The Magic Spectacles

by James P. Blaylock

  Chapter 12: The Fishbowl Full of Marbles

  Danny knew straight off what bowl of marbles it was. John had been right: the marbles in the fishbowl were not regular marbles at all; they were Mr. Deener’s lost marbles. That’s what the little man in the curiosity shop had been talking about. Along with the marbles in Mrs. Barlow’s flour sack, they made up the bits and pieces of Mr. Deener’s past, hardened into glass.

  There was the sound of hushed, whispering voices in the cavern, just like the voices in Mrs. Barlow’s bag, and he could hear the click, click, click of the marbles knocking together in the bowl. They seemed almost to be boiling, as if they wanted to jump out of the bowl. Danny stepped down into the cavern and walked toward it, past heaps of treasure and fish bones. He ought to simply take the whole bowl. It was his, after all. He had paid for it with the moon penny. He would grab it and get out of there, leaving the rest of the treasure behind. He didn’t want stolen treasure.

  But just as he reached for it a scuffling noise sounded beyond the cavern door. There was laughter and the low gobble of goblin voices. A key turned in the lock. The door swung wide open. Six goblins stood there, holding lighted torches. One of them was big – a head taller than Danny. His mouth hung open stupidly, and in the torchlight Danny could see that his teeth were sharp like an animal’s teeth.

  The goblins saw him at the same time, and with a wild cry they rushed into the room, yapping and hooting. Danny held onto Ahab’s leash, and, forgetting about the marbles, the two of them ran straight across the top of the treasure, crunching and smashing, wading through piles of jewels. Danny ducked in among the high stone columns, dodging first behind one and then another.

  The goblins crowded toward him. One snatched at his wrist, knocking the candlestick out of his hand, and another grabbed onto the cuff of his pants and tried to pull him over. He kicked his foot, and the goblin went sprawling. Ahab yanked hard on his leash, pulling it out of Danny’s hand. And then, barking and growling, he leaped into the middle of the goblins, snapping his teeth in their faces as they turned with a shout and ran back the way they’d come.

  Danny whistled once, then turned and ran deeper into the cavern, back into the darkness. He couldn’t fight all the goblins, but he could outrun them. Ahab would follow him. He still had candles and matches in his pocket. …

  Suddenly, right in front of him, the biggest of the goblins stepped out from behind a stone pillar. His hair was wild, and his eyes seemed to be spinning like tops. He wore what looked like Mr. Deener’s cast-off clothes, dirty and ripped, and he gnashed his teeth together as he reached out and clutched Danny’s jacket. Then, laughing out loud and slobbering, he began to drag Danny back out toward the torchlight and the treasure.

  Just then Ahab ran out from among the stone columns. He snarled and jumped just as Danny twisted away, shrugging out of the jacket. The big goblin staggered backward when Ahab slammed into him. Ahab’s teeth closed on the goblin’s shirt, tearing a wide hole in it, and the goblin threw up his hands and hooted in fear, ducking sideways and trying to scuttle away, pushing at Ahab with his hands.

  Danny whistled again, and at the same moment he turned and ran. Ahab followed behind him, turning around once to bark, and then coming along fast again. The shadows deepened. Danny stopped and searched in the darkness for Ahab’s leash, feeling around with his hands. He found it, and, slipping his hand through the loop, he ran as fast as he dared, letting Ahab lead him down the tunnel, away from the treasure room.

  Almost at once there was a great lot of gobbling and wailing behind them and the stamping of goblin feet. They were coming. He could see the flicker of torchlight back along the tunnel. He couldn’t run any faster, not in the darkness. He trailed his right hand against the stone wall, squinting his eyes to see into the gloom.

  The sounds behind him grew more distant. They were outrunning the goblins. Ahead of him a light sprang up, like a slash of yellow fire along the floor. Something was there, maybe blocking the tunnel. He tugged on the leash, and Ahab slowed down, growling and looking behind them into the darkness. Danny put out his hand. A door blocked the tunnel. There were no branching tunnels. This was it – the end.

