Chapter the 28th
Only the multi-colored bubbles relieved the darkness and the amorphous shadows of people moving about. Ineffectual outbursts from a police megaphone punctuated the crowd noise. The slender thread from Melanie’s Web that dangled from the ceiling was the only thing that stood between Prince Moroch and total darkness inside the lighthouse tower.
“They call you Moroch the Pickled, you know,” said the old woman.
“That means they don’t take you seriously,” said the younger man.
“Now you have the chance to show them what you can do,” said the older man.
“It is about time you had your revenge for the way your subjects treat the crown prince,” said the woman.
“If we all seek revenge for everything, we’ll all kill each other,” the prince protested.
“Where did you get that idea?” the old man asked him.
“I don’t know,” said the prince with a shrug.
“You have to assert yourself as the Crown Prince,” the woman urged him.
“You have to show everybody who’s boss,” the younger man advised him.
“How do I do that?” asked the prince.
“Cover the fountain down there with the Dark Lake,” the older man suggested.
“How do I do that?” Prince Moroch asked.
“Slash the bubbles with your sword,” said the woman. “Melanie the Web Spinner is using them to help her weave the Web that will tie you down.”
In a fit of anger against the spider who had constrained him all his life, Prince Moroch ran his sword through the bubbles closest to the window. They popped, leaving shadows darker than the darkness in the town. The harp inside his head played a lament for the lost bubbles and their colors and Moroch lowered his sword, strangely unwilling to poke out the next bubble that floated up toward him.
“Why did you drop your sword?” asked the woman.
“I don’t know,” the prince replied.
Down below, a woman’s outcry about a rose stolen from her rose above the rest of the crowd noise. The action heated up and there was no question that the activity was verging on violence. For a second or two, the prince saw a pale white light, then it disappeared.
“I see a light down there,” said the prince as he saw a soft white glow emerging from the crowd.
“You need that light for yourself,” said the younger man.
“Somebody down there stole the light that you are supposed to have for your kingdom,” said the older man.
“Cut down that thread hanging above you, then go down and tie him up with it ,” urged the woman.
“Then you shall have the light he stole for yourself,” said the younger man.
Without warning, the lighthouse tilted and Prince Moroch slid against the wall. Frightened cries from the street made it clear that it wasn’t just the lighthouse that had tilted. Moroch slowly pushed himself away from the wall. He was badly bruised, but he didn’t seem to have broken any bones. The back of his head was throbbing but that need not stop him from doing what he needed to do. Moroch looked out the lighthouse window to see what the tilt had done. He was appalled. The squirming of humanity was totally chaotic. The outlines of the store fronts on Main Street looked as if a child had cut them up. Moroch guessed that, at most, half the buildings remained in place. In between, there were gaps where there was nothing at all, not a vacant lot, not a sidewalk, not a thing. Nothing.
“Sylvester, Bertha, and Cornelius, where are you?” the prince asked.
“They have all deserted you and the rest of the world,” said the older man.
“Only you can hold up the universe now,” said the woman.
“Surely you are glad to be freed of those animals who carried you where you did not want to go,” said the younger man.
“You will have to use the thread from Melanie’s Web to repair the damage,” said the older man.
“And you must take back the light the young man down below stole from you,” said the woman.
“I—I don’t think I can reconnect the universe all by himself,” said the prince.
“Where ever did you get an idea like that?” asked the younger man.
“I don’t know,” the prince replied.
But the sound of a harp running through Moroch’s mind soothed the prince’s pride just enough to keep him from snatching the thread and doing as they suggested.
----------------
Uncle Martin suddenly found himself lying on the floor, bruised on one side.
“Are you all right, Edith?” he asked his wife.
“Of course I’m all right,” Aunt Edith responded. “I know when to hang on tight to my chair, which is more than I can say for you.”
Uncle Martin stayed on his knees for a moment in case the house tilted again. It didn’t. He heard the sound of agitated voices outside and pricks of colored lights floated outside the living room window.
“I don’t think I got hurt too much,” said Uncle Martin.
“That’s good,” said Aunt Edith. “I’m expecting you to come with me when I take a look outside to see where whether anything is left of the world.”
