“It’s already sold, then?” said the old man.
“I told you it was.”
“I’ll give you twenty dollars for it.”
“It’s only four ninety-five, but I already sold it to Mrs. Silver. I’m not gonna ask you again about the cigar.”
The man reached into his pocket, then said, “I wish you would sell it to me.” He smiled a shaky smile. “Fifty dollars?”
“Say what?” said Dave.
“Seventy-five,” said the man.
“Whoa.”
“Hey,” I said. “You already promised that to me.”
“I know, kid, but look. It’s been a slow day. And your mom hasn’t even paid for it yet. Sorry. How about I give you some nice Timberdoodle on the house?”
“Make it Ticklemore,” said Henry.
Dave gave Henry a big chunk of Ticklemore. He handed the mizithra to the old man. The man pulled out a fat money clip and peeled off four twenties. “Keep the change.” He turned to me. “Sorry son, but when one person wins, another one loses. If it makes you feel better, this little wedge of cheese was my very last wish.” He blew another cloud of smoke and went out the door.
That’s when I saw the Ferrari.
“Henry, do you see what I see?” I ran outside just as the man was putting his key into the driver’s door of a bright red 430. Henry followed on my heels.
I said, “Is this yours?”
“It is,” said the man. “Do you know it?”
“Do I know it? I worship it.”
“You might not want to do that. Do you recognize the year?”
“No, but they only made these from 2004 to 2009, so it’s in there. I’d guess this one is an oh-eight.”
“You know your cars,” said the old man.
“I know Ferraris. This one’s my favorite.” I rattled off a half dozen facts I knew about the car.
“What is your name?” said the man.
“Gabe. Gabe Silver.”
“Well, Gabe Silver, you like my car. You share my taste in cheeses. Perhaps…”
“Perhaps what?”
“Perhaps you’re the one. And perhaps I should tell you.” He dropped the cigar to the street and ground it out under his shoe. “Do you want to know how I came to be rich?”
I nodded.
“I’ve needed to tell someone for many years. I’ve cheated the Devil for far too long.” The old man sighed. “I don’t have a job. I have something much better than a job.”
“Which is?”
“I have a secret.”
“And it got you this?”
The man laughed. “I have never told a—a soul. However, today is a special day. A particular day.”
“Particular how?”
“Today is the last day I toy with the Devil. I’m done. I gambled. I won, in a sense. Now it is time to stop betting.”
The old man reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a little bottle. It was white, but other colors danced across its surface. If I’d had to guess, I would have said it was carved from stone. It stood maybe five inches tall at the most. A matching stopper protruded from the top.
“This is my secret.”
“That? What’s it supposed to be? Some kind of magic potion?”
“Not a bad guess. But there’s no potion in here. There’s a tiny imp.”
“A what?”
“An imp. Some might call him a genie, but that evokes images of fairy tales and The Arabian Nights. This is nothing like that. Others might call him by older names. A fiend. A genius. A djinn.”
“Okay. This is weird. I’m gonna leave now.”
“Wait!” The old man grabbed me by the sleeve. “Please. I need you to hear my story.”
I pulled myself free. “I really think I should go.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything. Just—just listen.”
Henry pulled on my other sleeve. “Gabe, I think we should get out of here.”
“Just wait a sec,” I said. “Okay. I’m listening.”
The old man took a deep breath and steadied himself against his car. He said, “The tiny one who lives inside, he is no bigger than your thumb. He is the imp—a servant of the Other. Whatever I wish for, the imp makes sure I get it. This morning—this last morning of all mornings—I wished my very last wish. A simple thing. Just a bit of cheese.”
“Cheese? Wouldn’t you wish for riches? For a kazillion dollars or something?”
He patted the red roof of the Ferrari. “I did that already. Riches, houses, cars. All I had to do was ask. You don’t believe me. Of course you don’t. But it’s true.”
“I’m gonna go now,” I said. “Nice car.”
The old man laughed. “It’s funny. I’ve been petrified my secret would get out. That someone would discover the means to my great success. And now I confess and you don’t believe me.” He laughed again. “I could have been forthright all along.” He rubbed the side of the bottle with his thumb, then looked at me. “And today is the day. I think that you should be the next.”
“The next what?”
“The next owner of the bottle.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem like a good person, but not too good. And it’s time to strike a bargain. Come sit in my car with me.”
“Serious?”
“Very.”
Henry said, “Don’t do that, Gabe. You know you shouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, but…it’s a Ferrari. I’m gonna sit in it. Just for a minute.” I walked to the other side of the car and opened the door. I slid onto the soft leather seat but left the door open. “It’s nice,” I said.
“I’m going to tell you the complete truth so that you know what you may be getting into,” the man said. He cleared his throat, making a sound like a pebble rattling in a rusty can. “Approximately one hundred and fifty years ago, this bottle of mine was brought to the earth by—well, by the Devil himself, as a way to capture a human soul. And he will capture one with it, someday. After all, riches, cars, wishes—what are these to the Devil, when an eternal soul is on the other side of the balance?” He held out the bottle. “This was first purchased by John D. Rockefeller in 1870—”
“Rocky who?”