  He heard the sound of breaking waves – a distant hissing and booming. He could smell sea air leaking up through the sunlit crack beneath the door. Goblin noise filled the tunnel, and torchlight danced on the stone floor. Ahab’s fur stood up along his back. His back legs tensed, ready to spring. The six goblins appeared from around the bend in the tunnel. They let out a whoop and rushed howling toward Ahab, holding the burning torches out in front of them, champing their teeth and hissing.

  Danny grasped the key and turned it. The door swung outward, and sunlight flooded the cavern, nearly blinding Danny as he jumped through the door with Ahab following. The two of them ran out onto a grassy hillside just as the goblins closed in behind them, clutching hands reaching out to haul the two of them back into the darkness.

  Chapter 13: Through the Green Light

  John stood looking at the mark on the door, thinking about the little piece of candle that was left and the few paltry matches in his pocket, thinking about what might lie behind them down the tunnel and about the darkness that surely lay ahead.

  Had Danny marked this door because he had opened it, and knew that it led home? Or had he chosen it for no good reason at all, just as Polly and John had chosen the door with the terrible shadow locked behind it? John put his hand on the key. Unlike most of the others doors, this one was well-used. Something was coming and going through it.

  And right then he knew that it didn’t matter what lay beyond the door. It was enough that Danny had gone through it. His brother had met whatever danger lurked on the other side, and now John would too. He didn’t have any choice.

  Cautiously he twisted the key in the lock. It turned with a loud thunk, just as the others had done. The door opened outward, and for a moment he and Polly waited, ready to slam it shut again. But this time there was no creaking and slamming. There was no music playing. There was only the faint smell of the ocean and the restless, distant sigh of breaking waves. A flickering light shone from within, out onto the tunnel floor.

  He grasped the cold iron that sheathed the door and looked past it. Unbelieving, he blinked his eyes hard and opened the door wider. For there on the floor of the cavern, illuminated by the light of burning torches, lay a vast sea of treasure, piled into every sort of chest and box and bag,’ spilled out in multicolored pools. Polly looked past his shoulder, and he heard her catch her breath in surprise.

  And then he saw the steaming kettle and beside it the fishbowl full of marbles.

  So the marbles weren’t lost to them after all! John could get them back. He would get them back, and right now. He stepped into the room, past the half-open door.

  (Chapter 13 continues after illustration)

  A hand shot out from along the wall and grabbed his wrist. Another hand caught his ankle. There was a hoot of wild goblin laughter.

  “Run!” he shouted to Polly, and tried to twist away. But it was too late. Polly didn’t run, she grabbed his arm and tried to yank him loose. Goblins pushed the door open and swarmed through. Goblin hands latched onto their wrists and ankles clothes. The goblins dragged them into the cavern, and the door slammed shut behind. More goblins rose from behind treasure boxes and rocks and crept out of the deep shadows and from holes in the cavern floor and walls. There were dozens of them, like an army of little Mr. Deeners, all shriveled and dirty and dressed in the skins of bats and rats.

  An enormous goblin stood up from behind the kettle. He nodded his head slowly and squinted his eyes. He looked like a Mr. Deener badly made up out of spare parts. His arms were too long, like ape arms, and he had a face like a pudding. He was at least as fat as Mr. Deener, and looked as if he had been dumped into his clothes with a shovel. He wore a bow tie made out of tree bark, and his hat, or maybe crown, was tied up out of old rags and sticks and leaves. Wild strands of hai
r waggled out from beneath it. Clearly he was the king of the goblins, and was proud of it.

  The goblins marched John through the treasure, up to where the king stood waiting. The king made the glasses sign with his fingers. “I don’t have them,” John said, and shook his head. “Ugh,” the king said, still looking through the finger glasses. “Ugh yourself,” John said. “I don’t have the glasses. Mr. Deener ground them up and the wind blew them away.”

  The king nodded and made a sort of pickle face, as if finally he understood and was studying what John had told him. Then he grinned. His teeth were filed to points. He made the glasses sign again. He didn’t understand anything.

  “The…glasses… broke” John said, talking slowly and clearly.

