He held his breath. Now Somebody moved away, went tippy-toeing back across the trapdoor; a board creaked; Somebody must have gone outside. Phew. Niles inhaled the terror like exotic incense, his thin frame rippling with fright.
Nyang-dang-ga—dang-drumm-drumm—dang-ga-dang—
Cripes, there he went with his harmonica again, that idiot Mother Goose rhyme. Niles had heard it so often he knew the words by heart.
How many miles to Babylon? Threescore miles and ten—
Can I get there by candlelight? Yes, and back again.
A mocking, lilting refrain, perfect for blowing on a harmonica. On it went, the tripping refrain:
If your heels are nimble and light, You may get there by candlelight . . . nyang-dang-ga-dang—
Damn Mother Goose.
Next, Holland’s hateful crooning: “Ni-yuls—Ni-yuls Alex-an-der Per-ry.” Cripes. The Alexander was by way of Alexandra, his mother, and had, Niles felt, sort of a sissy sound. “Ni-yuls Al-ex-an-der—”
At last, defeated: “What?” he answered Holland.
“What?” They were sitting there in the dark; some light, you fool! Niles groped for the bottle, righted it. He fingered a kitchen match from the Prince Albert tin hidden in his shirt and swiped it against a damp stone in the floor. Its phosphorus head crumbled away to nothing.
“Can’t can’t can’t,” came the chant.
“I can do it with two.” Fumbling out a pair, Niles scraped the heads together. They sprang to life with a fizz. He dropped one and nursed the other to the candle stub. The scarf of flame burned uncertainly at first, dimly bluish, then gradually turning orange as the oxygen reached and fed it. Increasing in brilliance, it shone through the flesh of his hand translucently, gilding the edges of his fingers and dyeing his palm a deep vermilion. Briefly his figure cast a wavering shadow across the dirt floor, gigantic as it climbed the mottled wall, the whitewash there flaking away in leprous patches. Beneath his knees the stones felt agreeably cool; in his nostrils the acrid odor of phosphorus mingled with the smell of dust and mold and withered coppery fruit scattered about.
“There,” he said, pleased with the candle effect as he hunkered back Indian fashion and rubbed his knees. Towering ominously in a corner was a pale segmented beast: an irregular stack of empty bushel baskets climbed the wall like a huge caterpillar. Overhead, an arm’s span apart, solid hand-hewn beams ran the length of the low ceiling, supported by thick Y-shaped joists, adze-marks on their surfaces eagerly catching and tossing back beads of amber light. Between the two center beams a narrow wooden stair-ladder rose at a sharp incline to a trapdoor let into the rough planking of the threshing floor twelve or so feet above. On the lower floor level was a smaller door of whitewashed wood, called the Slave Door, which gave entrance from a passage between the wagon room across the way and the apple cellar itself.
Frowning slightly, Niles carefully removed from a pocket a chameleon on a fine silver chain. He dropped it inside his shirt with the tobacco tin, then scrambled across to an upended crate partially hidden by the baskets. A divider in it held a pile of dog-eared magazines. He dug one out, then returned to the pool of light, holding it up to the flame. On the cover a man was struggling against a pack of vicious wolves, their fangs dripping gore onto the snow as they attacked a dogteam hopelessly entangled in the harness of a sled.
“‘Doc Savage and the Winter Kingdom of the Akaluks,’” Niles read aloud. He peered expectantly beyond the candlelight into the dark. “Holland?”
“What?”
“I’ve got this idea, see? For snow.”
“Snow.” Holland sniggered; was always sniggering.
“Sure. Like Doc Savage and the Winter Kingdom. Remember the frozen tundra? Well, with snow we could have our own Winter Kingdom down here.”
“How?” He sounded mildly curious.
“Easy. With cattails.”
“Cattails? You mean bulrushes?” Guffaws.
“Sure—bulrushes. It’s a good idea, no kidding. If we went down to the river and got cattails, we could shred ’em up and have snow all summer. A Winter Kingdom—huh?” He watched Holland’s face while he gave it thought; somehow he was always the one to make the decisions. Certainly Niles was pleased to be with him, pleased with his company, pleased they were not only brothers but friends as well. Only, truthfully, they weren’t—not really. Not that Niles didn’t desire it—they just weren’t close. Niles found Holland strange, unpliant, distant. Often secretive, brooding. Of a dark nature. Holland was his own person, a loner, and who was there could do anything about that?