“Rockefeller. John D. Famous for his unfathomable wealth. Sort of the Bill Gates of his day, I suppose. Rockefeller purchased the bottle for one thousand dollars.”
“From the Devil? The real Devil?”
“The real one. Make no bones about that. It made him incredibly wealthy. People thought he got rich from oil, but this was the real cause. This bottle. Since then, it’s been owned by many of the richest people—Weyerhaeuser, Edison, Walton, Buffett. I bought it from Mr. Buffett myself, near a corn field in Omaha, Nebraska. I’ve owned it for nearly seven years, and it’s made me very rich. And very tired. And very lonely, too. I want to be rid of it. I need to be, if I can manage to part with it.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If it really made you rich, why would you ever want to give it up?”
Henry was leaning against the passenger door. “Let’s just go, Gabe.”
“Just a sec. I want to hear his answer, if he has one.”
The old man smiled. “I have an answer. And the rules of the bottle say that I’m required to tell you…to tell you how this works. To explain the whole deal. Because wishes don’t come for free. When one person wins, another loses. And—and the bottle came from the Devil, so there’s a catch. If you die with it in your possession, the Devil claims your soul.”
A chill ran over me. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning your soul belongs to the Devil. For all eternity.”
“But you’re still alive. So he never claimed yours. You’ve gotten off scot-free.”
His eyes grew wide. “Scot-free? I’d never pretend such a thing. The weight of ownership—yes, that’s the right word, the weight—it can
be heavy. What if I were to die today? What would become of me? Of my soul?”
“Not much of a sales pitch. This is how you’re gonna try to sell it to me?”
“It is. You must know. It is required that you know. And I am indeed trying to sell it to you. I’ve waited too long. And I do so want to avoid that final bargain.”
“Well, I only have one dollar, so you’re wasting your time.”
The man smiled. “Another sign. I can only take one dollar for it. Or less, but not a penny more. When I bought it years ago from Mr. Buffett, I paid one dollar and one cent. And the rules of the bottle say I must sell it for a loss. If I try to rid myself of it any other way, the bottle will just come back to me. The rules also say that it can’t be sold for less than one cent and each transaction must be a whole coin. No half pennies. No decimals. And no wishing to change the rules. At the end of the line, some poor soul will buy it for a penny and end up stuck with the thing.” The old man stared at the bottle in his hand. “And then the Devil will get his due.”
Henry grabbed at my sleeve. I waved him off. “Only a dollar? It is a cool looking bottle. And the story is kind of awesome, even if it’s just a story.”
“It’s true,” said the man, “and the bottle contains what I said it does. An imp. You need to recognize that as fact. Don’t deal with me if you don’t realize the true bargain you’re making, for good or ill.”
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry.
“Try it and see, if you still don’t believe. Give me your dollar in exchange for the bottle, then wish for your money back. If a dollar is not returned to you, then I will buy the bottle back from you for ninety-nine pennies and you’ll only be out one cent.”
Henry shouted, “Don’t do it, Gabriel. This kind of stuff creeps me out. And you shouldn’t be in a stranger’s car!”
I reached my hand into my pocket and pulled out my dollar. I knew it was just a story—there was no way it could be true.
I looked at the bottle in the old man’s hand. It probably just caught the light in a funny way, but right then, I thought I saw a shadow flit across its surface, as if something inside of it moved. A chill ran up my back. I shivered, but I handed over my dollar.
“Tell me your name again,” said the old man.
“Gabriel Silver. What’s yours?”
“Oh, my name doesn’t matter. And where are you from?”
“I’m from here. Tacoma.”
“Gabriel Silver, from Tacoma, Washington, I take your dollar in exchange for the bottle and the imp.”
The old man handed the bottle to me. I swear that as soon as he did so, his face relaxed and he sat a little straighter. “Now wish to have your dollar back in your pocket,” he said.
“How?”
“Just wish to the imp. No magic words required. No need to rub the lamp. Just hold the bottle in your hand and wish to the imp.”
A big part of me didn’t want to do it. Part of me wanted to just drop the bottle and run. But I said, “I wish for my dollar back in my pocket.”
“Now feel inside your pocket and see if it’s there.”
I put my hand into the pocket of my jeans. The pocket was empty. “Sorry. No luck.”
“Check again.”
“There’s nothing in there. I told you, I only had the one dollar.” I pulled the pocket inside out to show how empty it was.
A tiny ball of paper fell to the floor of the car. I spread it open. It was a wrinkled one-dollar bill.
“So!” said the old man. “Our deal is done. Make your wishes with great care. No wishing to change the rules or to destroy the bottle. Remember that when one person wins, another one loses. And don’t wait too long to sell it. Don’t risk dying with it in your possession.”
“Or what?”
“Or the Devil will take you.”
I climbed out of the car. With a squeal of his tires, he drove away.
“YOU SHOULD GET RID OF THAT THING,” said Henry as we walked toward the Bright House. “That old man said it came from the Devil. You don’t want to mess around with stuff like that.”
“Geez, Henry, you are such a wimp.”
“There are just some things that you shouldn’t mess around with, and the Devil is one of them.”
