I strung the chandelier up from a beam in the corner of the shop, and all day long its dangling crystals sang in the breeze like a wind chime whenever someone walked in. It was as if the thing were trying to draw attention to itself. But it didn’t have to do that. Even in the darkest corner of the room, it stood out over everything else in the shop.
It was Mr. Dalton who took an interest in it later that day. He owned an antiques shop a few miles down the road, and usually kept his nose too high in the air to step into a tourist shop like ours. But that nose must have gotten wind of some unusual glass sculptures we’d had in the shop lately, because he’d been here twice, earlier in the day, and here he was sniffing around again.
He’d come in first at around ten, pretending not to look at the chandelier, then again after lunch, with a magnifying glass. Finally he returned a third time as we were getting ready to close for the evening, clearly ready to talk business.
“How much do you want for it?” he asked as he ran his finger along its six glass arms, marveling at the fine-cut design of its dangling shards, each sharp as a razor.
“It’s not for sale, Mr. Dalton,” said Grandma without even looking at it. “It’s—”
“Seven hundred dollars,” I blurted out. It was mine, and I could sell it if I wanted to. Or at least I could “rent” it.
Mr. Dalton laughed a practiced laugh—the kind he gave whenever he was bargaining with someone.
“Come, now,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous, son. After all, it may be unique, but it’s full of imperfections. There are flaws in the design, and—”
“No, there aren’t,” I countered, staring him straight in the eye. “It’s perfect . . . absolutely perfect. Seven hundred dollars, or no deal.”
He gritted his teeth through his congenial smile, furious to be outbargained by a fourteen-year-old. “Very well,” he said. Then he paid me in cash, probably figuring he would sell it in his own shop for over a thousand.
As I helped Mr. Dalton carry the chandelier out of the shop, Grandma looked at me, trying to read something in my face. But lately it seemed my face was unreadable, even to me as I stared at myself in the mirror each morning.
“Would you mind riding with me to my store?” Mr. Dalton asked after we’d put the chandelier into the back of his van.
“I could sure use your help carrying it in.”
Figuring he’d sort of paid for my help already, I hopped into the front seat, and we took off.
It was as I was carrying the chandelier from Mr. Dalton’s van to his shop that I thought I heard it breathe through the tinkling of its many dangling crystals. It sounded like the rush of the ocean when you put your ear to a shell.
Once inside Dalton’s shop, we hoisted the chandelier up with a rope over a beam, right in the center of the room. It took a while, and by the time we were done, it was already dark outside. The antiques shop was lit with dim yellow incandescent lights that glimmered off the hanging chandelier, casting tiny spots of light around the room like fireflies.
I hung around, waiting for something to happen.
“It’s not that far,” Mr. Dalton said to me after a few moments. “I suspect you can walk home from here.”
I shrugged, glanced at the chandelier again, and waited.
“I hope you don’t think you’re getting a tip for bringing it over,” he said coldly. “I’ve already paid through the nose as it is.”
And that’s when it happened. The crystalline monstrosity jerked itself off the rope and fell.
Spinning out of the way just in time, Mr. Dalton looked with wonder, which quickly built into horror, at the chandelier. It had landed on the ground like a cat, barely making a sound. Then, two crystalline spheres hanging in its center turned toward the terrified man. And both he and I knew at that moment that those spheres were the thing’s eyes.
Amazed, I watched it skitter on the wooden floor like a giant glass spider and then spring across the room, landing right on top of Mr. Dalton. He sputtered something I couldn’t hear, but he didn’t have a chance to scream as the chandelier’s glass arms swung inward, and its hundred dangling crystals became teeth as sharp as the shards of a broken bottle.
It was feeding.
I couldn’t watch a moment longer, and I ran to the next room, stumbling over furniture, smashing my shins. Quickly I slammed the door behind me, then collapsing in an old high-backed chair, I turned the chair around so I didn’t even have to see the door.
That’s when I spotted an old-time radio, large and wooden, across the room. I raced over and turned it on, found a station, and cranked up the music full blast, drowning out the sounds coming from the other room. For five minutes I sat there . . . then ten . . . then twenty. Finally I dared to turn off the radio.
There was silence in the other room, and soon my curiosity began to match my fear. Slowly I made my way back in, opening the creaking door, terrified of what I might see.
But when I finally looked in, I saw no sign of Mr. Dalton—not a button, not a shoelace . . . and the creature—my creature—sat there in the very center of the room. It had resumed its old form now—the gargoyle beast that I had first created. I could hear it breathing a heavy satisfied breath, and I could see its chest rising and falling.
