Saturday, July 14, 2018

The House With A Clock In Its Walls

First, it must be understood that even when I was a very small child, I was quite convinced that my next-door neighbour, Mrs. Ireland, was a witch. She lived in a large house in the middle of a large piece of property in the middle of the city, a creaky, drafty place with more history to it than any couple could actually need, she could make macaroni and cheese sauce with cheese, milk and flour and no orange powder whatsoever and, oh, yes, she could read minds.

How do I know this? Well, as soon as I concluded that she was a witch, she gave a box of books to my parents that just happened to include The Witch Family, a children's book about a crazy old hag of a witch whose nasty temper is mollified by being around a young child. I got the message. I got the other part of the message, too, that while she might be a crazy old hag of a witch some of the time, it was my solemn duty to be near enough to her that she didn't turn me, or anyone in my family, into a toad. This was made easier by the fact that, at least when I was around, she was a very nice witch indeed.

Nevertheless, it was with some trepidation that I went up to her cottage, just our family and the two of them alone for a weekend in the middle of Northern Ontario where, I imagined, one could boil an entire family alive and no one would ever know. Still, I would be there so she was likely to be a very nice witch. And she was, mostly, except for that first night.

My dad read books to me a lot when I was a child, and that weekend was to be no different, but the drive up to the cottage, hefting everything into the house, and dealing with my sister's whinging - I was a perfectly obedient child, of course - had left him rather obviously exhausted, and so Mrs. Ireland volunteered to read a chapter of one of her favourite books. We vanished upstairs, me taking the steps at as rapid a pace as I could manage as Mrs. Ireland did have excellent taste in books and had read books to me before, her smooth pleasant tones wrapping around into various voices that varied from comedic to serious.

She read the first chapter of The House With A Clock In Its Walls and it was quite unlike anything I'd ever heard. The story was old-fashioned, taking place in the late 40s, but it still felt very modern and I identified with the main character, pudgy Lewis, unlike anyone else then or since, but it was the language of the book that attracted me. I understood every image and phrase, but they were so mature and confident, so refined and grown-up sounding, and they rolled around in my head like rolling a luscious bite of ice cream in one's mouth.

I loved it. And the first chapter was over in about fifteen minutes. She snapped the book shut with authority and put it down on the dresser, just out of reach.

"Did you like that, Jimmy?" she asked. The light of the bedside lamp reflected off of her glasses, hiding her eyes behind the shine, and so I didn't dare risk anything more than a nod and a quiet, "Yes." She smiled broadly.

"Well, that's enough for tonight at any rate. Perhaps another couple of chapters tomorrow. It's time for you bed." And, with a shake of her finger, she admonished, "No more reading tonight."

Her feet had just fallen upon the stairs when I turned the bedside lamp back on and started in with chapter two. Several hours later I was nearly finished when I heard feet hitting the bottom steps and rushed to turn out my light, hiding the book under my pillow. If my mother knew that I wasn't asleep, I didn't notice as I lay there, trying to look at beatific and asleep as possible while willing all the grown-ups to get to bed already.

I finished the book somewhere around midnight. I know because the cuckoo clock on the mantel downstairs let out twelve mournful whistles.

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