“I see colored lights outside,” said Uncle Martin, “unless I’m seeing them because I hit my head too hard.”
“Well, I see those lights, too,” said Aunt Edith, “and I was intelligent enough to keep myself from getting knocked out of my chair when Sylvester the Turtle twisted his back—or something. Let’s go.”
“I’m coming,” said Uncle Martin.
“What about me?” asked Edna. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m all right?”
“I don’t think we have to,” said Uncle Martin. “You sound as crabby as ever.”
“You can come with us if you want,” said Aunt Edith. “Only the whole world is at stake.”
“Coming Gary?” asked Uncle Martin.
“No,” said the boy who was slouched so deeply in his chair it did not seem likely he would ever get out of it.
------------
“STOP HIM!” Eleanore Gleason yelled.
“Let him go!” Amarilla demanded.
But the English teacher ran awkwardly after the boy Amarilla had given the rose to herself, yelling all the way. Several police officers tried to tackle the boy, but other children in the crowd attacked the officers with their bodies and their bubbles so that the boy got away.
“I’ve got to follow this up,” said Amarilla. “I’m still responsible for that last remaining rose as long as it survives.”
Not wanting to lose touch with Amarilla, Ted Sloan kept pace with the girl as she walked back toward Main Street as briskly as the darkness allowed. To his relief, the crowd had dispersed instantly. He noticed that a couple of officers were getting a befuddled-looking Everett McAlister into a patrol car. Father Clement and Marion Rosskill also stayed with him, as if they had no idea what else they could do.
“The crowd sounds noisier than ever,” commented the doctor.
“I hope your professional skills are not needed,” said the mayor, “but I’m afraid they will be before this night is out.”
“I suppose this is my imagination,” said Father Clement, a bit winded by his exertion, “but the closer we get to Main Street, the stronger I get a feeling that Mark is close by.”
“You could be imagining something that’s true,” said Amarilla.
“I feel as if Mark is right inside me, picking my brain,” said Father Clement. “I haven’t experienced anything like this before.”
“Whatever you do, let him share your thoughts as he needs them,” Amarilla admonished him.
“I will with all my heart,” the priest promised.
As the group reached Main Street, they saw people scurrying in all directions in and out okf the colorful spray of the water from the fountain.
“Will you please stop blowing bubbles!” a woman ordered her child.
“What else can we do that’s any fun?” the child asked in return.
“Don’t talk back to me.”
“Anyone who blows bubbles will be arrested!” Chief Everett McAlister threatened through a megaphone as the patrol car he was riding stopped at the curb.
“Mister Mayor,” said a dismayed Marion Rosskill, “is it really against the law to blow bubbles on Main Street?”
“No,” Ted replied. “they won’t be able to book anybody for that.”
Amarilla looked up at the tower apprehensively.
“This is most interesting,” said Amarilla grimly. “I do believe that this tower is a lighthouse, only it has no light that I can see from here.”
“Does it come from your town, the way the fountain does?” Ted asked her.
“No, it doesn’t. Father Clement, do you feel your son’s presence any more clearly?”
“Yes, very much so. I feel as if he’s treating me like an encyclopedia where he’s looking up everything I’ve ever said to him and everything he’s heard me preach.”
“I am pretty sure that somebody is in the tower, that lighthouse,” said Amarilla, “and Mark may be there in some way.”
“Should I go help him?” asked the priest.
“You’re probably doing all you can already,” Amarilla replied.
“There she is!” boomed the voice of Everett McAlister. The police chief promptly closed in on Amarilla and practically stuck his badge in her nose. “Will you please explain what you are doing in this town?”
“I’m trying to help you get the light back,” Amarilla replied.
“I’m keeping an eye on her,” said the mayor. “You don’t have to worry about her.”
“What to you mean I don’t. . .”
“There he is!” cried Eleanore Gleason. “He stole my last rose! That rose is the only light we’ve got left!”
“Uh-oh,” said Amarilla, stopping herself and her companions right in their tracks.
Already a dark mass of people was forming around the teenager the woman was chasing and drowning out everybody else’s shouting. Everett McAlister let got of Amarilla and dashed off to respond to this new emergency.
