Chapter the 20th
Ted Sloane was amazed to find himself wishing that the usual problems of unemployment and a worsening economy were the only problems he had to worry about. Worrying about children who had been reported missing was surely the worst thing of all to have to worry about. But then worrying about stores vandalized out of recognition right on Main Street was even more unnerving in its own way. Was it because of these problems that each day the sun seemed to give less light than the day before? Ted wondered as he walked along Main Street to check on these unnerving reports for himself. In the middle of the afternoon, it was almost dark enough to be twilight, although the sun was in its right place in the sky.
As he walked by the library, he was slightly cheered by the one thing in town that was going right. The new wing was nearing completion. All was quiet except for the buzzing of one saw. Ted stopped to look through the window frame. He should have known who would be working overtime.
“Mr. Bullinger! When are you going to stop working?”
“Never, I hope!” roared the big man. “I'm afraid if I stop, I'll never get started again.”
“When do you see the Mrs. and the kids?”
“Hardly ever. They ain't home anyway. Might as well stay away and get this wing done and get extra money in the bank when I can.”
That reminded Ted that one of the missing children was Michael Bullinger.
“Any word about Michael?” Ted asked.
“Naw! No sense in worrying about him. He knows where he is. If he doesn’t, that’s too bad for him. Doesn’t want to be near me. Don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to be near me neither if I was my father.”
Any reassuring words he might have said evaporated on Ted’s tongue after those unkind words about Michael. Ted recalled then that, with Michael gone, the Milton Gazette was being delivered by a girl the mayor had never seen before. In a town where every face was familiar, that was a another puzzling matter.
The mayor waved good-bye to Mr. Bullinger and crossed Main Street to take a look at the vandalized store. The yellow police tape and the broken front window just about turned Ted’s stomach. A glance inside the store showed toys, many of them broken, strewn everywhere. Just as the three disquieting visitors had said that morning, a battered sign read: MORLEY’S TOY SHOP.
The three people, dressed in black, who had told him about the shop, had appeared unannounced in his office. The two men and a woman each held a black umbrella although no rain had been forecast for the day. Somehow, their words made everything seem even darker than it was before.
“There is something we would like to tell you, Mister Mayor,” said the older man.
“A most important thing,” added the woman.
“A matter that requires your closest and most prompt attention,” said the young man.
“What is that?” asked the mayor wearily.
“We must inform you that unauthorized buildings have infiltrated Milton,” said the older man.
“Buildings from another world,” added the woman.
“What buildings?” asked Ted.
“Morley’s Toy Shop—on Main Street,” said the younger man.
“And a house next to the Episcopal church on Third Street,” said the woman.
“More serious yet,” said the older man, “wicked citizens from another world are sneaking into your world through these buildings,” said the older man.
“They intend to use Milton as a base of operations for taking over the planet,” concluded the woman.
“As we suggested,” said the younger man, “you might want to look into the matter and take decisive action before it is too late.”
Outlandish as the accusation was, Ted Sloane thought it best to check out the delinquent buildings specified by the gruesome trio with the hope that he would prove to himself that the report was paranoid rubbish. So far, they had been proved right. Then Ted remembered that Carl Van Wyck was one of the missing persons. He looked at the store to the right of Morley’s and then to the store to the left. There was no question about it: Carl’s Hardware Store was itself missing.
“Why don’t the police report these things to me?” Ted muttered as he hurried away, hoping the unauthorized house up Third Street, at least would prove to be a hoax.
Ted knew the answer to his question. The police chief, Everett McAlister, didn’t like him, and he tried to have as little to do with the mayor’s office as possible. Ted was pretty sure he hadn’t gotten his vote.
Ted turned the corner at Third Street and ran into at least a dozen noisy children coming down the hill. One boy was pulling a girl’s hair. Another girl was pinching a boy in the neck. Another boy yanked a girl away from the street when she almost walked in front of a car.
“Can’t you remember to stay away from those fake dragons?” the boy asked the girl.
By this time, Ted had noticed that it was still school hours, the children were not attended to by an adult, and he had not seen any of them before in his life.
