“All right.” Sandy gulped. “The third and last question, but before I read it I want to tell you I
“Third question. Madame Serpentina, what event of great importance to America do you foresee within the next ten years?”
The witch laughed. Her laugh was charming when she wished it to be, and it was charming now—Bames felt she had never been so desirable. “I do not cast the nation’s horoscope every day. Indeed, I do not much approve of the casting of horoscopes at all, as that art is commonly understood. One baseball team will defeat another, a short politician will be beaten by a tall one, valleys will flood, and the ground will shake; aircraft will plummet from the sky. I can tell you all that, but there is nothing of the unseen world about it—it is all the world that is too much seen, and in fact the world that does not have to be seen at all, since anyone can read of it in a newspaper. I will couch all those things in suitably cryptic verse for you, if you wish.”
“But that wasn’t my question—none of it was my question. I want to know just one event of great importance, as specifically as you can give it to me. We’ll print your prediction, and don’t forget that your reputation will depend somewhat on what you say. If you have to cast a horoscope, go ahead and do it.”
The witch shook her head. “Casting the horoscope of an entire nation—as I do such things—would require weeks. I will make a prediction because I have promised, if I can. If I cannot, you must leave without one. Are you familiar with catoptromancy?”
“I don’t even know what it means.”
“Perhaps you will see some. Ozzie, would you please open the drapes?”
Barnes fumbled for a moment before finding the cords at one side of the window. The stores and offices across the street were in three and four-storied buildings for the most part, so that the window looked out over a dark panorama of ugly roofs.
“Cloudy,” the witch said. “Very cloudy. Nevertheless, perhaps we might try. Ozzie, Mr. Stubb, I wish the mirror to be taken from that—that thing there. The dresser, or whatever one calls it. Can you do that for me?”
“I doubt it,” Stubb told her. He jerked the article in question away from the wall and glanced at its back. “Big tamper-proof screws. I might get it off in half an hour if I had a tool kit, but I don’t.”
“Then you will have to move the whole affair until it faces the window. Not right against the glass necessarily, but fairly close. Ozzie, assist him.”
Sandy pushed her chair back to let them past.
“Good. That is fine. Now open the window.”
“It’s cold out there,” Barnes protested.
“I am aware of it. Miss Garth, would you prefer that I call you Candy?”
“No,” Candy said.
“I do not blame you. Miss Garth, will you please extinguish the lights? You are nearest the switch, I think.”
The room was plunged into night. Sandy stirred in her chair and made one of those little moans for which there is no name. Barnes was wrestling with the window catch in the blackness. He won and slid back the glass.
“Now what?” Stubb asked.
“Now you wait until I tell you otherwise.”
Candy, rummaging the floor near where she sat, found her white raincoat and draped it about her shoulders. None of the others moved.
The faint noises of traffic rose from the street below. There was no wind, but the room quickly became cold. Somewhere nearby, the door of another room opened and closed.
“If you don’t—” Sandy began. The witch, leaning forward from her position on the bed, touched her knee to silence her.
An airplane droned far overhead. At thirty-five hundred feet the dark masses of snow cloud parted. Moonlight reached down toward the spire of the Consort, shone through the open window of Room 777, touched the mirror, and was reflected back and lost in the lightless sky.
“Shut the window,” the witch said. “Close the drapes. Now you must all listen to me and do as I tell you. You must not look into that mirror. When Miss Garth turns on the lights, you may talk among yourselves, or walk about, or do anything else you wish, but you must keep your eyes from the mirror. Do not speak to me; I will not be able to answer you …” She continued, rapidly yet solemnly, but the words were in a tongue none of them understood.
“Hell, we
Barnes told him, “I think she wants us to put it back where it was.”
Candy flicked the switch and called to Sandy Duck, “Get up and help them. That thing must weigh a ton.” With a woman at each front corner and a man at each rear corner, the vanity was restored to its original position.
“Now what?” Sandy asked. She was the smallest of them all, shorter even (if the heels had been pulled from her shoes) than Stubb, and she was panting a little.
“Now we don’t look in it,” Barnes said. “You heard her.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Oh, Lord,” Candy muttered. “What now?”
A voice outside announced room service.