“That’s Eleanore Gleason for you,” said the mayor. “She never would lay off a recalcitrant student—I should know—So, why should she lay off someone who’s stolen her last rose?”
Amarilla stepped forward.
“He did not steal that rose,” said Amarilla. “I gave it to him. I gave it to him for a reason.”
“Keep out of this,” Everett McAlister ordered.
He pushed Amarilla backwards, hard. If Father Clement had not been right there to catch her, she might have cracked her head.
“All right, young man,” barked the police chief as soon as two other officers had a firm grip on the youth. “Open that jacket of yours.”
“No!”
“Would you rather have your interview at the police station?”
“You won’t be able to pin anything on me.”
“We’ll just pin the theft of a rose from my property on you, that’s all,” said Eleanore Gleason.
A bit of light briefly appeared when one of the policemen grabbed the youth’s jacket.
“THERE IT IS!” cried Everett McAlister.
The glimpse of the rose evoked outcries from the crowd.
“I think I will have to intervene in this one,” said Ted Sloane through clenched teeth.
“Good luck,” said Marion.
But before the mayor could take any more than a couple steps in the direction of the fracas, a rumbling sound merged with that of the crowd and Main Street suddenly tilted at an odd angle. Instinctively, all four members of the group took the hand nearest to them with the result that a few seconds later, when the tilting and rumbling stopped, they were still standing together on the sidewalk. Yelling and pushing had risen to a fevered pitch and it was impossible to tell the police from the crowd or to find the youth with the rose.
“I hope they haven’t devoured that boy,” said Father Clement sadly.
“There’s no way I can get to him now,” said the mayor.
“Perhaps there’s cause for me to demand access to the young man to check on his health,” said Marion.
But a burst of exclamations and violent movements in the darkness forced Ted Sloane to push the doctor and Amarilla back and shield them from a column of men marching past with rifles over their shoulders. What scared the mayor the most about them was that they seemed to have just marched out of a black cave that created a gouging hole in the middle of a store. Any bubbles that floated into that cave dissolved instantly. The police chief, frenetically efficient as ever, brought some fellow officers up to meet him.
“Company, halt!” barked a commander.
“Who are you to send these men barging in here?” Everett McAlister asked the commander of this battalion. “I didn’t call for the state militia.”
“His Majesty King Perezvon XXVI ordered me to march to the kingdom of Corelee and declare war on that kingdom in the name of his Majesty King Perezvon XXVI, King of Carelin.”
“Well, this is the state of Pennsylvania, and there aren’t any kings around here who have any authority,” replied the police chief.
“I am under the orders of King Perezvon XXVI, no matter where I am,” insisted the commander.
“Look!” the police chief yelled at the commander, “Around here, you take orders from me.”
“Colonel Bradford-Patrick,” said Amarilla, “I respectfully request that you cease and desist from any military maneuver in this town of Milton.”
“Will you ever stop interfering?” asked the exasperated police chief.
“Amarilla, my dear!” exclaimed the colonel. “Have I circled back to Carelin, or are you visiting Corelee to make them give back the light they stole?”
“My dear colonel, you are—AAAH!”
“What’s the matter, my dear?”
“Did you come from—there?”
Amarilla pointed at the cave that had so unnerved Ted Sloan.
“Well, I came from somewhere—AAAH!”
“What’s the matter with you guys, now?” asked the police chief.
“This town is no longer what it was a minute ago.” Amarilla said in as steady a voice as she could manage,
“What do you mean?”
“Is it the dark, or are there stores that weren’t at this corner a minute ago?” asked Marion.
“I am afraid that these stores were not here a minute ago,” said the mayor, his voice shaking.
“But over there!” gasped Father Clement, “there doesn’t seem to be anything at all.
“What you are seeing is the Dark Lake breaking in to this town,” said Amarilla. “Stay away from it, or you will fall and never land anywhere ever again.”
“How could this happen?” asked Marion.
“Probably poor Sylvester the Turtle got his back broken,” Amarilla replied.
“What does a turtle have to do with this?” asked the police chief.
“I don’t have time to explain,” said Amarilla.
Marion Rosskill’s pager beeped. She put it to her ear and listened to the static-filled voice that was unintelligible to the others.
“Are you needed at the hospital?” asked Father Clement.
