DEDICATION
For my grandfather
Mario V. Marone
1912–1994
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The Curse
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
The Cave
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
The Giant
Chapter 7
The Gnome
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
The Forbidden Room
Chapter 10
Barlow Manor
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
The Door on the Cliff
Chapter 13
The Trials
Chapter 14
The Witch of the Woods
Chapter 15
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
CHAPTER 1
Some tales are worth telling. Of all the children living in the Obern House Orphanage, none knew this more than young Vincent Elgin, he of the fair skin and the sad eyes, the disheveled hair and the honest smile. The poor boy arrived at his new home knowing full well what could be found in a tale. He was sure of it, as sure as the sun’s rise each morning, as definite as the delicate fall of leaves onto the crisp grass every autumn. In the lonely days of his life spent within these aged walls, of which the mice had uncontested rule, it was what kept him looking out the filthy attic window for hours at a time, day or night, out at the vast sprawl of colorful land stretching and sloping for miles on end, out at the distant houses and buildings and people populating almost every inch in sight, at the cars zooming by, tearing up asphalt and ripping through deep puddles reflecting the cloud-cluttered sky, at life in full swing under the steady and sweltering sun or the cool gaze of a pale moon. It was what kept him peering out past the rusting orphanage gates while the other children played in the yard behind him, the house up on its steep hill looming menacingly over them all. It was what kept his dreams from becoming nightmares. It was what kept the despair out.
The other children, who Vince believed should thrive on hope as well—in a place such as this, what else was there?—seemed to do anything but that. From day one, it appeared to him that they were content with where they were, with no real expectations of ever leaving the orphanage. Here dreams were like the dust on the floorboards; they went trampled and unnoticed. For most, this was their home, and there would never be another, so why hope otherwise? Instead, they orchestrated their games, completed their lessons, groaned through their chores, and ate their bland meals, all without ever gazing into the distance, as Vince always did. No, these children had given up long ago.
He found it all quite sad really. Didn’t they want out? Didn’t they want families of their own? Adventure, love, life? There had to be more than this. Then again, maybe that was because he was the only one who had ever known a life beyond the orphanage. Unlike the other children, he hadn’t lived under its dilapidated and oppressive roof his whole life. He’d arrived later, just two years ago, when he was ten years old.
“Tell us again, Vince,” the children would say each night just before bed, the second their newest “brother” slipped under his thin, moth-eaten covers. “Tell us how you got here.”
And for the first six months or so of his stay, he would do just that. He would sit up in bed, scrunch the pillow behind him as a cushion against the metal headboard, clear his throat, and begin his tale for all the eager children in the room.
“It was a cold night. A very, very cold night.” He always began in his best storytelling voice, which was rather hushed and enigmatic and also soothing; it had been his mother’s bedside voice. “There was already a foot of snow on the ground with another foot yet to come. It was heavy snow, the kind you can’t lift with a shovel without straining your back, but absolutely perfect for packing snowballs. I sat in the living room by the fire while my parents were talking in the kitchen; they had been conducting secret conversations for a while now, going back weeks, maybe months. They always kept it to a whisper, but I still tried to hear as much as possible. However, on this night more than ever, I was listening as hard as I could, blocking out everything else so that it was almost as if I were in the room with them. I knew something wasn’t right. I could hear it in their voices.
“‘We shouldn’t have come here,’ Mother said. Her panic was clear; it was in every word she spoke, tiny vibrations that buzzed my ears. ‘We’re putting him in danger. What kind of parents are we?’ Meanwhile, all this time, I could hear Father pacing back and forth, back and forth, the wood creaking beneath his feet. He was a small man, but he had big footsteps. ‘I need time,’ he said somewhat desperately. ‘I have to think. I’ll figure this all out. Don’t worry. I will never let you down.’”
This was actually how Vince remembered it, every action, every word. There wasn’t a single truth he had to stretch. Of course it wasn’t much of a tale yet either—the other children never really cared much for this part, not when they knew what came next—but he felt it needed to be said, for the impact of what followed as well as for selfish reasons: these were his final moments with them, the final moments before everything changed. It was the very last time he was part of a real family.
“I just sat there playing with the fire,” Vince would go on, imitating his actions with the poker by thrusting his arm and waving his hand. He used only one hand while telling the tale because with the other he always kept his fingers crossed, as if this might change some aspect of the story. By crossing his fingers, he believed he had some kind of advantage, as if he could manipulate fate and change history, perhaps will something into being. It was like a wish or prayer. “I poked the logs over and over, watching the sparks fly and the wood crumble. Every now and then I threw another log in so that the flames wouldn’t die. I crumpled newspaper just as my father had taught me and tossed that in too. I liked the way it burned; it seemed like those colors didn’t belong—blues and greens. There is something mesmerizing about a fire.” He usually paused here, his thoughts momentarily carrying him away until another child coughed or shifted in bed, causing the stiff mattress to creak. “Still”—he went on—“my parents continued to talk. It seemed like hours, their words growing louder and more desperate. ‘I can’t do this any longer. I’m taking him,’ Mother finally said. ‘Where? Where else can we go? We have no one,’ Father pointed out. ‘Vincent can stay with his grandfather.’ For almost a full minute after this comment, no one spoke. Then, finally, Father said, ‘I . . . it’s been too long. You know that.’”
