Shadowland

    He pushed himself away from the table and stood up. 'That was your bedtime story. Go up to your rooms and go to bed. I don't want you to leave your rooms until tomorrow morning. Run along.' He winked, and disappeared through the curtains, leaving them momentarily alone in the empty theater.

    Then he poked his disembodied — looking head through the join of the curtains. 'I mean now. Upstairs. Lead the way, Mr. Nightingale.' The head jerked back through the curtains.

    A moment later it reappeared, thrust forward like a jack-in-the-box. 'Wolves, and those who see them, are shot on sight. Unless it is a lupus in fabula, who appears when spoken of.' The head opened its mouth in a soundless laugh, showing two rows of slightly stained and irregular teeth, and popped back through the curtain.

    'Lupus in fabula?' Del said, turning to Tom.

    'Mr. Thorpe used to say it sometimes. The wolf in the story.'

    'Who appears when . . . '

    'Spoken of,' Tom said miserably. 'It doesn't mean real wolves, it means . . . Oh, forget it.'

5

The Wolf in the Story

'This isn't like any other summer,' Del said as they passed the short hall which ended at the crossbarred door. 'He never told me a story before. I liked it. Didn't you?'

    'Sure, I guess,' Tom said, pausing. 'Weren't you ever curious about what was behind that thing?'

    Del shrugged, looked uneasy. 'You mean, I should have looked just because he told me not to?'

    'Not exactly. But what's so important that we aren't even allowed to see it? I just wondered if you were curious.'

    'I never had time to be curious,' Del said. 'He said upstairs. We're supposed to stay in our rooms.'

    'Does he do that a lot, order you to stay in your room all night?'

    'Sometimes.' Del firmly pushed open the door to the older part of the house and began to march past the kitchen and living room.

    'But wouldn't you anyway? I mean, why make it an order? Why would we get out of bed in the middle of the night, go wandering in the dark? . . . If he makes it an order, he's just making us think about doing it. See what I mean?'

    'Well, I'm going to sleep,' Del said, going up the stairs.

    'And what if you want a glass of water? What if you have to take a leak?'

    'There's a bathroom attached to your room.'

    'What if you want to look outside? We don't have any windows?'

    'Look, aren't you tired?' Del said furiously. 'I'm going to sleep. I'm not going to parade around and look at stuff I'm not supposed to see, I'm not going to look at the stars, I'm just going to bed. You do what you want to.'

    'Don't get so angry.'

    'I am angry, damn you,' Del said, and moved away from Tom to open his door and disappear inside.

    Tom went to his door. Del was tearing his shirt off over his head, not bothering to unbutton it. Their beds had been turned down. 'So why are you so all — fired hot all of a sudden?'

    'I'm going to bed.'

    'Del.'

    His friend softened. 'Look. I'm tired enough to drop. It's our first night.' Del sat on his bed and kicked off his shoes. He undid his belt, stood up, and pushed his pants down. 'And I'm going to close these doors so I don't have to know if you're going to get into trouble.'

    'But Del, he wants us to think about — '

    'You're tired, aren't you?' Del said, tugging one of the pocket doors out of the stub wall.

    'Yes.'

    'Then go to bed and forget it.' He went to the other stub wall and pushed its door across, cutting off his room from Tom's.

    'Del?' Tom said to the door.

    'I'll see you in the morning. I'm too tired to think about anything.'

    Tom turned away. His own room glowed: bed so neat it appeared to have been opened by can opener, soft lights. The second Rex Stout book he had brought in his suitcase lay on the bedside table. He touched the switch beside the door, and the overhead lights darkened. The light beside the book made that end of the room, the book and the bed and the lamp, as inviting as a cave. He undressed quickly to his underpants and slipped into bed. Tom picked up the Rex Stout book and turned to the first page. After a few minutes the print swam, and then seemed to make unrelated but pointed comments about some other story. He realized that he was dreaming about reading. Tom turned off the light and rolled into his cool pillow.

    An indeterminate length of time later the barking of dogs brought him back up to consciousness. First one dog, then two. Sounds of a fight followed. A door slammed somewhere, men cursed, one dog screamed in rage or pain. A man shouted 'Bastard!' and the dog's sound of agony turned into a yelp. Tom sat up in bed. His hand was asleep, and he rubbed it until it throbbed. Downstairs, men were moving with heavy footsteps across the floor, going in and out. A glass broke, the other dog began to growl. 'Del?' Tom said. Several loud male voices raised at once.

    Tom went to the pocket doors and pushed one a few inches back into the wall. Del lay face down in the dark, breathing deeply. Tom slid the door to again and groped across the room to the hall door, expecting that it would be locked.

    But it was not: he opened it a crack. The lights in the hall dimly glowed. Now he could hear the voices and the dogs more clearly. The men sounded as brutish as the animals. Tom opened the door wide and saw himself reflected in the big window opposite. The lights in the woods shone through his body. He stepped out into the hall. Downstairs, at the back of the house, a man shouted, 'Get that mutt over — god damn — shake that damn . . . ' It was not the voice of Coleman Collins.

    A pool of light suddenly appeared on the flagstone terrace beneath his window, outlining a man's tall shadow. Tom stepped back from the window. A burly man in an army jacket stepped into view, hauling a large black dog on a chain. The dog turned to snarl at him and the man jumped forward and cuffed its mouth. 'Jesus!' the man bawled. Protruding from one of the pockets of the green army jacket was the neck of a bottle. He dropped the chain, vanished back under the window for a moment, and reappeared with a shovel. He feinted at the dog with it, set it down, and vanished into the house again. When he came back he carried a set of long-handled tongs with metal-banded clamps at the end. This too clattered down onto the flagstones, and the man swaggered back toward the house, shouting something. He had a short bristly brown beard. One of the men from the train: Tom's heart nearly stopped, and his eyes jumped up to the illuminated woods.

    Oh, no.

On a flat boulder directly under a light, so far away Tom could not see details of face or clothing, a slight figure in a long blue wrap and red cap set on blond hair was holding up a small glittering box. The little figure wonderingly turned the box over in its hands. Then the head turned and looked directly at him. He backed away in panic, and the boy's head looked aimlessly away, first to one side, then to the other. 'Del,' Tom whispered. He looked back at the boy on the rock. 'Del!' The boy was still turning the box over and over in his hands. Tom sidled over to Del's door and rapped his knuckles against it twice. 'Get out here,' he said, only just not whispering. He knocked again — the noise downstairs was so loud they would not hear him if he took a hammer to the door. The blond boy set the box down on the slab and dreamily brushed his fingers along the rock. 'You have to see this,' Tom said, speaking almost normally.