Ray Bradbury
http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal
Invisible Boy
1945
She took the great iron spoon and the mummified frog and gave it a bash and
made dust of it, and talked to the dust while she ground it in her stony fists
quickly. Her beady gray bird-eyes nickered at the cabin. Each time she looked, a
head in the small thin window ducked as if she'd fired off a shotgun.
"Charlie!" cried Old Lady. "You come outa there! I'm fixing a lizard magic
to unlock that rusty door! You come out now and I won't make the earth shake or
the trees go up in fire or the sun set at high noon!"
The only sound was the warm mountain light on the high turpentine trees, a
tufted squirrel cluttering around and around on a green-furred log, the ants
moving in a fine brown line at Old Lady's bare, blue-veined feet.
"You been starving in there two days, dam you!" she panted, chiming the
spoon against a flat rock, causing the plump gray miracle bag to swing at her
waist. Sweating sour, she rose and marched at the cabin, bearing the pulverized
flesh. "Come out, now!" She flicked a pinch of powder inside the lock. "All
right, I'll come get you!" she wheezed.
She spun the knob with one walnut-coloured hand, first one way, then the
other. "0 Lord," she intoned, "fling this door wide!"
When nothing flung, she added yet another philter and held her breath. Her
long blue untidy skirt rustled as she peered - into her bag of darkness to see
if she had any scaly monsters there, any charm finer than the frog she'd killed
months ago for such a crisis as this.
She heard Charlie breathing against the door. His folks had pranced off
into some Ozark town early this week, leaving him, and he'd run almost six miles
to Old Lady for company - she was by way of being an aunt or cousin or some
such, and he didn't mind her fashions.
But then, two days ago. Old Lady, having gotten used to the boy around,
decided to keep him for convenient company. She pricked her thin shoulder bone,
drew out three blood pearls, spat wet over her right elbow, tromped on a
crunch-cricket, and at the same instant clawed her left hand at Charlie, crying,
"My son you are, you are my son, for all eternity!"
Charlie, bounding like a startled hare, had crashed off into the bush,
heading for home.
But Old Lady, skittering quick as a gingham lizard, cornered him in a dead
end, and Charlie holed up in this old hermit's cabin and wouldn't come out, no
matter how she whammed door, window, or knothole with amber-coloured fist or
trounced her ritual fires, explaining to him that he was certainly her son now,
all right.
"Charlie, you there?' she asked, cutting holes in the door planks with her
bright little slippery eyes.
"I'm all of me here," he replied finally, very tired.
Maybe he would fall out on the ground any moment. She wrestled the knob
hopefully. Perhaps a pinch too much frog powder had grated the lock wrong. She
always overdid or underdid her miracles, she mused angrily, never doing them
just exact. Devil take it!
"Charlie, I only wants someone to night-prattle to, someone to warm hands
with at the fire. Someone to fetch kindling for me mornings, and fight off the
spunks that come creeping of early fogs! I ain't got no fetchings on you for
myself, son, just for your company." She smacked her lips. "Tell you what,
Charles, you come out and I teach you things!"
"What things?" he suspicioned.
"Teach you how to buy cheap, sell high. Catch a snow weasel, cut off its
head, carry it warm in your hind pocket. There!"
"Aw," said Charlie.
She made haste. "Teach you to make yourself shot-proof. So if anyone bangs
at you with a gun, nothing happens."
When Charlie stayed silent, she gave him the secret in a high fluttering
whisper. "Dig and stitch mouse-ear roots on Friday during full moon, and wear
'em around your neck in a white silk."
"You're crazy," Charlie said.
"Teach you how to stop blood or make animals stand frozen or make blind
horses see, all them things I'll teach you! Teach you to cure a swelled-up cow
and unbewitch a goat. Show you how to make yourself invisible!"
"Oh," said Charlie.
Old Lady's heart beat like a Salvation tambourine.
The knob turned from the other side.
"You," said Charlie, "are funning me."
"No, I'm not," exclaimed Old Lady. "Oh, Charlie, why, I'll make you like a
window, see right through you. Why, child, you'll be surprised!"
"Real invisible?"
"Real invisible!"
"You won't fetch onto me if I walk out?"
"Won't touch a bristle of you, son."
