Hugh Lofting: The Twilight of Magic

‘Whoever carries the Whispering Shell to the one in greatest need of it shall make his fortune ... I must be gone. Lest you should not find your way safely in the dark, one of my cats will remain to guide you home. Good luck to you! I will see you both again. Farewell.’

With rather a sad, bewildered feeling in their hearts the two watched her hobble up the footpath towards the high ground at the cliff-tops. Presently Anne gripped her brother’s arm and pointed to the other cat. It was already leading the way ahead of them down the beach. Giles picked up the shell at his feet.

And then, still too puzzled and thoughtful for talk, they both fell in behind their guide and started homewards through the twilight.

The children were back in their attic. It was a little later than their usual hour for going to bed. On the way home the cat had kept them running fast, as though it knew they were not going to be in time for supper and would be blamed for their lateness. But no one except the cook had remarked on it, and they had got safely upstairs without a scolding.

‘What do you make of it, Giles,’ Anne asked, ‘her going off like that and leaving us alone on the shore?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said the boy. ‘She had other business to attend to, I suppose. What I’m interested in is this thing she left with us.’

And he drew from his pocket the big green shell and laid it gently on the table between himself and his sister.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ said Anne. ‘Let me listen to it. I’d like to hear the roaring of the sea.’

She took it and held it to her ear.

‘Wonderful!’ she said presently. ‘The sea could almost be pouring through the room here. It’s much better than any shell I ever tried before. You can nearly smell the salt water, the flying spray ... Now it stops ... It’s growing warm—hotter and hotter, Giles—Oh, will it hurt me?’

‘No, no,’ said her brother quickly. ‘Hang on. For pity’s sake, don’t drop it! You heard Agnes say it would never grow hot enough to hurt you.’

With grim determination Anne still held it to her ear. And presently a queer look came into her face.

‘Why,’ said she breathlessly ... ‘I hear someone talking about me ... It’s the cook. She says I left an awful mess of crumbs beneath the table tonight. It isn’t true.’ (Anne took the shell away from her ear and scowled across the table at her brother.) ‘Those were your crumbs, Giles. I never drop crumbs on the floor—at least hardly ever ... Oh, now it grows cold again.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Giles, grabbing the shell from her. ‘You heard voices in the shell? You must be dreaming. I knew it could grow hot and cold. But voices? ... Let me listen.’

The boy held it to his own ear.

‘Nothing,’ he said after a moment. ‘Nothing but the old sea roaring.’

‘But wait!’ cried Anne. ‘Wait till it grows warm again. That’s when I heard voices.’

Giles brought the shell to rest upon the table.

‘Hark to me, Anne,’ he said severely. ‘You don’t mean to tell me you believe this shell can talk?’

‘I would not have done,’ said Anne gently, ‘if I had not heard it. But the shell isn’t talking itself. It’s only letting you hear what other people say.’

‘Such rubbish!’ Giles grunted. ‘Such rub—Ow—oo!’

He snatched his hand from off the shell.

‘Don’t mind if it grows warm,’ said Anne. ‘Remember what Agnes said. Listen now before it gets cold again.’

Giles tried once more.

‘It’s Father speaking,’ said he presently, his voice atremble—‘talking about me.’

There was a minute’s silence while the boy listened and his sister waited.

‘Well?’ said she when at length he set the shell down. ‘What did he say about you?’

‘Oh—er—nothing important,’ said the boy with a frown. ‘Sometimes I think Father doesn’t understand me very well. He might have had a worse son. “It’s too bad that good-for-nothing boy has gone to bed,” he was saying. “I can’t find my big hammer anywhere. He would soon find it for me. The only thing Giles was ever any good for was finding things.” ’

‘Never mind,’ said Anne. ‘Be thankful that you’re good for something. Now it’s my turn, Giles. Let me listen. I think this is a splendid game, don’t you?’

‘Er—yes,’ said her brother, pushing the shell across to her. ‘But it depends on what you hear.’

Already Anne had the shell clasped tightly to her ear.

‘The sea!’ she murmured. ‘The old sea, mumbling and tossing, hissing and washing.’

And she began to hum a little tune of her own as she rocked to and fro to that song of the waves. Then, suddenly, she stopped. A smile spread over her face. Her eyes sparkled as she pressed the shell still closer against her ear. At last, slowly, she put it back upon the table with a deep sigh.

‘Dear me!’ she murmured. ‘Of course I always knew it myself. But I hadn’t known that anyone else knew it.’

‘Knew what?’ asked Giles in a grumpy tone.

‘Somebody just said that I was the best-behaved girl in the town. I didn’t recognize the voice. But it’s true. So anyone might have said it.’

She pushed the shell across the table to her brother.

‘Your turn, Giles,’ she said. And she settled herself back in her chair with hands folded on her lap.

‘Look here,’ said her brother, suddenly rising and pushing back his chair, which made a scraping sound ... ‘Sh!’ he hissed. ‘Blow out the candle. Someone might come up. We are supposed to be asleep ... So! We can go to bed by moonlight. Now let’s get to the bottom of this thing. Have you noticed anything peculiar about the way the shell speaks, Anne?’

‘Certainly,’ said his sister. ‘For one thing, it always grows hot first.’

‘Yes,’ said the boy. ‘But did you notice that when you hold it, the voices only say things about you; and when I hold it they only say things about me. I think we have its secret now. Let’s try again.’

And so, for hours, talking in whispers, the children sat up in their night-clothes. While one was listening to the shell the other would listen for footsteps on the stairs, lest they should be caught at their work.

Anne heard her mother speak of her and a new frock for Easter she was making for her daughter; Giles heard his father speak again—this time of what the boy should be when he grew up; they both heard Doctor Seymour speak of them together; and each heard Luke the Lame Boy speak of them separately—apparently talking aloud to himself in his bed of straw.

As it grew later, and more and more of the townspeople put their lights out and went to bed, the shell grew warm less often. But in the end the children were sure they had proved its secret: that he who held it upon his person would feel it grow warm if anyone anywhere in the world spoke of him.

They were now both dead tired. And, with the shell safely hid beneath his pillow, Giles murmured as he fell asleep:

‘I suppose it’s magic ... I s’pose it’s magic. Don’t you think ... it’s magic, Anne?’

But from Anne’s bed there came no answer. She was already asleep.

Next morning it was only just light when Giles woke his sister up—by throwing a slipper over on to her cot.

‘The thing to work out now,’ said Giles, ‘is, who is to get the shell. “Whoever shall carry the Whispering Shell to the one in greatest need of it shall make his fortune”—that’s what Agnes said. Well, Father is the one most in need. How about him?’

At once, still fuddled with sleep though she was, Anne shook her head hard.