Shadowland

all the time. But it was not alcohol, it was the smack of knowledge hitting me like a truck: I could heal him. I put down the instruments and ran my fingers along the torn blood vessels. Radiance — invisible radiance — streamed from me. The mess the bullet had caused as it plunged from lung to liver to spleen closed itself — all of that torn flesh and damaged tissue; it grew pink and restored, virginal, as you might call it. The nurse backed away, making little noises under her mask. I was on fire. My mind was leaping. I jerked out the retractors and ran my first two fingers over the incision and zipped him up, welded his skin together in a smooth pinkish-brown line. Withers' nurse ripped off her mask and ran out of the theater.

    ''Take him out,' I said to the astonished attendant, who had been half-dozing at the back of the room: he had seen the nurse run out, but nothing of the operation. Washford went one way, I went another — I was floating. I came out into the big tiled hallway outside the theater. The nurse saw me and backed away. I started to laugh, and realized I was still wearing my mask. I removed it and sat on a bench. 'Don't be afraid,' I said to the nurse.

    ''Holy mother of Jesus,' she said. She was Irish.

    'That miraculous power was ebbing from me. I held my hands up before my face. They looked skinned, in the tight surgical gloves.

    ''Holy mother of Jesus,' the nurse repeated. Her face was turning from white to lobster pink.

    ''Forget about it,' I said. 'Forget what you saw.'

    'She scampered back inside the theater. I still could not comprehend what had just happened to me. It was as though I had been raised up to a great eminence and been shown all the things of this world and been told: 'You may have what you like.' For a second I felt my blood pressure charge upward, and my head swam.

    'Then everything gradually returned to normal. I could stand. I went back inside the theater, where Withers was just finishing with the boy on my table. He looked at me in disgust, finished his sutures, and returned to his own table. I did five more operations that day, and never felt the approach of that power which had healed Washford.'

The magician looked up. 'Night.' Tom, surprised, saw the lamps burning in the woods; lights on the beach pushed his shadow toward the lake. 'Time to go to bed. Tomorrow I will tell you about my meeting with Speckle John and what happened after the war.'

    'Bedtime?' Del said. 'What happened to . . . ?'

    Both boys simultaneously saw the crushed sandwich wrappers, the paper plates laden with crumbs.

    'Oh, yes, you have eaten,' Collins said. His face was serene and tired.

    'We've only been here . . . ' Tom looked at his watch, which said eleven o'clock. 'An hour.'

    'You have been here all day. I will see you here tomorrow at the same time.' He stood up, and they dazedly imitated him. 'But know this. William Vendouris, whose name I had taken for a time, put a hurtin' on me. Without Vendouris, perhaps I would have re­mained an amateur magician, locked out and away from everything I wished most to find.'

5

Tom and Del climbed the rickety steps by themselves. Their minds and bodies told them it was late morning, but the world said it was night: the thick foliage on the bank melted together into a single vibrant breathing mass. They reached the top and stood in the pale, yellowish electrical light, looking down. Coleman Collins was stand­ing on the beach, looking out at the lake.

    'Did you know he used to be a doctor?' Tom asked.

    'No. But it explains why he didn't send for one when I broke my leg that time. The whole story explains that.' Del put his hands in his pockets and grinned. 'If I started to heal wrong or anything, he would have fixed me like he did with that colored man.'

    'I guess,' Tom said moodily. 'Yeah, I guess so.' He was watching Collins: the magician had extended one arm into the air, as if signaling to someone on the other side of the lake. After a moment the arm went down and Collins began to stroll along the beach in the direction of the boathouse. 'Could we really have been down there all day?'

    Del nodded. 'I was sort of hoping I'd see her today. But the whole day vanished.'

    'Well, that's just it,' Tom said. 'It vanished. It was ten in the morning, about an hour went by, and now it's eleven at night. He stole thirteen hours away from us.'

    Del looked at him, uncertain as a puppy.

    'What I mean is, what's to stop him from taking a week away from us? Or a month? What does he do, put us to sleep?'

    'I don't think so,' Del said. 'I think everything just sort of speeds up around us.'

    'That doesn't make sense.'

    'It doesn't make sense to say that you met the Brothers Grimm, either.' Del's tone was wistful, but his face momentarily turned bitter, 'I should have.'

    'Well, I never met Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe.'

    'Uncle Cole said I had to watch out for your jealousy,' Del blurted out. 'I mean . . . he just said that once when we were alone. He said that one day it would hit you, and you would want Shadowland for yourself.'

    Tom fought down the impulse to tell exactly what Collins had said about his nephew. 'That's crazy. He wants to break up our friendship.'

    'No, he doesn't.' Del was adamant. 'He just said — '

    'That I'd be jealous. Okay.' Tom was reflecting that Collins had after all been right: though it was not Shadowland that made him jealous, but Rose Armstrong. 'Tell you what. Do you really want to meet the Brothers Grimm?'

    'Right now?' Del was suspicious.

    'Right now.'

    'Are you sure it's all right?'

    'I'm not sure of anything. Maybe they're not even there.'

    'Where?'

    'You'll see.'

    Del shrugged. 'Sure. I'd like to,'

    'Come on, then.'

    Del gave a worried look down at the beach: Collins had disappeared into the boat house. Then he followed Tom through the sliding doors into the living room.

    'I guess we really ought to be in bed,' Del said a little nervously.

    'You can go to bed if you want to.' Then he felt sorry for being so abrupt. 'Are you tired?'

    'Not really.'

    'Me neither. I think it's eleven-ten in the morning.'

    This was said in defiance of all the physical evidence. All Shadowland seemed put to bed, even if the principal occupants were still out of theirs. One lamp burned beside a couch; the carpet showed the tracks of a vacuum cleaner. On the end tables, the ashtrays sparkled. Tom marched through the dim, quiet room, almost hoping to see Elena silently buffing the furniture.

    'Upstairs?' Del asked.

    'Nope.' Tom turned into the hall. One of the recessed lights gave a pumpkin-colored illumination.

    'In the Little Theater?'

    'Nope.' Tom stopped where the short hallway inter­sected the main hall to the theaters.

    'Oh, no,' Del said. 'We can't.'

    'I already did.'

    'And he saw you?'

    'He was waiting for me when I came out.'

    'Was he mad?'

    'I guess so. But nothing happened. You saw how he was today. Maybe he even forgot it. He was pretty drunk.

    He wants us to see them, Del. That's why they're there.' 'Do they just sit there? Or can you talk to them?' 'They'll talk your ears off,' Tom said. 'Come on. I

    want to ask them some questions.' He turned into the