Chapter the 6th
The aroma of food and the sounds of music and boisterous laughter filled the Byrd & Tallis. Shawn squeezed himself and Karen through the door, only to be pinned to the wall by a table where a group of richly-dressed women were playing a card game over their dinner. Hemming them in further was another table where a group of men wearing mustaches traded cigars while they ate at a fast and furious rate. There was no sign of the waiter who had opened the door. Worse, the door he and Karen had just come through was gone. Shawn looked hopelessly for the maitre D's station, but saw only endless tables filled with customers crammed so close together that Shawn didn’t see how he could move anywhere. Some distance away, a small band of musicians, something like an Irish band, harpist and all, were playing away. To Shawn’s frustration, there was no sign of Morley’s Toy Shop.
“What kind of place is this?” Shawn asked Karen.
“It’s hard to explain,” Karen replied.
“I’ll say,” said Shawn.
“I think our best bet is to move forward and see if some room opens up for us,” Karen suggested.
“What put that idea in your head?” Shawn asked.
“Experience,” Karen replied with an icy look that showed she knew a male chauvinist when she saw one.
Karen walked right into the back of the chair in front of her and, next thing Shawn knew, there was just enough space for her to navigate between the two tables. Shawn quickly followed in her footsteps before the space closed in on him again. Before long, Karen was again trapped by four tables that surrounded her, but the space cleared once again when she moved forward.
“What kind of place is this?” Shawn muttered to himself again and again.
“HEY!” yelled a man from several tables away. “I SEE A COUPLE OF STRANGERS IN HERE!”
“Strangers!” “Strangers!” cried people from various tables. “Are they from Correlee?”
Shawn’s pulse quickened at the mention of the name of his imaginary kingdom that he thought nobody knew about except him. A group of unruly men from close to the folk band rose up from their table. The biggest of them was a black-bearded man wearing a fancy purple waist coat with a parrot perched on his shoulder. Another of the men had a black patch over one eye. All of them looked every inch like a crew of pirates. The men snaked their way between tables and headed straight towards the new comers.
“CAPTAIN POLLY AT YOUR SERVICE!” yelled the man in the waist coat over the crowd. “What can I do for you?”
“At your service—what can I do?” chirped the parrot.
Shawn swallowed hard. He was startled with how much quieter the establishment had suddenly become and with the number of people who were staring at him and Karen.
“Nothing that I know of,” said Shawn.
To Shawn’s amazement, the burly pirate curled down his lip, pulled out a handkerchief and started to cry. The pirates closest to him patted him on the shoulder to console him.
“I’m sure didn’t mean it in that way,” said Karen hastily.
“Then in what way did he mean it?” sobbed Captain Polly.
Shawn shuffled his feet and decided to try and get out of this impasse by changing the subject.
“Uh—maybe you can help if you’re the owner of this place and can get me a table,” said Shawn.
The pirate cheered up and put away his handkerchief.
“I suppose you could say that I am the owner of this place until the man we bound and gagged gets free of his bonds and gags and crawls over to the court house and gets a court order demanding we give the place back to him,” said Captain Polly.
All the pirates and many other people roared with laughter.
“Is there a way through here to Morley’s?” asked Shawn.
“Morley’s?!” “Morley’s?!” several children exclaimed while their parents tried to shush them.
Captain Polly looked to his fellow pirates for advice on that question.
“Not that I know of,” said one of them.
“Not that we know of,” Captain Polly repeated.
“Know of, know of,” echoed the parrot on Captain Polly’s shoulder.
Several children groaned.
“Does anybody know?” asked Shawn.
Captain Polly looked again to the rest of his crew. They all shook their heads.
“Nobody knows where Morley’s is going to be, or when it’s going to be open,” said an elderly woman at a nearby table.
“Nobody knows where Morley’s is going to be or when it is going to be,” repeated Captain Polly. “Does that answer your question?”
“I guess so,” said Shawn.
The children around the restaurant groaned even louder.
“Who is he to want to go to Morley”s?” asked a woman from three or four tables away.
“Yea,” said a young man, “who is he to be looking for Morley’s at a time like this?”
“Shawn Harrison, that’s who,” Shawn answered in a cold tone of voice.
“You aren’t from Corelee, are you?” asked an old man.
Hearing his kingdom named a second time almost turned Shawn’s insides into water.
