Shadowland

    'That's my business,' Del said.

    'Do you make out with her? She's a year older, huh? Does she let you make out with her?'

    'I guess,' Del said. 'Sometimes.'

    'Is she good-looking?'

    'You can decide for yourself.'

    'You're a real snake in the woodpile, Nightingale,' Tom said. He was delighted. 'All this time you never told me? She's your girlfriend? You spend all summer making out with a girl a year older than us? Wow.'

    'We have to go downstairs,' Del said sternly. 'Didn't you ever make out with Jenny Oliver? Or with Diane Darling?' These were girls from Phipps-Burnwood Seminary; Tom had taken both of them to school dances.

    'Sometimes,' Tom said. 'Sure, sometimes.'

    'Okay,' Del said, and stood up.

    'You old snake in the woodpile,' Tom said. He rose too, and they went out into the sunny hall. As they went down the stairs, he said, 'Tell me what she looks like. Is she a blond?'

    'Yep.'

    'Well?'

    'She's a blond, she has two eyes and a nose and a mouth. She's about as tall as you are. Her face is . . . oh, how do you describe someone's face?'

    'Try.'

They stopped together just outside the living room. It was immaculate, Tom saw, as if Mr. Feet's trolls had never been in the house.

    'Well, she looks kind of . . . ' Del hesitated. 'Kind of . . . well, hurt.'

    'Hurt?' This was far indeed from anything Tom had expected, and he laughed.

    'I knew I couldn't explain it,' Del said. 'Let's go. He'll be waiting.'

    Tom glanced over his shoulder at the series of posters on the wall, saw only that they were printed in a variety of old-fashioned typefaces and that none of the names immediately visible were familiar. Then he set off after Del. His mood had risen: full of breakfast, rested, and on a sunny morning he could see the fun of what Shadowland offered, a game more challenging than any he had ever played. He had not been threatened or injured the night before: he had merely been tricked, and tricked in a way only a great illusionist could have managed.

    The handwritten sheet of paper was gone from the door. But had it been there at all? Tom wondered, and thought that now he was getting into the spirit of Shadowland.

    'Have you ever heard the name Herbie — does it mean anything special to you?' he asked.

    'Herbie? You'll see Herbie,' Del promised from ahead of him.

Inside the long theater, the walls hung misty and green between the fluted pillars, the seats stood like rows of open mouths; the lighting had been dialed low. Del, in his seat in the front row when Tom entered, laughed at whatever was on stage. Tom turned to see, and was startled by the spectacle of a department-store dummy propped stiffly on a tall chair. The arms jutted out, the legs stuck forward. The mannequin had been dressed in black evening clothes; its face had been powdered or painted white. A curly red wig sat on its crown.

    'That's Herbie,' Del said as Tom slid into the seat next to him. 'Herbie Butter.'

    'A doll?'

    'Shh.'

    One of the doll's hands jerked forty-five degrees up. The movement was a robot's, not human. The head swiveled, blank and perfect, first to one side, then the other. The other arm jerked up with the same robot's angular suddenness. Tom relaxed into his seat, enjoying this.

    'The Amazing Mechanical Magician and Acrobat,' Del whispered.

    One leg, then its fellow, bent; the robot-mannequin came out of the chair, and Tom could almost hear the working of gears. It began to slide ridiculously about the stage, at one moment almost tumbling off the edge, then walking with great dignity into the curtains and grinding away in place until the gears shifted again and spun it away.

    'Is that your uncle?'

    'Of course it is,' Del whispered.

    'He's great.'

    Del rolled his eyes. The greatness was beyond question.

    For some minutes, Coleman Collins, Herbie Butter, moved — hilariously about the stage, always on the verge of destruction, or surely, it seemed, on the way to it. His eyes were perfectly round and blank, his movements those of a wound-up toy: the face, covered with powder, was sexlessly young — but for the male formal dress, the white face and red hair could have been those of a pretty young woman in her twenties.

    Collins then demonstrated another of his capacities.

    He strode jerkily to a halt in the middle of the stage, swiveled to face the boys, and remained stock-still for no longer than a second and a half.

    'Get this,' Del said.

    Before Del had finished, the robotlike figure was whipping up into the air: it turned over in midair and landed on its. hands. Then it ticked over to one side, spread its legs, and executed a series of flawless cartwheels.

    Landing on its hands again, the figure sprang over backward and came down on its feet; then over again, turning in the air, blindingly fast. Then Collins came out. of a crouch and fell face forward on the stage — a robot turned off by remote control. With what must have been a terrific effort of muscular skill, he seemed to bounce back upright, arms and legs never changing their position, so slowly it was like a fall in reverse slow motion.

    'Boy,' Tom muttered.

    Herbie Butter bowed and twinkled offstage; a second later he was back, pushing a magician's table on which rode a tall silk hat.

    'Imagine a bird,' he said, and the voice was not Coleman Collins', but lighter, younger.

    A pass of a white silken scarf, and a white dove came out of the hat.

    'Imagine a cat'; a white cat slipped over the brim of the hat. The cat began immediately to stalk the terrified bird.

    Herbie Butter did one of his astounding backflips, coming to rest on his fingertips, then flipped forward to land where he had been, and dropped the white scarf over the cat.

    The scarf fluttered to the surface of the table.

    'And that's it, isn't it? Cat and bird. Bird and cat.'

    It was that first morning that he told Tom and Del the story which ended with the words 'Then I am the King of the Cats!'

'Can I ask you a question?' Tom said, his arm up as if he were back in Latin class.

    'Of course.' The magician sat on a little table; the voice was still light and sexless.

    'How can you do those things — those gymnastic things — when you limp?'

    He felt Del's disapproval pouring from him, strong as a scent, but the magician was not ruffled.

    'A good question, and too frank to be rude, nephew, so don't take offense. The real answer is 'because I have to,' but that won't be specific enough for you. I intend to tell you more completely, Tom, in a short while — because I will expect you to do something very similar. I promise you. You will know. Is that all?'

    Tom nodded.

    'Come on up and shake my hand. Please.'

    Mystified, Tom stood and went toward the magician, who slipped off the table and went to the edge of the stage. Herbie Butter bent down to take his hand; but instead, his fingers closed about Tom's wrist. Tom jerked his head up and looked into the white anonymous face. He could see nothing of Coleman Collins in it.

    'For your benefit.' The fingers tightened around his wrist. 'Everything you will see here, and you will see many odd things, comes from your own mind — from within you. From the reaction of your mind with mine. None of it exists elsewhere.'

    Herbie Butter released Tom's wrist. 'For three months, for as long as you stay, this is the world for you. Which you will help to create.' He smiled. 'That is one of the meanings of the King of the Cats.'