"Well," he drawled reluctantly, "all right."
The door opened. Charlie stood in his bare feet, head down, chin against
chest. "Make me invisible," he said.
"First we got to catch us a bat," said Old Lady. "Start lookin'!"
She gave him some jerky beef for his hunger and watched him climb a tree.
He went high up and high up and it was nice seeing him there and it was nice
having him here and all about after so many years alone with nothing to say good
morning to but bird-droppings and silvery snail tracks.
Pretty soon a bat with a broken wing fluttered down out of the tree. Old
Lady snatched it up, beating warm and shrieking between its porcelain white
teeth, and Charlie dropped down after it, hand upon clenched hand, yelling.
That night, with the moon nibbling at the spiced pine cones. Old Lady
extracted a long silver needle from under her wide blue dress. Gumming her
excitement and secret anticipation, she sighted up the dead bat and held the
cold needle steady-steady.
She had long ago realized that her miracles, despite all perspirations and
salts and sulphurs, failed. But she had always dreamt that one day the miracles
might start functioning, might spring up in crimson flowers and silver stars to
prove that God had forgiven her for her pink body and her pink thoughts and her
warm body and her warm thoughts as a young miss. But so far God had made no sign
and said no word, but nobody knew this except Old Lady.
"Ready?" she asked Charlie, who crouched cross-kneed, wrapping his pretty
legs in long goose-pimpled arms, his mouth open, making teeth. "Ready," he
whispered, shivering.
"There!" She plunged the needle deep in the bat's right eye. "So!"
"Oh!" screamed Charlie, wadding up his face.
"Now I wrap it in gingham, and here, put it in your pocket, keep it there,
bat and all. Go on!"
He pocketed the charm.
"Charlie!" she shrieked fearfully. "Charlie, where are you? I can't see
you, child!"
"Here!" He jumped so the light ran in red streaks up his body. "I'm here.
Old Lady!" He stared wildly at his arms, legs, chest, and toes. "I'm here!"
Her eyes looked as if they were watching a thousand fireflies crisscrossing
each other in the wild night air.
"Charlie, oh, you went fast! Quick as a hummingbird! Oh, Charlie, come back
to me!"
"But I'm Acre!" he wailed.
"Where?"
"By the fire, the fire! And - and I can see myself. I'm not invisible at
all!"
Old Lady rocked on her lean flanks. "Course you can see you! Every
invisible person knows himself. Otherwise, how could you eat, walk, or get
around places? Charlie, touch me. Touch me so I know you."
Uneasily he put out a hand.
She pretended to jerk, startled, at his touch. "Ah!"
"You mean to say you can't find me?" he asked. "Truly?"
"Not the least half rump of you!"
She found a tree to stare at, and stared at it with shining eyes, careful
not to glance at him. "Why, I sure did a trick that time!" She sighed with
wonder. "Whooeee. Quickest invisible I ever made! Charlie. Charlie, how you
feel?"
"Like creek water - all stirred."
"You'll settle."
Then after a pause she added, "Well, what you going to do now, Charlie,
since you're invisible?"
All sorts of things shot through his brain, she could tell. Adventures
stood up and danced like hell-fire in his eyes, and his mouth, just hanging,
told what it meant to be a boy who imagined himself like the mountain winds. In
a cold dream he said, "I'll run across wheat fields, climb snow mountains, steal
white chickens off'n farms. I'll kick pink pigs when they ain't looking. I'll
pinch pretty girls' legs when they sleep, snap their garters in schoolrooms."
Charlie looked at Old Lady, and from the shiny tips of her eyes she saw
something wicked shape his face. "And other things I'll do, I'll do, I will," he
said.
"Don't try nothing on me," warned Old Lady. "I'm brittle as spring ice and
I don't take handling." Then: "What about your folks?"
"My folks?"
"You can't fetch yourself home looking like that. Scare the inside ribbons
out of them. Your mother'd faint straight back like timber falling. Think they
want you about the house to stumble over and your ma have to call you every
three minutes, even though you're in the room next her elbow?"
Charlie had not considered it. He sort of simmered down and whispered out a
little "Gosh" and felt of his long bones carefully.
"You'll be mighty lonesome. People looking through you like a water glass,
people knocking you aside because they didn't reckon you to be underfoot. And
women, Charlie, women -"
He swallowed. "What about women?"
