Shadowland (66 page)

 
   He seized at that straw until the girl tilted her face toward the sky and he saw the wide high brow, the mouth that had said she loved him. He felt as though he had been blowtorched. The man quickened, trembled, clutched at her. Rose's arms and legs clamped on the plunging man. Then the light died again, and they were alone with the magician. Del's eyes were dull. He was breathing heavily, almost panting.

 
   
You won't be foolish when you see me tonight, will you?

 
   Everything here is a lie.

 
   He could not see his way out of it.

 
   'Of course it was not Root who was enjoying my Rosa, but my partner, Speckle John. I merely wanted you boys to feel my shock and outrage — and I see that I have succeeded. Arnold Peet fled. I left on his heels. When I returned half an hour later, Rosa was still there, dressed now, feigning contrition. She pretended that it had been the first occasion, but I knew better. I let her lie to me, and thought of all the consoling Speckle John had done for my poor Rosa. She expected me to beat her — she
wanted
to be beaten, for that would have been forgiveness. I did not beat her. I did not shoot her, either, though I had my service revolver with me — I always carried it in those days. I just let her plead and weep. And when I met Speckle John the next day, neither one of us mentioned what I had seen on the floor of my sitting room. I began to plan my final performance.'

 
   Collins stood. 'Tomorrow night you will see how I wrapped up all the strands; how I removed Arnold Peet, who had witnessed my humiliation, along with his trolls; how I revenged myself against those who had humiliated me; and how I gave the gaudiest performance of my life.' He looked down at the two stricken boys. 'And stay in your rooms tonight. This time I will overlook no disobedience.'

 
   The magician tilted his head, looking as if he were enjoying himself, and put his hands in his pockets, his amused eyes finding Tom's; vanished.

 
   
To hell with you, to hell with you,
Tom said to himself. He leaned down and helped Del to his feet. 'Will you do whatever I ask?'

 
   'Whatever you ask,' Del said. He still looked semi-catatonic.

 
   'Let's go back now. We'll get out of here as soon as we can tonight. I don't know how, but we'll do it. I'm through with this place.'

 
   'I feel sick,' Del said.

 
   'And listen. You were never going to be invited back anyhow. Get me? Shadowland was over for you anyhow. He told me. You weren't going to be chosen — he said this was your last summer here. It was over anyhow. So let's get out now.'

 
   'Okay,' Del said. His lip trembled. 'As long as you're coming with me.' He wiped at his eyes. 'What about her? What about Rose?'

 
   'I don't know about Rose,' Tom said. 'But we're getting out of here late tonight. And nobody's going to stop us.'

 
   He led Del back through the wood to the edge of the lake.

 
'You were chosen,' Del said. The moonlight lay a white cap over his black hair. A frog croaked from the side of the lake. Whiteness hung over the surface of the lake like a veil, and ghostly wisps trailed from the edge of the lake. The iron staircase rose up out of a pocket of gray wool like a ladder set in a cloud. 'You were the one who was welcomed,' Del said. 'Weren't you?'

 
   'But I didn't welcome them back.'

 
   'I was sure it was going to be me. But inside, I knew it wasn't me.'

 
   'I wish it
was
you.'

 
   They trudged across the sand. Del put his hands on the flaking rungs of the ladder; went up six rungs, stopped. 'I think everybody lied to me,' he said, as if to himself.

 
   'Tonight,' Tom said. 'Then it's all over.'

 
   'I want it to be all over. But I almost wish this ladder would fall over again and kill both of us.'

 
As they went through the dark living room, Tom thought of something. 'Wait.' Del drifted out into the hall and stood like a man on a gallows. Tom went to the cabinet in the corner and opened the glass doors. The porcelain shepherdess had been broken in two — Collins had done it. It was a joke, or a warning, or like the last moralizing line in a Perrault fable. The broken halves lay separated on the wood, a little fine white powder between them. All the other figurines had been pushed to the back of the cabinet. They faced him. The boy with the books, the six drunken men, the Elizabethan. Their eyes were dead, their faces. Then Tom understood. It was they who had murdered the shepherdess. That was a message straight from Collins to him. He took his eyes from them and picked up a piece of the broken figurine and put it in his pocket. On an afterthought, he took the pistol too and stuck it inside his shirt.

 
   He followed Del upstairs. They walked down the hallway past a black window. 'Look,' Del said, and pointed. Tom should have seen it for himself: all the lights in the woods had been extinguished. There were no more stages, no more theaters in the woods. They could see only their own faces against solid black.

 
   Del vanished around his door.

