A selection from "The Candle Room" by James S. Dorr

The Candle Room

by James S. Dorr

I

 had come to love Niki deeply. I didn’t know why. She was slender, hollow-eyed—really, most people would call her skinny—believing in so many things so easily whereas I’d describe myself more as a skeptic. But still, I did love her, and so, when I passed the shop again, that I’d passed I don’t know how many times before, and glanced in the window and saw it sold candles, I stopped and wondered.

Niki liked candles.

I felt for my wallet. I didn’t have very much money to spend, but. . . .

Hell, Niki loved candles. She collected them. And, as I’ve already said, I loved Niki.

And so I went inside. There were shelves of candles lining the walls. Tallow candles. Beeswax candles. Paraffin candles — petroleum candles that stayed lit even when soaked with water. And books on candles.

I glanced at the books. There were books on candle making, histories of candles, uses of candles at social events like funerals and weddings, and candle magic — that was Niki’s thing. One book was titled Birthdays and Candles.

Niki’s birthday was on this weekend. She didn’t expect me to get her anything, though I had plans. I’d picked up tickets for the theatre and put aside something for supper afterward. That kind of thing.

But now, surrounded by candles, I thought — why not a present too?  She’d invited me up that evening so, taking a quick look inside my wallet, I let my eyes travel over the shelves, taking in prices, colors, and materials. There were molded candles, finely carved candles, and one odd gray candle, maybe about eighteen inches tall, shaped to look like a gnarled little man in a monk’s robe of some sort. Niki would love it.

I picked it up from its shelf to take a closer look. Its features were wizened, a little distorted, almost cartoonish, and its long beard was thick and rope-like. The whole image was a little — almost a little frightening. 

“You like our troll?”

“I—I’ll admit I jumped, for I hadn’t heard the clerk come up behind me. “I—uh—I’m Roger Wenham.”  I held up the candle. “You mean it’s supposed to be a troll?  Like one of those creatures who live under bridges?”

“Well, that’s what I call it,” the sales clerk said. “It’s one of a kind. Part of a lot we got at an estate auction.”  She paused as if she were thinking, then suddenly grinned. “Well, this is sort of silly, really, but there was a lot of weird stuff that came with it. Mirrors and figurines, although most of these were sold to other buyers. But there were other things too, like catalogs, one of which said this was a troll, a sort of an ice troll, except not the Earth kind like in The Three Billy Goats Gruff and all that. This kind lives in frozen caves on Neptune. Except it’s—it’s like in a different dimension.”

“You mean sort of a ‘New Age’ Neptune?”  Niki would like this.

The sales clerk laughed. “Well, that’s what I tell people. You saw our shelf of books on magic?  Some of them came from the same auction. But this candle is just a kind of novelty item, really. So it’s not too expensive.”  She paused and smiled again.

I looked at the price tag. It was inexpensive. “My girlfriend would like it, though,” I said. “And maybe a book on magic as well, if it doesn’t cost much. She likes to use candles to tell people’s fortunes.”

The sales clerk nodded and found me a book on telling fortunes, one of the ones that had come with the odd, gray candle. I looked at its cover, old and faded. I thought, what the heck, maybe I’d have her wrap the candle up to give to Niki tonight, then maybe read the book myself — sometimes, like with this woman, I didn’t always quite know what Niki was talking about so, maybe, this book would help. Then I could give it to her as well on Saturday night, for her birthday proper.

“You know,” the clerk said when she’d rung up my purchases, “there’s a legend about these ice trolls.”  She winked as she handed me my receipt. “In the collection catalog, anyhow. When you looked at it, did you notice its mouth?  Like it was singing. Like it and its fellows who’ve gotten to Earth here — you know, the ones that do live under bridges — miss the others who stayed on Neptune. Whatever their planet is. And so they sing — except this one, somehow, was turned into a candle.” 

I laughed with her this time, though somewhat uncertainly. As with a lot of Niki’s teasing, I never knew quite what I was supposed to take seriously and what was just joking. But this I did know, as I put the candle under my arm and took it with me to her apartment.

Niki would love it.

Niki’s apartment was really a loft—a drafty walk-up that took up most of its ageing building’s entire fourth level. It had been partitioned into irregular rooms, who knows how long back, with walls that as often as not still showed bare lath. But Niki had made it her home, with some walls covered by tapestries, others with posters, and still more with bookcases forming dividers within the divisions. It was into one of these rooms that she led me after she’d unwrapped her present.

This was her Candle Room. That’s what she called it. The only furnishings it contained consisted of the cushions we sat on, and her candles.

Rows and rows of colored candles, in various stands, some in high candelabra against the walls, others in old-fashioned mirrored sconces, others in low bases more toward the center. Some were lighted, but most were kept out, keeping the room very dim.

In the center of the Candle Room she placed her new candle, facing it toward us. Around it she placed three colored candles in a triangular configuration.

