Patricia Geary - Strange Toys

“Pet!”

“When we meet again, you had better be ready to deal.”

So I ran. There was only one way to go: the stairway was behind me, Sammy was straight ahead, a stained glass window of the Last Supper was to my left. I ran to the closed door on my right, past the statue of Artemis-Diana, her bow and arrow poised, and flung open the heavy door.

Running into the room was like running on one of those cartoon treadmills, where you keep going and going but arrive nowhere at all. The white sofa I could barely see in the distance seemed to be moving farther and farther away. Of course, that could have been the “crazy” part of the house. And I was the water flowing uphill.

The effect is not so amusing if you are the water.

“ Pet! ” Stan’s voice was so far away, the bottom of a well.

I wasn’t ready to go back yet. I ran and ran, sticky in the same spot, and then I was suddenly through . The room stopped twirling, the greeny air cleared away.

Wherever I was, it wasn’t what you’d expect. This huge space was filled with bright, clear illumination. But not like I’d died and gone to heaven or The Twilight Zone or anything. Even though the light was strangely sharp and there wasn’t any furniture, you could tell this was a real room—it smelled musty, and there were dust devils in the near corner.

After a moment my eyes adjusted to the light, and I began to feel very calm and very, well, powerful . As if something about the room itself were recharging something inside me, completing a circuit, like Christmas tree lights, the tricky way you have to test each bulb to make them all go on. I had this literal feeling of “a load off my chest,” an image like heartache that really is what it says. But I guess everyone knows that. Every time I come up with this stuff, it’s already old-hat. Like the time last year when I had the dream about the angels in the trash can, and they told me, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” I thought I was really on to something! When I told Linwood, she acted impressed, said it was a lovely phrase, and the thought, too. Then I ran across the same sentence in Bartlett’s Quotations .

The only thing worse than being a dope is being humored when you’re being one.

Anyway, the room was working on me. Or maybe it was the light. I fingered the poodle toys in my coat pocket. My chest and shoulders felt free, even when I thought about how we might never go home again and about Deane’s room and that night and Deane herself. And the strangeness that had been following me ever since, more closely than Tommy ever could. Even when I thought about all that stuff, I felt okay. This voice—not out loud, exactly—told me that what was past was past . Standing alone in the large, airy room, I knew this was true. Whatever had happened to me, it wasn’t here anymore. Maybe it had happened. Maybe it had all been a dream, like the angels in the garbage.

Except I still had the book.

Or did I?

Maybe tonight when I opened my cigar box, it wouldn’t be there anymore. Maybe it had never been there.

I began to pace in small circles, spiraling out from the center of the room.

Maybe I should trade the book to Sammy. If I didn’t have it anymore, then the past could roll up and disappear, my imagination the richest fruit. You woke up from terrible nightmares all the time, relieved, you had been so convinced of the power of the other.

I stopped pacing.

I turned around and opened the door, and this time I was simply back at the top of the stairs.

“Sammy?” I called.

“Pet, goddammit, you have until the count of ten to get down here!”

“Sammy!” I cried, louder.

“One! Two!—”

I had to believe that things come in threes. Sammy had said I had one more chance. And this time I’d be ready.

“—Seven! Eight!—”

I scampered down the stairs.

All Stan said was, “Forget the gift shop.”

Outside, the sky was dark, dead-dark. Linwood and June were already in the car, and they ignored me as I climbed into my spot.

We sped away from Madame Miraculo’s. June gnawed on her fudge. Idly, I fingered the poodle toys in my pocket.

“Wake up!” June shoved me hard.

I opened my eyes. My cheek hurt—I must have been sleeping against the window. All I could see was a tall pale pink like shells, but you could tell they used to be magenta. The twin beds were high and lumpy, chenille spreads with more roses. Scattered about the room were dainty little watercolors, sandpipers and still-lifes, and a lot of old lamps with yellowed silk shades.

The room seemed peculiarly familiar.

It was the room from Deane’s magic book, the picture with me wearing a necklace of poodle toys.

Hastily, I took the toys out of my coat pocket and looked around for something I could string them on. The venetian blinds had an old cord to raise and lower them, so, biting off a length with my teeth, I assembled a makeshift concoction. For good measure, I added some stuff from the cigar box: my badge from Gaylin, the piece of brick with the letter P , and a couple of seashells.

The product wasn’t very pretty, yet it looked—like Deane’s altar—as if it had been designed for a purpose. It looked like The Real Thing.

I put one of the lamps on the floor on the far side of the beds. If anybody came in, they wouldn’t see me right away. Plus, I set some cards next to the cigar box. By the time anyone rounded the beds, I’d be laying out a game of solitaire.

Then I went into the bathroom and washed my face and hands and brushed my hair. I had that funny feeling between my legs, so I got a washcloth and washed that, too. Then I changed into my best flannel nightgown, the white one with tiny green flowers. I put the necklace on.

I started to sit down, but on second thought, the air was stuffy. With the window open, the after-midnight smell wafted in along with the sound of the sea, rumbling away far below.

The taste of the air and the night! A deep sense of excitement splashed up in me, a wave hitting a rock. My heart pounded like the surf, too, and I tried to sit down calmly, cross-legged, in front of the lamp. I opened the cigar box and took out Deane’s magic journal from the very bottom of the box.

Part of me thought it wouldn’t be there.

But, of course, it was. Small, red, the leather warm, as if it had been recently caressed. This time, I would see the book through. This time I was prepared, would not slam it shut in fear or horror. This time I was prepared. I would see the book through, and then I would trade it to Sammy.

I touched my necklace for security.

DANGER! TURN THE PAGE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

I turned the page.

FINAL WARNING! A CURSE ON THE PERSON WHO STEALS THIS BOOK, OR READS IT UNLAWFULLY.

Don’t farewell. Fare forward.

ANCIENT MAGICK & SECRETS, THE UNKNOWN

First there was the pen-and-ink drawing of me and Tommy. Okay. I could handle that.

I flipped the page.

Then, the picture of me riding on Sammy’s Snowland. You could see the village entering the fourth dimension behind me, the bands of light that connected the trees and the houses and the ocean glittering behind them.

I flipped the page.

There I was, wearing my necklace. Deane had gotten all the details right, down to the piece of brick with the letter P . Definitely, this was the hotel room: it had been faithfully captured in faded roses and lumpy beds.

Okay, I was anxious, my legs throbbed a little, but I was handling it.

I flipped the page. It was blank.

I flipped the next page, and the next, and the next. They were all blank!