The last reverberations of sound hung in the air and jangled in
Chris's head. Of the many times he had examined Mr. Wicker's window
and pored over the rope, the ship and the Nubian boy, he had never
gone into Mr. Wicker's shop. So now, alone until someone should answer
the bell, he looked eagerly, if uneasily, around him.
What with the one window and the lowering day outside, the long narrow
shop was somber. The ceiling seemed close above Chris's head. Heavy
hand-hewn beams crossed it from one side to the other. A few dusty
pieces of furniture stood about, whether for sale or for use Chris
could not determine, and almost lost in the black shadows at the far
end were what appeared to be boxes and bales, piled one upon the
other.
[Illustration]
The growing silence, now the bell had stopped, gripped Chris. A chill
made itself felt in his feet and spread rapidly over his body so that
he gave a convulsive shiver. He was about to turn and go out when, at
the farthest end of the gloomy shop, a small primrose oblong of light
seeped for a little way along the floor and a door opened.
Fascinated, Chris stared, as into this distant pallor stepped the
short and remarkably spidery figure of a man. Mr. Wicker's back being
toward the source of light, Chris could not see his face. The figure
paused, with a fragile hand scarcely bigger than that of a child's on
the doorhandle, and then came forward.
The silence, Chris noticed, was still unbroken as Mr. Wicker advanced
toward him, and Chris shuddered again as he stood waiting and
watching, but whether it was with cold or with fear--and the room was
indeed very dank and unaired--it would have been hard to say.
When Mr. Wicker had come within a few feet of Chris, the final
vestiges of daylight from outside reached the extraordinary man facing
the boy, and for the first time Chris was able to examine the old man
who was more legend than fact throughout Georgetown.
William Wicker's face in itself was not forbidding. What made an icy
mouse seem to run the length of Chris's spine was the impression of
enormous age in the appearance of the man confronting him. The thin
lips crackled the withered and multi-wrinkled cheeks in the ghost of
what had once been a smile. The nose, once hawk-like and proud and
denoting strength of character and purpose, was now pinched by the
ever-tightening fingers of a progression of years. The double fans of
minute wrinkles breaking from eye corner to temple and joining with
those over the cheekbones were drawn into the horizontal lines across
the domed forehead. Little tufts of white fuzz above the ears were all
that remained of the antiquarian's hair, but what drew and held
Chris's gaze were the old man's eyes.
Mr. Wicker's eyes were not those of an old man at all. They had the
vigor of a man in the prime of life, and their presence in that
puckered face of age which confronted Chris was horribly
disconcerting. Chris blinked and looked again. Yes, they were still
there. Eyes so deeply brown they might well have been black, but
clear, sparkling, and with a decided glint of humor and mischief.
While the boy had been too frightened to move at the sight of Mr.
Wicker's ancient cheeks, pinched nose, and hairless head, he was
encouraged by the friendly eyes. Chris could not help but like those
eyes, even though it was hard to believe they belonged to the man
before him.
As though from a great distance Mr. Wicker's voice came to his ears,
and this too, Chris found difficult to credit. There, not four feet in
front of him was the old shopkeeper, and yet the high thin voice might
have come from anywhere else--the rafters, the room beyond the lighted
door; anywhere.
"Well, my boy? You wanted something?"
Chris swallowed and his voice came back to him. "Yes sir," he said. "I
saw your sign, and I know a boy who needs the job." He looked at Mr.
Wicker as though he were unable to look elsewhere. "He's a schoolmate
of mine. Jakey Harris, his name is, and he really needs the job. I
wondered--" Mr. Wicker's eyes, laughing at him just a little, confused
Chris and he began to stammer.
"I--I just wondered if the place was still open."
Mr. Wicker studied Chris for a moment or two before he replied. What
he saw was a fresh-cheeked lad tall for thirteen, sturdy, with
sincerity and good humor in his face, and something sensitive and
appealing about his eyes. His chin showed obstinacy and tenacity; his
nose would shape itself well as he grew older. Unruly tawny hair was
blown and ruffled in every direction and his hands, even young as he
was, showed ability and strength.
"Hm-mm," said Mr. Wicker, and his remote smile broadened while his
eyes sparkled with the warmth of a fire on a winter's night. "Hm-mm.
Yes. The job is still open, young man, but while you're here, why not
apply for it yourself?"