“We’re from Milton,” Karen answered.
“Corelee is an imaginary country,” said Shawn.
That declaration was greeted by many gasps and the sound of much chair scraping as several people rose to their feet. They all looked angry enough to lynch the stranger among them.
“Imaginary?!” “Imaginary?!” “Imaginary?!”
“If Corelee is imaginary, it has to be real,” insisted Captain Polly.
“It’s just the name for the kingdom I built for my train set,” said Shawn.
“That proves it’s real!” yelled a boy.
“That means he’s the king!” yelled a woman. “Get him before he steals the rest of our light!”
People started to advance on Shawn and Karen from all directions. Before Shawn could see a way to escape, a loud strike on the drum followed by a sharp chord on the harp stopped the would-be attackers and reduced the restaurant to a tense silence.
“I remind you that his majesty King Perezvon XXVI has not yet declared war on Correlee,” the harpist told the crowd. “I also must express my serious displeasure that none of you have recognized our honored guest Chief Captain Karen, the girl who took me to a house of healing in Milton when I was injured. Moreover, it was Chief Captain Karen’s mother who was my healer. Therefore, Chief Captain Karen and her companion should be treated with the utmost respect for as long as they are here in the Byrd & Tallis. With that settled, my band and I shall entertain you with the best of music.”
“And another thing!” yelled Captain Polly. “It’s no fair raiding Corelee if King Shawn the First isn’t there to greet us!” Captain Polly clapped his hands. “Carlo Friedrich! Give Chief Captain Karen and Shawn the First the best and coziest booth in the place!”
The harpist and his band struck up a lively tune as a man dressed in a suit with a maroon jacket and navy blue tie, squeezed himself out from between two tables and approached Karen and Shawn.
“This way, please,” he said in a low voice. “We are most honored by your presence.”
The Maitre D’ led his young guests through a labyrinth of tables whose occupants seemed to get more weird as they moved along. A group of men who almost looked like weasels sat over beer and pretzels while, at another table off to the side, an old woman, wrapped up so tightly that she seemed to have no use of her hands, quietly ate a shrimp salad. Carlo Friedrich ushered Shawn and Karen to a roomy booth that seemed suddenly to have carved itself out of the wall the second they reached it. The seats were padded with black satin cushions and the table was set for a large formal meal.
“Our kitchen boasts of the ability to fill any order,” announced the Maitre D’. “Prices are not announced and will be negotiated. Would you like some time to contemplate your orders?”
“Can you serve us wine here?” asked Shawn.
“Of course.”
“Then I would like one glass of Mosel Wine, 1964, for each of us, please.”
“Yes, a good year. Appetizer?”
“Escargots cooked in garlic butter,” said Shawn.
“And for the main course?”
“We shall have a platter of steak and lobster for two with baked potato and sour cream.”
“Excellent choices.”
Karen gave Shawn the satisfaction of seeing her jaw drop.
“Can you light our candle, please?” Shawn asked, indicating a white candle in the middle of the table that was shaped like a rose with more petals than one could count.
“That candle is a self-starter,” the Maitre D’ replied. “I cannot light it for you.”
Shawn frowned.
“Do you mean I have to light it myself?”
“I said the candle is a self-starter and that is what I mean.”
“How come everybody else’s candle is lit?” asked Shawn.
“That is probably because they have a little more light to work with than you do.”
With that, the Maitre D’ disappeared in the press of the crowd. The folk band was playing a peppy tune that mixed well with the boisterous talk and laughter filling the restaurant. The pirates laughed boisterously as they drained their mugs of ale.
“As you can see,” said Shawn, “I got us a really good table.”
“So I see,” Karen replied cooly.
“How come some of these people know you?” Shawn asked.
“Because I’ve been here before.”
“How did that happen?”
“It started with that harpist. His name is Dornal. He suddenly turned up in the middle of Milton during that blizzard in March and got hit by a car.”
“And then you got made a chief captain of something?”
Karen made Shawn feel a bit better by looking puzzled.
“I don’t know what this chief captain stuff is all about,” Karen admitted. “Some people called me that last time I came here. It didn’t make sense and it still doesn’t. I’ve never been a captain in my life.”