She struck a long wooden match on the floor and lit the three candles, first the gold one, then the white one, finally the red. “The red one’s our love,” she said.

She placed the burnt match into a shallow bowl next to where we sat. “I’ll tell you our fortune.”

“Okay,” I said as I tried to look serious.

“Really,” she said. She handed me a brass candle snuffer. “I want you to help me. First use this to put out the candles on the walls, so only the ones I just lit are burning, then come back beside me. I know you’re sensitive — I can read people. You’re much more sensitive than most men.”

I did as she asked, then leaned over to kiss her, but she gently pushed me back. “Later,” she said. “This is important. Try to be serious. You and I form a sort of nexus that magic can flow through. That’s how I’ll be able to find what the future holds for us, but only if you concentrate with me.”

I nodded. “Okay.”  I tried to concentrate on the candles, the three flames dancing. The larger candle in the middle, dark, almost looking like some sort of wizard overseeing a ceremony that went on around him.

“Good,” Niki said. “Now look at the flames. The gold candle first — that represents money. Worldly possessions.”

I watched as she chanted under her breath, concentrating on the flame. Slowly it seemed to waver a little, then, picking up speed, the flame seemed to move in a sort of spiral before settling into a

side-to-side motion.

“Where you work,” she said. “You have a rival?  Someone you think is trying to get a promotion you’re after?”

I looked away from the candle to her face. “Yes,” I said. I’d never told her about Joe Bradcliff, one of the guys in my division, who had been sucking up to the boss a bit more than usual lately.

“He may well get it,” she said. “But don’t worry. That spiral the flame made — that indicates that something’s happening behind your back, but the left to right pattern it went into afterward suggests some kind of change of surroundings. My guess is that he’ll get the promotion but, unknown to either of you just now, it involves a transfer to a different city.”

I laughed a little, in spite of myself. “You mean, if I got it, I’d be the one who’d have to go away?”

“Exactly,” she said. “Now should we go on to the red candle?  The one that’s our love?  Or would you rather concentrate on the white one first?  That’s the one that represents life.”

I looked back to the triangle of candles and now all the flames were moving from side to side. Then, suddenly, the flame of the white one threw out a spark.

I felt Niki’s hand squeeze mine. I looked up again and saw she looked worried.

“The life-candle,” she said. “First, all three candle flames are wavering, indicating that we might both take a trip as well. But that spark — it means some kind of reversal. Perhaps even danger. We have to be cautious.”

“Will we be together?” I whispered. “I mean, if we go away, will it be on a trip together?”

“Shhhh. I can’t tell yet. But now I want you to concentrate hard on the flame of the red one. That’s the one that’s important.” 

She gently squeezed my hand, while I stared as hard as I could

at the red candle’s flame. I watched as its wavering seemed to slow. As a point of bright, white light seemed to form at the tip of its wick, growing hotter and hotter. Hanging motionless, I don’t know how long.

Then I heard Niki sigh. A sigh of happiness.

“Here,” she whispered. “Snuff out the candles. The gold one first, then the white, and the red one last. Carefully, though, so you don’t splash any wax.”  When I had done that, she kissed me and dragged me onto the floor, her arms around me.

“The bright light,” she whispered, “—it showed that our love is growing. Whatever happens, we will be together. In spirit, perhaps, at first—I can’t be sure of that. Whether we’ll go away together. But, later on, if we remain faithful, together in body.”

Together in body.

For now we made love, lit only by the electric light from the apartment’s hallway, shining through the room’s open lathwork. Later Niki relit the wall sconces, then went to the kitchen and brought us back coffee.

“I love you, Niki,” I said. “I really do.”

“Yes,” she answered. She kissed me softly. “You did well tonight — I mean concentrating. Even the little troll-candle agrees. See how his mouth seems to form the word ‘yes’?  And I love you for that, too, even more than I loved you before.”

It was chilly when I finally left Niki’s apartment. The weather was turning well into autumn, but inside I was warm, scarcely feeling the wind of October, scarcely minding that since the buses had stopped running by now, I’d have to walk home.

I thought of Niki and her Candle Room. Of flames and fortunes—I felt the book in my coat pocket and thought of the troll-candle. Bearded, gray men that lived on Neptune in its ice caves.

Then I saw him.

Not the candle, but a real gray man, hunched and bent and wearing a billowing, hooded cloak, scurry into the alley a half block ahead.

I ran to the dead-end alley and looked down its length at garbage cans and trash, shrouded in shadow. No men of any sort, hunched or standing straight, gray or in color.

I listened. I heard nothing. No sounds of scurrying. No sounds even of breathing except my own, until, far away, I heard a car horn honk.

I shrugged. I was dreaming. Awake, on my feet, but still dreaming after a wonderful evening. And if I was going to do that, I thought, as I scurried to my own apartment, I might as well do my dreaming in bed, and do it of Niki.