The Magic Spectacles

by James P. Blaylock

  “Here’s a clinker fungus,” Mrs. Barlow said suddenly, pointing at the ground. “Watch out you don’t step on it.”

  A mushroom-shaped rock seemed to be growing up out of the dirt, as if it were rooted there. She pulled the dead, blue-stained weeds back from around it. It was the size of a cauliflower, and would have been the same color but for the laundry bluing poured over it. At the bottom it was black as if it were dusted with ashes. The top was covered with tiny, bluish-white crystals.

  “Douse it with lemonade,” Mrs. Barlow said, pointing at it with the spoon. “It won’t take much.”

  Danny poured lemonade onto it, out of his watering can. The crystals fizzled and popped, and the lemonade turned muddy blue and frothy, almost like cake frosting. There was a wheezing noise, and suddenly the whole clinker flower sank into itself like a rotten pumpkin and turned into a pool of black glop.

  “Let’s find the others,” she said. “It’s better not to look at them close. They’re too awful.”

  But John was already looking at one. There was something weird about the pattern of little crystal flowers on top. There was a face in them, as if the thing was a head, sprouting up out of the ground. For a moment John thought it was a reflection of the face of the man in the moon.

  But then he saw that it wasn’t. It was a woman’s face, and not any kind of reflection.

  Clouds crossed the moon just then, and the eyes moved in the clinker fungus. A look came into them like the look of a person waking up scared, lost in a strange and lonesome place. They darted back and forth, looking for something but not seeing it.

  John stepped backward and at down on a fallen tree trunk. He set his watering can down.

  “You looked too close,” Mrs. Barlow said, picking up the can and putting a hand on his shoulder. “They fool you, like those insects that look like leaves or twig. They’re not what you think they are. Don’t make the same mistake that the Deener makes. Don’t think that there’s something there when there’s not.”

  She dumped lemonade on it, and with a sighing breath of air the clinker fungus turned to black glop just like the other one had.

  “Whose face is it?” John asked as Danny and Mrs. Barlow searched for more of them among the weeds.

  “Bless her poor soul,” Mrs. Barlow said, shaking her head and dousing another one with lemonade, “it’s Velma, the Deener’s wife. She’s been dead these last five years, and the old fool thinks he can fetch her back to life with clinkers and salt and pieces of broken glass.”

  Chapter 2: Danny Comes Up with a Plan

  When he woke up next morning, John thought at first that the clinker garden had been nothing more than a bad dream. He almost reached for his jacket in order to check the pocket, but the look on Danny’s face made him stop. It hadn’t been a dream. The spectacles were worthless to them.

  “I’m going back,” Danny said.

  “We can’t,” John said.

  “So don’t come. I didn’t say ‘we’, did I? I’ve got a plan.”

  John knew straight off what the plan was. It involved the cave they’d seen beyond the fountain. Danny had talked about it last night, before they’d fallen asleep. His having a plan was a bad sign. It was a word that usually meant trouble. It had been Danny’s plan to climb through the bedroom window in the first place, although there was no use mentioning that now. It was better to be logical about it.

  “We don’t even know where the cave goes. It’s too dangerous anyway. It’s full of goblins.

  “How do you know?” Danny asked.

  “Because I heard them in there. They were all over the place. You saw the fishbones and all.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. And anyway, the goblins are getting into our neighborhood somehow. I’ll bet anything it’s through the cave. Where else?”

  “I don’t know where else,” John said. “So what? Because I don’t know where else, then it must be through the cave?”

  “Why not?” Danny asked. “It’s as good as anything else.”

  “You can’t go alone.”

  “I can take Ahab.”

  “I don’t think it’s as easy as that,” John said. “You’re not a goblin. How do you know you can get home through the cave even if they are getting through that way? You’d just be walking into trouble. And besides that, there’s too much crazy stuff going on with Mr. Deener and all. If we just walk away, none of the problems get fixed.”

  “Let Mr. Deener fix his own problems,” Danny said. “He sure isn’t helping us fix ours. He’s making them worse. Sometimes I think it’s you that’s got the problem. Just like with Harvey Chickel. You think you can change people by being nice or something, but you can’t.”

