USED NAILS AND BACK DOORS FOR SALE
Prospero rubbed more snow away from the bottom of the sign and looked again. That was what it said, all right. He tried to laugh, but it came out as a phlegmy cough.
'Well, M. Millhorn, you sound interesting. Here we come.'
Prospero kicked some footholds in the snow that covered the steps, and he slowly climbed up, plunging his hands into the snow in front of him to steady himself. At the top, he stood up in the knee-high snow and stared into the swirling dark. There behind a couple of skinny pines was a big square farmhouse with deep-set corniced windows and a scalloped rooftree. A light was on downstairs, but the yellow shades, patched with colored pieces of newspaper, were drawn. He kicked his way through the snow, making long scars in the wet drifts. From this height, he had a good view of the road, and when he looked, he saw, far down the row of fence posts, the light. It stopped, dropped to a lower position, then rose and went slowly swinging along, as if the bearer had stopped to look for footprints. They wouldn't be hard to find, Prospero thought, and he kicked harder at the packed snow in front of him.
Moving at this spread-legged awkward gait, he took a long time, or what seemed a long time, to reach the front steps. Up on the narrow front stoop, he banged with a numb first on the yellow door. Thumping and bumping inside, and a sound like someone upsetting a keg of nails. Finally, the door opened, and there in the harsh glare of a single bulb that hung from a long knotted cord was a small man in a square-cut beard. He wore oval rimless spectacles and a black skullcap, and over his shoulders was a black silk shawl with elaborate gold tassels. His striped floor-length robe, something between a dressing gown and a cassock, might once have been brown and blue. He looked Prospero up and down and laughed silently.
'Well, come on in. You'll catch your death out there.'
Prospero thanked him and stepped in the door, brushing snow off his cloak as he went. The room was an incredible mess: cracked chamber pots, upended sewing machines, fat lipped spittoons, iron-wheeled lawn mowers, ax handles stacked like rifles, fussy-fringed floor lamps with green marble insets, an isinglass-windowed stove with a brass vase on top, and several kegs of bent nails, one of them tipped over. On the wall was a crazy collection of picture frames, some with dark pictures in them. One of them showed several dogs with Pipes in their mouths. They were sitting around a table playing poker.
The little man stood looking at Prospero for a couple of seconds, and then he turned sharply and went to the window. Raising the dirty shade a couple of inches, he looked out.
'From what I can see,' he said, 'you don't have much time. You'd better do what I tell you.'
Prospero gaped. He felt an urge to run around the room touching things.
'Are you real? Is this house real?'
The man laughed quietly with his tongue between his teeth.
'Well, these days you can't tell. Yes, I'm real. A damn sight more real than you are, if you catch my meaning. Well, lets get going. I've been waiting for this for a long time.'
He went to a high glazed bookcase full of vellum-backed volumes; from where he stood, Prospero could read titles like
Prospero knew what it was and he looked with awe at the man, who was unconcernedly thumbing through the book.
'The Kabbala?' Prospero asked.
'The Kabbala. Now, hurry downstairs and find the door you want. When I say 'Back doors for sale' that's what I mean.'
'But, can I pay you? What can I do? You don't know how grateful I am...'
'Yes, I do. For payment, though, I'll take this little glass doodad. It can't be worth much, but it'll look nice on the mantel.'
Prospero looked at him and the little man looked back, smiling quietly. But, at that moment, the front door banged open and a rush of cold wind blew a thin line of snow skittering across the floor. Outside, at the bottom of the snowy steps, they, could see the light of a single square lantern.
The man talked fast and nervously now. 'Give me that thing, for God's sake! You can't help me now, and you can't take it back with you. One way or another, I'll keep him from getting it, so get on with you! Go!'
Prospero looked at the yellow light that hung in a fog of snowflakes, at the man in the black skullcap who held out his hand, and he gave him the paperweight. He turned to go, but with his hand on the knob of the cellar door, he turned and looked. The man was dragging the lectern over in front of the door.
Now, Prospero was clumping down the thin slats of the cellar stairs. Leaning against the wall opposite him was a row of doors: big paneled doors with peeling black paint, ivory colored doors with broken star-frosted panes,-a door covered with speckled brown leather and pyramid-headed nails. The line stretched away into the coal-smelling dark basement, and Prospero walked along it, pulling doors toward him and looking behind them: nothing, but rough mortared stones. Overhead, a mournful winding high-pitched chant started, but it was cut off by an incredibly angry word. A long flash of blue light shot down the cellar stairs-Prospero, several yards away, could feel the heat of it. Doors, doors, doors. For a minute, he had the horrible fear that he would see the two of them coming down the stairs after him. Then, he stopped short. In front of him was a little pointed door that looked like a tombstone. A dirty yellow card was stuck to it with a red thumbtack. The card said 'Root Cellar.'
There was no doorknob, of course, so Prospero tried the opening spell. Nothing happened. Overhead, the war between the wandering chant and the loud bursting voice went on. The cobwebbed ceiling shook, bits of dirt sifted down from the shaking and grinding rafters, and a chamber pot flew down the stairs. It smashed on the wall with a loud pop like a huge light bulb. Prospero stood looking at the door, his arms at his sides. Then, suddenly, he smiled and laughed, shaking his head. He grabbed the door with both hands and lifted it toward him. It was not fastened to anything and came away from the wall easily. Behind it was a long tunnel and a slippery-looking rock incline. Carrying the door in front of him like a shield, he backed into the tunnel, setting down the heavy wooden slab when it was-he hoped-back in place. He could not hear the noises overhead any more.
Prospero took one step in the darkness and fell down. He slid and kept on sliding, on wet chunky stones that bit into his back as he fell. It was not a steep incline, but there was no way of stopping, and by the time he got to the bottom, he was shaken, nauseated, and bruised. He looked around and saw that he was in a forest that looked familiar, if ordinary elms, oaks, and maples can look familiar. It was the forest behind his house.
Now, he was running down a path he had walked along many times on quiet afternoons in the late slanting light. The owls of his nightmare appeared overhead and swooped down on him, great hissing moon-eyed bags of dusty feathers. He swung at one and it ripped open, emptying on him a cloud of green buzzing insects. They clung to his face and bit, brushing his eyelids with rustling wings. He ran on with his eyes closed, waving his arms, and suddenly the bugs dropped off him, dead. He was in his back yard.
Everything looked the way it had in the magic glass: the lines of snow, the frost on the windows. He saw that the fountain was not running. A long muddy streak ran down the satyr's sides and the marble basin was full of caked smelly earth. Two dead birds lay in it. The apple tree was covered with dead rattling leaves and small wrinkled mushy brown stones. Everything lay under a dull gray light; the bulging clouds overhead looked as though they were going to burst. But, every object in the yard threw a shadow, a small dark trembling patch. One of them, cast by nothing that Prospero could see, lay on the grass near him. It started to crawl toward him slowly.
He shoved his way through the bare forsythia branches and reached the back door, his key already in his hand. The lock turned, the door opened, he was inside. And, when he slammed the door behind him, he could feel something rushing back into place. The house was under siege.
Prospero went about fighting candles in the musty dark; they burned with a pale gassy glare and sometimes guttered out in a wind that was not blowing. Outside, behind the staring faces, the heavy dark waited. Now and then, as he went about the house examining the rooms, he put his hand on an outside wall and imagined that he felt it straining inward. The plaster was covered with wandering thready cracks.
He went to the living room and pulled down magic books, one after the other, trying spells. Nothing worked.
