After Mrs. Butler had left, Ronnie headed for the sunny room on the ground floor of the back wing of the house. There he found Grandfather seated in his Morris chair, working frantically at the dials of his radio transmitter. “Confounded sunspots,” the old man growled. “I just can’t seem to make contact with Donavon tonight.”
“Maybe he’s not home.”
“Now that’s as foolish an explanation as I’ve ever heard. Of course he’s home! He’s been home every night for the past two years, all ready to give me his next move and hope like the devil that he’s got me stymied.”
Ronnie looked over at the table beside the transmitter where Grandfather had his chess set. It was a beautiful board of alternating light and dark squares of imported inlaid woods. The chessmen themselves were large and ornate and handsomely carved from the best ivory.
The crackle in the loudspeaker was suddenly broken by Albert Donavon’s voice in Detroit. “W3x2Z calling W2N4L. Come in, W2N4L.”
“Why in blazes are you tellingmeto come in, you old fogy?” Grandfather retorted. “I’ve been trying to raise youfor the past ten minutes. What’s the matter—you afraid I’m going to check you with my next move?”
“There isn’t a move in the books you could check me with!” Donavon returned.
They chatted for a few minutes about the weather and each other’s health, and then exchanged their moves. “Move my castle to White’s king rook file, third rank,” Grandfather told him, “and then sweat that one out!”
“Why you old buzzard!” Donavon came back, “you think that’s going to help you? Wait until you see what I’ve got in store foryou! Move my queen’s bishop to the king knight’s file, fifth rank. Now figure that out if you can!”
“Ha!” Grandfather was indignant. “You’ll have to get up early in the morning to find a move that I can’t figure out. Your trouble always has been that you jump to too hasty conclusions, Donavon!”
But Grandfather looked worried, Ronnie noticed. He was studying the board and frowning. “See you tomorrow night, same time!” Donavon signed off, and the loudspeaker went dead.
Then Grandfather turned off his transmitter and receiver. “Thinks he has me cornered, does he! Well, let him figure out that move I gavehim!”
He leaned back in his chair. “Ronnie,” he said, “it’s nice having you back in here with me like old times. I’ve been fearing that maybe you and I were drifting apart of late.” He closed his eyes for a few moments and leaned his head back against his chair. “So many things have been slipping from me these past weeks, so many things.” He opened his eyes again and looked at Ronnie. “You aren’t going to slip from me too, are you, boy?”
“Of course not, Gramps. It’s because you’ve been worried about the village and I didn’t want to pester you,” Ronnie explained. “That’s why I haven’t been coming in here to see you so much lately.”
“Of course, and you’ve been worried too!” Grandfather added. “Why, it’s been written all over you. You wouldn’t be my boy if you weren’t worrying about the village.” He stretched out his game leg to ease some of the pain. “You won’t be forgetting the wonderful times we had together in the village now, will you, boy?”
“No, sir, Gramps!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Why, just this afternoon I was telling Mr. Caldwell some of the stories you told me!”
“Caldwell? I don’t recall that name.”
Ronnie explained to Grandfather how Caldwell had driven into the village and how Bill and he had taken the man on a tour of the buildings. “And he gave me and Bill a swell idea, Gramps. We’re going to make money so we can build a dam across that pass where Goose Brook comes through, and then they won’t have to flood the valley and—”
“Say, hold on there a minute, boy! You’re going faster than a runaway locomotive down a steep grade, and I lost you a ways back. Now just how are you going to make this money, andwhatpass are you going to dam up? This all sounds pretty fantastic to me.”
But by the time Ronnie had finished explaining his plans, Grandfather was nodding his head slowly and puckering his lips the way he did when he was almost convinced. “There’s a chance ... there’s a chance,” he kept repeating. “I know the spot you mean. It would take a lot of fill, but it’s notimpossible. And with folks in town stirring things up for the Seaway, it might come about. Of course, you realize you couldn’t raise near enough money yourself to do the job, don’t you?”
“Maybe not, Grandpa, but somebody’s got to start things going.”
“You never said a truer word, boy! You’ve got my blessings. Go to it, and don’t forget, just because I’ve got a leg here that won’t do its job any longer doesn’t mean I can’t help. There’s one thing I got plenty of—advice!”
Ronnie smiled up at his grandfather. “We’ll lick this yet, won’t we, Gramps? And now will you tell me about the candlesticks?”
The old man nodded, then frowned. “Now where in tarnation do I begin a story like this? Well, let’s begin with your great-great-grandfather, Ezra Rorth. He was the son of the man who founded the Glassworks down in the valley, but it was really Ezra who built it up so that it was known practically around the world for its fine glass. I reckon Ezra was a real craftsman, an artist in his trade. He had a habit, so I hear, of rarely duplicating what he once had made.
