Shadowland (53 page)

 
   'It won't be you,' Del said. 'You don't deserve it.'

 
   'I don't even want it,' Tom answered angrily. 'Del, don't you understand? I don't want to take anything away from you. I only came here because I wanted to help you. Do you want to live like that — like him?'

 
   Del hesitated a moment, then turned away to look for his sleeping bag. 'You wouldn't have to. You could live any way you wanted.'

 
   A hard and certain thought occurred to Tom. 'If he'd let you. Why would he want to give up now? He's old, but he's still healthy.'

 
   Del was lifting something out of the leaves behind the tree Collins had indicated. 'Because he chose
me.
That's why. You're just along for the ride. You never even wanted to be a magician before you met me.'

 
   'Aren't you my friend anymore?' Tom asked in despair.

 
   Del would not reply.

 
   'I'm still your friend.'

 
   'You're trying to trick me.'

 
   'How can I? You're better than I am.'

 
   Carrying his sleeping bag back to the clearing, Del at last looked at him. Pure triumph shone in his eyes.

 
   'But, Del, no matter what happens, I don't think he's going to . . . I think it's all a trick. On us.'

 
   'Get lost.'

 
   'Oh . . . ' the letter from Rose, which Tom had forgotten, scratched him beneath a rib. He looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty. Half an hour late! He looked back in agony at Del, and saw that he was trying to get into his sleeping bag. His eyes were clamped shut and he was crying. One of his heels had snagged on the zipper and he could not free it without opening his eyes.

 
   Tom went over to him and grasped Del's foot. He moved it over the zipper and into the bag. 'Del, you're my best friend,' he said.

 
   'You're my
only
friend,' Del said, almost blubbing. 'But he's
my
uncle. This is where
I
come. You're only here
once.'

 
   'I have to go away for a little while,' Tom said, kneeling by Del's side. 'When I come back, let's talk, okay?'

 
   Del's teary eyes flew open. 'Are you going to see him?'

 
   'No.'

 
   'Promise?'

 
   'I promise.'

 
   'Okay.' His face hardened for a moment. 'You wouldn't even let me in to see the Grimm Brothers.'

 
   'I was just surprised — the room was different.'

 
   'But you saw. You saw you and him. Like I said.'

 
   'It's some kind of game. I was never with him. I would have told you.'

 
   'I was feeling so alone,' Del said.

 
   'When I get back,' Tom said, and turned to run across the clearing.
Hey, where are you going?
he heard Del wail; he did not answer.

 
5

 
He came pounding out of the edge of the woods and out of breath, stopped running. Sand moved under his feet. For a moment he wanted to remove his shoes. Far up the cliff, the house shone from a dozen windows. He could see Rose nowhere on the beach, which was a silvery mushroom gray beside the black smooth water. He checked his watch again and saw that it was now ten-fifty. She had gone.

 
   Tom trudged forward through the sand. Here was a surprise: a substantial part of him was relieved that Rose had given up and gone back across the lake. Now he could return to Del.

 
   But maybe just ahead, on the other side of the boathouse? He saw the slavering wolf pouncing toward her. If Collins had seen her waiting on the beach . . .

 
   Now his mood had swung, and he desperately wanted to know if Rose Armstrong were safe. His mind was a jumble of images: the' wolf, held up with unbelievable strength, impaled on a sword; the badger being swung in a great arc toward the pit; Dave Brick sitting on a metalchair, waiting to be roasted. He banged open the door of the boathouse. He walked in, and nearly fell twenty feet into black shallow water.

 
   Tom jerked himself back just in time. Inside the dilapidated shell, the boathouse was chiefly water and open space. A three-foot apron of concrete ran around a wide hole open at the lake end. Most of this entire side of the boathouse was open. Only six or seven feet down from the top had been boarded across.

 
   The door slammed shut behind him, and his heart too slammed in his chest. Tom heard a metal bar sliding into a brace. He hit the door with his shoulder. It rattled, but would not open. He banged it again, beginning to settle down from his original terror into ordinary fright. Who was it? Collins? The Collector turned loose to get him? One of the Wandering Boys? He would have to jump into the water. He looked down, saw greasy-looking blackness, and then saw something else.

