Chap­ter 5 begins with Charles Hal­loway stand­ing in front of the saloon’s dou­ble doors, a heavy weight of uncer­tain­ty and dread press­ing upon him. The still­ness of the night ampli­fies his feel­ings, as if some­thing sin­is­ter is about to unfold. The air itself feels charged, pos­si­bly hold­ing the rem­nants of past fires or the fore­bod­ing pres­ence of an impend­ing Ice Age that might change the world in unimag­in­able ways. These thoughts swirl in Charles’s mind, each one dark­er and more trou­bling than the last. He won­ders if Time, in its relent­less march, is qui­et­ly drain­ing away into an abyss, eras­ing everything—memories, pur­pose, and life itself. With every moment, the feel­ing of unease grows, and Charles’s reluc­tance to step for­ward reflects his inner strug­gle between con­fronting the unknown and avoid­ing the unset­tling feel­ings claw­ing at him from with­in.

His atten­tion is drawn to a fig­ure across the street—a man in a dark suit, his move­ments slow and delib­er­ate as he rolls up paper while car­ry­ing a brush and buck­et. The man is whistling a haunt­ing, almost melan­cholic tune that drifts across the street to where Charles stands, his unease deep­en­ing as the sound grows clear­er. The song, a Christ­mas car­ol, feels out of place in the Octo­ber night, evok­ing an over­whelm­ing sense of sad­ness in Charles’s heart. The famil­iar lyrics of “I Heard the Bells on Christ­mas Day” res­onate in his chest, but rather than evok­ing the warmth of the hol­i­day, they stir mem­o­ries of inno­cence lost and a world weighed down by suf­fer­ing. The song’s soft, sor­row­ful tone seems to mock the joy it should inspire, and Charles is filled with an emo­tion­al tur­moil that mir­rors the sad­ness in the music. The clash between the tra­di­tion­al cheer of the car­ol and the cold, unfor­giv­ing atmos­phere of the night adds to his grow­ing dis­qui­et.

The haunt­ing car­ol con­tin­ues to echo in his mind as Charles steps cau­tious­ly into the night. Drawn by an inex­plic­a­ble force, he cross­es the street toward the man, whose back is turned as he pastes a poster on the inside of an emp­ty shop. The strange fig­ure, with his sharp, dis­cern­ing gaze, turns to face Charles. There is some­thing unset­tling about his presence—an unspo­ken famil­iar­i­ty that sends a chill down Charles’s spine. The man extends a hand toward him, and Charles notices the strange detail—the fine black hair cov­er­ing the palm of his hand. A shiv­er runs through Charles as the man waves his hand, an almost dis­mis­sive ges­ture before he slips around the cor­ner and dis­ap­pears into the shad­ows. The air seems to grow cold­er, and Charles, left stand­ing in the street, feels an over­whelm­ing sense of dis­com­fort, unsure of what just tran­spired.

Inside the shop, the atmos­phere is even more bizarre. Two sawhors­es stand beneath a sin­gle spot­light, sup­port­ing a mas­sive block of ice, its shim­mer­ing green-blue tint almost oth­er­world­ly. The block of ice cap­tures Charles’s atten­tion imme­di­ate­ly, and he is drawn to it, as if some invis­i­ble force is pulling him clos­er. A plac­ard beside the ice proud­ly announces “Cooger Dark­’s Pan­de­mo­ni­um Shad­ow Show,” teas­ing fan­tas­ti­cal and mys­te­ri­ous attrac­tions, includ­ing “THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD.” The words stir a deep sense of nos­tal­gia with­in Charles, remind­ing him of his youth when such grandiose illu­sions were a part of the won­der and mag­ic that filled his mem­o­ries. As a boy, he had been mes­mer­ized by magi­cians who dis­played such won­ders, and this was no dif­fer­ent, except for the unease it now gen­er­at­ed with­in him. The sense of won­der, once filled with excite­ment, now felt taint­ed with uncer­tain­ty.

Charles con­tin­ues to stare at the ice, and the longer he looks, the more he real­izes that it is not entire­ly emp­ty. With­in the ice, there is a dis­tinct shape, a form that seems to emerge as if the ice itself is hold­ing something—shaped like the fig­ure of a woman. This shape, frozen and seem­ing­ly pre­served, exudes a sense of mys­tery and allure, as though the very ice is hold­ing back some­thing pow­er­ful and oth­er­world­ly. The cold, hard exte­ri­or of the ice con­trasts sharply with the warmth that Charles begins to feel radi­at­ing from with­in, almost as if the ice itself is alive. This paradox—a frozen object exud­ing warmth—draws him clos­er, his body almost invol­un­tar­i­ly step­ping for­ward. Despite the chill in the air, the warmth from with­in the ice seems to call to him, an invi­ta­tion to dis­cov­er what lies hid­den beneath its sur­face. The woman’s form inside, seem­ing­ly trapped in a frozen world, beck­ons with a strange bril­liance, cast­ing an eerie light in the night. The vision is both unset­tling and cap­ti­vat­ing, leav­ing Charles trans­fixed by its beau­ty and mys­tery. Each moment spent star­ing at the ice deep­ens his sense of fas­ci­na­tion, even as a part of him recoils from the strange bril­liance of the frozen fig­ure before him.