Shadowland (26 page)

 
   In the dining car Tom first realized how odd he and Del appeared, here on this train. As soon as they walked in, he felt exposed. The women with their children, the soldiers, the cowboys, stared at them. Tom wished for a uniform, for ten more years on his body. A few people smiled: being cute was hateful. He promised himself that for the rest of the trip he would at least wear a shirt a different color from Del's.

 
   Del commandeered a small side table, snapped the napkin off his plate, and accepted the menu without looking at the waiter. Intent on some private matter, he had never noticed the stares. 'Ah, eggs Benedict,' he said. 'Wonderful. Will you have them too?'

 
   'I don't even know what they are,' Tom said.

 
   'Then try them. They're great. Practically my favorite meal.'

 
   When the waiter returned, they both ordered eggs Benedict. 'And coffee,' Del said, negligently proffering the menu to the waiter, who was a glum elderly black man.

 
   'You want milk,' the waiter said. 'Coffee stunt your growth.'

 
   'Coffee. Black.'
He
was looking Tom straight in the eye.

 
   'You, son?' The waiter turned his tired face to Tom.

 
   'Milk, I guess.' Del rolled his eyes. Tom asked, 'Do you drink coffee?'

 
   'In Vermont, I do.'

 
   'And the princes and the ravens bring it in gold cups every morning.'

 
   'Sometimes. Sometimes Rose Armstrong brings it,' Del smiled.

 
   'Rose Armstrong?'

 
   
'The
Rose Armstrong. Just wait. Maybe she'll be there, maybe she won't. I hope she is.'

 
   'Yeah?' Now it was Tom who smiled.

 
   'Yeah. If you're lucky, you'll see what I mean.' Del adjusted the cloth on his lap, looked around as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping, and then looked across the table and said, 'Before you get your first taste of paradise, maybe you ought to see what he sent me.'

 
   'If you think I'm old enough.'

 
   Del plucked a folded sheet of typing paper from his shirt pocket and passed it to Tom. He was positively smirking.

 
   Tom unfolded the sheet.

 
   'Don't ask any questions until you read all of it,' Del said.

 
   Typed on the sheet was:

 
SPELLS, IMAGES
&
ILLUSIONS

 
(For the Perusal of My Two Apprentices)

 
Know What You Are Getting Into!

 
Level 1                            Level 2                                               Level 3

 
Trance                             Theatrics                                 Flight

 
Voice                               Rise                                         Transparence   

 
Silence                             Altered Landscape

 
Level 4                           Level 5                                               Level 6

 
Window of Flame Collector                                 Ghostly Presence

 
Window of Ice                 Mind Over Matter                   Living Statue

 
Tree Lift                           Mind Control                           Fish Breathing

 
Level 7                            Level 8                                               Level 9

 
Altered Time                    Put A Hurting                          Wood Green Empire

 
Created Landscape          Conjure Minor Devils

 
                                   Desired Fireworks       

 
   Tom looked up when he had read it.

 
   'Read it again.'

 
   Tom glanced down the lists again. 'I don't get it.'

 
   'Sure you do.' Del's whole being was alight.

 
   'Do you get one of these every summer?'

 
   Del shook his head. 'This is the first time. But when I saw him at Christmas, he said that if I came back with you, he'd send me a description.'

 
   'Of what? Everything he can do?'

 
   'He can do a lot more than that. But I guess what he means is a description of what a magician ought to be able to do.'

 
   'He can turn statues into people? He can . . . ?' Tom searched the list. 'Alter the landscape?'

 
   'I guess so.' Del laughed. 'I've seen a lot of that stuff. Not all of it, but a lot.'

 
   'So if Rose Armstrong brings you coffee, she might come in upside down? With upside-down coffee in an upside-down cup?'

 
   Del shook his head, still laughing.

 
   'I don't like that business about 'Know What You Are Getting Into.''

 
   'I told you he was scary sometimes.'

 
   'But it's like a threat.' And then his mind gave him an image he had a month ago decided was false: that of Skeleton Ridpath hovering two inches below the ceiling of the auditorium, hanging like a spider, exulting in the coming destruction.

 
   'It's not really a threat,' Del explained. 'Sometimes up there, everything is normal, and at other times . . . ' He waved at the paper. 'Other times, you learn things. Oh, great, here comes dinner.'

 
   Tom gingerly cut into one of the eggs on his plate, saw yolk flood out into the paler yellow of the sauce, and lifted a dripping fork to his mouth. 'Wow,' he said, when he swallowed. 'How long has this been going on?'

 
   'The hollandaise comes out of a bottle,' Del said. 'But you get the general idea.'

 
2

 
As they ate, the train slowed into a station — Tom could see only a metal water tower and a peeling shed. The usual men in curling hats waited to get on.

 
   Del said, 'With these levels, I guess you can sometimes do something on a higher one without being able to do everything on the lower ones. Like I can rise, you know, but Uncle Cole says everybody can learn to do that, if they concentrate the right way. But I'm really Level One — I can't even do voice, throw my voice yet. I'm still trying to learn. 'Trance' is just like hypnotism. An idiot can do it. Theatrics, now . . . '

 
   Tom watched the lonely cowboys filing past. They looked thirsty. Nobody ever saw cowboys off, nobody ever greeted them.

 
   ' . . . it's just the ordinary stage stuff, all you have to know is how to do it, how the mechanics work . . . '

 
   They were like spacemen, so loosely tied to earth, but where they orbited was towns like this, the name of which was Lone Birch.

 
   Then he saw a face that violently took his mind off cowboys. All the pleasure in him went black and cold.

 
   
'Theatrics,
see, he thinks it's all junk, just the word shows it.' Del looked at him curiously. 'You lose your appetite all of a sudden?'

 
   'Don't know,' Tom said. He craned over the table, trying desperately to see the bruised face among the half-dozen men waiting outside.

 
   'You think you saw a friend? In Lone Birch?'

 
   'Not a friend. I thought I saw Skeleton out there. Waiting to get on the train.'

 
   Del laid down his knife and fork. 'Oh. I just lost my appetite too.' He looked perfectly composed. 'What do we do?'

 
   'I don't want to do anything.'

 
   'I think we ought to take a look. That way we'll know. How sure are you?'

 
   'Pretty sure. But I just saw him for a second — just a glimpse.'

 
   The train began to
snick-snick
out of the station.

 
   'But a face like that . . . '

 
   'It's pretty hard to miss,' Tom said. 'Yeah.'

 
   'Let's go.' Del pushed himself away from the table. 'I'll pay the waiter. I'll go forward, and you go back. We're about halfway in the train.' Del took a deep breath and swayed a little with the tram's motion. 'If it's him . . . I don't mean to give you orders — and he could be sitting facing the way you come in — but maybe he's just traveling . . . '

 
   'And maybe I'm wrong,' Tom said. Part of him was happy that Del's nervousness had emerged. 'And maybe if I see him, I'll kick him off the train.' Now that Del had shown his own fear, his could turn to anger. 'I guess we'd better start.'

 
   'That's what I said,' Del reminded him over his shoulder, and held out a folded ten-dollar bill to the waiter.

 
Tom entered the next car and looked over the passengers. Many slept — babies sprawled over their mothers sprawled over two seats. Soldiers slept with caps pulled over their eyes, snoring like a yard full of pigs. A few wakeful ones glanced at him over the tops of magazines. Skeleton Ridpath was not there.