Watching, Niles saw Holland’s solemn wink. The Winter Kingdom was pronounced as having possibilities. He felt elated; clever, Holland had called him. In the flickering candlelight he considered how little their contemplation of each other across the dimly lighted space did to bring them closer together, though he passionately wished it. Holland was wearing his favorite pink shirt and khaki shorts rolled at the thighs. His eyes shone remote and glassy like a cat’s in the night. Gray like all the Perrys’, sober and deep-set under a shock of sun-whitened hair, they were oddly tilted at the corners beneath dark slanting brows, giving occasional random expressions a curiously Oriental cast; sometimes it seemed he must have come riding with Genghis Khan across the steppes from Tartary.
Niles returned the magazine to the crate and resumed his place. Absently he considered the fingers of one hand, which, as though directed by a life of their own, crept to the front of his shirt. He scratched where the lizard’s feet had tickled his stomach, and lightly whistled through his teeth. He felt inside his shirt for the tobacco tin, withdrew it, and spilled several objects into the circle of light: among the matches a carved horse chestnut, a fascinating-looking blue tissue paper packet—that which contained The Thing—and a gold ring.
He spit on his finger and with difficulty slid the ring on and held it out admiringly. It was a pippin, as Father would have called it. How brightly it gleamed in the light, how heavily it weighed on his hand! A jewel, worthy of a Midas. Its broad face bore an intaglio crest: a savage-billed falcon. Niles turned the ring, examining microscopically the tiny silver seam in the gold band where it had been cut down to fit a smaller finger. “Everybody thinks it’s just a plain hawk, but it’s not, it’s a peregrine.” He absently fingered the blue tissue-wrapped packet. “Peregrine for Perry. It is my ring, isn’t it?” As though seeking reassurance.
Holland nodded. “It’s yours. We made a pact.”
Niles caressed the gold on his finger. Yes indeed, the pact; the ring was his. That was part of the Secret.
Cripes! Look out—there they went again, the same footsteps. Only now they were right there, skulking along on the other side of the wall in the passageway. Niles froze. “He’s coming!” he whispered. “I can hear him! Quick—hide!” Scooping up the things from the floor—the blue packet, some of the matches, the horse chestnut—he fumbled them into the tobacco tin, then slid it back inside his shirt. “Hide!” he urged, scrambling to duck behind the baskets where he’d seen Holland disappear. Wait—the candle! He was reaching to put it out when with a rush the Slave Door flew back and an intruder appeared on the threshold. Niles’s look traveled up from a pair of U.S. Keds to two round eyes blinking at him behind steel-rimmed glasses.
“Ah—ha! Caught in the act!” is what a person might have said, given a discovery of such moment. But not this person. Standing in the doorway, Russell Perry said only, “Ooh, you’re playing in here! You know you’re not supposed to—no one’s supposed to!” Cousin Russell had a tendency to squeal “Ooh!” the way fat little pigs did. Niles ventured a glimpse at the baskets where Holland had disappeared. Holland had always called Russell “Piggy Look-a-doo,” a porker in one of their storybooks, that greedy one who ended up on a platter with an apple in his mouth. Poor pig. Russell had a pudding face, at present unattractively peeling from sunburn, and under his shirt his titties showed pointed and pudgy like a girl’s. Russell—cripes.
&nb
sp; When Uncle George and Aunt Valeria had come back for Father’s funeral, they brought Russell with them—and then they just stayed, all of them, Uncle George and Aunt Valeria in the choice corner room at the front of the house, Russell in a spare room at the back. Fifteen his next birthday, Russell (“Ressell,” Aunt Vee pronounced it, “Ressell dear, don’t forget your rubbers.” “Ressell’s got a bit of a temperature today, I’m going to keep him home from school.”) was a pale and limp city boy. He missed Chicago and he hated Pequot Landing, and made no bones about either. He hated the kids at school and the people of the town, hated all his relatives, and most of all hated his cousins. In December he stabbed Holland’s finger with a pencil (the point left a definite blue mark under the skin when it healed) and in February bit Niles’s hand so badly that stitches were required. Ubiquitous and eternally underfoot, making mischief, snooping and spying, Russell Perry was nonetheless in residence.