Chris, somewhat less ill at ease, now he had got his message out,
shifted his feet and gave a short laugh.
"Oh no, thank you, sir. You see, I don't really need it, and Jakey
does. It wouldn't be fair for me to take it if Jakey has a chance."
He looked away, and saw that the light from the distant hidden room
was jumping and flickering on the shadowed walls. He guessed there
must be a lively fire in that room beyond.
"Of course," Chris added anxiously, "I don't know what the job is. You
don't say, on the sign, and Jakey isn't awfully well. He has a twisted
foot and it makes him slow in walking. Would that interfere with
Jakey's getting the job, sir?" Chris enquired.
The reply was slow in coming, and Chris heard as if the words had been
spoken, not before him, where the black outlined figure still stood,
but as if at his very ear. Soft but clear, the words sounded.
"It would not interfere, Christopher my boy. But now that you are
here, you must make the test. Jakey will be cared for, never fear."
Almost as in a dream, Chris felt an atmosphere drenching him as though
a powerful scent filled the air. His head swam a little, and he
realized that it was a long time since he had had lunch. He thought he
detected a pleasant smell of herbs, like the potpourri his mother had
in bowls in their house. The sharp black outline of Mr. Wicker
impressed itself on his eyeballs, and in the room, now totally dark
except for the light that streamed from the faraway open door, Mr.
Wicker's body seemed to radiate a bright edge, like a carbon paper
held up to the sun. The voice at his ear once more filled his head and
his hearing.
"_You_ will make the test, my boy. Now. Just turn around, and tell me
what you see out my window."
[Illustration]
Chris, in spite of the strangeness rising about him like a mist,
remembered very well what lay outside the window. But even as he
slowly turned, the thought pierced his mind, Why had he not seen the
reflection of the headlights of the cars moving up around the corner
of Water Street and up the hill toward the traffic signals? And why
had the sound of wheels, of gears and of horns, been so completely
muffled out? The room seemed overly still.
Then, in that second, he turned and faced about. The wide bow window
was there before him, the three objects he liked best showing frosty
in the moonlight that poured in from across the water.
Across the water! Where was the freeway? It was no longer there, nor
were the high walls and smokestacks of factories to be seen. The
warehouses were still there. They were the very same, for Chris could
make out the winch and tackle he had noticed as he opened the door.
But instead of factories, instead of the freeway, the river flickered
silver under the moon, and the hulls and masts of countless ships
broke the starry sky.
Flabbergasted and breathless, Chris was unaware that he had moved
closer to peer out the window in every direction. No electric signs,
no lamplit streets. Going as far as the wall to his left and leaning
forward, Chris looked up toward M Street.
Where the People's Drugstore had stood but a half-hour before, rose
the roofs of what was evidently an inn. A courtyard was sparsely lit
by a flaring torch or two, showing a swinging sign hung on a post. The
post was planted at the edge of what was now a broad and muddy road.
Even as Chris stared, not knowing whether to believe what his eyes saw
or not, there was a great sound of hoofs and of a cracking whip. A
coach with its top piled high with luggage stamped to a halt beside
the flagged courtyard. Ostlers ran out to hold the team of horses
steaming in the cool night air, and linkboys carrying torches and
orange lanterns ran out to help the travelers in. The coachman wore
knee breeches and a cockaded hat; two gentlemen got down from the
interior of the coach, stretching their cramped legs. Chris could
catch the shine as lantern glow touched the silver buckles on their
shoes. Their full-backed coats were slightly lifted, on the left, by
the tips of their rapiers, and a froth of white, lace or muslin, fell
from their necks onto satin waistcoats. They moved into the inn; the
coach rattled off to the stable. Before the window, farm carts rumbled
by, and instead of the crowded outline of Georgetown roofs, Chris
could see only a few chimneys against the stars, and many lofty trees.
"What do you see, boy?" asked the voice, so gentle, at his ear. Chris,
frightened and dumbfounded, shook his head.
"I will tell you," Mr. Wicker said. "My window has a power for those
few who are to see. You are looking back into the past, my boy. The
way it used to be."
Then the coldness, the strangeness, the fluttering of the light was
too much for Chris. Blackness descended on him as if a hood had been
dropped over his head, but before he was quite gone, he heard what he
thought was Mr. Wicker's voice saying kindly:
"You will do."