“No,” the doctor replied. “I’m needed about half a block away. I see them waving at me now. See you!”
“Where is that girl who’s causing all the trouble?” Everett McAlister growled.
Ted Sloan gently moved Amarilla away from the police chief before he found her again. Father Clement positioned himself to block her from the police chief’s view.
“Careful,” Amarilla whispered. “The Black Lake had broken in in several places.”
The dark patch he had seen already had unnerved the mayor enough to make him walk very carefully.
“Edith! Martin!” cried a shrill woman above the noise surrounding them, “Where are you going? I can’t see my way around!”
Ted couldn’t see her very well, but he would have known that voice anywhere.
“Edna!” Ted exclaimed, “are you lost as well?”
“Ted Sloane! What are you doing here?”
“I’m just trying to get a handle on what’s going on here,” Ted replied.
“Well, I think somebody just turned the world topsy-turvy, if you ask me,” said Edna. “I must admit that this nice couple has taken care of me since I got stranded here, but now they don’t seem to know where we are, and then next thing I knew, they’d run off, and here am I trying to find my way back to the house before it moves again, because if it does, I’ll never find my way back to it. If you want to stay with me, then you can stay at that house where I’m staying until we find a way to get back home, if I can find the house again, that is.”
“But Edna,” said Ted, “you are home.”
“What? I am?”
“Well, sort of,” said Ted. “I think half of Milton just got swallowed up and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“You mean this is Milton? Then I’d better go find my husband and give him his trousers—Oh wouldn’t you know it! I left them in the house.”
“Were you calling for Edith and Martin?” asked Amarilla.
“Yes, those are their names. Lovely people and most helpful and generous to a couple of strangers from out of town.”
“And they ran off, you say?”
“That’s what I said,” Edna replied.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Well, right after this little earthquake, they stepped out to see where we were. Then Edith started to panic. She said that some dark lake was flooding the town and that the world was falling apart, and there’s no hope for anybody. Then Martin told her that this dark lake hadn’t flooded everything, and there were houses left and these funny lights were still floating around, so perhaps not everything was lost as yet. By this time, Edith had seen this dark tower right behind this funny fountain, and she said she thought she should go over there, because it was just the place that might hold things together, and then Edith said she was hearing harp music that I couldn’t hear, but she thought that was coming from the tower, and Martin said he was hearing harp music too and then Edith said that meant she definitely had to run to the tower, and then next thing I knew, they were gone and I was left here in the dark all alone until I ran in to you.”
“There’s the house!” Amarilla exclaimed as she pointed to a house that had two familiar stone lions on the front porch.
“It can’t be!” Ted gasped, knowing that Evelyn Lear’s house was supposed to be four blocks away.
“It most certainly could be,” said Amarilla. “Any house the Queen Mother would live in would move at the drop of a hat, depending on the rest of the universe. Do you want to go back in?”
“I think I should go find Phil if he’s in town here,” said Edna, “and make sure he isn’t cheating on me because he thinks I’m gone. I’ll fix his wagon if he is. I can come back for his trousers later. I’m sure he can do without them for another day if he’s gone this long without them.”
To Ted Sloane’s relief, Edna melted into the darkness in search of her own home and her husband.
“I suggest you run inside until that police chief stops looking for you,” suggested the mayor.
“Good idea,” said Amarilla. “I need to check out this house anyway. Are the two of you coming in with me?”
Without waiting for an answer, Amarilla walked up to the house and through the front door, letting the priest and the mayor follow her. A few soap bubbles floated in with them, giving them a minimal amount of light. Amarilla looked about anxiously, but did not seem to see anything amiss. At first glance, it appeared that the living room was empty, but then Father Clement saw a human form curled up in a chair.
“I think there is somebody else here, Amarilla,” said the priest.
“Just me,” said an adolescent boy.
“Who is that?” asked the priest.
“Gary.”
“Ah, Gary Haggler?” asked the mayor.
“Yea. Did you get stranded, too?”
“No, this house seems to have—to have been brought back home—for the moment, anyway,” stammered the mayor. “You can probably go home now.”
“I don’t care.”
“Don’t you think your parents care where you are?’ asked Father Clement.
“Not really.”