“Who’s in charge of you?” Ted asked the children.
“I am!” one of the bigger boys replied. “If anybody behaves in the slightest unruly fashion, I will twist that somebody inside out.”
“We’re not being unruly. . .” said a smaller boy, “yet.”
“Uh—where are you staying?” asked the mayor.
“At Amarilla’s house,” said a girl.
Ted frowned. He didn’t know anybody in town with that name.
“And where is Amarilla’s house?” asked Ted.
“Up there,” said the girl, pointing up the hill, right to where the three visitors in black had said the unauthorized house was.
Before Ted could ask any more questions. The flock of children turned the corner. The mayor decided his top priority was to check the house and find out who this Amarilla was. He walked on up toward St. John’s Episcopal Church which was at the top of the hill. He looked carefully at each house on the way. Everything was in order until a house next to the rectory stopped Ted in his tracks. Right where he knew that Evelyn’s house was supposed to be, there was a white three-storied house with pointed gables The three dark visitors were right again.
Fearing that he might be stepping into a warp taking him into a different dimension of reality, Ted climbed the steps of the front porch. He heard the sound of a low- pitched musical instrument as he looked for a doorbell but did not find one. When he resorted to using the knocker, the music broke off in the middle of a phrase. The door opened and a tall, slender girl with hair hanging down to her waist stood before him. Ted felt his insides turn into jelly when he recognized the girl as Michael’s substitute paper carrier.
“Can I help you?” the girl asked courteously.
“Uh—is Amarilla home?” asked the mayor.
The girl gave him a queer look.
“I suppose Amarilla is home, if I’m where I think I am.”
“Can she speak to me?” Ted asked.
“If the words I’ve said already constitute speech,” said the girl, “then you answer has been answered already.
“Then—you’re Amarilla
“That is my belief.”
Ted looked for any trace of mockery on the girl’s face, but she looked very serious.
“Well—uh—is your mother at home?”
“No.”
“Uh—how about your father?”
“He's not here either.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“No. I hope they have arranged to borrow somebody else’s house until things get straightened out.”
“Oh.”
Ted suddenly realized that he was asking Amarilla questions a crook would ask a gullible child to find out if the house was safe for a burglary, and that almost made him feel like a crook.
“I am Mr. Sloane, the mayor. “I was—I was just checking up on this house.”
“I suppose you might want to do that,” said Amarilla. “Please come in and we can talk about it.”
Hardly daring to trust the house, the mayor entered, hoping he would not end up in an alien universe from which there was no return. The living room did look like a different world, crowded as it was with antique furniture, a piano, books piled on shelves and on the floor and potted plants at each elbow. Amarilla picked up a bassoon that was leaning against a wall, took it apart and put it away in its case.
“Can I get you a cup of tea?” asked the girl.
“Why yes, you may.”
The mayor sank into a chair and listened to melodious the clatter of china and silverware as the girl worked in the kitchen. The house felt cozy, but it also gave him the feeling that anything could happen. It then occurred to him that he probably should not have entered a house where a girl he did not know was there all alone, but it seemed rude to walk out on her. At least she didn’t seem to be the kind of girl who would fabricate false accusations against him for some malicious purpose. Amarilla returned with a cup of tea and a buttered roll and sat down across from Ted.
“Now, you’re wondering about his house?” asked Amarilla.
“Well, it's like this,” Ted replied, still at a loss as to how to question the girl. “It has been called to my attention that this house, nice as it is, has not been at this location until today. Can you explain the matter?”
“Not really.”
Ted took a long sip of tea before it had cooled properly and he burned his tongue. Even so, it relaxed him a little.
“Uh—you can see how, as mayor, I have to be concerned with these matters.”
“I suppose you should be,” Amarilla replied. “You don't want to have the wrong people moving in to your town.”
“Well, no. And I don't want to imply that you are a wrong person. But—well—I would like to know who you are and what happened.”