Slowly the beast moved toward me, but I didn’t run. My feet were frozen, and I couldn’t move. It came up close and brushed against me, purring like a cat. I reached out and stroked its icy mane. The second I touched it, my fear began to drain away, replaced by numbness. In fact, I could feel the creature draining away everything I had ever felt. Everything good, everything bad—all of it was slipping away into a cold emptiness. It was like sinking into quicksand.
Am I its master?I wondered. Or is it the other way around?
As the monster circled around me, I could see just how big it had grown. It was as big as me now, and I felt helplessly drawn to it.
I climbed on its back, and it leaped out an open window, carrying me home with such powerful smooth strides, it felt like I was floating on air. I could almost feel myself dissolving into it, becoming a part of it.
Grandma never mentioned the crystalline beast to me or to anyone. She didn’t even say a word about it when the police came by to see if we had seen Mr. Dalton on the day he had disappeared. We told the officers the truth—that the man had bought a chandelier, and that I had helped him carry it back to his place.
That was a month ago, although it feels like another lifetime. In fact, everything that came before my creature feels like another lifetime to me now.
Grandma doesn’t talk to me much anymore. She tolerates me in the house, and at the breakfast table. She’ll ask me to pass the butter and stuff, but she takes no further interest in my comings and goings . . . or to the comings and goings of other things in the house. She asks no questions, and locks herself in her room most of the time. Perhaps I should feel bad about that, but I don’t feel much of anything anymore. Except cold.
My dad came to visit today, with his girlfriend, who I’ve been told is now my stepmom. She’s the same one who first suggested I be sent away to live here—the same one who convinced him that a college fund for me was unrealistic, and the money was better spent on their summer trip to Europe.
Dad’s out jogging now, and my new stepmom is upstairs drawing a bath. “Oh, how beautiful,” she’d said when she’d first stepped into the guest bathroom. “A bathtub made entirely of glass.”
“They don’t make them like this anymore,” I had told her, running my fingers along the Art Deco design of its sharp beveled edges.
Now I sit downstairs listening to loud music. I am icy cold as I let the music flow through me, like the icy wind blowing through the window that I always keep open. My veins are like glass, growing numb, and I feel myself feeling nothing . . . while upstairs, my beautiful crystalline bathtub slowly fills with water.
SHADOWS OF DOUBT
No story to this one, just a creepy bit of poetry . . .
&n
bsp; SHADOWS OF DOUBT
In the blink of an eye, you might suddenly feel
That your world’s been invaded by all things unreal.
They slink up behind you, and don’t make a sound,
But there’s nothing to fear . . . if you don’t turn around.
In the pit of your stomach there rests a device
That can calculate how fast your blood turns to ice;
It measures the temperature nightmares will start,
Then divides it by beats of a terrified heart.
At the foot of your bed lies a blanket of fear,
You might think it’s quite safe, but it’s always quite near.
When its steel-woolen quilting wraps ’round you one night,
You will learn that it’s not only bedbugs that bite.
At the top of the stairs there’s an attic I’ve found,
That remained even after the house was torn down,
And it’s filled with the cobwebs of lonely old dreams,
Which have grown into nightmares that swing from the beams.
At the mouth of a cave lives a shadow of doubt;
If you dare to go in, will you ever come out?
Are there creatures who lurk where it’s too dim to see?
Can you hear when they move? Are you scared yet? (Who, me?)
At the edge of the earth flows a river of fear,
And it pours into space day by day, year by year.
As you shoot the cold rapids, and stray far from shore,
Do you notice your lifeboat has just lost an oar?
In the eye of the storm stands a ghost of a chance,
And around her all spirits are destined to dance.
She turns a cold gaze toward an unlucky few—
Don’t dare to look now, for she’s staring at you.
At the end of the world stands a giant steel door,
And what lies beyond it, nobody’s quite sure . . .
Is it crystal-clear heavens, or night blazing hot,
And which is more frightening: knowing or not?
In the face of the future we fly on our own,
Hoping our wings never turn into stone.
If you fall from that sky to the sea, will you drown?
Well, there’s no need to worry . . . unless you look down.
At the back of your mind, there’s a hole open wide,
Where the darkness is creeping in from the outside.
You can light rows of candles to cast the dark out,
But it’s always there hiding . . .
. . . in shadows of doubt.
Neal Shusterman, Darkness Creeping: Twenty Twisted Tales
(Series: # )
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