The musical ensemble started up another lively piece and the pirates broke out into a raucous chorus of “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum” with most other patrons in the tavern joining in. Shawn stared at the pirates disdainfully as he brought a silver cigarette lighter out of his pocket, and switched on the flame.
“My Dad gave this to me,” Shawn explained.
“Do you smoke?” Karen asked.
“Once in a great while.”
Shawn put the flame of the lighter to the candle and waited for the candle to light. It didn’t.
“What’s the matter with this thing?” asked Shawn.
“If the candle is a self-starter, it might be that you have to let it light itself,” Karen suggested.
Shawn shrugged as if he didn’t care and put the lighter away.
When the singing of the pirates’ song ended, the band continued playing something else as if it were never going to stop.
“King Shawn the First!” yelled Captain Polly from his table.
“King Shawn the First!” chirped the parrot.
Shawn stiffened, but coolly pretended he didn’t hear the pirate.
“Since when did you get elevated to royalty?” Karen asked Shawn.
“Since a couple of days ago,” Shawn replied.
The pirate strolled up to the table. Karen stiffened.
“I'll handle this,” Shawn whispered confidently.
“King Shawn the First!” the pirate yelled into Shawn's face.
Shawn did not blink.
“King Shawn the First!” echoed the parrot.
“That’s my name,” Shawn replied.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” said Captain Polly, “and I'll pick it clean. Is there any reason why you didn't join our song?” the pirate asked.
Shawn looked the pirate in the eye.
“I don’t like that song.”
Captain Polly lowered his face and thrust his nose into Shawn's eyes. Shawn still refused to flinch.
“You don’t have to like a song to sing it with everybody else.”
“Will I be required to sing that song when the rightful owner gets this place back from the courthouse?” asked Shawn.
“If and when this establishment changes hands again,” said Captain Polly, “it might well be that you will then be required to sing the soprano part to The Ode to Joy.”
Several people laughed.
“Since when can restaurant owners make their customers sing against their will?” asked Shawn.
“You don't seem to understand this place, very well, King Shawn the First,” said Captain Polly. “Around here, everybody is musical as a matter of principle. And, as another matter of principle, everybody believes in having a good time. As yet another matter of principle, everybody here is sufficiently interested in having a good time that they are committed to developing all conceptual analyses of what actually and truly constitutes a good time. If you had a different song than the one we just sang, I wouldn't mind your singing that instead, but you didn't have a song and you don't have a song, and you will never will have a song until you change your life!”
“Change your life,” echoed the parrot.
“I’ll change my life when I’m good and ready,” said Shawn.
“The reason you aren’t ready to change your life is because your heart is a beaten-up piece of tin rattling inside a cage inside your chest,” Captain Polly retorted.
Enough people at nearby tables laughed to make Shawn blush. The pirate winked at Karen and stalked back to his table where his companions greeted him with boisterous laughter.
“Stupid drunk,” Shawn murmured.
A wine steward dressed in green livery appeared with two wine glasses and a bottle. At that moment, most of the talking stopped and the band played a soft, lyrical melody. The steward poured a small amount into a glass for Shawn to sniff, which he did with much dignity before nodding his acceptance. The steward then filled both glasses and left. Shawn held up his glass for a toast.
“To the two of us in the Byrd and Tallis,” said Shawn.
“In the Byrd and Tallis,” Karen echoed with little conviction.
“Weird as this place is,” Shawn added.
“You might find this place interesting if you get used to it,” said Karen.
Shawn put down his glass and looked at Karen.
“Why should I get used to this place?” Shawn asked.
“Because you might have to do something important here, that’s why.”
“Like what?”
A waiter appeared to serve the escargots.
“Is the wine satisfactory?” he asked Shawn.
“Yes, quite,” Shawn replied.
After the waiter left, Shawn gave Karen a hard stare that made her tremble.
“If you have been here before, Miss Smarty, can tell me what this place is and where it is?” Shawn asked in a tone of voice that demanded an answer.
The ensemble began another soft, soothing air, as if the musicians knew Karen needed help in calming her nerves.
“This place is called Carelin,” Karen answered. “It’s a little town and it has a king. I don’t know where it is. All I can say is that things are different here than they are back home in Milton.”
“You can say that again.”
Shawn wolfed down his snails, then stared at Karen until she dutifully ate one of hers.
“What’s this about my being expected to do something important in this place?” Shawn asked.
Karen hesitated before answering.