  Someone knocked on the bedroom door. “You up?” It was Mrs. Barlow’s voice.

  “Yeah,” John said, answering for them both. He opened the door.

  “The Deener and I had a talk,” she said. “He’s sorry about the spectacles, and he’s agreed to search for your window. I’ve promised him all the glazeys he can eat if he finds it, and I’ve got a couple of picnic baskets put together. But remember, work first, eat second, or else he’ll eat himself sick, and that’ll be the end of it. He’s down on the meadow now, setting up his apparatus, so you’d better hurry.”

  “He’s sorry,” Danny said as they headed down the hall. “That really helps.”

  “He’s going to find the window,” John said hopefully. “Give him a break. Let him do his work.”

  “I’ve seen his work,” Danny said. John was silent. As usual, there was no use arguing.

  Ahab was already out front, sniffing around on the cobblestones. Mrs. Barlow handed John a picnic basket, and then Polly came out carrying another basket along with a tiny suit of men’s clothes. She laid the suit out carefully on the porch.

  “Good,” Mrs. Barlow said. “There’s another one that won’t have to run around naked. Got the glazeys?” “Yep,” Polly said. “Three dozen.”

  “The Deener will want them all, mind you. If you let him see them before he’s done his work, he’ll be all over that basket like a dirty pig.”

  “We won’t let him be a dirty pig,” Polly aid.

  Mrs. Barlow went back inside, and the three of them started down the hill toward the meadow. The sun was shining, and there was no sign of any fog. The woods were dark and quiet. Danny walked on ahead, as if he didn’t want to talk about his plan anymore. At least he was going along to the meadow. And maybe Mr. Deener would find it, John thought. Maybe…. From the top of the hill they could see far and wide – down toward where the meadow fell away into the sea, up toward where the meadow turned into hills and the hills into mountains. John hadn’t noticed it yesterday evening because of the fog and the darkness, but now he could see that the world seemed to be half in summer and half in autumn. The hills and meadow were brown and dry in the land beyond the house, and the lonesome trees were bare of leaves.

  Nearer the house things got a little greener, and then a little greener yet, until, very near to the house itself, everything was so green that it seemed as if even the coldest winter or driest summer couldn’t change things.

  Water gushed from a spring that rose through a brick well at the back of the house, and turned into the little stream that cut along between the meadow and the woods. Near the well, Aunt Flo was just then pruning rose bushes that were covered so thickly with enormous blooms that they looked from that distance like rainbow-colored clouds. She waved down toward them, and John waved back.

  (Chapter 2 continues after illustration)

  “Why is everything so dry up there?” John asked, pointing toward the distant hills. “Was there some kind of fire or something?”

  “No,” Polly said. “It’s just that the land is half asleep.”

  “Like Mr Deener,” John aid. “I mean, like him and the Sleeper.”

  “You met the Sleeper?” Polly asked.

  “We saw him when he went out fishing last night.” That was close enough
to the truth. There was no use saying anything about going upstairs. “Does he ever catch any fish?”

  “Never,” Polly said. She fed part of a doughnut to Ahab, and John told her about the pancake and hot chocolate at Watson’s, and about how he and Danny would ride down there on Saturday mornings together. It was hard to believe that they’d been there only yesterday; it seemed so far away now.

  There was something lonesome and empty on the breeze, something that felt like winter coming. It was easy to imagine that even down on the meadow the wildflowers and grasses would soon begin to fall asleep too, as if the whole land belonged to Mr. Deener somehow, as if he were the king of it. More than that – as if the land was Mr. Deener. “Do you have a bicycle?” John asked Polly suddenly. She shook her head. “There’s nowhere to ride one, I guess. Not around here.”

  “Are there any other kids around?”

  “Just you two,” she said.

  “That’s all? Ever? Who do you play with?”

  “The henny-pennies mostly. I sew clothes for them and they bring me things. Treasures, you know Pretty things they’ve taken away from the goblins. They love to play cards and hide and seek.”

