Shadowland (35 page)

 
   'Then let us follow you now,' said the brave sparrow, and they all lifted up and circled away from the dreadful quiet of the palace.

 
   For hours they flew over the thick trees and wide meadows of the forest, over foaming rivers and wandering valleys. Over the caves of bears and the dens of foxes, over hollow logs where ants dozed, over packs of wild ponies asleep on rock cliffs.

 
   Finally they saw a little curl of smoke coming up through the heads of the trees, and the oldest sparrow said, 'That is the wizard's house.' And they began to circle down, down, down through the trees. And finally saw a nondescript little wooden house with two little windows set beside the front porch.

 
   One by one the sparrows landed on a branch outside one of the windows; when the branch was so full of sparrows it bent, they landed on the next higher; and so on, until sparrows filled the entire tree. Then they all began to sing at once.

 
   The door of the little wooden cottage opened, and the wizard stepped out into the light. He was an old, old man, with skin the color of milk. The dark robes he wore were covered with the moon and stars; once they had been impressive, but now the robes were so threadbare you could see the fabric right through the stars. He looked up at the tree with his clear old eyes and said, 'I see that the sparrows have come to visit. What do they want, I wonder?'

 
   Then the oldest sparrow looked at the brave sparrow, and this fellow spoke up — his voice may have trembled, because the wizard frightened him, and now that theywere actually here he wished they were somewhere else, but he told the wizard the entire story, just as the queen had told it to him.

 
   'I see,' the wizard said. 'And you wish me to give life back to Princess Rose?'

 
   'That is right,' said the sparrows.

 
   'It is not difficult,' said the wizard, 'but you must agree to sacrifice something before I will do it.'

 
   Then all the sparrows began to chirp and protest.

 
   'Would you give up your wings?'

 
   Another loud wave of twittering. 'No, that is impossible,' said the oldest sparrow. 'Without our wings we could not fly.'

 
   'Would you give up your feathers?'

 
   The sparrows' noises were even louder after this question. 'No, we cannot,' said the oldest sparrow. 'Without our feathers, we would freeze to death in the winter.'

 
   'Would you give up your song?'

 
   The sparrows were quiet for a moment, and then burst out louder than before. 'Yes,' the sparrows said. 'That will be our sacrifice.'

 
   'It is done,' said the wizard. 'Return to the palace.'

 
   As one bird, their nervousness giving them added speed, they lifted off the tree and wheeled about over the wizard's cottage and began the long flight across the forest.

 
   Hours later, when they reached the palace, all was as it had been — all the inhabitants of the palace save the queen and king still slept. The sparrows looked at each other uneasily, wondering if the wizard would take their sacrifice but give nothing in return.

 
   Then, from down under the palace, they heard a dusty little voice calling:
Momee! Daddee! Momee! Daddee!

 
   And a great wooden door set right down into the ground opened up, and a little girl wandered out, rubbing her eyes.

 
   So the horses woke up in the stables, the dogs woke up in the courtyards, the flies spun awake off the doorknobs, the servants stirred and yawned; and in the deep forest, foxes too yawned and stretched, bears shook their massive heads, wolves stirred beneath trees. At that instant every sparrow in the palace began to feela transformation within himself: just as if a cold hand had thrust itself down in their innards and were moving bits and pieces about. Their minds grew fuzzy; their bodies plumped out, altered in substance, their beaks softened and spread, their feet grew.

 
   And instead of birds, now there were frogs on the windowsills, frogs on the railings, frogs hopping on the stones.

 
   Fortunately the king witnessed this transformation and understood what had happened. He raised his arms in thanksgiving and said that from that day forth all frogs in his kingdom would be protected, for once they had been sparrows who had gone to the wizard to return the life of his daughter.

 
''And that is why frogs croak, and why they hop,' said one sparrow to another on a branch in the wood. 'They were once birds, but were tricked by a great wizard, and now they are still trying to sing and still trying to fly. But they can only croak and hop.''

 
11

 
'Well, that's your second bedtime story,' the magician said. 'Now I am afraid I must leave you. You'll be able to find your way back to bed soon enough, I'm sure.' He began to stand up on the matted grass, but the expression on Tom's face stopped him. 'What are you thinking, Tom?'

