The Dark Read Free Page B

near enough. And your father is building us a place of our own, isn’t he? And we couldn’t stay with the Posts forever, could we? Oh, and Rochester was so rackety, wasn’t it? All those carriages and, oh, all the night lamps made my poor old eyes ache. Here, folks respect the gloaming, don’t they? They know it’s God’s signal to shutter themselves in nice and safe. And can’t you just wait for winter. We can all go to bed at four o’clock so’s not to waste the candles and rushies. Won’t that be a lark!”
    Katie’s jaw unclenches. Her hand steadies. She giggles, as she always does when Maggie shows off her talent for mimicry. Katie’s talent is for eavesdropping; she hears well beyond the ken of others, hears voices in far rooms, hushed conversations below stairs, footfalls up paths.
    “Someone’s coming,” she says now. The girls turn and see him. The peddler has a pronounced limp and uses a walking stick, and his rucksack bends him at the hips as if he is perpetually bowing. His wears a black cap, a frocked black coat, and grey trousers, andthese garments are stiffed with grime and reek of onions and old sweat, damp leaves and dried shit. He is not much taller than Maggie and Katie.
    When he reaches them he spits tobacco. Doffs his cap. “Good day to yous,” he says.
    “Well, yes. Good enough,” Maggie answers.
    His eyes are gold with a burst of green about the pupil. His face is sun-darkened to the mid of his forehead. Above this line is a pale dome. Maggie imagines it hinging open to show the worm-coils of his brain. Peddlers. Don’t they disembowel cats? Thieve babies? Sell cure-alls that cure one of nothing except mortality? Didn’t a peddler disappear in the Hydesville area some five or ten years past? Some say his throat was slit for his silver thimbles, others for his five hundred dollars, others for his secret sins upon children. All agree, however, that he is buried in the cellar of a house near on. Mayhap in our very own cellar, Maggie thinks, and nearly smiles. Wouldn’t that be quaint. Wouldn’t that just explain why the place gives me the willies. Why, I’d bolt in a shot given the half the darned chance.
    “Something pretty for yous pretty girls?” this peddler now asks. “I’s got perfume sachets and rose-essence. I’s got broaches and pocket combs. I’s got shaker’s yarb and castor ile and bitters for the ague. I’s got shadow puppets and baby’s whistles. I’s got delaine lengths and needle sheaves and I’s got silk thread near invisible and strong as wire, I swear.”
    The girls shake their heads. The peddler wearily nods and trudges on past them. He is not a rod distant when Maggie looks at Katie. She wants to cheer her sister further, that’s all, and so she composes a rhyme on the spot: “
Peddler man, Peddler man with all your wares. We’ll give you a gaffe, if you don’t beware. We’ll salt you and pickle you and chop you up to keep. We’ll throttle you and bottle you and put you in our cellar deep
.” Maggie smiles, proud of this quick contrive.
    The peddler turns and sputters. He raises a fist. “Throttle me? I’ll throttle you, you little bitches! Apologize, damn you.”
    He limps back towards them. The girls’ shrieks are edged with laughter. They turn to run. He fumbles at his trousers. “Get on back here. I’ll give you a gaffe and right in your nasty hinnies!”
    “Don’t you look, Kat,” Maggie orders. She knows they should just run, but she is aburn with fury, abuzz with a curious elation. She hauls an apple out of her pinafore. “Horrid ole pig!”
    The first shot lands square on his chest. He staggers, unbalanced by his rucksack.
    Katie glances at Maggie. “Nasty, lousy man!” she yells, and hurls an apple of her own. It strikes his shoulder. He yelps and curses. Now the girls hurl apples fast as ever they can. One sends his cap flying clear off his head. The peddler tips backwards, his huge rucksack beneath him, his feet and arms