  “Cards? The little men?”

  “It’s because Uncle Deener loves to play cards, or used to. He lost that part of him, but I think Mrs. Barlow has it in her bag of memories.” “In the flour sack?” John asked.

  “Uh huh. She’s saving them up for him. They’re in love, I think, but Uncle Deener doesn’t know it yet.”

  In the morning sunlight, Polly reminded John of Kimberly again, except for the pale, china-doll cast to her skin. When he tried to see Kimberly’ face in his mind, what he saw was Polly’s face instead. The same was true of Aunt Flo. Did she look like Mrs. Owlswick, or did Mrs. Owlswick look like her? Was that the same thing? He tried to imagine Mrs. Owlswick’s face, but he couldn’t. “Have you always lived here?” he asked.

  “What do you mean,” asked Polly. “I guess so. Where else is there?”

  “Did you come from somewhere? I mean, are there, like, cities or something around here?”

  She shrugged, almost as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. “We stay pretty much around home. Uncle Deener can’t be left alone for too long. He’s always up to some kind of magic. You never know what he’ll do. One time he made the whole house disappear. We were working in the vegetable garden and it was just gone. Just like that. Aunt Flo had to talk him into finding it again.”

  “But are there towns and like that? Back up in the hills maybe?”

  “I guess so,” Polly said. “Sometimes I see lights at night, from my window. And once I saw something flying. I guess it was an airplane, but it was so far away that it might have been a bird or something that Uncle Deener dreamed up.”

  “Where was the airplane going?”

  “I don’t know: Where do they go?”

  “Places,” said John. “They go to places.” This kind of talk was starting to scare him. His house suddenly seemed farther away than ever, like a photograph faded by sunlight.

  “How do you know about airplanes if you never see them?”

  “I remember them,” she said. “And there’s pictures in books. And anyway, it was probably something Uncle Deener dreamed up, like I said. Do you remember when you first saw an airplane?”

  John shook his head. He couldn’t remember when he first had seen almost anything. Maybe it was better not to think about that. “What about Mrs. Barlow?” he asked. “Where is she from?”

  Polly shrugged. “She came years ago. She knew Uncle Deener from a long time ago, and came to help one day. She just came to the door. I don’t know how she got here.”

  The autumn wind felt chilly just then. John zipped up his jacket. What had Polly said? Just something Uncle Deener dreamed up.

  “Are you and Aunt Flo really Mr. Deener’s imaginary friends?” he asked.

  “Of course we are,” Polly said. She laughed then, and took off running. Over her shoulder she hollered, “Race you to the meadow,” and her laughter carried back to him on the wind. He ran after her, but he couldn’t catch up.

  Chapter 3: Mrs. Owlswick’s Window

  They found Mr. Deener on the meadow, setting out his “apparatus,” as he called it. There were two bottles of colored glass chips and a glass magnifying lens as big as a plate. There were jars of mint tea and pond water, and three of Mrs. Barlow’s china saucers and a moon-shaped green cheese. The soap gun lay in the grass over by the creek. Henny-penny men flew through the air, swooping down to say things into Mr. Deener’s ears. He swatted at them, sending the leaves flying.

  In the middle of the apparatus sat an open basket, and inside the basket sat the coffee grinder that Mr. Deener had used last night to grind up the spectacles’ lens.

  “There,” Mr. Deener said, taking off his glasses and polishing them on his shirt. “I’m a stickler for arranging things just so. “I’m…” He looked at John and Danny, and then looked away and polished his glasses again. “I’m…dreadfully sorry that I borrowed your spectacles and ground them up. I won’t do it again, I can assure you.” He put his glasses back on.

  “It’s okay,” John said. Really it wasn’t okay, but so what? It was a new day. There was no point being mean about things. Danny nodded, but he didn’t say anything. He walked out across the meadow looking for the place where the window should have been. The grass and wildflowers were even more smashed down than they had been lat night, and there were fish bones scattered everywhere. A crowd of goblins had pretty clearly been out there snooping around.

