Mr Crouch had calmed into his ‘charming host’ role and seemed ready to move on. “Now we both know why you are here, and you have been such pleasant company and such a polite listener that I shan’t keep you a moment longer than I must. Please forgive me, and step this way.”
Mr Crouch bowed graciously and humbly swept a hand towards the rear of the room. Emily looked to follow its line of gesture and the first item to fall in its path was the chair she had seen when she first surveyed the room, the one sitting in front of the glass chamber.
“Please, my young friend, follow me. I’m sure you are wishing to be on your way as expeditiously as possible. Well, you’ll be pleased to know, this should not take too much longer at all.”
Emily wondered just what it was that was going to happen next. It had all seemed so straightforward in her plan – Mr Crouch’s store would be lined with a choice of his amazing music boxes and she would simply have had to charm her way to one. Yet she now felt there was very little chance of anything as simple as all that. She had been a fool to even think it would be, admonishing herself and cranky at her naivety.
Her feet were thankfully able to move despite her rapidly rising nerves. She was a little unsteady at first, but managed to follow Mr Crouch down to the chair. She looked closely at the solid wooden seat, the high, straight back and a rather alarming looking strap dangling over the side of one of its arms. Mr Crouch must have caught the look in her eye.
“While I am certainly not going to tell you not to let your imagination run away Emily - that would be quite hypocritical of me after all I’ve said - what I will ask is that you keep an open mind. This is simply a feature for safety – my machine requires its user to be in a dream-like state, and it’s merely been designed to keep you secure during this time.”
Emily nodded. She was still unsure, but what choice was there? She realised she was going to have to trust Mr Crouch.
“Of course I will explain everything to you before we begin, to make sure you are entirely comfortable seeing it through,” he reassured her.
“Cast your mind back to Tabitha’s music box. Think about what it was that you saw and heard. Think about how such scenes could exist in so small a box and think too about how it could come to pass that this small wooden box could open to reveal so much.”
Emily did as she was told; soaring once again through the fields over which she had travelled, hearing the angelic choir ringing out in its glorious song.
“Every music box I create is different. There can be no two the same for there are no two people ever the same. What I was telling you before about the links between our pasts, presents and futures is important to remember to understand how each of these music box worlds comes to be.
“What you will end up with, ultimately, is a projection of your own self – your own mind, your own experiences and, most importantly, your own wishes and dreams.”
Placing his hand on the helmet-like object that sat in the frame above the chair, Mr Crouch explained to Emily that it was going to be placed upon her head so as her thoughts and wishes could pass into the chamber, where they would then help to create the right environment for the music box to take on its life, its individual aspects that would make it so right, so uniquely perfect for Emily Button.
“If you thought you liked Tabitha’s, you haven’t seen anything yet,” he said.
“Your own box will reflect your own desires in a way you are as yet unable to understand, for you do not truly know them. It will help to reveal them to you, will help you understand who you are and how to make your every wish come true.”
Mr Crouch’s eyes sparkled in the gloom, though his voice stayed low. He paused, giving Emily time to digest all that he had said.
“Are you ready then?”
Emily nodded.
“Well take a seat.”
Sitting gingerly in the chair, Emily felt the shaking take hold. Her breath had shortened and she tried to calm down, forcing herself to take a deeper breath. Mr Crouch spoke in his soothing tone, asking her to sit a little further back so he could draw the straps into place. Next he dropped the metal helmet, which felt lighter than it looked. It was quite cool too, as were the little pads that Mr Crouch now placed against each of her temples, linking her to the helmet and in turn the chamber.
“Okay Emily, we’re almost ready. I will be counting down from ten, and by the time I get down to one, I need your mind to be completely clear. Then, I need you to allow yourself to slip into dream, to let yourself go with whatever comes to mind. Don’t feel you need to hold back or hide anything, the more honest you are with yourself, the greater the outcome and the more unimaginably divine your music box shall be.”
Drawing her attention to the glass chamber, Mr Crouch pointed out to Emily the small wooden box that lay inside. He explained that this was how her music box began, but that as her thoughts and wishes mingled in the chamber, they would be drawn into the box and help to create it anew.
“Do you understand?”
Emily nodded once more.
“Then we are ready?”
“Yes Mr Crouch.”
She sat back in the chair and watched as he opened his book. He began with a brief incantation, the strange sound of which lulled her into a calm and sleepy state. She felt her grip on consciousness slipping and, as though from afar, heard a slow countdown begin. Emily’s eyes fluttered as she nodded off, but not before she finally caught sight of the writing on the front of the book from which Mr Crouch had been reading. Her eyes took in the long, careful script and the jumble of letters briefly floated into a comprehensible form before dripping away, melting before her eyes like everything else in the room, pooling into a rich molasses. And though it was her last lucid moment, there was no mistaking what she had read:
Metaphysical Marvels and Unlocking the Unknown:
A study by Aloysius Crouch
A study by Aloysius Crouch
No comments:
Post a Comment