The Closet, the Little Boy and Three Wizards
England, the Middle Ages
“Is it ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then we must make haste.”
England was not a safe place to be if you were wizards, more so if you were caught with proof of witchcraft and sorcery. Being members of a cult of Judas, which the Church claimed to be a cult of the Antichrist, didn’t help either.
“Are you sure that this is the right place and time? What if we are wrong? What if it doesn’t work?” said the youngest and most frightened of the three wizards.
“It is working. Look” said the other two wizards in unison.
He followed their gaze to a wooden closet, its doors open. It was so black inside that even shadows on the wall around it seemed to glow. But there was a faint light at its center. The light started to grow stronger, and soon it was like a bright star in the dark sky. The three wizards exchanged a smile. But their joy soon turned to panic as they heard the sound of horses coming to a halt outside.
“Knights!!! Hurry.”
They followed the light into the closet. They could hear the knights trying to break down the door.
The youngest wizard was last to step into the closet. He turned to close it when a look of horror crossed his face, he had forgotten the goblet. He didn’t have enough time to get it, so he did only thing he could. The knights and soldiers broke in to find an empty room save for a wooden table with a wooden goblet on it. The goblet flew across the room into a small wooden closet and disappeared into the darkness within. The closet shut tight.
England, the Present
“The closet is said to have been haunted ever since, some say cursed.”
Mr. and Mrs. Christensen exchanged a look. Mr. Rowland Higgins had invited them on a family vacation at his mansion for reasons unknown to them. Mr. Rowland was a Nobel laureate in Physics, but he was sounding more like J. K. Rowling or Tolkien right now.
“You believe that, Mr. Higgins? I am sure you must have tried to ascertain its date,” asked James.
“What do you think?” Higgins smiled. “The result of tests was total garbage: 3016. And there’s one more thing.”
“W-at” Victoria asked as she took a bite of a cookie.
Higgins leaned closer to the couple, obviously warming to his subject. “It was being used like any other closet. But about twelve years ago things started to happen. Mrs. Tibbons, my housekeeper, kept a few bottles of wine in the closet. A few days later, the wine was gone. The bottles reappeared, but they were filled with water. Another time, she kept some bread, flour, fish and other supplies for a feast, but they disappeared, too. Similarly, medicines, bedsheets, even combs had disappeared. Once when she was down for cleaning, she said she could hear strange voices from the closet, like someone knocking from within. She described it as a ‘storm’ raging inside the closet. And when she opened the closet, she was drenched in a wave of water.”
James and Victoria looked at each other like deer caught in the headlights. But before they could say anything the housekeeper came running in, fear all over her face.
“The boy is gone, sire.”
Both Higgins and his guests turned white. The boy was young Yodas Christensen, fondly named for his Dad’s favourite Star Wars character.
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Higgins asked as coolly as he could. But he suddenly realised the answer before he even completed the question: “The Closet.”
They ran to the boy’s room as fast as they could. The boy was not in his room, and the bedsheet was missing. There were clear blood trails from the bed to the closet. The closet was open. It was black as night inside, no shelves, no nothing, except for a small red crayon.
“He loved to sketch and color.” and Victoria burst into tears.
* * *
Young Yodas opened the closet and a man fell out onto the floor. He was bleeding at hands, feet and chest. Yodas pulled him to his bed. Surprisingly, the body felt too light.
Yodas reached for the closet door instinctively and found on its shelf some cotton, antiseptic and a bedsheet. He washed the man’s wounds with it. He removed the blood-soaked shroud and dressed the man with the bedsheet, like a robe.
The little boy looked at his face with great reverence. He started to sketch the mesmerizing face of the man on the shroud, using his red crayon. When he had finished, his hands reached for man’s face, but as soon as he touched it, his hand went right through it. The body was gone. In its place was the complete likeness of the man bathed in bright white light. He was smiling at Yodas as he arose from the bed.
Yodas bowed his head. “Master, I’ve waited centuries for this.”
“Yes, you have. Forgive me for the burden I placed on you, but you were the only one who could carry it. You gave a sacrifice far greater than most others. And you shall be rewarded, Judas. Come.”
With those words, Jesus led Judas back into the closet. They were in a tomb, and someone was opening it from outside. Judas heard a scream and looked back: the housekeeper. But Judas wasn’t thinking about any of them now. He was thinking of how it all started with three great wizards, or the Three Wise Men, as history knows them.
Copyright © 2006 by Bewildering Stories
on behalf of the author