“Well, now, this Ezra, for some reason nobody’s ever been able to figure out, took in a partner, a man by the name of Jacob Williams. Seems like both these men fell in love about the same time and got themselves engaged. Then they decided to hold a double wedding ceremony. Old Ezra, about that time, got the idea he and Jacob ought to give their brides-to-be something extra special for a wedding present. So the two went off for three, four days into the Glassworks and shut themselves up and said they didn’t want anybody busting in and bothering them for any reasonat all. When they came out, they’d created two pairs of those candlesticks, one pair for each bride. Those in the dining room came right down the family tree from generation to generation. I gave them to your grandmother, and when your dad got married he gave them to your mother. It’s your turn next, seeing you’re the oldest.”
“Me?” Ronnie blushed. “I’m never going to get married, not on your life.”
Grandfather roared with laughter. “You’ll sing a different tune in another ten years—maybe sooner.”
“No, sir! I’m going to stick around and take care ofyou, Grandfather!”
“Well, that’s mighty nice of you to say, lad. Tarnation, you don’t know how sad this whole affair with the village has made me. And your father isn’t showing the fighting spirit I expected of him. So it’s good to hear you say nice things like that.”
“Dad really is fighting, Grandpa. I know he is—in his own sort of way.”
“Well, maybe so, and I’m sure sorry I lost my temper like I did at the table. Always was one for blowing off steam and then feeling sorry about it afterward. I’m glad that’sonetrait you didn’t inherit from me.”
Ronnie got up, stretching, and then started for the door. “Gramps?” he said, turning about suddenly. “You’ll tell me about the boarded-up building too, won’t you?”
Grandfather’s eyes came closed wearily, as if he were trying to shut out thoughts of the building. “No, boy,” he answered finally, his eyes still closed. “Let’s let its secret die along with me. I searched the place timber to timber, but I found nothing. She’s stubborn, that building, justlike some of the Rorths. I guess she’s old and set in her ways, and if she won’t tell me what happened, she won’t tell anybody.”
“She likes me, Grandfather. I know she does. I’ve sat on the roof lots of times, and listened to the swifts down in her chimney, and I’m sure she was telling me to look! But I don’t know what to look for.”
Grandfather’s eyes were open again and he was smiling. “You’re a clever rascal, you are, boy! Trying to touch my sentiments, are you? Well, I’ve made up my mind the secret’s to die with me, so there’s no use in your pestering further.”
“Oh, all right. But I think it’s a shame, letting the secret get buried under all that water.”
Grandfather’s smile faded and his face grew flushed and the vein on his temple began to swell and turn purple. He started to rise, too, but suddenly changed his mind and sank back down and rested his head back against the chair. “I won’t get tempered over it again,” he said, more to himself than Ronnie. “But don’t you go talking like that any more. Remember, always keep thinking thebestis going to happen.”
“I really do believe that, Gramps. I was just saying what I did because I hoped you’d change your mind and tell me the secret.”
“Well, I’ll think on it. I’ll think on it. Maybe I’ll decide to tell you. But don’t bother me about it any more, you hear?”
“Yes, Gramps.”
“All right. Now go on and get out of here. I’m tired and I’m going to bed.”
Ronnie was tired too, but he stopped in the dining room on his way upstairs to take another look at the candlesticks. Theywerebeautiful. Twelve cut-glass, diamond-shaped crystals hung by spun glass chains in a circle from the rim of the candle holder. The base and stick itself were of solid frosted glass, embellished with intricate designs of rose and turquoise embossing. He set one of the crystals in motion and it tinkled like a bell against its neighbor crystal.
He climbed the stairs to the upstairs hall. Phil was in his own room, working at his desk. Ronnie poked his head inside and watched his brother cutting out baseball players’ pictures from the backs of cereal boxes he had been accumulating. “Bill and I are starting a business in the morning. You can come in with us if you want.”
“What kind of a business? If it’s work, you can count me out.”
Ronnie explained what they had in mind. Phil seemed interested. “I’ll sleep on it,” he told Ronnie and went on with his work.
Ronnie moved down the hall and entered his own room. He didn’t turn on the light, but instead went to the window and, brushing back the curtains, stared out into the blackness.
The moon was at the quarter, but there was enough light from it to light up patches of the St. Lawrence River so that it looked like stretches of a concrete highway cutting through the darkness. Below and a little to the left, the night was blackest, and here Ronnie located the deserted village.
For a moment he thought he could picture the black, inky water covering the land as the floodwaters rose behindthe proposed dam. The thought of such a thing happening sent his stomach sinking.
Then suddenly his eyes widened. He blinked a few times to make sure he wasn’t seeing something that wasn’t there.
It was there all right! Directly in the center of the black patch of night where he had located the village, a halo of light lay shimmering over the roof of one of the buildings. It moved a little to the left, then shifted back again slowly, faded slightly, and brightened again.
Ronnie rubbed at the windowpane to clear the glass. But he couldn’t erase the light he had seen—not for another minute or two anyway. Then it disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.