“But you will.” From the pocket of his black jacket he takes an old-fashioned pocket watch. It shoots more arrows of sun into Gwendy’s eyes, only these are gold instead of silver. He pops up the cover and consults the face within. Then he drops it back into his pocket. “My time is short now, so look at the buttons and listen closely. Will you do that?”
“Y-yes.”
“First, put the silver dollar in your pocket. It’s distracting you.”
She does as he says. She can feel it against her thigh, a heavy circle.
“How many continents in the world, Gwendy? Do you know?”
“Seven,” she says. They learned that in third or fourth grade.
“Exactly. But since Antarctica is for all practical purposes deserted, it isn’t represented here… except, of course, by the black button, and we’ll get to that.” One after another, he begins to lightly tap the convex surfaces of the buttons that are in pairs. “Light green: Asia. Dark green: Africa. Orange: Europe. Yellow: Australia. Blue: North America. Violet: South America. Are you with me? Can you remember?”
“Yes.” She says it with no hesitation. Her memory has always been good, and she has a crazy idea that the wonderful piece of candy she ate is further aiding her concentration. She doesn’t know what all this means, but can she remember which color represents which continent? Absolutely. “What’s the red one?”
“Whatever you want,” he says, “and you will want it, the owner of the box always does. It’s normal. Wanting to know things and do things is what the human race is all about. Exploration, Gwendy! Both the disease and the cure!”
I’m no longer in Castle Rock, Gwendy thinks. I’ve entered one of those places I like to read about. Oz or Narnia or Hobbiton. This can’t be happening.
“Just remember,” he continues, “the red button is the only button you can use more than once.”
“What about the black one?”
“It’s everything,” Farris says, and stands up. “The whole shebang. The big kahuna, as your father would say.”
She looks at him, saucer-eyed. Her father does say that. “How do you know my fath—”
“Sorry to interrupt, very impolite, but I really have to go. Take care of the box. It gives gifts, but they’re small recompense for the responsibility. And be careful. If your parents found it, there would be questions.”
“Oh my God, would there ever,” Gwendy says, and utters a breathless whisper of a laugh. She feels punched in the stomach. “Mr. Farris, why did you give this to me? Why me?”
“Stashed away in this world of ours,” Farris says, looking down at her, “are great arsenals of weapons that could destroy all life on this planet for a million years. The men and women in charge of them ask themselves that same question every day. It is you because you were the best choice of those in this place at this time. Take care of the box. I advise you not to let anyone find it, not just your parents, because people are curious. When they see a lever, they want to pull it. And when they see a button, they want to push it.”
“But what happens if they do? What happens if I do?”
Richard Farris only smiles, shakes his head, and starts toward the cliff, where a sign reads: BE CAREFUL! CHILDREN UNDER 10 UNACCOMPANIED BY ADULT NOT ALLOWED! Then he turns back. “Say! Why do they call them the Suicide Stairs, Gwendy?”
“Because a man jumped from them in 1934, or something like that,” she says. She’s holding the button box on her lap. “Then a woman jumped off four or five years ago. My dad says the city council talked about taking them down, but everyone on the council is Republican, and Republicans hate change. That’s what my dad says, anyway. One of them said the stairs are a tourist attraction, which they sort of are, and that one suicide every thirty-five years or so wasn’t really so terrible. He said if it became a fad, they’d take another vote.”
Mr. Farris smiles. “Small towns! Gotta love them!”
“I answered your question, now you answer mine! What happens if I push one of these buttons? What happens if I push the one for Africa, for instance?” And as soon as her thumb touches the dark green button, she feels an urge—not strong, but appreciable—to push it and find out for herself.
His smile becomes a grin. Not a terribly nice one, in Gwendy Peterson’s opinion. “Why ask what you already know?”
Before she can say another word, he’s started down the stairs. She sits on the bench for a moment, then gets up, runs to the rusty iron landing, and peers down. Although Mr. Farris hasn’t had time enough to get all the way to the bottom—nowhere near—he’s gone. Or almost. Halfway down, about a hundred and fifty iron steps, his small neat black hat lies either abandoned or blown off.
She goes back to the bench and puts the button box—her button box—in the canvas drawstring bag, then descends the stairs, holding the railing the whole way. When she reaches the little round hat, she considers picking it up, then kicks it over the side instead, watching it fall, flipping over all the way to the bottom to land in the weeds. When she comes back later that day, it’s gone.
This is August 22nd, 1974.
2
Her mom and dad both work, so when Gwendy gets back to the little Cape Cod on Carbine Street, she has it to herself. She puts the button box under her bed and leaves it there for all of ten minutes before realizing that’s no good. She keeps her room reasonably neat, but her mom is the one who vacuums once in a while and changes the bed linen every Saturday morning (a chore she insists will be Gwendy’s when she turns thirteen—some birthday present that will be). Mom mustn’t find the box because moms want to know everything.
She next considers the attic, but what if her parents finally decide to clean it out and have a yard sale instead of just talking about it? The same is true of the storage space over the garage. Gwendy has a thought (novel now in its adult implications, later to become a tiresome truth): secrets are a problem, maybe the biggest problem of all. They weigh on the mind and take up space in the world.
Then she remembers the oak tree in the back yard, with the tire swing she hardly ever uses anymore—twelve is too old for such baby amusements. There’s a shallow cavern beneath the tree’s gnarl of roots. She used to curl up in there sometimes during games of hide-and-seek with her friends. She’s too big for it now (I’m thinking you might top out around five-ten or -eleven before you’re done, Mr. Farris told her), but it’s a natural for the box, and the canvas bag will keep it dry if it rains. If it really pours, she’ll have to come out and rescue it.
She tucks it away there, starts back to the house, then remembers the silver dollar. She returns to the tree and slips it into the bag with the box.
Gwendy thinks that her parents will see something strange has happened to her when they come home, that she’s different, but they don’t. They are wrapped up in their own affairs, as usual—Dad at the insurance office, Mom at Castle Rock Ford, where she’s a secretary—and of course they have a few drinks. They always do. Gwendy has one helping of everything at dinner, and cleans her plate, but refuses a slice of the chocolate cake Dad brought home from the Castle Rock Bake Shop, next door to where he works.
“Oh my God, are you sick?” Dad asks.
Gwendy smiles. “Probably.”
She’s sure she’ll lie awake until late, thinking about her encounter with Mr. Farris and the button box hidden under the backyard oak, but she doesn’t. She thinks, Light green for Asia, dark green for Africa, yellow for Australia… and that’s where she falls asleep until the next morning, when it’s time to eat a big bowl of cereal with fruit, and then charge up the Suicide Stairs once more.