Just now the gleam of his glasses hid his eyes but you could tell that behind those thick lenses his squint was taking in the apple cellar at a glance: the candle stuck in the Coke bottle, the magazine-filled crate, the burnt matches, the ring—
The ring!
Quickly Niles turned it on his finger and enclosed it in a fist; not, however, before Russell had had a chance to see it.
“What’s that?” he demanded.
Niles made no answer; suggested Russell beat it—“if you know what’s good for you.”
Though formidable, Russell’s defiance, in the light of events, proved foolhardy. “You can’t make me! If you can be in here, I can be in here too!”
Niles’s smile was affable enough. “Okay, Russell, suit yourself. C’mon in, then.”
Warily the newcomer stepped back. “Nosiree you don’t,” he said. “I know what you’ll do. You’ll get me in there and you won’t let me out. Like Holland did that time.” Blinking with alarm, he retreated to the safety of the passage; Niles wondered if he had guessed Holland’s hiding place.
“Then you better scram.”
Woe to Russell, who only craned his neck and timidly returned to the doorway. “Where’dja get that ring?” he said, a suspicious glint behind the glasses.
“I sent away for it.”
“Ya did not. That’s not a box top ring, that’s real gold!”
“Then why’d you ask, if you’re so smart.” The corner of his eye on Russell’s U.S. Keds, Niles found himself wondering why his cousin favored those blue lisle socks—with clocks on them. Cripes.
Russell lifted his chin and sniffed. “You shouldn’t have that—it’s a grown-up’s ring.” He covered his mouth with a fat hand, his astonishment ill-concealed. “Ooh! That’s—” Wide-eyed and agog, piping his delight, he danced out of reach, describing with relish the consequences of his intended revelations about the ring. “Wait till my dad gets home. Just wait!” In a second Niles had leaped for the door, only to have it slammed in his face; on the other side, amid fat chortles, the hasp was snapped onto its staple and apparently secured, for no amount of banging or jiggling could budge it.
When Russell’s footfalls had padded back through the passage and up the stone steps to the barn above, Niles, whistling soundlessly, went behind the stack of fruit baskets, where he found Holland sitting on the floor casually inspecting the blue-black dot showing beneath the flesh of one of his knuckles.
Niles raised his eyebrows. His silent question and the indifferent shrug he received failed to dispel the feeling of dread that was blotting his mouth dry. With little difficulty he could guess what would happen if Russell squealed to his father. Uncle George was okay most of the time, a big red-faced bear of a guy, until you crossed him—then look out. He worked down on Church Street at the Fenstermacher soda pop plant, a dingy red brick factory next to the railroad tracks where Rose Rock carbonated beverages were bottled. His wife, Aunt Valeria, when not coddling her son, was busy down in the basement doing tie-and-dye cloth on a two-burner stove next to the furnace. You didn’t have to worry about Aunt Vee, but watch out for Uncle George. Bears could attack. Rose Rock let out at five; detection was inevitable. Niles tried to rouse his spirits by telling himself that Russell couldn’t know, that there hadn’t been time for him to put it all together, that he wasn’t bright enough. Only he was; Russell was shrewd. But what business of his was the ring, anyways? Niles was obliged to guard Holland’s secret against anyone’s prying, and though it was a family matter, Russell wasn’t exactly family.
The ring—Peregrine for Perry—had been Granddaddy Perry’s. He had had the weathervane emblem copied in gold, and when he died—the engine of his steam automobile had exploded—the ring had passed by primogeniture—like a king’s crown, that was, from father to eldest son—to Vining. But the ring, people said, must have been jinxed, for no sooner was Granddaddy Perry dead than first the well went dry and a new one had to be dug; next, Grandmother Perry was taken away under strange and sorrowful circumstances, which left Father to head the family. Then Father himself died, in November, and the ring went to Holland, not to wear of course, for this he might not do until he had reached the age of twenty-one, but it was his to keep, hidden away in the chest at the foot of his bed. There it remained until March, the month of his birthday, when Holland, determined to wear the ring, and unbeknownst to everyone in the family but Niles, pocketed the piece of jewelry and nefariously transferred it by streetcar to a jeweler in Hartford who for a price was inveigled into reducing its size to accommodate Holland’s finger. The ring, however, now seemed almost too small, for Holland had to soap his knuckle to force it on. But sure enough, come his birthday, there he was, secretly sporting Peregrine for Perry practically all day; after which time, as a result of the pact, the ring found its way into Niles’s Prince Albert can; though this too remained a closely guarded secret. Till today, that was. Russell Perry, Spy. Ruefully Niles twisted and tugged at the ring until it came off and he returned it to the tobacco tin in his shirt.
