I have little plaques for most of my items, but they're not unpacked yet-like most of the stock. I'll have to work like the very devil if I'm going to be ready to open tomorrow." But he didn't sound worried at all, and seemed perfectly content to remain where he was.
"What's that one?" Brian asked, pointing at the splinter. He was thinking to himself that this was very odd stock indeed for a smalltown store. He had taken a strong and instant liking to Leland Gaunt, but if the rest of his stuff was like this, Brian didn't think he'd be doing business in Castle Rock for long. If you wanted to sell stuff like pipes and pictures of The King and splinters of wood, New York was the place where you wanted to set up shop... or so he had come to believe from the movies he'd seen, anyway.
"Ah!" Mr. Gaunt said. "That's an interesting item! Let me show it to you!"
He crossed the room, went around the end of the case, pulled a fat ring of keys from his pocket, and selected one with hardly a glance.
He opened the case and took the splinter out carefully.
"Hold out your hand, Brian."
"Gee, maybe I better not," Brian said. As a native of a state where tourism is a major industry, he had been in quite a few gift shops in his time, and he had seen a great many signs with this little poem printed on them: "Lovely to look at / delightful to hold, / but if you break it, then it's sold." He could imagine his mother's horrified reaction if he broke the splinter-or whatever it was-and Mr.
Gaunt, no longer so friendly, told him that its price was five hundred dollars.
"Why ever not?" Mr. Gaunt asked, raising his eyebrows-but there was really only one brow; it was bushy and grew across the top of his nose in an unbroken line.
"Well, I'm pretty clumsy."
"Nonsense," Mr. Gaunt replied. "I know clumsy boys when I see them. You're not one of that breed." He dropped the splinter into Brian's palm. Brian looked at it resting there in some surprise; he hadn't even been aware his palm was open until he saw the splinter resting on it.
It certainly didn't feel like a splinter; it felt more like"It feels like stone," he said dubiously, and raised his eyes to look at Mr. Gaunt.
"Both wood and stone," Mr. Gaunt said. "It's petrified."
"Petrified," Brian marvelled. He looked at the splinter closely, then ran one finger along its side. It was smooth and bumpy at the same time. It was somehow not an entirely pleasant feeling. "It must be old."
"Over two thousand years old," Mr. Gaunt agreed gravely.
"CriPes!" Brian said. He jumped and almost dropped the splinter.
He closed his hand around it in a fist to keep it from falling to the floor... and at once a feeling of oddness and distortion swept over him. He suddenly felt-what? Dizzy? No; not dizzy but far.
As if part of him had been lifted out of his body and swept away.
He could see Mr. Gaunt looking at him with interest and amusement, and Mr. Gaunt's eyes suddenly seemed to grow to the size of tea-saucers. Yet this feeling of disorientation was not frightening; it was rather exciting, and certainly more pleasant than the slick feel of the wood had been to his exploring finger.
"Close your eyes!" Mr. Gaunt invited. "Close your eyes, Brian, and tell me what you feel!"
Brian closed his eyes and stood there for a moment without moving, his right arm held out, the fist at the end of it enclosing the splinter. He did not see Mr. Gaunt's upper lip lift, doglike, over his large, crooked teeth for a moment in what might have been a grimace of pleasure or anticipation. He had a vague sensation of movement-a corkscrewing kind of movement. A sound, quick and light: thudthud... thudthud. thudthud. He knew that sound.
It was"A boat!" he cried, delighted, without opening his eyes.
"I feel like I'm on a boat!"
"Do you indeed," Mr. Gaunt said, and to Brian's ears he sounded impossibly distant.
The sensations intensified; now he felt as if he were going up and down across long, slow waves. He could hear the distant cry of birds, and, closer, the sounds of many animals-cows lowing, roosters crowing, the low, snarling cry of a very big cat-not a sound of rage but an expression of boredom. In that one second he could almost feel wood (the wood of which this splinter had once been a part, he was sure) under his feet, and knew that the feet themselves were not wearing Converse sneakers but some sort of sandals, andThen it was going, dwindling to a tiny bright point, like the light of a TV screen when the power cuts out, and then it was gone. He opened his eyes, shaken and exhilarated.
His hand had curled into such a tight fist around the splinter that he actually had to will his fingers to open, and the joints creaked like rusty door-hinges.
"Hey, boy," he said softly.