“Have you by any chance noticed that the light is disappearing?”
“Do you mean here? It’s kind of dark in here all right, but I thought that was just atmosphere.
“That’s not what I mean,” Karen replied. “Just think a minute. Have you noticed that everything in Milton seems darker than it should be.”
“Milton is a dark place in every way.”
“I’m not just taking about how depressed a town Milton is,” said Karen with thinning patience. “I’m talking about darkness.”
“Hmm. Okay, I’ll tell you something. I thought this morning looked pretty dark for a sunny day. I thought it was just me. If the morning looked that way to you, too, then maybe I'm not so crazy after all. That’s good for the old self-image you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But if the world is getting darker, what are we supposed to do about it?” asked Shawn. “Buy out a company that sells flashlights?”
Karen ventured to eat another snail.
“I think we're supposed to help get the light back,” said Karen.
“Who says?”
Karen shrugged.
“Does that matter? Like—does it matter who says you shouldn't hijack an airplane and kill the people on it?”
“But why should we have to be the ones who have to find this light and bring it back?” asked Shawn. “Why can't we just enjoy a nice dinner when we have the chance?”
“We can enjoy this nice dinner,” Karen replied, “as long as we do what we’re supposed to do when the time comes. I don't know how to explain it. Sometimes you have to go on what people here call a quest. When I came here before, I was trying to find my brother Kevin and it turned out he’d gotten here, too.”
“Kevin?” Shawn scoffed. “Why bother tracking down a kid brother when you’ll only have to be a nursemaid to him if you find him? How did he get here, anyway? How did you know he was here?”
Karen gave Shawn a level look.
“To answer your first question: sometimes you just have to care about other people besides yourself. To answer your second question: I don’t know how Kevin got here and I don’t think he does, either. It just happened. To answer your third question: Michael Bullinger knew about this place and he guessed Kevin was here, so he brought me here, and he was right. My experience is that this is the sort of place where you have to just let things happen. There's no telling what's going to happen next, and there's no telling where one place is going to be from one minute to the next.”
“Does this mean that there might not be an entrance to Morley’s right now but in a couple of minutes there might be?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I mean.”
Shawn put a finger over the cold wick of the candle. Nothing happened.
“This candle still doesn’t like me,” Shawn complained.
“I don’t blame it,” said Karen.
Shawn glared at Karen and put a hand over the top of the candle.
“Did you say Michael Bullinger brought you here?” asked Shawn.
“Yes.”
“How come you went around with him?”
“I didn’t choose Michael to be the one who took me here any more than I chose you to be the one I brought here this time.”
“Well, excuse me for intruding on your fantasy world,” Shawn muttered.
Shawn put both of his hands over the candle, and the whole restaurant turned noticeably darker. The sound of talking at the other tables suddenly grew tense, and Shawn overheard scraps of conversation about “light” and “darkness.”
“Maybe this is power of suggestion,” said Karen, “but I think it’s getting much darker here all of a sudden, like maybe somebody covered up the lights around here.”
“Are you blaming me?” asked Shawn.
“Hey!” yelled a man. “Who’s taking all the light away from here?”
“Why don’t you take your hands off the candle and see what happens?” Karen suggested.
“That’s right, blame everything on me.”
Nonetheless, Shawn took his hands away from the candle nonetheless, but his gesture didn’t seem to lighten the restaurant. A waiter appeared from between two nearby tables, took away the escargots and replaced then with a large platter containing a giant lobster and a huge cut of steak. Shawn’s eyes lit up.
“Your candle won’t light if you suffocate the flame,” said the waiter.
“Nothing I do seems to work,” Shawn grumbled.
“Have you tried putting some light into your life?” asked the waiter.
“That’s no way to talk to a customer,” said Shawn.
“Yes it is,” said the waiter, who then disappeared before Shawn could reply to that barb.
“Is this a place where everybody puts everybody else down all the time?” Shawn asked Karen.
“Not all the time,” Karen replied, seeming to choose her words carefully. “It’s just that—well—most people need to try and be better than they are.”
“Trying to be better than I am never did me any good,” said Shawn, cutting off the discussion before Karen got back to the idea that he was supposed to do something for the horrible people of this strange world. He cut out a large piece of the steak for himself and looked at Karen with a self-satisfied smile.
