A wall of rain pushed toward them from the distance; you could hear it long before it came, humming like a horde of locusts. The operator of the ferris-wheel began letting off his passengers. "Oh, we'll be last," wailed Miss Wisteria, for they were suspended near the top. The rain-wall leaned over them, and she threw up her hands as if to hold it back. Idabel, everyone, fled as down it toppled like a tidal wave.
Presently only the hatless man stood there in the emptiness below. Joel, his eyes searching so frenziedly for Idabel, did not at first altogether see him. But the carnival lights short-circuited with a crackling flare, and when this happened it was suddenly as though the man turned phosphorescent: he seemed to Joel no more than a hand's space away. "Randolph," he whispered, and the name gripped him at the root of his throat. It was a momentary vision, for the lights all fizzled out, and as the ferris-wheel descended to a last stop, he could not see Randolph anywhere.
"Wait," demanded Miss Wisteria, assembling her drenched costume, "wait for me." But Joel leaped past her, and hurried from one shelter to the next; Idabel was not in the 10ў Tent: no one was there but the Duck Boy, who was playing solitaire by candlelight. Nor was she in the group huddled on the merry-go-round. He went to the livery stable. He went to the Baptist church. And soon, there being scarcely another possibility, he found himself on the porch of the old house. Leaves, gathering in a coil, spiralled hissingly across its deserted expanse; empty rocking chairs tilted gently back and forth; a Prince Albert poster swept like a bird through the air and struck him in the face: he fought to free himself, but it was as though it were alive, and, struggling with it, it suddenly frightened him more than had the sight of Randolph: he would never rid himself of either. But then, what was there in Randolph to fear? The fact that he'd found him proved he was only a messenger for a pair of telescopic eyes. Randolph would never bring him harm (still, but, and yet). He let down his arms: it was curious, for so soon as he did this, Prince Albert, of his own accord, flew off howling in the hoarse rain. And could he, with equal ease, appease that other fury, the nameless one whose envoy appeared in Randolph's guise? Vine from the Landing's garden had stretched these miles to entwine his wrists, and he saw their plans, his and Idabel's, break apart like the thunder-split sky; not yet, not if he could find her, and he ran into the house: "Idabel, you are here, you are!"
A boom of silence answered him; here, there, a marginal sound: rain like wings in the chimney, mice feet on fallen glass, maidenly steps of her who always walks the stair, and wind, opening doors, closing them, wind conversing sadly on the ceiling, blowing its damp sour breath in his face, breathing out its lungs through the rooms: he let himself be carried in its course: his head was light as a balloon, and as hollow-feeling; ice as eyes, thorns as teeth, flannel as tongue; he'd seen sunrise that morning, but, each step directing him nearing a precipice permanent in shadowed intent (or so it seemed), it was not likely he would see another: sleep was like smoke, he inhaled it deeply, but it went back on the air in rings of color, spots, sparks, whose fire restrained him from falling in a bundle on the floor: warnings, they were, these starry flies, stay awake, Joel, in eskimoland sleep is death, is all, remember? She was cold, his mother, she passed to sleep with dew of snowflakes scenting her hair; if he could have but thawed open her eyes here now she would be to hold him and say, as he'd said to Randolph, "Everything is going to be all right"; no, she'd splintered like frozen crystal, and Ellen, gathering the pieces, had put them in a box surrounded by gladiolas fifty cents the dozen.
Somewhere he owned a room, he had a bed: their promise quivered before him like heat waves. Oh Idabel, why have you done this terrible thing!
There were footsteps on the porch; he could hear the squish-squish of soggy shoes; abruptly a flashlight beam poked through a parlor window, and for an instant settled on a flecked decaying mantel-mirror; shining there, the mirror was like a slab of jelly, and the figure from outside fumed indistinctly on its surface: no one could've said who it was, but Joel, seeing the light slide away, hearing the steps enter the hall, knew for certain it was Randolph. And there came over him the humiliating probability that not once since he'd left the Landing had he made a movement unobserved: how amusing his goodbye must've seemed to Mr. Sansom!
He crouched behind a door; through the hinged slit he could see into the hall where the light crawled like a burning centipede. It did not matter now if Randolph found him, he would welcome it. Still something kept him from calling out. The squshing steps moved toward the parlor threshold, and he heard, "Little boy, little boy," a whimper of despair.
Miss Wisteria stood so near he could smell the rancid wetness of her shriveled silk; her curls had uncoiled, the little crown had slipped awry, her yellow sash was fading its color on the floor. "Little boy," she said, swerving her flashlight over the bent, broken walls where her midget image mingled with the shadows of things in flight. "Little boy," she said, the resignation of her voice intensifying its pathos. But he dared not show himself, for what she wanted he could not give: his love was in the earth, shattered and still, dried flowers where eyes should be, and moss upon the lips, his love was faraway feeding on the rain, lilies frothing from its ruin. Withdrawing, she went up the stairs, and Joel, who listened to her footfalls overhead as she in her need of him searched the jungle of rooms, felt for himself ferocious contempt: what was his terror compared with Miss Wisteria's? He owned a room, he had a bed, any minute now he would run from here, go to them. But for Miss Wisteria, weeping because little boys must grow tall, there would always be this journey through dying rooms until some lonely day she found her hidden one, the smiler with the knife.
Part Three
12
He sentenced himself: he was guilty: his own hands set about to expedite the verdict: magnetized, they found a bullet, the one thefted from Sam Radclif (Mr Radclif, forgive me, please, I never meant to steal) and, inserting it in Major Knox's old Indian pistol (Child, how many times have I told you not to touch that nasty thing? — Mama, don't scold me now, mama, my bones hurt, I'm on fire-The good die cold, the wicked in flames: the winds of hell are blue with the sweet ether of fever-flowers, horned snake-tongued children dance on lawns that are the surface of the sun, all loot from thievery tied to their tails like cat-cans, tokens of a life in crime) and put the bullet through his head: oh dear, there was nothing but a tickling, oh dear, now what? When lo! he was where he'd never imagined to find himself again: the secret hideaway room in which, on hot New Orleans afternoons, he'd sat watching snow sift through scorched August trees: the run of reindeer hooves came crisply tinkling down the street, and Mr Mystery, elegantly villainous in his black cape, appeared in their wake riding a most beautiful boatlike sleigh: it was made of scented wood, a carved red swan graced the front, and silver bells were strung like beads to make a saiclass="underline" swinging, billowing-out, what shivering melodies it sang as the sleigh, with Joel aboard and warm in the folds of Mr Mystery's cape, cut over snowdeep fields and down unlikely hills.