“Come on, get to the good part,” the impatient children would interrupt. Usually it was Anthony, the only other boy his age, shy by seven months, and the closest thing Vince had to a best friend in this place. He was the chubby troublemaker of the Obern House, sneaking out of the room at night to steal some food or place some booby traps for the adults who worked there or rummage through their belongings. The children in the orphanage loved him to pieces. Besides Vince’s stories, Anthony’s antics and humor were the only distractions in the house.
Still, the comment always bothered Vince. The good part, he thought. They think it’s the good part.
Regardless, he went on.
“Mother and Father kept glancing out the windows, pulling the blinds and curtains aside, checking for something. It was nonstop throughout the night. They couldn’t stop looking even though there was absolutely nothing in sight. Just snow, constant snow. Every now and then Father would freeze and bring his finger to his lips. ‘Shhh. Do you hear something?’ But we didn’t. Not yet. What were we listening for? At one point Mother came over and sat beside me.
She looked very sad. She put her arm around me and pulled me close. ‘I love you,’ she said, giving me a kiss atop my head. ‘You have a long and great life ahead of you. There’s nothing you can’t do. I want you to know that. Never forget it.’”
Every time Vince got to this part he nearly cried. He could feel the lump in his throat growing by the second until it felt like a baseball with nowhere to roll. His eyes watered, his voice cracked as if his words were being sliced by the syllable, but still, he had to say it. He said it for them; he said it for himself. And when his father came over, it was even worse.
“Father picked me up and brought me to the window. I remember his arm wrapped tightly around me. I was focused on his hand, the gold band glistening on his ring finger. I loved that ring. He told me he would one day give it to me like his father gave it to him. He caught me staring at it. ‘I wore this ring a long time before I understood what it really meant. One day I just might explain it all to you, and when I’m done, it will be yours because you will be ready. You will understand.’ He lifted my head with a finger beneath my chin. ‘Look out there,’ he said, guiding my eyes. I listened to him, looking out at the falling snow, how hard it came down, how fast. It seemed to freeze absolutely everything, even time. ‘Out there is a world where anything’s possible. Anything. If you think it, it can happen. There are places on this globe so amazing that the sun refuses to set. There are people who’ve seen things that no one else on earth has. There are worlds within worlds. I know this now. I just believed too late. Your grandfather—’ He shook his head slowly, sadly. ‘Don’t be like me, Vincent. Don’t ever let anybody tell you otherwise. Okay? Don’t just see the world; see through it. That’s where you’ll find the answers.’” Vincent repeated this emphatically. He wanted the other children to believe this too. Deep down, he felt he was reaching them, just as his father had reached him on that sorrowful night.
“Then he sent me off to bed.”
The children of the orphanage were waiting for this cue. They sat up, eyes wide. They knew what came next.
“I woke up when I heard the noise. Whump, whump, whump. It wasn’t morning yet, far from it, but everything was so bright. I felt incredibly warm, as if the sun had fallen atop the house and rolled across the roof. What was going on? I jumped out of bed and ran out of the room. It was like running headfirst into a nightmare. Fire was everywhere, climbing up the walls, stretching across the ceiling. Everything was crackling, collapsing. There was so much smoke, clouds and clouds of it. And still the noise. Whump, whump, whump. I couldn’t move. I was trapped, once more mesmerized by the fire. But this one was different from the one I poked. This one raged. It carried fear with it, menace. The fire closed in. It was coming for me. Like it was alive and hungry. I should have done something, I should have been smarter, but I was so scared, so utterly scared I couldn’t move. I felt the hairs on my body begin to singe. My eyes watered; my throat burned. I was sure I was going to die. Then, out of the flames, came Mother. I couldn’t believe it. Her clothes, her hair were on fire. She was coughing horribly. But still, she grabbed me and shoved me out the bedroom window and into the snow. ‘Run!’ she screamed as she stumbled through the opening after me. ‘Where’s Dad?’ I called, but again, she just told me to run. The snow was deep; I had trouble lifting my legs. Outside, the noise was even louder. Whump, whump, whump. What was it? Where was it coming from? Then I looked up and saw it.”
This was what the children wanted. They didn’t want reality, although reality was the foundation from which the tale grew. Indeed there was a fire to Vince’s family’s home. And indeed his mother, already badly burned, saved his life. But what he said next, he said because he knew it was what the children wanted. And in turn, that was what Vince wanted too. He wanted a reason to tell this story over and over again. All his hope depended on it.
“I looked up,” Vince told the children, “I looked up, and I saw something unbelievable. I saw the most hideous thing I had ever seen. Flying through the air, just above my head and home, was a dragon. It was bloodred and had not one, not two, but seven fire-breathing heads.”
“Wow!” one of the boys called out.