"No woman will be giving you a second stare. And no woman wants to be
kissed by a boy's mouth they can't even find!"
Charlie dug his bare toe in the soil contemplatively. He pouted. "Well,
I'll stay invisible, anyway, for a spell. I'll have me some fun. I'll just be
pretty careful, is all. I'll stay out from in front of wagons and horses and Pa.
Pa shoots at the nariest sound." Charlie blinked. "Why, with me invisible,
someday Pa might just up and fill me with buckshot, thinkin' I was a hill
squirrel in the dooryard. Oh..."
Old Lady nodded at a tree. "That's likely."
"Well," he decided slowly, "I'll stay invisible for tonight, and tomorrow
you can fix me back all whole again, Old Lady."
"Now if that ain't just like a critter, always wanting to be what he can't
be," remarked Old Lady to a beetle on a log.
"What you mean?" said Charlie.
"Why," she explained, "it was real hard work, fixing you up. It'll take a
little time for it to wear off. Like a coat of paint wears off, boy."
"You!" he cried. "You did this to me! Now you make me back, you make me
seeable!"
"Hush," she said. "It'll wear off, a hand or a foot at a time."
"How'll it look, me around the hills with just one hand showing!"
"Like a five-winged bird hopping on the stones and bramble."
"Or a foot showing!"
"Like a small pink rabbit jumping thicket."
"Or my head Heating!"
"Like a hairy balloon at the carnival!"
"How long before I'm whole?" he asked.
She deliberated that it might pretty well be an entire year.
He groaned. He began to sob and bite his lips and make fists. "You magicked
me, you did this, you did this thing to me. Now I won't be able to run home!"
She winked. "But you can stay here, child, stay on with me real
comfort-like, and I'll keep you fat and saucy."
He flung it out: "You did this on purpose! You mean old hag, you want to
keep me here!"
He ran off through the shrubs on the instant.
"Charlie, come back!"
No answer but the pattern of his feet on the soft dark turf, and his wet
choking cry which passed swiftly off and away.
She waited and then kindled herself a fire. "He'll be back," she whispered.
And thinking inward on herself, she said, "And now I'll have me my company
through spring and into late summer. Then, when I'm tired of him and want a
silence, I'll send him home."
Charlie returned noiselessly with the first gray of dawn, gliding over the
rimed turf to where Old Lady sprawled like a bleached stick before the scattered
ashes.
He sat on some creek pebbles and stared at her.
She didn't dare look at him or beyond. He had made no sound, so how could
she know he was anywhere about? She couldn't.
He sat there, tear marks on his cheeks.
Pretending to be just waking - but she had found no sleep from one end of
the night to the other - Old Lady stood up, grunting and yawning, and turned in
a circle to the dawn.
"Charlie?"
Her eyes passed from pines to soil, to sky, to the far hills. She called
out his name, over and over again, and she felt like staring plumb straight at
him, but she stopped herself. "Charlie? Oh, Charles!" she called, and heard the
echoes say the very same.
He sat, beginning to grin a bit, suddenly, knowing he was close to her, yet
she must feel alone. Perhaps he felt the growing of a secret power, perhaps he
felt secure from the world, certainly he was pleased with his invisibility.
She said aloud, "Now where can that boy be? If he only made a noise so I
could tell just where he is, maybe I'd fry him a breakfast."
She prepared the morning victuals, irritated at his continuous quiet. She
sizzled bacon on a hickory stick. "The smell of it will draw his nose," she
muttered.
While her back was turned he swiped all the frying bacon and devoured it
hastily.
She whirled, crying out, "Lord!"
She eyed the clearing suspiciously. "Charlie, that you?"
Charlie wiped his mouth clean on his wrists.
She trotted about the clearing, making like she was trying to locate him.
Finally, with a clever thought, acting blind, she headed straight for him,
groping. "Charlie, where are you?"
A lightning streak, he evaded her, bobbing, ducking.
It took all her will power not to give chase; but you can't chase invisible
boys, so she sat down, scowling, sputtering, and tried to fry more bacon. But
every fresh strip she cut he would steal bubbling off the fire and run away far.
