The boy listened. The boy grew calm.
Mr. Dark tightened his fist.
Will was taken with slight palsy.
"We'll hit 'em bull's-eye on, won't we, boy!" said his father.
More laughter.
And the boy grew very calm indeed, with the rifle on his shoulder, and Mr. Dark squeezed tight on the peach-fuzz face nestled in the flesh of his hand, but the boy was serene in the laughter which still flowed and his father kept the hoop rolling thus: "Show the lady your teeth, Will!"
Will showed the woman against the target his teeth.
The blood fell away from the Witch's face.
Now Charles Halloway showed her his teeth, too, such as they were.
And winter lived in the Witch.
"Boy," said someone in the audience, "she's great. Acts scared! Look!"
I'm looking, thought Will's father, his left hand useless at his side, his right hand up to the rifle trigger, his face to the sight as his son held the rifle unswervingly pointed at the bull's-eye and the Witch's face superimposed there, and the last moment come, and a wax bullet in the chamber, and what could a wax bullet do? A bullet that dissolved in transit, what use? why were they here, what could they do? silly, silly!
No! thought Will's father. Stop!
He stopped the doubts.
He felt his mouth shape words with no sound.
But, the Witch heard what he said.
Above the dying laughter, before the warm sound was completely gone, he made these words, silently with his lips: The crescent moon I have marked on the bullet is not a crescent moon.
It is my own smile.
I have put my smile on the bullet in the rifle.
He said it once.
He waited for her to understand.
He said it, silently, again.
And in the moment before the Illustrated Man himself translated the mouthings, quickly, Charles Halloway cried, faintly, "Hold!" Will held his breath. Far back among wax statues, Jim, hid away, dripped saliva from his chin. Strapped in electric chair a dead-alive mummy hummed power in its teeth. Mr. Dark's illustrations writhed with sick sweat as he clenched his fist a final time, but--t
oo late! Serene, Will held breath, held weapon. Serene, his father said, "Now."
And fired the rifle.
Chapter 48
ONE SHOT!
The Witch sucked breath.
Jim, in the Wax Museum, sucked breath.
As did Will, asleep.