Back Aa

Mr. Wicker's Window

<h2>CHAPTER 10</h2> <div class="figleft"><ANTIMG src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width-obs="85" height-obs="75" /></div> he learning of magic was by no means easy. The days went by with Chris's mornings and afternoons spent in Mr. Wicker's study, reading books too heavy for him to lift, learning incantations by heart, and how to blend simple formulae over the fire. He had told his master at once about Simon Gosler, his horde of money and his hiding places for it. Mr. Wicker though interested and attentive, gave Chris the impression that what he had been told was not new to him. At times Chris was allowed to run about the large vegetable garden and climb the orchard trees, but he was told that the moment had not yet come when he could wander at will in early Georgetown. Chris had tried it once, rebellious and bored at the now familiar ground, but it was as if an invisible wall kept him in the confines of Mr. Wicker's land, a slippery glass wall he could feel but not see, and in which he could discover no chink in which to put his toe to find the height of it. So there was nothing left to do but to work as fast and as well as he could. "There are rumors," Mr. Wicker had told him quietly, too quietly, "that Claggett Chew is preparing his ship, the Venture, for a voyage East. There is much activity about his ship, and he is laying in stores, so I am informed. We must get forward with all haste, for his ship is a fast one—faster than the Mirabelle." Chris therefore threw himself into all the preliminaries of his task. His head swam when he laid it on his pillow at night, and Becky Boozer would stand with her hands on her barrel-sized hips, shaking her hat until its plumes and roses waved madly, over "her boy's" shadowed eyes and weary air. For Chris was now as accepted a member of the household as Mr. Wicker himself, and had it not been for the robust guffaws of Ned Cilley, and the ministrations of the now devoted Becky, Chris's days would have been tedious indeed. One afternoon when he returned, after a rest, to Mr. Wicker's study, he saw that there was something new in the room. A bowl with a goldfish in it stood on the table, but Mr. Wicker was not to be seen. Now, however, Chris was not the boy he had been a few weeks before. He went straight to the bowl and addressed the fish. "Sir," he said to the goldfish, "I am here. What shall I do first?" The goldfish might almost have been said to have changed its expression and smiled, before, brushing a drop of water from his sleeve, Mr. Wicker stood beside the table smiling. "How you have improved, my boy!" he exclaimed. "It is now time for you to try, and this is as good a change as any." All at once, at the imminent prospect of really changing himself into some other form, Chris became frightened and his hands grew cold. "Oh, sir! Do you really think I know how?" he cried, gazing up into the face of his master. "Suppose I change and can't change back?" Mr. Wicker shook his head with a smile. "Never fear, Christopher. You know enough to start, and I feel reasonably sure that you will be quite able to change back again. If you get stuck I can help you. Come now," he said, putting out his hand to touch Chris's shoulder in a reassuring way, "here you go. Remember Incantation Seventy-three, Book One." Chris stared at the fishbowl, empty now. He remembered Incantation 73, Book One, quite well, but his knees began to tremble and he stood as if paralyzed. Mr. Wicker waited patiently beside him for a few moments for Chris to get up his courage. Then as nothing happened, with a voice like a whip Mr. Wicker said: "Start at once!" Chris was so startled at his usually gentle master's tone that without further thought or effort on his part, he began intoning to himself the words and sounds of Incantation 73, Book One. As he went on, concentrating on becoming a goldfish in the bowl on the table, he became aware of a humming sensation in his head. This grew until it seemed that all his body was filled with the strange new vibration, tingling from his feet to the crown of his head. The sensation spread, faster and faster. His head swam and he felt faint and a little sick, but he persisted through the final words. Somewhere deep inside him there seemed a sudden lurch, and then a wonderfully cool, liquid sensation. He felt buoyant and rested and looked about, only to get a wavery, enlarged glimpse of Mr. Wicker, looking more like a reflection in a circus mirror than himself. With a light twist of his body Chris floated over, to see that the room looked the same, and rolling back, could see that Mr. Wicker was peering in at him from above and smiling broadly. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image_078.jpg" width-obs="600" height-obs="334" alt="Illustration" /></div> "Good Lord—I'm a fish!" Chris said, and he heard the words muffled as they came back to him through the water of his bowl. Well, what do you know? he thought, not without a feeling of pride, and commenced experimenting with his tail and fins with such enthusiasm and delight that some little time elapsed before Mr. Wicker's voice boomed close by. "Better come back now. Take it slowly, son. Seventy-four, Book One: The Return." The same strange sensations flooded Chris as he made the change back to his own shape, but when he stood once more on his own two feet on the carpet in Mr. Wicker's study, he was pleased and happy despite his weakness. Mr. Wicker took hold of his arm and helped him to a chair, and taking a small vial from the cupboard at the end of the room, he dropped a pellet into it and handed it to Chris. "This will seem to smoke. Sniff the smoke and drink the liquid that remains," he said. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image_079.jpg" width-obs="600" height-obs="308" alt="Illustration" /></div> Chris did as he was told, and his momentary weakness vanished, leaving him quieted and as strong as usual. "There now," Mr. Wicker said, rubbing his hands with immense satisfaction, "that was not so bad, was it? A peculiar feeling, but as you come to do it more often and more quickly, the change will come more rapidly and in time you will be scarcely aware of the sensations at all." He looked at his pupil with pride. "You will do famously, my boy. In another moment, when you have rested, we shall try another one." From that time, Chris became increasingly proficient, and as his ability grew he began to find magic a wonderful game, which he and Mr. Wicker played together. They played this new and unique form of hide-and-seek, each one taking a new shape, turn by turn, as a challenge to the other's powers of imagination and detection. Soon Chris could turn himself into a limited number of things, for even Mr. Wicker's magic had a limit: a singing bird in a cage, a part of the pattern in the brocaded curtains, or a section of the design in the Indian rug. The bluebottle fly or the goldfish became as easy as saying "Eureka!" and on one occasion Chris turned himself into the chair on which Mr. Wicker was sitting, and then walked across the room on his four wooden legs carrying Mr. Wicker, who laughed more heartily than he had in years at this display on the part of his student. One day Chris wandered alone into the dusty shop. The time had nearly come when he could walk about in early Georgetown and know that it would still be the Georgetown of the past, and not the one into which he had been born. This afternoon, a rainy one, he had tired of changing himself into and out of objects. Mr. Wicker was busy, and Becky Boozer had gone off to market accompanied by Ned Cilley. Chris felt somewhat forlorn and lonely, as any boy might, and kicked an old piece of wood ahead of him into the darkness of the shop. Going up to the shop window, he stood with his hands thrust into his pockets staring glumly first out the window and then, idly, at the three objects he had once loved to contemplate, the Mirabelle in her bottle, the coil of heavy rope, and the carved wooden figure of the Nubian boy. Without interest at first, Chris stared at the little Negro boy, so gaily dressed in full red trousers, gilded jacket and white turban. The figure's shoes, carved in some Eastern style, had curved up-pointing toes. Then all at once the idea came to Chris. If he was to be a magician, could he make this boy come to life? The prospect excited him wildly, for he had no companion with whom to laugh and share jokes. Grown people, however gay and kind, were never quite the same. The more he thought of it, the more Chris knew it had to be attempted. He squatted on his haunches, examining the carved wooden figure attentively, and felt convinced that, once alive, the boy would be an ideal and happy companion. But how did one change inanimate to animate? Chris got up and stole back to Mr. Wicker's door. He heard the magician going up the spiral staircase to his room above, and after changing himself to a mouse to slip under the door and see that the room was really empty, Chris resumed his proper shape and opened the doors of the cupboard at the far end of the room. On its top shelf was Book Three, a book a foot thick and bound in heavy brass studded with semi-precious stones in the form of signs and symbols. With difficulty, standing on tiptoe, Chris lifted it down, and placing it on the floor, turned over page after page. The afternoon, rainy before, increased in storm. Dusk came two hours before its time; thunder snarled in the sky. At last Chris found it. There were the words, and there the charm. Certain elements were to be mixed and poured at the proper time. He hurried, memorizing as he closed the book, and hoisted it once more to its high shelf. Looking about, he found the ingredients that had been listed, and in an empty vial poured first two drops of this, and then seventeen of that, and ran to heat it at the fire. Mr. Wicker began moving about upstairs; the floorboards creaked, and still Chris could not leave until the potion fumed and glowed. After what seemed an endless time, amid a growing grind of thunder and in the almost darkened room, the phial in Chris's hand gave off an arching rosy glow. Chris, his cheeks hot from excitement and the fire, tiptoed out just as Mr. Wicker's step creaked on the topmost tread of the spiral stair. With infinite caution Chris closed the door silently behind him, and running lightly forward, reached the figure of the Negro boy. The words came out, interrupted by peals and cracks of thunder. The shop was black except for the paler crescent of the bow window giving onto the street. With a crash of thunder all but drowning out his words, the boy shouted in the emptiness of the shop as he poured the rosy liquid on the figure made of wood. And then, appalled at his audacity, Chris dropped the phial which splintered on the floor. Watching there in the darkness, he shook so with nerves that he had to kneel. For in the blackness lit only by the lightning and its own eerie glow, the wood was changing as he watched. It was as if the stiffness melted. Under his eyes the wooden folds of cloth became rich silk, embroidery gleamed in its reality upon the coat, and oh! the face! The wooden grin loosened, the large eyes turned, the hand holding the hard bouquet of carved flowers moved, and let the bouquet fall. The feet of the boy twitched and shifted in their pointed shoes. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image_083.jpg" width-obs="600" height-obs="577" alt="Illustration" /></div> Aghast, Chris remained frozen as the boy moved slowly, and a final Boom! of thunder seemed to split the sky apart. Outside, the rain poured down as if over some skyward dam. The boy looked down at Chris with a radiant smile and put out his hand. "I'll help you up," he said to the kneeling boy in front of him. "I am Amos." And as they turned, the light and the dark hands holding firm, the firelight was streaming from the distant door and Mr. Wicker waited. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.