“I can tell you that this house was suddenly transported to this location here in Milton from the town where it is usually found, which town is Carelin,” Amarilla answered. “I can also tell you that the house of the queen mother of Carelin, known to you as Mrs. Lear, was also suddenly transported to a location other than this one—where, I don’t know. I suspect that the queen mother’s house ended up more or less in the same place where this house normally is located, which would be in Carelin. Perhaps that is the house my parents are borrowing and that is where they are.”
“And how did these houses get transported?” asked the puzzled mayor.
“That I do not know for sure,” Amarilla replied. “It probably has something to do with the disappearance of light. My mother thinks it also has to do with the Dark Lake.”
“What is the Dark Lake?” asked the mayor.
“The Dark Lake absorbs the light and it pulls apart Melanie’s Web, so that many things become lost and anything that is lost can end up anywhere, such as in your town of Milton.”
The mayor squirmed in his chair as his back muscles tightened.
“What is Melanie’s Web?’ he asked.
“The Web spun by Melanie the Web Spinner. This is the Web that keeps everything connected. Or tries to. As I said, the Dark Lake is breaking in on the Web. I also suspect that somebody else is cutting some threads of the Web as well.”
“I don’t think that mythology is going to help us right now,” said Ted wearily.
“What is mythology?” asked Amarilla.
Ted couldn’t believe his ears. He was sure that Amarilla had to be joking, but she still looked deadly serious.
“Why—mythology is—it’s poetic speech and it’s stories that aren’t true but have poetic value,” Ted spluttered.
“There is nothing untrue about Melanie the Web Spinner,” Amarilla insisted, her voice firm.
Ted gave up and decided to change the subject.
“Is there a chance that this shop called Morley’s Toy Store has also been displaced in the same way as your house has?” Ted asked.
“There is that chance,” Amarilla replied, “and it is my belief that this is what has happened. Several children from Carelin were playing in a most unruly manner in the store when the displacement occurred, and they are in this town as well. Unfortunately, they are most likely misbehaving in that store yet again. I must check up on them soon and reprimand them for their misbehavior.”
Ted took another sip of tea and decided to take on the issue of alien beings head on.
“Where is this town of Carelin that you say is the place where your house normally belongs?”
“Carelin is wherever it feels like being,” Amarilla replied.
“Is there a chance that this Carelin might be from another planet?”
“I suppose there is a chance of that,” Amarilla replied. “I suppose that if Carelin feels like being on a different planet, that is where it will be.”
Ted stared at the girl, amazed with her candor and evasiveness.
“Oh. Well, you know how people are always anxious about UFO's and that sort of thing.”
“No,” said the girl, looking genuinely puzzled by the question. “I don’t know what a UFO is.”
“It stands for Unidentified Flying Objects.”
“Oh. Well, this house is not flying and it is now identified as the house of my family, and so I should think that we are not an unidentified flying object.”
Ted felt that he had been humiliatingly outtalked by a girl who was probably twelve or thirteen at the most. At the same time, the girl’s poise made him feel that perhaps she could be a help in the strange crisis that was hitting Milton. In any case, she was the only person besides Father Clement who had acknowledged the growing darkness and she seemed to take the sudden relocation of buildings with only a few grains of salt.
“Are these children you mentioned who are playing in the toy store staying at this house?” Ted asked her.
“Yes, there are. There is no other place for them unless I make them sleep in store, which I will not do, as I fear that a child might roll over in his or her sleep and fall into the Dark Lake.”
“I passed a group of children I had never seen before on the way to this house,” said the mayor, “and I must say they weren’t acting like models of decorum.”
“I didn’t expect they would,” Amarilla agreed. “I believe it would be wise of me to go and check up on them. I suspect you want to do the same. You may come with me if you like.”
Ted Sloan was halfway down the block with Amarilla before it occurred to him that, mayor as he was of Milton, he had just let a girl he had never met before take charge of his investigations.