“It’s not real,” I said, but as the words came out of my mouth I felt more fragile, more aware of the dangers of the world. I’d never thought about my soul before, or what might become of it when I died. Now, with the bottle in my hand, death seemed more possible. I checked for cars twice before we crossed the Yakima Street Bridge, which ran over a deep, dry gully.
Henry said, “If it’s not real, then how come you got your dollar back?”
I shook the feelings from my head. “It was some kind of trick by the old guy. I bet he slipped that tiny, crumpled-up dollar into my pocket. Probably right when he first met us. I bet he did it right when he came in the store.”
“Well, if it’s not really magical, then you should just throw it off this bridge right now.”
“I can’t throw it away,” I said. “Didn’t you hear the old man? If I try to get rid of it without selling it for a loss, it’ll just come back to me.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t real,” said Henry. He snatched the bottle from my hand and ran to the railing of the bridge.
“Henry, don’t you dare.”
“I’m doing you a favor. I’m saving your soul.” He threw the bottle as far as he could.
Even for a catcher on a baseball team, Henry had a wicked arm. He wasn’t fast. He wasn’t the best hitter. But from home plate he could throw out a runner trying to steal second. He threw that bottle like a game was on the line. It sailed through the air, landing down in the gully in a huge mound of blackberry bushes.
“You jerk, Henry.” I shoved him.
He stumbled, then ran away from me. “You should be thanking me.”
“Get out of here before I punch you.”
“You’ll thank me someday,” he called as he ran across the bridge toward his house.
I climbed down into the gulley and dug through the bushes for half an hour. I scared away half a dozen crows, but found nothing. I cursed Henry every time a blackberry thorn scratched me, then walked home alone.
When I came to the Bright House, I found Doctor Mandrake pacing up and down the sidewalk. “Finally, young Sea Goat. It’s about time you arrived.”
“You’ve been waiting? For me?”
“Yes. Yes I have. Now tell me about your day. I was right, wasn’t I? About it being a most particular day. A razor’s-edge day.”
“It was particular, all right.”
“Ah-ha! I knew it! I was right! I was right! And I said you had a choice. Did you choose well?”
“I have no idea. Do you mind if I go? I don’t really feel like talking right now.”
“Just wait a minute, young Sea Goat. I’m not done yet. I have to tell you about the strangest thing that just happened. I came out here to consider the day, to contemplate my relationship to the earth and sun. I was standing like this—arms spread, open to the present, on the best of terms with the world—when a crow dive-bombed me.”
“A bird?”
“A black crow. Wings spread, cawing like mad. And—now, this is the important part—it held something in his talons.” Doctor Mandrake reached inside his cape. “The crow dropped it. Right at my feet. And I knew—I just knew—it was for you. Nothing valuable. But the thing practically shouted at me, ‘Give me to the young Sea Goat!’ It’s just a trifle, mind you. Now where is it?” He dug through his pockets. “I know I have it somewhere. Ah. Here it is.”
Doctor Mandrake held the white bottle in his hand. My breath caught in my throat. “A crow dropped this?”
“It’s not much, I know. But sometimes small things can be monumental. And it’s got—a certain vibration to it. It just shouts energy. Makes one fe
el wide awake. And it is yours.” He swept his cape around him and disappeared into the building.
I looked down at the bottle. It felt heavy in my hand. A shadow flitted across its surface. This time there was no mistaking it. “So you’re back,” I said. That same chill went down my spine, making me shiver again. Should I make a wish? Or should I get rid of the bottle just as fast as I could? I wondered, just for a moment, if Henry might be right.
Dad stepped out of the apartment building, dressed in his Hasty’s Pizza uniform. “Hey, kiddo. How was school?”
“Fine,” I mumbled.
“What’ve you got there?”
I should have told Dad right then, before everything got so crazy. I should have told him the whole story. I didn’t. “Doctor Mandrake gave it to me,” I said.
“Really? Well, be careful with it. That guy’s kind of a whack job. Did you know he’s not even a real astronomer? Anyway, I’ve got to go.”
“You’re leaving? Now?”
“Time for me to deliver some pizza pies.”
“But I need to talk to you.”
“We can talk later. I’m gonna be late.” He rubbed the top of my head and started for the car.
“Wait!” I said.
“What?”
I looked down at the bottle in my hand. “I wish—I wish you had your old job back,” I said.
“Me too, kid.” Dad left.
Mrs. Appleyard was leaning against the wall of the Bright House’s entryway, staring at me with a cigarette in her mouth. I could hear Jimmy Hyde’s radio blaring what sounded like more of that Hawaiian music, while the sounds of Mrs. Hashimoto puttering away came from her door.
“Hey, Ten Cents. How’re you all settling in?” said Mrs. Appleyard. Her eyes were on the bottle in my hand.
“Fine, I guess.”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Yeah what?”
“Yeah. I guess I’m not very sure.”
“Well now, Ten Cents, you just let Mrs. Appleyard know what she can do to help. I like happy tenants. Happy tenants pay their rent on time. Whatcha got in your hand there?”
“Nothing.” I slid the bottle into the pocket of my jeans.
The Bottle Imp of Bright House Page 3