“I’d better make sure the rest of this house is here,” Amarilla muttered.
Her companions exchanged puzzled glances as Amarilla made a beeline to the kitchen door where she stopped suddenly and let out a soft cry. Ted and Father Clement clustered around her and saw for themselves the reason for her dismay. Instead of the kitchen, they saw what appeared to be an alleyway. A dimly luminescent pink object lay in the alley. Just a bit further down the alley, a neon sign over a plain doorway announced itself as the DOUBLY LOST LONELY HEARTS NIGHT CLUB. The sound of raucous voices drifted from the night club to the house. The more Ted Sloane looked at the pink object, the more he thought a he was looking at an upside down pink toy piano lying in the middle of the alley. With its legs sticking up, it made the mayor think of a dead animal.
“That couldn’t be a dead piano out there, could it?” asked Ted.
“It could,” said Amarilla, her voice expressionless.
“Is that the sort of thing you think we should investigate?” Father Clement asked Amarilla.
“It is,” said Amarilla.
“Are you sure that’s a safe thing to do?” asked Ted.
“I am sure it is not a safe thing to do,” Amarilla replied, “but I think I should go and retrieve this toy piano, since it is obviously waiting for us, and it has the look of a toy that came from Morley’s. Most likely I will not be able to get back into this house if I go out this way and there’s no telling where I will end up. I would like for one of you to come with me, if either of you is willing. If not, I will do it myself. I would also like for one of to should stay here in this house and hold it in place, if you can.”
The mayor and the priest looked at each other warily. Both alternatives seemed frightening to Ted Sloane. He worried about his obligations to Milton, especially at such a time of crisis. But he also knew he would never be able to live with himself if he let the girl run out alone and she came to grief. Moreover, he was convinced that this girl was the key for keeping his town from falling apart altogether. Ted also worried that Father Clement was not really physically fit to defend Amarilla if she needed protection.
“I’ll go with you,” said the mayor.
“Thank you,” said Amarilla. “Father Clement, Can you please stay here and keep watch?”
“Well, Mary is surely worried,” said the priest, “and there’s no phone here for calling her. But what you are asking of me does seem quite important.”
“It is important, or I wouldn’t ask it of you,” said Amarilla. “I think you should leave both doors open unless you see clear signs of danger. This house is most likely needed as a passageway. Mr. Sloane, let us go.”
Taking the mayor by the hand, Amarilla stepped down to the alley. Ted made the mistake of looking back where he saw that the house had dissolved, leaving only empty darkness.
----------
“Do not cross police lines,” ordered an officer as his colleagues ran their yellow tape around the tower.
“This is a real madhouse!” Harvey Armstrong gasped.
“This is nothing compared to what it’s like in the choir room the minute a rehearsal has come to an end,” said his new acquaintance, Mr. Schnitzelbergen.
Harvey watched some police officers presiding over the towing of the cars that had crashed into the tower. Other officers yelled and chased after the children who kept blowing bubbles and eluding their pursuers. More ominously, Harvey noticed that two ambulances were parked close by with medics waiting to pounce on anybody who got injured in the confusion. The colored bubbles floating everywhere made the scene look all the more grotesque.
“Is being a choirmaster that hard?” Harvey asked him.
“Oh, infinitely so,” replied the choirmaster, “but I wouldn’t trade my job for all the harpsichords in Correlee.”
“Where’s that?” asked Harvey. “No, don’t tell me. I’m confused enough as it is. I thought I was in Milton, Pennsylvania, but it doesn’t look like it. It’s hard to see in this dark. Maybe my office slipped into your world instead of the other way round.”
“It is hardly obvious to me what is happening right now,” said the choirmaster, “but then I’m always the last person to know what’s going on. Nigel, my head chorister, tells me that I never know when the boys are sending obscene hand-signal messages to each other in the middle of a concert. If I could find even one of my boys, I would feel so much better about everything.”
“Aren’t any of these children out there your choirboys?” Harvey asked him.
“These children are every bit as unruly as any of my choristers,” Mr. Schnitzelbergen replied, “but I don’t recognize a one of them.”
Suddenly the whole street shook and Harvey feared the ground was opening up at his feet.