Finally, cheeks burning, she cried, "I know where you are! Right there I hear
you run!" She pointed to one side of him, not too accurate. He ran again. "Now
you're there!" she shouted. "There, and there!" pointing to all the places he
was in the next five minutes. "I hear you press a grass blade, knock a flower,
snap a twig. I got fine shell ears, delicate as roses. They can hear the stars
moving!"
Silently he galloped off among the pines, Ms voice trailing back, "Can't
hear me when I'm set on a rock. I'll just set!"
All day he sat on an observatory rock in the clear wind, motionless and
sucking his tongue.
Old Lady gathered wood in the deep forest, feeling his eyes weaseling on
her spine. She wanted to babble: "Oh, I see you, I see you! I was only fooling
about invisible boys! You 're right there!" But she swallowed her gall and
gummed it tight.
The following morning he did the spiteful thing. He began leaping from
behind trees. He made toad-faces, frog-faces, spider-faces at her, clenching
down his lips with his fingers, popping his raw eyes, pushing up his nostrils so
you could peer in and see his brain thinking.
Once she dropped, her kindling. She pretended it was a blue jay startled
her.
He made a motion as if to strangle her.
She trembled a little.
He made another move as if to bang her shins and spit on her cheek.
These motions she bore without a lid-flicker or a mouth-twitch.
He stuck out his tongue, making strange bad noises. He wiggled his loose
ears so she wanted to laugh, and finally she did laugh and explained it away
quickly by saying, "Sat on a salamander! Whew, how it poked!"
By high noon the whole madness boiled to a terrible peak.
For it was at that exact hour that Charlie came racing down the valley
stark boy-naked!
Old Lady nearly fell flat with shock!
"Charlie!" she almost cried.
Charlie raced naked up one side of a hill and naked down the other - naked
as day, naked as the moon, raw as the sun and a newborn chick, his feet
shimmering and rushing like the wings of a low-skimming hummingbird.
Old Lady's tongue locked in her mouth. What could she say? Charlie, go
dress? For shame? Stop that? Could she? Oh, Charlie, Charlie, God! Could she say
that now? Well?
Upon the big rock, she witnessed him dancing up and down, naked as the day
of his birth, stomping bare feet, smacking his hands on his knees and sucking in
and out his white stomach like blowing and deflating a circus balloon.
She shut her eyes tight and prayed.
After three hours of this she pleaded, "Charlie, Charlie, come here! I got
something to tell you!"
Like a fallen leaf he came, dressed again, praise the Lord.
"Charlie," she said, looking at the pine trees, "I see your right toe.
There it is."
"You do?" he said.
"Yes," she said very sadly. "There it is like a horny toad on the grass.
And there, up there's your left ear hanging on the air like a pink butterfly."
Charlie danced. "I'm forming in, I'm forming in!"
Old Lady nodded. "Here comes your ankle!"
"Gimme both my feet!" ordered Charlie.
"You got 'em."
"How about my hands?"
"I see one crawling on your knee like a daddy long-legs."
"How about the other one?"
"It's crawling too."
"I got a body?"
"Shaping up fine."
"I'll need my head to go home. Old Lady."
To go home, she thought wearily. "No!" she said, stubborn and angry. "No,
you ain't got no head. No head at all," she cried. She'd leave that to the very
last. "No head, no head," she insisted.
"No head?" he wailed.
"Yes, oh my God, yes, yes, you got your blamed head!" she snapped, giving
up. "Now fetch me back my bat with the needle in his eye!"
He flung it at her. "Haaaa-yoooo!" His yelling went all up the valley, and
long after he had run toward home she heard his echoes, racing.
Then she plucked up her kindling with a great dry weariness and started
back toward her shack, sighing, talking. And Charlie followed her all the way,
really invisible now, so she couldn't see him, just hear him, like a pine cone
dropping or a deep underground stream trickling, or a squirrel clambering a
bough; and over the fire at twilight she and Charlie sat, him so invisible, and
her feeding him bacon he wouldn't take, so she ate it herself, and then she
fixed some magic and fell asleep with Charlie, made out of sticks and rags and
pebbles, but still warm and her very own son, slumbering and nice in her shaking
mother arms... and they talked about golden things in drowsy voices until dawn
made the fire slowly, slowly wither out...