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Everett McAlister was tired of reading police reports that made no sense and listening to reports from unhinged officers that made even less sense. Much as he disdained being out on the streets as unfitting for the chief of the Milton Police Department, he slipped out of his office, determined to see for himself what was really going on. After driving off in his rarely-used patrol car, he cruised up and down Main Street looking for signs of the odd behavior that had been reported there. He noted that the window of Carl’s Hardware Store was broken as reported, and wondered why it hadn’t been replaced or at least boarded up. Large groups of children were running in and out of the store. That, too, had been reported, although it was odd that so many children would suddenly be attracted to a hardware store. Maybe it was broken window and the yellow police tape the enticed them, Everett suggested to himself. Only then did Everett verify the most nonsensical part of the police report. There was indeed a wooden sign hanging out in front of his store where none had been there before. Worse, the sign read: MORLEY’S TOY STORE. Incredibly, the police report was right. Then Everett looked for Carl’s Hardware Store. Even more incredibly, it was not there! Everett parked his car and got out, determined to solve this little enigma himself.
“I commend you for noticing the store that ought no to be on this street,” said a man dressed in black.
The police chief jumped half a mile, but he regained his composure before any of the three people who had suddenly clustered around him could notice his reaction.
“It is most important that you intervene before it is too late,” said the woman.
“The illicit appearance of this store is only the beginning,” said the younger man.
“Many unfortunate events are about to follow if you don’t stop them,” said the older man.
“This store is especially dangerous to children,” said the woman.
“Toys from a store like this bring out the worst in children,” said the younger man.
“You must gather your officers and raid the store,” said the older man.
“Otherwise, the mischief the children are about to engage in will do irreparable harm,” said the woman.
“The children who enter a store like this are not innocent,” said the younger man.
Everett was tempted to radio his colleagues in the vicinity to join him, but he decided he would look ridiculous if he asked them to raid a toy store that wasn’t supposed to exist and then they encountered nothing of any consequence. It would be best for him to take a look for himself first. He didn’t even have to finish crossing the street, however, to see that the toy store was total bedlam. Two children ran in front of him, rudely brushing his uniform, and dashed into the store.
“Johnny! Susie! Don’t go in there!” yelled their mother whom Everett recognized her as Julie Warren.
But they disappeared through the door with not a backward glance.
“Trouble?” the police chief asked her.
Julie shrugged.
“I don’t know. I guess it won’t hurt me if the kids look at all the toys. I just hope they don’t go to bed crying because I can’t buy them anything.”
With remarks of the three people dressed in black fresh in his mind, the store took on a sinister appearance for Everett, convincing him that it had invaded Milton for the purpose of seducing the children for some nefarious purpose.
“I’ll get them out for you,” Everett offered.
“Don’t bother,” the woman replied. “Just call me if you catch them shoplifting or something.”
“Will do.”
Everett hesitated at the door, surprised and ashamed that he allowed a toy shop to intimidate him so. The inside was dark, almost like a cave, with no lights on that he could see, and the sound of many children yelling was deafening. So many broken toys covered the floor that it was a wonder there was any floor left or that there were any more toys for the children to pull off the shelves and break. Children were running all over the place, snatching toys off shelves and throwing all manner of objects at each other. One boy was swinging a baseball bat while another boy wound up to pitch to him. Other children were situated in fielding formation. The batter swung and missed. Elsewhere, a group of girls were lining up dolls in military formation. Further back into the store it was so dark that Everett couldn’t see anything. A flying stuffed alligator knocked a whole shelf full of toys off a shelf. Several children dove at the floor full of toy pipes. Among them, the police chief picked out Johnny and Susie Warren fulfilling their mother’s prophecy by helping themselves to some long white clay pipes.
“John Warren! Susan Warren!” the police chief yelled at the top of his voice. “You are under arrest for shop lifting!”
The two children turned around and faced the officer with a combination of puzzlement and defiance.
“But he said we could have anything we wanted,” said Johnny.
“No, he said we can have anything that falls into our hands,” Susie corrected her brother.
“And who is he?” asked the police chief.
“Him,” said Johnny as he pointed to a man seated in the corner.
The man was busy scribbling away with a feather quill on a thin roll of paper supported only by a large book on his lap. Children were lined up in front of him. Everett cut in front of the boy in front, but not even then did the man look up at him.
“I am Everett McAlister of the Milton Police Department,” said the police chief. “Are you the proprietor of this store?”