 
   Tom went into his own room. The pocket doors were shut. He sat on his bed, heard rustling. He patted the bed and heard the whispery crackle again. Tom put his hand under the coverlet and touched a sheet of paper. He did not want to see it.

 
   No: he did want to see it. He wanted with his whole damaged heart to see it. When he pulled it out and allowed himself to read it, it said:
If you love me, come to the little beach.

 
   So she too wanted to escape tonight. Tom saw Coleman Collins as a huge white owl swooping savagely toward them all, gathering and crushing them in his talons. He saw Rose squeezed in those claws. He folded the note and put it between the revolver and his skin. Then he touched the broken figurine in his pocket. 'Okay,' he said. 'Okay, Rose.'

 
   Tom went to the doors and pushed them aside. Del lay on his bed in the dark. His shoulder twitched, one hand stirred babyishly. 'What?' he asked.

 
   'We're going now,' Tom said, 'and we're going to meet Rose.'

 
   The porcelain figures, lined up at the back of the cabinet, staring out with dead faces at their handiwork. Rosa Forte had been murdered by the Wandering Boys, and Collins wanted him to know it.

 
   'I just want to get out,' Del said. 'I can't stand it here anymore. Please, Tom. Where do we go first?'

 
   Tom led the way down the stairs, through the living room, and out onto the flagstones in the cool air. 'We're going back through the woods,' he said. 'All the way this time.'

 
   'Whatever you say, master.'

 
FOUR

 
Shadow Play

 
1

 
Tom took the gun out of his shirt and put it in his waistband at the small of his back. 'What's that?' Del asked. 'That's a gun. What do you need a gun for?'

 
   'Probably we won't even need it,' Tom said. 'I took it out of the cabinet. I'm just being careful, Del.'

 
   'Careful. If we were careful, we'd still be in our rooms.'

 
   'If we were careful, we'd never have come here in the first place. Let's find Rose.' He started down the rickety iron ladder. It moved away from the bluff a half-inch. Tom swallowed. The ladder had felt wobbly every time hehad climbed it. 'Anything wrong?' Del called out. Tom answered by going down the ladder as fast as he could. He started to walk across the beach in the darkness. He could hear Del's feet hitting the sand as he ran to catch up.

 
   'He wanted to keep you here, didn't he? Forever.'

 
   'He was going to do worse to Rose,' Tom said. 'We have to get to that beach on the other side of the lake. That's where she'll be.'

 
   'And then what?'

 
   'She'll tell us.'

 
   'But what'll we say to her, Tom? I can't even stand . . . '

 
   Tom could not stand it either. 'Do you want to try to swim across or walk through the woods?'

 
   'Let's walk,' Del said. 'But don't lose me. Don't lose me, Tom.'

 
   'I'm not going to. Not losing you was the real reason I came here,' Tom said. Curls of fog still leaked from the woods. He slid between two trees and started toward the first platform.

 
   'Maybe we could bring her back to Arizona with us,' Del said.

 
   'Maybe.'

 
   'Hold my hand,' Del said. 'Please.' Tom took his outstretched hand.

 
Rose was waiting for them on the little beach. They saw her before she noticed them — a slender girl in a green dress, high-heeled shoes dangling from her hand. They padded toward her, and she turned jerkily to face them — frightened. 'I'm sorry,' she said. She glanced at Del, but her eyes probed Tom. 'I didn't know if you'd come.'

 
   'Well, I saw this,' he said, and took the broken shepherdess from his pocket.

 
   'What is it? Let me see.' Tentatively, as if she were afraid to stand too near him, she came a few steps closer. 'It does look like me. That's funny.' Rose probed his face again: gave him a taut, bitter half-smile. 'Don't you think that's funny?' Because he did not smile back, her eyes moved again to the broken shepherdess. Something in her posture told him that she wanted to step away. Then he understood. She was afraid that he would hit her.

 
   'You don't think it's funny,' she said. 'Oh, well.' 'Hey, I'm here too,' Del said.

 
   Instantly more at ease, Rose altered the set of her shoulders and turned to him. 'I know you are, darling Del. Thank you for coming.' Her eyes flicked at Tom. 'I wasn't sure if . . . '

 
   'You had to, right?' Del said. His voice trembled. 'He's crazy, that's all. Not half-crazy, all crazy.'

 
   'Everything here is a lie,' Rose said. 'Just because you saw it doesn't mean it really happened.'

 
   Tom nodded. He was curiously reluctant to take up this hope she offered. If he reached out, it might bite his hand. Del, however, had not only reached out, but embraced it. His face was glowing. 'Well, we're here, anyhow. Now, where do we go?'