 
   Then he heard giggles from behind the door: Rose.

 
   'Let me out!'

 
   'You stood me up three nights straight. Why should I?'

 
   'Three nights?' Tom's stomach fell away.

 
   'I got your note this morning.'

 
   'No, you didn't, boyo. That was three days ago.'

 
   'Oh, God.' He leaned against the creaky doors of the boathouse wall.

 
   'You didn't know?'

 
   'I thought it was this morning.'

 
   'Likely story, but I'll let you out.'

 
   The bolt slid across. The door opened, and Rose stood before him in a green 1920's dress. She was smiling teasingly, and on her face it looked brave. She was the best thing he had ever seen. The green dress made her look more sophisticated than any girl he had ever known.

 
   'I almost had heart failure in there,' he said, 'but I'm so happy to see you, I guess I wouldn't mind dying.'

 
   She pouted, took a step back. 'You almost had more than heart failure. You know what I almost did to you? I was so mad.'

 
   'Did to me?'

 
   'Take a look at this and tell me about three days.'

 
   Rose stepped gracefully around him, and he saw that she was wealing high heels. 'You were standing on the other side of the door, right? Okay.' She bent down and tugged at a bar set in the sand beside the door.
Bang!
Iron rang against concrete. The apron he had been standing on had fallen in on a hinge. 'It's like a kind of trapdoor. A long time ago, there was a boat, and a sort of winch fit in here . . . anyhow, I almost dropped you in the drink. The water's deep enough. You'd just have to swim out. I could have strangled you, boyo-three nights? I'm getting muscles from swimming across that lake!'

 
   'You didn't swim tonight,' Tom pointed out.

 
   She turned away. 'Of course not. I ruined my stockings. And this dress is full of gunk.' She lifted the hem and brushed at dust and twigs. 'I came all the way through the woods. Then I sat out on the pier. You walked by without even looking at me.'

 
   'I'll look at you now,' he said, and made to embrace her. She looked as if she were going to back away, but stiffly submitted. 'What's wrong?'

 
   'This.'

 
   'Oh. I'm sorry.' Chagrined, he dropped his arms. He could not read her face — she looked grown up in the green dress, far beyond his reach. 'Really. The note came this morning. At least I thought it was this morning. That scene in the woods, that was just now, wasn't it? About half an hour ago?'

 
   'Sure. Look, what day — ?'

 
   'I want to show you something. Something I want to look at again too.'

 
   'Oh?'

 
   'In here.' He pulled open the boathouse door and knelt. 'Push that lever again.' Rose stepped aside and tugged the rod back. The iron plate swung up on its hinge, clicked into place. Tom crawled out on it and peered down at the water.

 
   'I was going to ask you what day you thought it was.'

 
   'I don't see it now. What day? I'm not sure anymore. Tuesday or Wednesday.'

 
   'It's Saturday,'

 
   
'Saturday?'
He looked up at her, standing just outside the boathouse on the sand. She looked very tall, veryfeminine. Though slim, her body curved.

 
   'What month do you think this is? What week?'

 
   'I'm trying to find something,' he said. 'Something I saw before.' He looked down at the murky water. 'Oh.'

 
   'Did you find it?'

 
   'No.' He scuttled backward.

 
   'You did.'

 
   'What week is it, anyhow?' He stood up. 'What month
is
it?'

 
   'What do you think it is?'

 
   'Early June. About the sixth or the seventh. Maybe as late as the tenth.'

 
   She rubbed her nose. 'So you think it's the tenth of June. Poor Tom.' Rose touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. Tom felt as though new nerves had grown where her fingers had rested. 'What did you see down there?'

 
   'Tell me what day it is, Rose.'

 
   Her brave smile flickered in the moonlight. 'I'm not sure, but it's at least the first of July. Or the second.'

 
   'It's
July?
We've been here a
month?'

 
   Rose nodded; her face searched his, sent out such sympathy that he wanted again to embrace her. 'How can he do that?'