Darkness Creeping (32 page)

The windows in Grandma’s workshop are always wide open because of the heat from the furnace and blowtorch. You see, Grandma is a glassblower. She creates bowls and jars and dainty little crystalline figurines that she sells in a crafts shop right next to her house.

That first day, after I had smashed that shelf of figurines, Grandma, instead of yelling at me, sat me down and showed me exactly how much work it took to make just one of the delicate pieces. She also told me how good Grandpa had been at it. “He had always wanted to teach you,” she told me, a bit of sadness in her voice, “but you never had the interest.”

But after living with Grandma for a while and watching her work the glass, I did develop an interest. There was something about the molten glass that fascinated me, and I grew to love learning the craft.

At first, all I could make were lopsided glasses and mystery ashtrays—everything with sides that didn’t quite stay up was a mystery ashtray. But that was three months ago. I’ve gotten much better at glassblowing now, and I spend most of my free time in that workshop making things.

The things I make aren’t cute little animals, though. Mine are powerful beasts. Tigers with angry eyes. Dragons breathing crystalline fire. Glass sharks with bloody teeth. Grandma sells them in the shop, too. She even gave me my own shelf to display my creatures, and she labeled my shelf PHANTASTIC PHENOMENA BY PHILIP.

Now, Grandma never knows what to make of my creations, and she just eyes them with a look that’s half proud and half worried. “I guess it’s better to get your monsters out of you than to keep them inside,” she told me once, laughing nervously.

Well, there are lots more where those came from
, I wanted to tell her. And then I thought of the Sand Trap and said nothing. As far as I knew nobody had ever blown a glass creature from
that
sand.

As soon as I had dragged the bucket of strange sand to the workshop, I began to work with it. First, with the fire turned full blast, I quickly melted the sand into a thick semiliquid. Next I wrapped it around my glassblowing pipe. It wasn’t muddy and speckled like other unpurified glass, but instead it burned a clean white-hot. Then I held out the stick and watched as it dripped down the stick, inching toward my fingers like the
Blob
.

“You will be incredible!” I told it. “You will be like nothing I’ve created before.” And with that, I put my lips to the end of the tube and blew into the pulsating mass of hot liquid glass.

Grandma almost screamed when she saw it later that week. Her face went white, and at first I thought she was going to pass out. Then I realized she was just stunned by my creation. I grinned, entirely pleased with myself.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

She caught her breath. “Philip . . . I don’t know what to say.” She dared to venture closer. “Is this what you’ve been working on all week?”

“Pretty cool, huh?”

Grandma grimaced. “Well, it sure is something. . . . I just don’t know what.”

To me, it was everything I’d imagined it would be. The glass creature stood there capturing the late afternoon sun, sending out daggers of light in all directions. Two feet tall, with claws that were sharp and menacing, it had shiny muscles on its hind legs that bulged, looking as though they were ready to pounce. When you looked at it long enough, you would swear you could see it moving.

Its animalistic face was like nothing on earth that I’d ever seen. It had a long snout, and a menacing grin filled with row after row of razor-sharp teeth. Its nostrils flared; its large eyes seemed to follow you around the room. The thing could scare a gargoyle right off its rooftop.

“My masterpiece!” I told Grandma.

“Uh, maybe you’ve been spending too much time blowing glass,” she suggested. Then she left to make dinner, and I closed up the shop—which gave me more time to admire my creation.

“You need a name,” I told my crystalline beast as it sat there on a wooden countertop, for it was too large to fit on my display shelf. I thought and I thought, but no name I came up with seemed right. “Perhaps you’re something best left nameless, huh?”

Outside I could hear a chill wind blowing, sending shivers up my spine . . . just the way I liked it.

I awoke the next morning to the storm that had been looming offshore for days, and was now finally rolling in with a vengeance. I slept with the window open, so the sill and the carpet beneath it were drenched. My toes and fingertips had grown hard from the cold, the numbness inching up through the rest of my body, which shivered uncontrollably.

In fact, I was so cold that I put on warm clothes, which I never do. Then I closed the window, which I never do, either. I ventured downstairs, fully believing that I was heading for the kitchen to cook something hot for breakfast. I was surprised when I realized which direction my feet had turned—I was out the side door, and heading into Grandma’s shop.