Holland rose and stretched. “Don’t look so worried, little brother.” Though his tone was reassuring, Niles could see the muscle in his jaw twitch. It came and went like a winking light, signaling some disorder.
“What will we do?” Niles asked.
Holland’s expression was enigmatic. “I don’t know. But I said not to worry.” He treated Niles to a smile. Well then, if Holland said so, he wouldn’t worry. But why, when trying to overcome his thoughts, he suggested their going to the river, why did Holland ignore him and remain where he was, staring into space as though moonstruck? Holland’s spellbinder look, he called it.
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“Let’s go up and see the pigeons,” Holland replied with a sly look. Sometimes he reminded Niles of Achilles—very crafty, he could be. He had brought something out from his pocket, some small pellets which he thumbed around in the palm of one hand. Carrying the light, Niles headed for the door in the wall. “Cripes,” he swore, remembering Russell had locked it from the other side.
Holland chuckled to think that Russell imagined the Slave Door was the only way out of there. With a last worried glance, Niles put the ring away with the other things in the Prince Albert tin and held the candle up while Holland went to the stair-ladder leading above to the trapdoor.
“But what can we do?” Niles’s hiked shoulder was mute but eloquent appeal.
“Russell is a jerk.” Holland’s voice, Niles noted, was stern and cold. Head tilted slightly downward, gray eyes flinty, gazing out from under gable-shaped brows, his expression was one not unknown to Niles: stark, flat, implacable; and holding the candle high, watching him climb the ladder to put a shoulder to the trapdoor, Niles felt a queer chill, like a slowly growing stain, spreading through all the walls and membranes of his stomach.
2
“Eee-yaiee!”
Listening to the scream, Niles smiled as Russell tumbled from the loft in counterfeit glee, hurtling through the air, his arms pinwheeling, his body arcing into space and dropping out of
the light into blackness, his voice ricocheting from the recesses of the barn as he landed with a thud in the haymow twenty feet away across the threshing floor.
“I’m the King of the Mountain!” he heard Russell shout, wading knee-deep through the remains of last year’s fodder to the mowstead, where he clambered onto the ladder chained against a vertical timber and, puffing, hand-over-hand ascended the rungs to the loft above.
Russell, Niles suspected, did not really enjoy jumping in the haymow, for he’d said he found it a little like falling in a dream, down down down into nothingness, and no hand there to catch you. His heart was in his mouth each time he leaped, Niles could tell. He did it, not because he was a daredevil, but because he had nothing else to do; poor Russell, he was so bored, and this dumb imitation of Holland and Niles’s game was all he could think of to take up his time. Poor fat old four-eyed Russell, he should know better than to come snooping around. Once, last year, having caught him sneaking into the apple cellar, Holland had tied him up and threatened to set fire to his feet; had in fact pulled his shoes off and actually lighted matches—scared the hell out of Russell. Russell ought to stick to his rats. The whole family of them, white rats, which he kept in a pen up in the cupola where the pigeons nested. With a rabbit, a dumb old Belgian hare who thought she was their mother.
Niles lowered the trapdoor into place and stepped away from it, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Holland in the shadows, watching Russell squinting through his chaff-covered glasses. He wiped them and set them aside—so they wouldn’t get broken, probably—and hung on a pulley rope to peer over the countryside. Poor Russell. He hated the country, too. Hated it all, hated the flowers that bloom in the spring, hated the smell of the grass, hated the animals (except his rats), hated the outdoors. Hated his father for selling his soda pop business and coming to Pequot Landing to cap damn old sarsaparilla bottles.