“Crazy!” said another.
Anthony jumped out of bed. “Awesome! So awesome!”
“Quiet,” came a chorus.
“Its tail was longer than some streets, and it was spiked on the end. It thrashed wildly, like an unmanned fire hose, knocking down the thickest of trees with one swipe. As the dragon circled the house, I realized it was its wings that I heard, the constant beating of them. The span must have been a hundred feet long. Maybe more. Probably way more. I couldn’t believe it. I stood there dumbstruck, the fire behind me forgotten. My mother crawled to me in the snow, her skin smoking. I thought she was going to make it. I could’ve sworn she would. ‘Where’s Dad?’ I said again, almost in a trance. But there was no need, for at that moment I saw him. He was on the crumbling roof. He had a sword in his hand, its steel reflecting the flames. He was going to save us.” Vince paused for effect, taking in the absolute silence of the room. “But then the dragon spotted him. Its yellow eyes grew wide. One of the heads opened its mouth, ready to breathe a fatal flame. Father didn’t have much time. The mouth opened wider, then wider still. A light erupted from deep down its throat. It had to be now. In a flash, Father swung his weapon and sliced off its tongue. Zwoom!”
“Eww!” a child from the end of the room yelled.
“Nasty!”
Anthony, still out of bed, enraptured and clutching his blanket, again yelled, “Awesome!”
“He did this three more times before the dragon finally fled in pain. And as it did, Father looked back to me, nodded, and took off after the beast.”
“Did he catch it?” Vince was always asked.
“I don’t know. I never saw him again.”
And this was true. In the hospital later that night Vince’s mother passed away. She was one room over from him, and he could swear that when she died, he knew it, the exact moment, because it felt as if his own heart had stopped.
Vince’s father, however, wasn’t found. Vince never did see him emerge from the house, as he told in his tale, and the authorities never discovered a single trace of him in the ashes of their home. No bones, no teeth, not even the gold ring Vince had been promised. And for Vince, this changed everything. This was where he found his hope. This was where his tale grew.
But this next part he always kept private. Mostly because it remained fluid and elusive. As hard as he tried, he just couldn’t find a way to make it stick. He knew his father had survived the fire; he just knew it: there was no other explanation. But where did he go? Why was he on the run? Why didn’t he ever come back for him? Not even a card or letter. Did he know Mother died? Did he know Vince lived?
Because of these unknowns, the tale always veered wildly from here. He considered his father’s being a government spy or a man wrongfully accused, impossible to open up any form of communication lest he be caught. Maybe he was taken hostage by some fanatical group. Or what if he witnessed a horrendous crime and had to go into hiding? It could be anything; why not a dragon? All that really mattered, all he really needed to believe, was that his father was still alive and that he would one day come for him.
“Wow, do you really think there are dragons?” a boy asked, falling back onto his pillow, a look of deep satisfaction on his face.
“Maybe in caves or volcanoes,” someone answered.
“I bet there are. There has to be.”
“Could you imagine? I’d try to keep one as a pet.”
“Are you crazy?” Anthony said. “You can’t do that. It’d swallow you whole. No chewing or anything. Just—gulp!—right down.”
“Okay, okay, enough talk. We should get to bed,” Vince told them.
“But wait, tell us another one.”
They were always so eager to hear more. With each telling, the children seemed happier and happier. And Vince knew exactly why. They were
taken away. Through his tales, they escaped, as if through a hatch. In those tantalizing minutes the orphanage was left far behind them. It made the tale worth telling. But as more time passed, wearing away at him and everything he hoped for, Vince wished someone would tell him a story, if only once, so that he too could get away.
“How about one of you?” he said hopefully. “Let’s hear a tale from someone else for once.”
But no one ever volunteered, and Vince knew it was because they had nothing from which to draw. This life was all they knew. And worst of all, because of it, they had nothing left to believe in.
“No one?” He looked around the room. “No one?”
They all shook their heads, eyes drifting anywhere but toward Vince.
“Anthony?”
He too looked away. “I can’t tell stories, Vince. You know that.”
Unfortunately, Vince did. “Well, like I said, it’s late. Maybe I’ll tell you another tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 2
The screen door of the orphanage creaked closed, and the outdoor air was somewhat of a reprieve from the house’s claustrophobic nature. Outside, the world opened up.
Beyond the orphanage gates, Vince could see the town spread out at the bottom of the hill, all the activities of daily life, all the possibility. Every day he didn’t try to just see it all; he tried to see through it all, as his father had said to him. He tried to see all the hidden lives, all the secrets and adventures that everyone kept locked away. There were mysteries, he knew, around every corner, inside every glove box, or behind every closet and steering wheel. Out there beyond those gates something was waiting for him: the answers he so desperately needed.
Vince jumped down from the rotting front porch, clearing the three steps in a single bound. On most days, first thing in the morning, he chose to walk the grounds of the orphanage, Anthony usually tagging along, prattling away as if everything were fine and normal, like two kids trekking through their neighborhood on the way to the park.
The Dyerville Tales Page 1