 
   'On Registration Day in our school,' Tom began, his face flushed angrily, 'the headmaster kept Del and another boy in his office. He told each of them a kind of fairy tale. You knew about that.'

 
   The magician stood, put his hands in the small of his back, and stretched from the balls of his feet. 'Think about one thing, Tom. What would you give to save a life? Your wings, or your song? Would you be a sparrow . . . or a frog?'

 
   He grinned dazzlingly at the boy, lifted both arms in the air, and vanished.

 
'No!'Tom yelled, and jumped forward — on hands and knees, he scrabbled to the spot where Collins had been standing, and felt only grass and earth. He looked wildly around, expecting to see Collins running through the forest, but saw only the dying fire and the trees. Far off in the woods he saw one of the lights burning over an impromptu stage. There was no sign of Collins. Tom let himself down on the coarse grass, groaning: his mind spun. A dead Rose, sparrows into frogs, the old wizard, what he had done with the log . . .
While you are here I am your parent.

 
   Tom picked himself up off the grass; he supposed he could stumble back to the house. But with the first step he took, the forest around him seemed to melt.

 
   At first he thought he was going to lose consciousness again, and find himself in the wrecked train with screams and the rending of metal thick and palpable in the air about him —

 
   and the coffee scorching his back —

 
   
(Didn't stain your clothes, all that coffee flying about?)

 
   and he realized that the magician had known at the Hilly Vale station that he was going to put him on the wrecked train
(Not just a little spilled coffee, a little bump on the tracks, a little messy commotion?),
and in the second before the forest disappeared as finally as Coleman Collins, Tom had time to think that Collins had somehow caused that wreck in order to put him inside it six hours later.

 
   
This is Level One. Any good magician knows when to break the rules.

 
   He could have screamed as loudly as any poor soul on the train, but his fear pinned his screams to his tongue. The trees had blurred like watercolors held under a tap; everything slid and dissolved into a pane of meltingly pale green. Green mist enveloped him, abstract and cool, and he felt as though he were falling from an airplane.

 
   White fluted pillars took shape as suddenly as if blown into being. The ground shifted, became harder, less resilient. With his next step forward, he whanged his leg against the metal back of a padded chair.

 
   'Oh, my God,' he whispered. He was standing in alarge vaultlike room with a curtained stage at one end. Tom himself was halfway up a pitched bank of seats, in the middle of a row. Misty green walls inset with white pillars led down to the stage. A few lights burned high above him.

 
   He was in the big theater where Collins was going to teach them to fly.

 
   'Oh, God,' he said. 'I wasn't even outside.'

 
   Tom blindly went down the side of the rows of seats and let himself out into the hall. Here too a few lights burned. He was only five feet from the entry to the Little Theater. He clicked the door behind him and looked for its brass plate: Le Grand Theatre des Illusions. Beneath it was a white sheet of paper on which had been written:
Go to bed, son.

 
   He weaved down the hall and the lights clicked off behind him. All he wanted to do was to roll into sleep as fast and hard as he could: now he could not begin to puzzle out the hoops within hoops through which Collins had made him jump.
And that is why frogs croak and why they hop. They were once birds, but were tricked by a great wizard, and now they are still trying to sing and still trying to fly.

 
12

 
'You answer my question first.'

 
   'No, you answer mine. Tell me about Rose Armstrong.'

 
   'Not until you tell me what you did last night.'

 
   'I can't.'

 
   'Did Uncle Cole tell you not to?'

 
   'No.'

 
   'Then you can tell me. Did you go downstairs? Did you go outside?' Del pushed his spoon back and forth in a bowl of oatmeal. 'Did anyone see you?'

 
   'All right. I went downstairs. Then I followed all those guys outside.' —

 
   'You did
what?'
Del had completely lost his self-possession. He virtually goggled at Tom.

 
   'I went out. I think I did. Then everything went funny. I wound up back in the big theater.' 'Oh.' Del relaxed. 'So you were supposed to go out.' 'You know that right off?'

 
   'Sure,' Del said. They were eating breakfast in Del's

 
   room. A tray had appeared outside the door at nine. 'I've

 
   been through this about a million times, remember? He

 
   did some magic on you. You can't even really tell me