  “Roke!” the king said, grinning even wider, showing his teeth.

  “That’s right,” John said. “Roke.”

  The king bent down and picked something up off the ground. It was a flat circle attached to a long stick and with a hole in the middle. But the hole wasn’t empty. Even in the flickering torchlight John could see that the hole was in fact a piece of pale green glass. The light shining through it cast a green glow on the cave-wall behind.

  It was the lost spectacles lens, fitted into the hole in a flattened, dried-out glazed doughnut. Then the doughnut had been tied onto a broken stick. The goblin peered at John through it as if he were looking through a magnifying glass or monocle. His eye was immense.

  He shoved the end of the stick through a rip in his shirt and made the glasses sign again, saying, “Roke!” and then nodding happily and holding his open hand out, as if maybe John would understand him now and give up the spectacles.

  John shook his head and held his own hands out. Then he remembered the empty wire rims that he’d picked up in the weeds of the clinker garden. They were still in his jacket pocket. He thought about them for a moment before taking them out. With his hand hiding one of the lens holes, he held them up for the king to see.

  “Roke! Roke!” the king shouted, dancing and pointing. A great cry went up from the rest of the goblins – cries of “Roke! Roke!” that sounded like the croaking of happy frogs. John put the spectacles back into his pocket and crossed his arms.

  The king’s smile collapsed, as if it had been made out of wet sand that had suddenly dried out. He reached out his hand and opened and closed his fingers. “Roke” he said, and then something that sounded like, “Gimme.”

  “Nope,” John answered. “No roke. Not unless you let us go.” He pointed to himself and then to Polly and made little walking-finger movements with his right hand.

  “No roke?” the king said. He frowned, studying things out again in his dimwit way. With a sly grin he picked something else up off the floor and held it up.

  It was Danny’s jacket.

  Suddenly nothing was funny anymore. “Where is he?” John shouted, and he started forward. He didn’t know why – maybe to take the jacket away, maybe just to push the king over backward. At once a dozen goblins rose up on either side of him, and before he had taken two steps they dragged him down onto a pile of treasure. He wrestled and fought and kicked, and for one brief moment he caught a glimpse of Polly pulling herself free of the goblins that were guarding her, but then he was buried under goblins and half sunk in a heap of jewels.

  He felt goblin hands snake into his jacket pockets and heard a goblin shout “Roke!” The other goblins piled off again, and John sat up. A goblin stood in front of him, waving the empty spectacles rims. The king snatched them out of his hand. He took one look at them, and then, finding the lenses empty, he shouted with rage and pushed the little goblin over backward.

  He poked two fingers through the rims and then threw them hard into the kettle. Then he flung Danny’s jacket in after them. Then he picked up the little goblin that he’d pushed over and threw him into the kettle too. A great reek of steam rose toward the ceiling. The rest of the goblins stepped back a few paces, gabbling nervously. The king pointed a shaking finger toward John and drew his finger across his throat. He pointed at the kettle, gnashing his teeth together, rubbing his stomach. A crowd of goblins pushed John forward, giggling now, and smacking their lips and pinching John’s arms as if to see how fat he was.

  The king turned around and shoved the doughnut monocle into the mist rising from the kettle The green circle appeared on the cavern wall again – bigger this time, like a green moon against a night sky. He plucked a marble out of the fishbowl and dropped it into the kettle. There was a great bubbling and popping and another reek of steam. Then suddenly there were shapes and shadows within the green light shining on the cave wall.

  As if a door had opened, John heard the noise of traffic. He heard a horn honk and a cat meow. The shapes in the green light grew clear, and he saw that it was the front porch of his house. Something about it was different. There was no swing. And where the swing ought to be there was a long wooden planter full of flowers.

  Someone stood outside the door, just then reaching for the knob. It was Mr. Deener, looking very young. He had just got home, it seemed. The door opened, and a woman appeared, and stood there.

  That’s her! John said to himself. It was the woman at the end of the tunnel, the woman from the kitchen on the moon. It was Mrs. Deener, and her happy laughter sounded on the breeze as Mr. Deener went in and the door clicked shut.

