Something Wicked This Way Comes

But now, in the doorway, in the cold rain, there was time to think of Miss Foley afraid of mirror mazes, Miss Foley alone not so long ago at the carnival, and maybe screaming when they did what they finally did to her, around and around, around and around, too many years, more years than she had ever dreamed of shucked away, rubbing her raw, leaving her naked small, alone, and bewildered because unknown-even-to-herself, around and around, until all the years were gone and the carousel rocked to a halt like a roulette wheel, and nothing gained and all lost and nowhere for her to go, no way to tell the strangeness, and nothing to do but weep under a tree, alone, in the autumn rain. . . .

Will thought this. Jim thought it, and said:

‘Oh, the poor. . .the poor. . .’

‘We got to help her, Jim. Who else would believe? If she tells anyone, “I’m Miss Foley!’ “Get away!’ they’d say, “Miss Foley’s left town, disappeared!’ “Go on, little girl!’ Oh, Jim, I bet she’d pounded a dozen doors this morning wanting help, scared people with her screaming and yelling, then ran off, gave up, and hid under that tree. Police are probably looking for her now, but so what? it’s just a wild girl crying and they’ll lock her away and she’ll go crazy. That carnival, boy, do they know how to punish so you can’t hit back. They just shake you up and change you so no one ever knows you again and let you run free, it’s okay, go ahead, talk, ‘cause folks are too scared of you to listen. Only we hear, Jim, only you and me, and right now I feel like I just ate a cold snail raw.’

They looked back a last time at the shadows of rain crying on the windows inside the parlour where a teacher had often served them cookies and hot chocolate and waved to them from the window and moved tall through the town. Then they stepped out and shut the door and ran back toward the empty lot.

‘We got to hide her, until we can help—’

‘Help?’ panted Jim. ‘We can’t help ourselves!

‘There’s got to be weapons, right in front of us, we’re just too blind—’

They stopped.

Beyond the thump of their own hearts, a greater heart thumped. Brass trumpets wailed. Trombones blared. A herd of tubas made an elephant charge, alarmed for unknown reasons.

‘The carnival!’ gasped Jim. ‘We never thought! It can come right into town. A Parade! Or that funeral I dreamt about, for the balloon?’

‘Not a funeral and only what looks like a parade but’s a search for us, Jim, for us, or Miss Foley, if they want her back! They can march down any old street, fine and dandy, and spy as they go, drum and bugle! Jim, we got to get her before they—’

And breaking off, they flung themselves down an alley, but stopped suddenly, and leaped to hide in some bushes.

At the far end of the alley, the carnival band, animal wagons, clowns, freaks and all, banged and crashed between them and the empty lot and the great oak tree.

It must have taken five minutes for the parade to pass. The rain seemed to move on away, the clouds moving with them. The rain ceased. The strut of drums faded. The boys loped down the alley, across the street, and stopped by the empty lot.

There was no little girl under the tree.

They circled it, looked up in it, not daring to call a name.

Then very much afraid, they ran to hide themselves somewhere in the town.

33

The phone rang.

Mr Halloway picked it up.

‘Dad, this is Willy, we can’t go to the police station, we may not be home today, tell Mom, tell Jim’s mom.’

‘Willy, where are you?’

‘We got to hide. They’re looking for us.’

‘Who, for God’s sake?’

‘I don’t want you in it, Dad. You got to believe, we’ll just hide one day, two, until they go away. If we came home they’d follow and hurt you or Ma or Jim’s mom. I got to go.’

‘Willy, don’t!’

‘Oh, Dad,’ said Will. ‘Wish me luck.’

Click.

Mr Halloway looked out at the trees, the houses, the streets, hearing faraway music.

‘Willy,’ he said to the dead phone. ‘Luck.’

And he put on his coat and hat and went out into the strange bright rainy sunshine that filled the cold air.

34

In front of the United Cigar Store on this before-noon Sunday with the bells of all churches ringing across here, colliding with each other there, showering sound from the sky now that the rain was spent, in front of the cigar store the Cherokee wooden Indian stood, his carved plumes pearled with water, oblivious to Catholic or Baptist bells, oblivious to the steadily approaching sun-bright cymbals, the thumping pagan heart of the carnival band. The flourished drums, the old-womanish shriek of calliope, the shadow drift of creatures far stranger than he, did not witch the Indian’s yellow hawk-fierce gaze. Still, the drums did tilt churches and plummet forth mobs of boys curious and eager for any change mild or wild, so, as the church bells stopped up their silver and iron rain, pew-stiffened crowds became relaxed parade crowds as the carnival, a promotion of brass, a flush of velvet, all lion-pacing, mammoth-shuffling, flag-fluttered by.