“I am only the clerk—filionymic, please?” said the man without leaving off his writing.
“What is that?”
“Names of your children.”
“My kids have grown up and I don’t want to buy your toys for my grand kids. Where is the owner of this store?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you tell me how this store got here?”
“Paul son of Paul, one first baseman’s mitt.”
“Did you hear my question?” asked the police chief.
“Sammy, Son of Peter, one baseball bat,” the man muttered. “Yes I heard your question and no, I don’t know how this store got here —John son of Howard, one box of bubble pipes—Susan, Daughter of Howard, one box of bubble pipes—it could be that Melanie moved the store to this location.”
“Melanie Who?”
The store clerk froze, holding his quill in midair, and looked up at the police chief with a look of disbelief. The half dozen children standing in line looked equally amazed.
“You don’t know Melanie the Web Spinner?” asked a girl.
“Of course not. Why should I?”
“Why, it is Melanie the Web Spinner who spins the web that connects everything,” said a boy.
“Are you putting me on?” asked the exasperated police chief.
“Putting you on what?” asked a boy, “a garbage cart?”
Before Everett could frame a blustering reply, the crack of a baseball bat hitting a ball was followed by loud cheers and the sound of shattering glass. The batter tossed his bat into a shelfful of boxes and ran toward another set of shelves with his team mates urging him on. When he crashed into the shelf, the impact of his body caused several bottles to drop to the floor and shatter, spilling a stream of liquid. A girl chasing down the ball slipped into the shelf. More bottles fell off and the base runner hurtled into a stash of boxes in his way. The boxes broke open, spilling more toy pipes into the puddles of liquid. At roughly the same time, a football came hurtling through the air and sent another shelf full of bottles shattering to the floor.
“Bubbles!” “Pipes!” “Bubbles!” “Pipes!” “Bubbles!” cried several children.
Before Everett knew it, children were blowing colorful soap bubbles all over the store out of long white pipes. The liquid soap quickly became a river that streamed out the door. The children, yelling at the tops of their lungs, followed the stream out and dipped their pipes into the liquid soap to refill their pipes and blow more bubbles.
“Order! Order!” cried the police chief.
When the children did not hear him, let alone respond, Everett blew hard on his whistle. They all stopped in their tracks and stared sullenly at him in silence.
“What was that whistle for?” asked a girl.
“You are all guilty of disorderly conduct,” the police chief announced. “I want all of you to put down these pipes right now and start cleaning up this store which you have damaged so badly.”
“We can’t put down our pipes right now,” said a boy.
“And why not?”
Several children looked at each other. Everett felt a tightening in his chest when he realized that half of the children who total strangers to him. It didn’t seem possible that Milton could have so many strangers visiting the town all at the same time.
“The pipes and the liquid soap fell off the shelves,” a girl explained. “That means we’re supposed to blow lots of bubbles.”
“The reason the pipes and the soap fell off the shelves is because you knocked them off the shelves by your rowdy actions inside this store!” yelled the police chief.
To Everett’s dismay, the children seemed not to understand what he was talking about.
“No,” said a boy, “the reason the pipes and the soap fell of the shelves is because we are supposed to blow bubbles.”
“Do you mean to tell me that hitting bottles and toys with baseballs and footballs doesn’t knock them over?” the police chief yelled further, turning his volume up a notch.
The children gave the police chief blank looks that told him they had no idea what he was talking about.
“Baseballs and footballs only knock toys off the shelf when they’re supposed to fall off,” said a boy who acted like he thought he was a genius.
“And since all these pipes and all this liquid soap fell off the shelves,” added a girl, “we’re supposed to blow a lot of bubbles and we don’t have any time to lose.”
“We can use your help in blowing bubbles, too,” said a boy, “if you want to be helpful.”
“I am not about to add to the disorder you children are causing!” blustered the police chief.
“Then we’ll find people who will help,” said a girl.
“Hey! A boy cried out. “A little help!”
“Get your bubble pipes and blow your bubbles!” cried several children as they ran out to the street.