“Uh—I’ve never had a lobster in my life,” Said Karen. “What do I do?”
Feeling in his element again, Shawn cut out some meat from the lobster’s tail and put it on her plate.
“Dip it in the melted butter,” Shawn suggested.
Karen took the suggestion and smiled enough to suggest she was realizing that dinner with Shawn wasn’t such a bad thing after all. But as the two ate, more and more people looked over at them with displeasure, and more and more people moved away and gathered in other areas in the tavern. Dornal’s band continued to play as if there were no problem and the pirates continued to live it up as if there were no tomorrow.
“What’s with these people?” Shawn asked Karen
“I wish I knew,” said Karen. “People were a lot nicer last time I was here.”
Shawn shrugged.
“So much for them.”
Shawn tried to tune out everybody else and enjoy his lobster but he couldn’t help but hear people muttering about “stolen light.” Determined to put a stop to the insinuations once and for all, Shawn put down his knife and fork, whipped out his cigarette lighter and tried once again to light the candle. The murmuring grew louder and several people started to close in on the booth.
“Now we know who’s stealing all the light in here!” charged a man.
Shawn glared at his accuser.
“What do you mean, I’m stealing the light?” Shawn asked, outraged. “I can’t even get a light for myself.”
“That’s because you don’t have any light,” said a woman.
“It’s because you’re an invader from Correlee!” yelled a man.
Shawn picked up the candle and covered it with both hands as if it were a snowball he was about to pitch at somebody. When panic struck the faces of his accusers, Shawn indulged in a cool smile of satisfaction.
“Shawn!” Karen whispered in a sudden panic, “Don’t do it!”
Shawn ignored her and rubbed the candle with his hands, noting with satisfaction that the tavern grew darker, the more he covered the candle. Suddenly a red-haired woman wearing a long, black evening dress broke through the crowd and swept over to the booth.
“What do you think you are doing?” the woman asked, fixing so severe a look on Shawn that he couldn’t help but tremble.
“I’m trying—to light this—candle,” Shawn stammered, amazed that the woman’s looks seemed to annihilate the cuss words he tried to use.
Karen turned her head to the woman with a look of recognition that only increased Shawn’s irritation.
“He hasn’t had a chance to understand this place yet,” Karen said to her. Then she turned back to Shawn. “This is Aunt Edith. Please listen to her.”
“What do you have to say to me?” Shawn asked, angered further when he couldn’t keep a tremor out of his voice.
“King Shawn the First,” said Aunt Edith, “I implore you to put this candle back down on this table right this minute. If you do that, I will assist you in your quest to find the light you are appointed to find.”
Several people crowded around the table and added their voices to Aunt Edith’s, urging Shawn to do as the woman suggested. By this time, Shawn had had enough of being told what to do by the people of this strange place.
“If you want this candle,” said Shawn in an icy voice, “then you can have it.”
With those words, Shawn hurled the candle as far as he could. Cries of horror warmed Shawn’s blood as the candle struck a wall behind a table that the diners had vacated and a soft ethereal glow began to spread along the wall.
“Well,” said Shawn, “I finally got that thing lit.”
The glow quickly took on the shape of a door and a badly flickering neon sign announced Morley’s Toy Store. Several children cried out in excitement and ran towards the door while their parents yelled at them and frantically chased after them.
“Ah! There it is!” cried Shawn. “Coming with me, Karen?”
“DON’T USE THAT DOOR!” Edith warned. “IT IS A NIGHTMARE OPENING AND NOT TO BE TRUSTED!”
So great was the command in Edith’s voice that even the most eager children stopped in their tracks, just short of the door and let their parents pull them away. But Shawn, not in a mood to listen to Aunt Edith, grabbed Karen by the hand and tried to pull her to the door.
“NO!” Karen shrieked.
Two burly pirates seemingly popped out of nowhere and snatched Karen out of Shawn’s grasp.
“If that’s the way you want it,” said Shawn as he moved to the door, “then I won’t buy you anything after all.”
“KING SHAWN!” Aunt Edith shouted, “IF YOU GO THROUGH THAT DOOR, YOU WILL REGRET IT TO THE DEPTHS OF YOUR BEING.”
That threat meant nothing to Shawn. He pulled down the latch and opened the door as easily as any other door. Amid deafening screams, he slipped through before anybody could hold him back.