Skeleton Crew

"Come down," Spangler said. "Please. Before you fall." Carlin descended the ladder slowly, clinging to each rung like a man tottering over a bottomless chasm. When his feet touched the floor he began to babble, as if the floor contained some current that had turned him on, like an electric light.

"A quarter of a million," he said. "A quarter of a million dollars' worth of insurance to take that... thing from down there to up here. That goddam thing. They had to rig a special block and tackle to get it into the gable storeroom up there. And I was hoping—almost praying—that someone's fingers would be slippery... that the rope would be the wrong test... that the thing would fall and be shattered into a million pieces—"

"Facts," Spangler said. "Facts, Carlin. Not cheap paperback novels, not cheap tabloid stories or equally cheap horror movies. Facts. Number one: John Delver was an English craftsman of Norman descent who made mirrors in what we call the Elizabethan period of England's history. He lived and died uneventfully. No pentacles scrawled on the floor for the housekeeper to rub out, no sulfur-smelling documents with a splotch of blood on the dotted line.

Number two: His mirrors have become collector's items due principally to fine craftsmanship and to the fact that a form of crystal was used that has a mildly magnifying and distorting effect upon the eye of the beholder—a rather distinctive trademark. Number three: Only five Delvers remain in existence to our present knowledge—two of them in America. They are priceless.

Number four: This Delver and one other that was destroyed in the London Blitz have gained a rather spurious reputation due largely to falsehood, exaggeration, and coincidence—"

"Fact number five," Mr. Carlin said. "You're a supercilious bastard, aren't you?" Spangler looked with mild detestation at the blind-eyed Adonis.

"I was guiding the tour that Sandra Bates's brother was a part of when he got his look into your precious Delver mirror, Spangler. He was perhaps sixteen, part of a high-school group. I was going through the history of the glass and had just got to the part you would appreciate—extolling the flawless craftsmanship, the perfection of the glass itself—when the boy raised his hand. 'But what about that black splotch in the upper left-hand corner?' he asked. 'That looks like a mistake.'

"And one of his friends asked him what he meant, so the Bates boy started to tell him, then stopped. He looked at the mirror very closely, pushing right up to the red velvet guard-rope around the case—then he looked behind him as if what he had seen had been the reflection of someone—of someone in black—standing at his shoulder. 'It looked like a man,' he said. 'But I couldn't see the face. It's gone now.' And that was all."

"Go on," Spangler said. "You're itching to tell me it was the Reaper—I believe that is the common explanation, isn't it? That occasional chosen people see the Reaper's image in the glass?

Get it out of your system, man. The National Enquirer would love it! Tell me about the horrific consequences and defy me to explain it. Was he later hit by a car? Did he jump out of a window?

What?" Carlin chuckled a forlorn little chuckle. "You should know better, Spangler. Haven't you told me twice that you are... ah... conversant with the history of the Delver glass. There were no horrific consequences. There never have been. That's why the Delver glass isn't Sundaysupplementized like the Koh-i-noor Diamond or the curse on King Tut's tomb. It's mundane compared to those. You think I'm a fool, don't you?"

"Yes," Spangler said. "Can we go up now?"

"Certainly," Carlin said passionately. He climbed the ladder and pushed the trapdoor.

There was a clickety-clackety-bump as it was drawn up into the shadows by a counterweight, and then Mr. Carlin disappeared into the shadows. Spangler followed. The blind Adonis stared unknowingly after them.

The gable room was explosively hot, lit only by one cobwebby, many-angled window that filtered the hard outside light into a dirty milky glow. The looking-glass was propped at an angle to the light, catching most of it and reflecting a pearly patch onto the far wall. It had been bolted securely into a wooden frame. Mr. Carlin was not looking at it. Quite studiously not looking at it.

"You haven't even put a dustcloth over it," Spangler said, visibly angered for the first time.

"I think of it as an eye," Mr. Carlin said. His voice was still drained, perfectly empty. "If it's left open, always open, perhaps it will go blind." Spangler paid no attention. He took off his jacket, folded the buttons carefully in, and with infinite gentleness he wiped the dust from the convex surface of the glass itself. Then he stood back and looked at it.