The figure seated in the carved white wooden sleigh chair was very small.
Mr. Cooger was twelve years old.
No. Will's mouth shaped the word. No. Jim's did the same.
The small shape stepped down from the silent world, its face in shadow, but its hands, newborn wrinkled pink, held out in raw carnival lamplight.
The strange man-boy shot his gaze up, down, smelling fright somewhere, terror and awe in the vicinity. Will balled himself tight and shut his eyes. He felt the terrible gaze shoot through the leaves like blown needle-darts, pass on. Then, rabbit-running, the small shape lit off down the empty midway.
Jim was first to stir the leaves aside.
Mr. Dark was gone, too, in the evening hush.
It seemed to take Jim forever to fall down to earth. Will fell after and they both stood, clamorous with alarms, shaken by concussions of silent pantomime, blasted by events all the more numbing because they ran off into night and unknown. And it was Jim who spoke from their mutual confusion and trembling as each held to the other's arm, seeing the small shadow rush, luring them across the meadow.
"Oh, Will, I wish we could go home, I wish we could eat. But it's too late, we saw! We got to see more! Don't we?"
"Lord," said Will, miserably. "I guess we do."
And they ran together, following they didn't know what on out and away to who could possibly guess where.
Chapter 19
OUT ON the highway the last faint water colors of the sun were gone beyond the hills and whatever they were chasing was so far ahead as to be only a swift fleck now shown in lamplight now set free, running, into dark.
"Twenty-eight!" gasped Jim. "Twenty-eight times!"
"The merry-go-round, sure!" Will jerked his head. "Twenty-eight times I counted, it went around back!"
Up ahead, the small shape stopped and looked back.
Jim and Will ducked in by a tree and let it move on.
"It," thought Will. Why do I think "it"? He's a boy, he's a man ... no ... it is something that has changed, that's what it is.
They reached and passed the city limits, and swiftly jogging, Will said, "Jim, there must've been two people on that ride, Mr. Cooger and this boy and--"
"No. I never took my eyes off him!"
They ran by the barber shop. Will saw but did not see a sign in the window. He read but did not read. He remembered, he forgot. He plunged on.
"Hey! He's turned on Culpepper Street! Quick!"
They rounded a corner.
"He's gone!"
The street lay long and empty in the lamplight.
Leaves blew on the hopscotch-chalked sidewalks.
"Will, Miss Foley lives on this street."
"Sure, fourth house, but--"
Jim strolled, casually whistling, hands in pockets, Will with him. At Miss Foley's house, they glanced up.
In one of the softly lit front windows, someone stood looking out.