael flying back up and away before he even knew he had changed course. He cried out at them for sending him after the three children and dove for their eyes instead. Everything went dark.
Then Michael’s vision cleared again and he found himself flying through a back yard where a small boy was playing. Michael saw a flash of light when the boy lit a match. Without thinking, Michael swooped down and took the match from the screaming boy with his beak. The back door opened with a crash and a woman yelled at Michael for attacking her child and swung a broomstick at him. Michael took off again, his mouth was burning from the match, but at least the boy was safe.
Yet another cloud covered Michael, and then the blossoming trees reappeared. Several old-fashioned stores lined the street. The fire from the match inside his mouth refused to go out. It didn't make sense for a match to burn that long. One store looked familiar and he flew down to take a look at it. Exotic instruments filled the display window. When the door opened, Michael flew in. A sudden chorus of cries and shrieks greeted him. Ladies and girls dropped the stockings and dresses they were examining and ran. Michael shook off a couple of stockings that caught on his wings. A young man ran after him with a yardstick. Michael flew out the door as soon as he could. The blossoming trees outside were gone, replaced by trees just beginning to bud.
Frustrated over lacking a sense of direction, Michael flew over a group of children playing a game with a bat and a ball and yelling that they were pirates. The next street over, a woman was out watering her lawn. He recognized the woman. He remembered her drawing meaningless symbols on a green board and yelling and screaming at him for not caring about the meaningless symbols. Michael flew lower and cawed at the woman, but he closed his mouth quickly when smoke escaped from his mouth. The woman aimed a hose at him and doused him with water. The water turned everything dark and seemed to make the fire in his mouth hotter than ever.
When the darkness cleared, a colorful fountain was flowing right beneath him. Shoppers were going in and out of small shops all up and down a cobbled street. Some of the people pointed at him and cried out. Michael heard a loud stamping of feet. A company of soldiers marched up to the street where he was flying over the shoppers. One of the soldiers barked two commands and gunshots filled the air. Bullets whistled past the edge of Michael’s feathers. Then a cannon ball blew out a piece of the roof of a store. That, too, just missed him. Several children ran out of the store, aimed toy rifles at him, and fired. Michael pushed his aching wings harder to try and raise himself to a greater height, but he did not have the strength. He saw the shoppers in the street arguing with each other and with the soldiers. More shots fired past him. How they all missed him, Michael would never know.
It seemed to be just a matter of time before either Michael would be shot, or he would drop out of the sky from exhaustion. When a dozen or more black dresses flew out of the damaged store straight at him, Michael was sure he fate was sealed. But before they caught him and dragged him down, the dresses shrank and turned into blackbirds. Some of the birds attacked the soldiers and the children with the guns and knocked their weapons out of their hands. The rest of the blackbirds surrounded Michael and soothed him with their chirping. The soldiers and the people beneath him fell into a heated argument as the rest of the blackbirds joined the circles around Michael. With the crows surrounding him, Michael felt his energy grow stronger again, and he had the strength to fly with them up and beyond the reach of his enemies.