As I opened the door, bolts of lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the place before I could flick on the light. I could see the glass beast reflecting that cold white flash. Then, just before the lightning bolt vanished, I caught a glimpse of my creature’s eyes staring at me.

Quickly I turned on the light. My glass beast stood there just as beautiful and menacing as it had the day before, hunched and ready to spring. It leered at me with its large eyes and many rows of teeth. As I neared it, looking deep into its glassy mouth, I swear that I could smell its breath, all salty and wet, like the sea. I moved my hands across it. It was cold as ice and smooth as whalebone. I slid my fingers down the ridges of its curved back, feeling its crystalline sharpness. Then, leaning toward it, I whispered . . .
“I made you.”

Saying it somehow made me feel powerful.
“I created you,”
I said, my voice stronger this time. Then, as I peered into its clear glass heart, I thought I saw something move . . . but it was only the reflection of Grandma opening the door behind me.

“Philip, what are you doing here?” she asked. “We don’t open for an hour.”

I turned to her with a start, feeling a bit embarrassed and guilty for being caught admiring my own handiwork.

“Come have breakfast,” she said with a grin. “It’ll still be there when you come back.”

Then the look on her face changed. It became curious, then concerned. She walked closer to her prize showcase, where her most precious creations were kept—colorful swans, dainty unicorns, and other kinds of graceful creatures—and the concern on her face deepened. Something wasn’t right in that case. And I realized what it was the same moment that Grandma did.

Every one of her most precious creations was missing its head.

I looked into my grandmother’s face and saw a look that wasn’t anger—it was sorrow. In fact, it was pain. “Philip, what did you do?” she exclaimed.

My first response was the same sorrow as hers, but it was quickly overcome by fury. I gritted my teeth and felt my face going red. “Why do you think it was me?” I shouted, my voice practically a growl.

Her eyes were full of tears. “Who else was in this shop, Philip? All the windows are locked. Do you think neighborhood kids would come in here and do such a thing? No—we have nice children in this neighborhood—
nice
children,” she repeated, as if I wasn’t one of them. It made me furious. It made me want to take what was left of those pretty glass sculptures and wreck them all.

“Maybe somebody did it before you left yesterday!” I shouted. “Maybe they were like that half the afternoon, and you just didn’t notice. How often do you look over there, Grandma?” I stared her down. “How often?”

She looked away, proving that I had won, but I didn’t let up.

“Why would I do something like that to you, Grandma?” I pressed, and then I thought back to that first week when I smashed that whole shelf of figurines. “I mean . . . why would I do that
now
? I like it here. I don’t want to get sent away.”

That clinched it. She finally believed me. One thing about grandparents, when you give them the truth, they can tell. Still, the question remained: Who broke the heads off those figures?

“I guess it must have been some tourist kids,” Grandma finally said, shaking her head. Then she headed for the door. “Come have breakfast,” she said as she left, not saying another word about it.

I could have believed it, too—that it was some bored tourist kids. I could have believed that there were people mean enough to do things like that . . . because at times I had been one of them. But somewhere deep down, even though I couldn’t admit it to myself quite yet, I knew the answer was much closer to home. And as I sat down quietly to eat my bowl of cereal, I couldn’t help but think back to my crystalline creation on the heavy wooden counter . . . and how, as I had left the little shop, I could swear it winked at me.

We sold it that afternoon. I was kind of upset. I never thought it would actually sell. If I did, I would have hidden it. It was mine, and I had no desire to see it in someone else’s hands. But a large man with a big black hat took one look at it, let out a deep belly laugh, and slapped his fat wallet on the counter. “How much?” he asked.

I swallowed hard. “It’s not for sale,” I told him. Maybe I didn’t say it forcefully enough.

“Name your price,” he countered.

Then Grandma had to open her mouth, thinking she was doing me a favor. “Two hundred and fifty dollars,” she said. “Not a penny less.”

The man raised an eyebrow.

I sighed with relief, certain that no one would pay that much for a piece of glass.

But the man pulled out the cash, placed it in my grandmother’s hands, and she placed it in mine. “You earned this,” she said proudly.

The man laughed out loud again. “Never seen something so ugly that looked so beautiful,” he said. “My wife’ll kill me.” And then he laughed once more as he carried out my prize beast.

As it turned out, his wife never had the chance to kill him.