The boys stopped for breath.
Miss Foley, the carnival again, the carousel run wild, the ancient Cooger mummy gasping moonlight, exhaling silver dust, dead, then resurrected in a chair where green lightning struck his skeleton alight, all of it a storm minus rain, minus thunder, and parade, the cigar store basement, the hiding, and at last them here, finished, done with the telling.
For a long moment, Will’s father sat staring blindly into the centre of the table. Then, his lips moved.
“Jim. Will,” he said. “I believe.”
The boys sank in their chairs.
“All of it?”
“All.”
Will wiped his eyes. “Boy,” he said gruffly. “I’m going to start bawling.”
“We got no time for that! “ said Jim.
“No time.” And Will’s father stood up, stuffed his pipe with tobacco, rummaged his pockets for matches, brought out a battered harmonica, a penknife, a cigarette lighter that wouldn’t work, and a memo pad he had always meant to write some great thoughts down on but never got around to, and lined up these weapons for a pygmy war that could be lost before it even started. Probing this idle refuse, shaking his head, he finally found a tattered matchbox, lit his pipe and began to muse, pacing the room.
“Looks like we’re going to do a lot of talking about one particular carnival. Where’s it come from, where’s it going, what’s it up to? We thought it never hit town before. Yet, by God, look here.”
He tapped a yellowed newspaper ad dated October 12, 1888, and ran his fingernail along under this:
J. C. COOGER AND G. M. DARK PRESENT THE PANDEMONIUM THEATRE CO. COMBINED SIDE-SHOWS AND UNNATURAL MUSEUMS, INTERNATIONAL!
“J.C. G.M.” said Jim. “Those are the same initials as on the throwaways around town this week. But — it couldn’t be the same men…”
“No?” Will’s father rubbed his elbows. “My goose pimples run counter to that.”
He laid forth other old newspapers.
“1860. 1846. Same ad. Same names. Same initials. Dark and Cooger, Cooger and Dark, they came and went, but only once every twenty, thirty, forty years, so people forgot. Where were they all the other years? Travelling. And more than travelling. Always in October: October 1846, October 1860, October 1888, October 1910, and October now, tonight.” His voice trailed off. “…Beware the autumn people…”
“What?”
“An old religious tract. Pastor Newgate Phillips, I think. Read it as a boy. How does it go again?”
He tried to remember. He licked his lips. He did remember.
”“For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ’s birth, there is no Bethlehem Star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and so on down the years, with no winter, spring, or revivifying summer. For these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles – breaks. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.”“
After a pause, both boys exhaled at once.
“The autumn people,” said Jim. “That’s them. Sure!”
“Then — “ Will swallowed — “does that make us…summer people?”
“Not quite.” Charles Halloway shook his head. “Oh, you’re nearer summer than me. If I was ever a rare fine summer person, that’s long ago. Most of us are half-and-half. The August noon in us works to stave off the November chills. We survive by what little Fourth of July wits we’ve stashed away. But there are times when we’re all autumn people.”
“Not you,” Dad.
“Not you, Mr Halloway!”
He turned quickly to see both appraising him, paleness next to paleness, hands on knees as if to bolt.