  Mr. Deener stood back and looked, first through his glasses and then over the top of them. “There’s something there,” he said. “Definitely something there.”

  “Can you see it?” John asked, excited all of a sudden.

  “See what?” Mr. Deener asked.

  “Why, the window,” John said.

  “No,” Mr. Deener said. “Perhaps I’ll eat a doughnut. Mrs. Barlow wants me to eat at least two dozen this morning.”

  “So soon?” Polly asked. “We’ve just finished breakfast.”

  Mr. Deener looked at the picnic basket and began to blink very rapidly, grabbing at the air with his hands as if he was trying to find something to hold on to.

  “Steady, Uncle Deener!” Polly said.

  “I think he’s starting up again,” John said.

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Deener, “I believe I will have one. And he took a tremendous bite out of a pretend doughnut and smacked his lip. “My,” he said, rubbing his stomach. “I’ll just have another one. I’m a big doughnut man. A big doughnut man.”

  “He is starting up,” Polly aid.

  The henny-pennies darted past him, tugging on his coat, shouting at him in tiny voices. Mr. Deener had his eyes shut and began eating imaginary doughnuts with both hands, stuffing them down his mouth.

  “He can go on like this all day,” Polly said. “When he eats imaginary doughnuts, he never gets filled up. Uncle Deener!” She tapped him on the shoulder.

  He started to hum.

  “Uncle Deener!” Polly shouted.

  He shoved another imaginary doughnut into his mouth, then reached into the air beside him and found another. “Yum,” he said, talking to himself.

  “I knew it,” Danny said. “Let’s just give him the basket of doughnuts and go check out the cave.”

  Mr. Deener sat down heavily on the grass. The earth shook. One of the jars of pond water fell over, and for a moment the sun seemed to dim. A henny-penny man landed on Mr. Deener’s shoulder and shouted into his ear. Mr. Deener brushed it away and began to grab at the air, as if he were picking doughnuts off a tree. The earth shook again. Mr. Deener hummed louder and louder.

  “Give him one at least,” John said. “Hurry.”

  Polly opened the basket, took out a doughnut, and put it into Mr. Deener’s hand. When he shoved it into his mouth he sat up straighter, opening his eyes and looking surprised and happy.

>   “Why, someone’s given me doughnut!” he said. Then he saw that Polly held the open basket and he reached in after another one. He pulled out a third and fourth, which he tried to cram into his coat pocket. Two henny-pennies flew up and snatched one of the doughnuts away, dropping it immediately Polly caught it in the basket and closed the lid.

  “Of course,” Mr. Deener said, eating the second doughnut.

  He breathed deeply, as if he’d just run a race. John and Danny helped him to stand up. He wiped his forehead, leaving a line of sugar glaze across it. “This is hard work,” he said, “but someone’s got to do it. We wont tolerate slackers, will we? Why was I sitting on the ground? Am I a slacker?”

  “Of course not,” Polly said. “You’ve just been resting.”

  “Good,” he said, giving everyone a look and nodding his head to show that he meant it. “Who mentioned the cave?”

  Nobody spoke for a moment, and then Danny said, “I did.”

  “Stay out of it,” Mr. Deener said. “It’s a terrible dark place. Nothing in there but lost things.”

  He held the third doughnut in front of eye like a monocle squinting through it at the meadow. “It’s no good,” he said, eating it. “I’m afraid I don’t see a thing. Complete waste of time coming out here, just like I said. Might as well have lunch.”

  “Perhaps the apparatus….” Polly said to him.

  “What about it?”

  “You were going to use it to find the window,” John reminded him.

  “The window?”

  “The invisible window,” Danny said. “We’ve come out here to find the invisible window!”

  Mr. Deener nodded. “Why didn’t you say so?” he asked. “We’ve got a fog coming up. Pretty soon you won’t see your nose on your face. If it was me who was looking for a window, I’d get at it.”

  “It is you that’s looking for a window, Uncle Deener!” Polly said.

  He looked surprised. “It is?” he asked. “Then fetch me some forked sticks and some flat rocks and quit fooling away the morning.”