Ignoring all parental protests, the children within hearing distance came running to the store to receive their pipes and start blowing bubbles with the liquid soap that was flowing across the sidewalk and into the street. To Everett’s relief, he did not have to call his men over as they already saw the problem. To his dismay, however, his colleagues could find no way to restrain the children. The soap bubbles grew thicker until they burst and showered the street. Many cars stopped while their drivers looked in disbelief at what was happening. Several drivers honked their horns and one impatient man pressed his hand to his horn and held it there. It seemed that every child in Milton had come to join in the fun of outdoing each other in making larger, fancier bubbles. Some bubbles took the shapes of faces and cars and others took the shapes of delicate flowers. Everett barked orders to his men but one little girl cut him off by blowing a large bubble in the shape of a policeman that burst in his face. The other children laughed. Two other officers slipped on the soap as they tried to round up some of the wilder children. It was at this chaotic moment when Everett saw the mayor himself appear on the scene, accompanied by a tall girl who was yet another total stranger to him.
“I’ll get things back in order right away,” the exasperated police chief assured the mayor.
To Everett’s amazed anger, the mayor turned away from him and spoke to the strange girl.
“Are these the children you were telling me about, Amarilla?” he asked her.
“Some of them,” she answered. “I see that I have arrived here just in time. Joseph! I have caught you in the very act!”
“I’m busy,” said the boy Amarilla had called out to. Then he blew a bubble of a sea monster in her face. “I will have you know, my dear Amarilla, that all those pipes and all this soap fell off the shelves inside of Morley’s Toy Store.”
“With a little help of baseballs and footballs these kids threw at those shelves!” added the police chief.
“Sounds like you do have to reign in this kids,” the mayor prompted Amarilla.
“No it doesn’t!” Joseph insisted.
The children closest to the conversation paused in their action and waited for Amarilla to do her thinking and say something.
“If as many blowing pipes as these and so much liquid soap has fallen off the shelves of Morley’s Toy Shop,” said Amarilla, her face as serious as if she were talking about a matter of life or death, “Then we must all blow more and bigger bubbles on the double before it is too late.”
“Did you hear that?” yelled Joseph. “Amarilla says we need more and bigger bubbles on the double before it’s too late!”
“Bigger bubbles on the double!” a girl chanted.
The other children joined in the chant between puffs on their pipes.
“Bigger bubbles on the double!”
The policeman and other bystanders watched with open mouths as giant bubbles floated into the middle of the street. One bubble landed in front of the impatient driver who still had his hand pressed against his horn. All cars stopped as the density of bubbles made it hard for the drivers to see. The bubbles, large and small, converged in the middle of Main Street where they all merged into one giant bubble. Flashes of color exploded from the bubble as if it were a firecracker and then the colors shimmered to the ground and took the shape of a large fountain. The water spewed out sprays of many colors. The children cheered and dipped their pipes into the fountain so that they could blow more even bubbles.
“Now, how are we going to bring these children to order?” growled the police chief to the mayor.
“They’re having fun,” said an uneasy mayor with a shrug.
“I will have you know that the act of blowing bubbles is the precisely properly ordered for the needs and perils of this moment,” said Amarilla firmly.
“And how would you know that?” Everett asked her, flabbergasted that a girl her age would dare to talk back to a police chief.
“Because these pipes and the soap fell off the shelves Morley’s Toy Shop,” Amarilla explained.
“Since when are soap bubbles needed for the needs and perils of the moment just because they got knocked off the shelves in a store by a bunch of rowdy kids? Asked the police chief.
“The pipes and soap bubbles were needed to bring this fountain here and then to continue making as many bubbles as we can because we are going to need the light these bubbles are giving us very soon,” Amarilla replied.
“Since when do a few bubbles give us more light than the sun?” asked Everett, so exasperated that he would have shaken Amarilla to the bone if the mayor were not standing next to her.
“Have you looked around lately?” asked Amarilla.
Everett took his eyes off the strange girl and looked up at the sky to prove to himself that everything was as it should be. He felt a torch had landed in his stomach when he saw was that the afternoon sun was giving less light than it would at sunset.