  The goblin king put his free hand over his heart and shook his head fondly, as if recalling happier days. The he plucked another marble out of the bowl, nodded at John, and dropped it into the kettle.

  There was the front porch again, but in a different season. It was fog-shrouded now, so that he could barely see the front window or make out the color of the paint on the wooden siding. There was the wet smell of fog on concrete. And then, very clearly, he smelled that something was burning, like a pie left too long in the oven. …

  A shadow fell across the porch – someone coming up the walk. It was Mr. Deener again. He was fatter now, and bald on top, and he seemed to be in a terrible hurry, brushing against a flower pot at the edge of the porch and knocking it down onto the walk. The pot broke, spilling out a lot of dirt and a green and red Christmas cactus. Mr. Deener didn’t even look at the fallen cactus, but fumbled in his pocket for the door key. Finding it, he worked the key into the lock, calling his wife’s name in a loud and frantic voice. He pushed the door open and went in. John could hear his voice calling and calling through the house until the voice died away and there was silence.

  The goblin king wiped his eye, as if it had been him crying, and then stepped across into the green light, reached down, and picked up the Christmas cactus from where it lay on the walk in front of the house. He turned around, brushing dirt off the roots, then twisted the cactus up in his hands, bit the end off it, and stepped back into the cave as if he were stepping through a door. He began to laugh. Bits of chewed cactus fell out of his mouth. With a flourish of his hand, he pointed the stick-end of the doughnut monocle at the kettle, and then pointed it at John. “No roke,” he said, and shook his head sadly.

  Before John had time to think or talk or move, he felt himself lifted into the air by a dozen goblins. He twisted and shouted and kicked, managing to jerk his hand free. He pushed one goblin over backward, then grabbed at another one. His hand closed over a jeweled pin on the goblin’s shirt. He held on, trying to twist out of their grasping little hands as the rest of the goblins carried him up the stone stairs toward the kettle. The pin tore loose from the goblin’s shirt, and John held onto it, closing it in his fist. The king scooped up dead fish and leaves and heaps of treasure and dumped it all into the pot.

  “Roke, roke, roke,” he sang, and he ran his tongue across the tips of his pointed teeth. He picked up another crown, just like his own, made of leaves and twigs and rags, and then, bowing like Mr. Deener, he said, “Prince-cess Pol-ly,” and held the crown out toward her.

  “Stop!” John shouted. “Wait!” The boiling kettle steamed beneath him, and the rising mi
st rose up around him like a heavy gray curtain. He looked down at the bubbling muck. There were bones in it, big ones. A fish head rose to the surface, stared at him through empty eye sockets, then disappeared again. He heard Polly scream, and at that moment he felt himself falling.

  Chapter 14: The Broken Clinker Flower

  Danny ran down the hillside, away from the cave door. He looked back over his shoulder when he heard a wailing noise behind him, like the sound of a tormented ghost. He skidded to a stop, falling forward onto his knees and letting go of the leash. He rolled into a crouch, ready to jump up and run again. But there was no need to. Two of the goblins were crawling back toward the cave mouth on their hands and knees, as if they couldn’t stand the bright sunlight. The others stood inside, back in the darkness, hiding from the sun and peeking out through their fingers.

  The two goblins on the ground stopped moving toward the door. They looked like dark, goblin-shaped ghosts, like frozen root beer, and Danny could see grass and rocks through them. They uttered one last terrible wail and vanished, and there was nothing left where they had been but patches of dead grass dusted with black ashes. The goblins in the cave hooted in fear, and then turned and ran back into the darkness.

  Danny looked around to see where he was. A valley lay spread out below him, green with grass and bordered by deep woods. At the bottom of the valley, about a quarter of a mile distant, sat a lonesome house. It was a wooden house, yellow and white, and it took only a single, startling moment for him to realize that it was his house.

  The camelia bushes along the side were covered with red and white flowers and with dark green leaves that shone against the yellow-painted boards. Wisteria vines, purple with blossoms drooped from the edge of the front porch roof. Smoke rose from the chimney even though it was a sunny day.