The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [85]
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At night, Lancelin’s nursery transformed itself (as most nurseries do), into a cavern of shadows. Shadows are mysterious things. They are real and unreal, they have colour and no colour. When the moon shone in through the stone windows she lit up certain things, partially. Lancelin had a rattle in the form of a horned and bearded godling below whose waist a line of carved goatskin became a mother-of-pearl handle, which Lancelin clasped. The godling’s arms were outstretched and at his fingertips dangled strings of little bells—gold and silver like metal bubbles, and in the moonlight these became quite other metals, moonmetals, glinting and slaty. Lancelin liked to hold up the manikin and twist him to and fro in the cold light, and the little bells rang out, and Lancelin saw the shadow of his own arm, on the four walls, with the shadow of the toy in its insubstantial fingers. He would make this other self bigger and smaller, longer and shorter, against the white quilt, or wavering over the rails of his crib. He could make a thicker, darker figure, drawing all the dark into itself, squat on the counterpane. Or an elongated, ash-grey, gesticulating demon, holding the room in its arms. It was eyeless, mouthless, sliced into strips by the bars of the cot. He could multiply himself and wave his hands to his shadow hands, which waved back.
There were other shadows in the night-nursery, with which the fearless baby often offered to play. Shadows lurking in dark hollows between pieces of furniture which could be imagined—if you twisted your head so the moonlight caught on a gilt drawer-knob—to have shining eyes in the dark. Or there were tall, still forms who stood in corners and could be seen, and seen through.
You may think it is unusual for a boy not to be frightened of shadows. We all see dangerous faces in knots of wood in wardrobe doors, and witches in the shadows of branches on the ceiling, waving in the wind, stretching out long grasping fingers.
But he was not frightened, which makes what occurred all the more shocking.
Something moved in the dark of the corner of the room, by the skirting board. Lancelin watched it and laughed, but he could not change its shape by moving his head and after a bit it began to move forwards and he saw that the dark was solid. It was sleek and it was shining, it had colourless dark fur that reflected the moonlight. It had small pale feet with sharp claws, and a quivering snout, with whiskers. And a long pale hairless tail, that thumped and slithered behind it. Its eyes had little crimson centres, that glowed.
It came on, and on, and Lancelin prepared to welcome it. He liked new friends. It stood up on its haunches, and made a little leap between the bars of his crib, and squatted at his feet. Lancelin made a questioning noise. The creature opened its mouth, showing rows of needle-sharp yellow-white teeth. It lowered its head and began to bite and to rip. It was ripping away, not at the pretty white quilt with its embroidered flowers, but at the invisible seams where Lancelin’s shadow touched the soles of his feet, and the tips of his fingers. He could have touched the soft fur of its busy head, but he was afraid of the sharp teeth, and afraid of the scissoring sound they made. It paid no attention to Lancelin himself. When it had worked its way all round the shadow, it rolled it up, with little kneading and rolling movements of its paws, into a tiny bundle. Then it took up the bundle and jumped softly out of the crib and into the dark. Lancelin raised his arm in the moonlight. It cast no grey shape, anywhere. It was as though he himself was not there.
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Here Olive came to the point where she had stopped the last time, and could not think what might happen next. She needed neat narrative, as opposed to the endless flow of Tom’s underground river. The baby could not follow the rat into the dark. What would the king and queen and