"Sure, Will, go on. Mirror mazes, old teacher-ladies, lost lightning-rod bags, lightning-rod salesmen disappear, snake pictures dancing, unbroken merry-go-rounds, and you want to go home!? Sure, old friend Will, so long."
"I ..." Will started down the tree, and froze.
"All clear?" cried a voice below.
"Clear!" someone shouted at the far end of the midway.
Mr. Dark moved, not fifty feet away, to a red control box near the merry-go-round ticket booth. He glared in all directions. He glared into the tree.
Will hugged, Jim hugged the limb, tightened into smallness.
"Start up!"
With a pop, a bang, a jangle of reins, a lift and downfall, a rise and descent of brass, the carousel moved.
But, thought Will, it's broke, out of order!
He flicked a glance at Jim, who pointed wildly down.
The merry-go-round was running, yes, but ...
It was running backward.
The small calliope inside the carousel machinery rattle-snapped its nervous-stallion shivering drums, clashed its harvest-moon cymbals, toothed its castanets, and throatily choked and sobbed its reeds, whistles, and baroque flutes.
The music, Will thought, it's backwards, too!
Mr. Dark jerked about, glanced up, as if he had heard Will's thought. A wind shook the trees in black tumults. Mr. Dark shrugged and looked away.
The carousel wheeled faster, shrieking, plunging, going roundabout-back!
Now Mr. Cooger, with his flaming red hair and fire-blue eyes, was pacing the midway, making a last check. He stood under their tree. Will could have let spit down on him. Then the calliope gave a particularly violent cry of foul murder which made dogs howl in far countries, and Mr. Cooger, spinning, ran and leaped on the back-whirling universe of animals who, tail first, head last, pursued an endless circling night toward unfound and never to be discovered destinations. Hand-slapping brass poles, he flung himself into a seat where with his bristly red hair, pink face, and incredible sharp blue eyes he sat silent, going back around, back around, the music squealing swift back with him like insucked breath.
The music, thought Will, what is it? And how do I know it's backside first? He hugged the limb, tried to catch the tune, then hum it forward in his head. But the brass bells, the drums, hammered his chest, revved his heart so he felt his pulse reverse, his blood turn back in perverse thrusts through all his flesh, so he was nearly shaken free to fall, so all he did was clutch, hang pale, and drink the sight of the backward-turning machine and Mr. Dark, alert at the controls, on the sidelines.
It was Jim who first noticed the new thing happening, for he kicked Will, once, Will looked over, and Jim nodded frantically at the man in the machine as he came around the next time.
Mr. Cooger's face was melting like pink wax.
His hands were becoming doll's hands.
His bones sank away beneath his clothes; his clothes then shrank down to fit his dwindling frame.
His face flickered going, and each time around he melted more.
Will saw Jim's head shift, circling.
The carousel wheeled, a great back-drifting lunar dream, the horses thrusting, the music in-gasped after, while Mr. Cooger, as simple as shadows, as simple as light, as simple as time, got younger. And younger. And younger.
Each time he wheeled to view he sat alone with his bones, which shaped like warm candles burning away to tender years. He gazed serenely at the fiery constellations, the children-inhabited trees, which went away from him as he removed himself from them and his nose diminished and his sweet wax ears reshaped themselves to small pink roses.
Now no longer forty where he had begun his back-spiraled journey, Mr. Cooger was nineteen.
Around went the reverse parade of horse, pole, music, man become young man, young man fast rendered down to boy....
Mr. Cooger was seventeen, sixteen....
Another and another time around under the sky and trees and Will whispering, Jim counting the times around, around, while the night air warmed to summer heat by friction of sun-metal brass, the passionate backturned flight of beasts, wore the wax doll down and down and washed him clean with still stranger musics until all ceased, all died away to stillness, the calliope shut up its brassworks, the ironmongery machines hissed off, and with a last faint whine like desert sands blown back up Arabian hourglasses, the carousel rocked on seaweed waters and stood still.