wind through the crack at the side of his bedroom window. But it was a child, all right, a boy, keening and crying as if his heart were going to break.
Shivering with apprehension, and with the chill of the night, Martin reached across the floor and dragged his red flannel bathrobe toward him. He wrapped himself up in it and tied the belt tight, and then he climbed out of his futon and tiptoed across the bedroom and opened the door.
The sobbing kept on, high and despairing and strangely echoing. There was no doubt about where it was coming from, though. The sitting room door was half open, and the moonlight was shining hard and detailed on the wood-block floor, and that was where the crying was coming from.
The real boy
, thought Martin.
Oh, Jesus, it’s the real boy
.
But the real boy, whoever he was –
whatever
he was – would have to be confronted.
Come on, Martin, he’s only a kid, right? And if he turns out to be Boofuls, then he’s not only a kid but a ghost, too. I mean – how can you possibly be frightened by the prospect of coming face-to-face with a ghost kid?
He reached out his hand as stiffly as if it were attached to the end of an artificial arm, and pushed the sitting room door open wide. The door gave a low groan as it strained on its hinges. The boy’s crying went on, a hair-raising
oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
that aroused in Martin both urgency and terror. Urgency to save the child from whatever it was that was causing him to cry so pitifully. Terror that it might be something so unexpected and so dreadful that he wouldn’t be able to do anything at all but freeze.
Shortly after Jane had left him, Martin had dreamed again and again of being rooted to the spot, unable to move while people laughed at him, while bristle-haired monkeys ran away with his furniture, while Jane was gruesomely raped in front of him by grinning clowns.
The greatest fear of all was the fear of walking into this sitting room and finding that he couldn’t do anything but stand paralyzed and helpless.
He took a steadying breath, then another, and adrenaline surged around his veins like nighttime traffic on the interstate. Then he took three decisive steps into the room, and immediately ducked and turned to face the mirror, with a heavy off-balance interpretation of the football block that his high school coach had always been trying to teach him,
duck, Williams, weave, for Christ’s sake, you’re a quarterback, not a fucking cheerleader
, and he couldn’t help shouting out
ah!
because he came face-to-face in the mirror with his own terrified wildness – white cheeks, staring eyes, sticking-up hair, and his bright red bathrobe wrapped around him like bloodstained bandages.
He paused for a moment while his heaving chest subsided and his pulse gradually slowed, and he caught his breath.
‘Shit,’ he whispered; because his own appearance still unnerved him. But cautiously, he took two or three steps toward the mirror, and then hesitated and listened. The boy’s sobbing continued, although it had become quieter and more miserable now, an endless low-key
oh-oh-oh
, that was even more heartrending than the loud sobs and cries that Martin had heard before.
He reached out and touched the mirror. The glass was cold and flawless and impenetrable. There was no question of it melting into a silver mist like Alice’s mirror in
Through the Looking-Glass
. He pressed his forehead against it. His gray eyes stared expressionlessly back at him from only an inch away.
God
, he thought,
what can I do?
But the boy continued to weep.
Martin moved to the extreme left side of the mirror, in an effort to see into the corridor. He could make out two or three feet of it, but that was all. He went back to the sitting room door and wedged a folded-up copy of
Variety
underneath it to keep it wide open, but when he returned to the mirror he found that he couldn’t see very much more.
Yet it sounded as if the child was crying in his bedroom. Not his real
Shivering with apprehension, and with the chill of the night, Martin reached across the floor and dragged his red flannel bathrobe toward him. He wrapped himself up in it and tied the belt tight, and then he climbed out of his futon and tiptoed across the bedroom and opened the door.
The sobbing kept on, high and despairing and strangely echoing. There was no doubt about where it was coming from, though. The sitting room door was half open, and the moonlight was shining hard and detailed on the wood-block floor, and that was where the crying was coming from.
The real boy
, thought Martin.
Oh, Jesus, it’s the real boy
.
But the real boy, whoever he was –
whatever
he was – would have to be confronted.
Come on, Martin, he’s only a kid, right? And if he turns out to be Boofuls, then he’s not only a kid but a ghost, too. I mean – how can you possibly be frightened by the prospect of coming face-to-face with a ghost kid?
He reached out his hand as stiffly as if it were attached to the end of an artificial arm, and pushed the sitting room door open wide. The door gave a low groan as it strained on its hinges. The boy’s crying went on, a hair-raising
oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
that aroused in Martin both urgency and terror. Urgency to save the child from whatever it was that was causing him to cry so pitifully. Terror that it might be something so unexpected and so dreadful that he wouldn’t be able to do anything at all but freeze.
Shortly after Jane had left him, Martin had dreamed again and again of being rooted to the spot, unable to move while people laughed at him, while bristle-haired monkeys ran away with his furniture, while Jane was gruesomely raped in front of him by grinning clowns.
The greatest fear of all was the fear of walking into this sitting room and finding that he couldn’t do anything but stand paralyzed and helpless.
He took a steadying breath, then another, and adrenaline surged around his veins like nighttime traffic on the interstate. Then he took three decisive steps into the room, and immediately ducked and turned to face the mirror, with a heavy off-balance interpretation of the football block that his high school coach had always been trying to teach him,
duck, Williams, weave, for Christ’s sake, you’re a quarterback, not a fucking cheerleader
, and he couldn’t help shouting out
ah!
because he came face-to-face in the mirror with his own terrified wildness – white cheeks, staring eyes, sticking-up hair, and his bright red bathrobe wrapped around him like bloodstained bandages.
He paused for a moment while his heaving chest subsided and his pulse gradually slowed, and he caught his breath.
‘Shit,’ he whispered; because his own appearance still unnerved him. But cautiously, he took two or three steps toward the mirror, and then hesitated and listened. The boy’s sobbing continued, although it had become quieter and more miserable now, an endless low-key
oh-oh-oh
, that was even more heartrending than the loud sobs and cries that Martin had heard before.
He reached out and touched the mirror. The glass was cold and flawless and impenetrable. There was no question of it melting into a silver mist like Alice’s mirror in
Through the Looking-Glass
. He pressed his forehead against it. His gray eyes stared expressionlessly back at him from only an inch away.
God
, he thought,
what can I do?
But the boy continued to weep.
Martin moved to the extreme left side of the mirror, in an effort to see into the corridor. He could make out two or three feet of it, but that was all. He went back to the sitting room door and wedged a folded-up copy of
Variety
underneath it to keep it wide open, but when he returned to the mirror he found that he couldn’t see very much more.
Yet it sounded as if the child was crying in his bedroom. Not his real
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