“Steady there,” said Mr. Schnitzelbergen as he tightened his hold on Harvey’s arms. “Now, take a step backwards. That’s it. I think we’re both safe—for the time being.”
Harvey stood dizzily on the sidewalk. Right in the spot the choirmaster had maneuvered him away from, a large piece of Milton seemed to have been gouged out of existence. At the same time, the sound of the crowd in the middle of the street grew suddenly louder and the shadows became more active.
“What happening?” Harvey asked, his voice shaking.
“I–I think the Dark Lake has just flooded your city,” replied Mr. Schnitzelbergen.
“What do you mean, flooded?” asked Harvey. “I don’t see any water, except for the fountain. It looks more like—like nothing.”
“That’s exactly what the Dark Lake is,” said Mr. Schnitzelbergen. “And that is why it is so dangerous.”
“I hope Lilly is all right.”
“There are so many people to worry about right now,” said the choirmaster. “I hope I will still have a choir when all this is over—“
“He stole my last rose!” cried a woman.
“GET HIM!” cried a man.
“Male way! Make away!” one of the officers ordered through his megaphone.
When the yelling and the jostling around a young man became violent, Harvey and Mr. Schnitzelbergen backed away as the police moved in. In the dark, it was not possible for Harvey to see what was happening amid the escalated yelling and screaming. In the middle of it all, he saw a brief flash of a light that was promptly reabsorbed in the darkness.
“I’m afraid somebody has gotten hurt,” said Harvey.
“I have the same fear,” said the choir director.
“Make way for the stretcher!” ordered a policeman through his megaphone.
Harvey and Mr. Schnitzelbergen dutifully stepped back as two medics scurried through the crowd with a stretcher. At precisely the same time, by a group of men came marching down the street.
“Company halt!” cried a commander.
“I can’t believe this!” Mr. Schnitzelbergen gasped. “I don’t know what the Carelin militia could possibly be doing here.”
“Who are you to send these men barging in here?” Everett McAlister barked at the commander of this battalion. “I didn’t call for the state militia.”
A sudden flash of light that almost blinded him made Harvey forget about the altercation in front of him. For a second or two, Harvey thought he was fainting, but then he realized that his head was clear and there was something cool and soft resting in his hand.
“Harvey!” cried the choirmaster, “are you holding what I think you are holding?”
“What do you think I’m holding?” asked Harvey as he looked down at the pale white spot in the palm of his hand.
“I think you are holding a rose petal conjured by Amarilla, the Daughter of Martin and Edith,” said Mr. Schnitzelbergen. “I see Amarilla telling Colonel exactly what I would tell him if she hadn’t beaten me to it, so I know she’s in town. Every time a chorister sings a solo well, she gives him one—Gracious to Grasshoppers! My dear Aunt Edith and Uncle Martin!” A woman and a man with her stopped.
“I think that Engelbert Schnitzelbergen is here,” said the man.
“What are you doing here?” the choirmaster asked them. Well, I suppose I do know what you are doing here. Surely you are trying to find out what is going on,, and just as surely, if anybody can figure that out what is going on and then do something about it, it’s you.”
“Yes, I suppose that is true,” said Aunt Edith in a tense voice, “so please get straight to the point and tell me anything you happen to know, if anything.”
“Well, among other things, we heard a woman yell that somebody had stolen her last rose. Then there was a struggle and somebody was hurt, probably the person had the rose.”
“And I suppose the rose was torn to shreds?”
“It seems so, my dear Aunt Edith. But look at what my friend has in his hand.”
Harvey opened the palm of his hand and showed the woman the rose petal.
“Sure looks like Amarilla’s been at it again,” said Uncle Martin.
“It does have that appearance,” said Aunt Edith. “Whatever you do, my dear sir, guard that rose petal with your life until a hummingbird comes for it, which I hope will be soon, at which time, you should give this petal to the hummingbird. As for us, I still think we should find out who or what is at the top of that lighthouse.”
Before Harvey could warn them that the police were barricaded the lighthouse, Aunt Edith and Uncle Martin had melted into the darkness.
“Who are they?” asked Harvey.
“Remarkable people,” replied Mr. Schnitzelbergen. “It’s amazing and encouraging that they should be here right when they are needed.”