There it was. He just had to bend down and grab it.
Vincent reached over, expecting the Tall Man to turn around at any second. Do it, I dare you. Turn around. He stretched for the bow, his fingers writhing. He touched it with the tips of his fingers. Just another inch.
He grabbed it. And the Tall Man didn’t even budge.
Just as carefully, Vincent began his walk back to the horse, a smile across his face. One down.
Turn back. Look at him.
Vincent froze.
His own voice repeated in his head, commanding him: Look . . . at . . . him.
As if compelled, Vincent glanced back over his shoulder. He just had to look back. And it was then that he saw the Tall Man’s head begin to turn. It turned slowly, nearly spinning all the way around.
He has no face! He has no face!
Indeed it was a blur, his features smudged into nonexistence. And yet the Tall Man must have seen him clearly.
Vincent ran, nearly stumbling, and the Tall Man leaped to his feet. A towering phantom, he hunted his prey, his arms reaching out while his gangly legs moved far quicker than was possible. His limbs skittered across the ground like an arachnid’s. Head to the sky, the Tall Man let out a haunted moan.
“Orin! Orin! Hurry!”
The horse came charging through the woods to Vincent. “Get on! Quickly!”
Vincent reached his horse, jumped on, and took off. Over his shoulder he watched as the Tall Man gained on them. Chased down, there was no doubt that they would be caught, and this time there was nothing to throw. It was too late.
Think, Vincent said to himself. Think!
The gold book bounced in its sack across his back. The King of the Birds said the Tall Man stirs only for something special. He said he would want me especially. Why? Vincent placed his hands on the book. Gold. Believing it was his only chance, he pulled it from the leather sack. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You have helped me more than you will ever know.” With a kiss to the cover, he tossed it to the ground.
The Tall Man spotted the gold pages immediately and engulfed it in his wobbly arms. He drew it close to his body, moaning an odd and grotesque song as he rocked back and forth, his arms wrapped completely around his wiry frame.
As he rode away, Vincent watched the Tall Man returning to his place beneath the tree, swatting at the hanging bodies, ripping off a chunk of rotting flesh, and throwing it into whatever mouth he possessed. Then he sat with the gold book resting in his lap. It was the last Vincent would ever see of them.
“Was that the Tall Man? What was he?” Orin shouted, his voice strained with horror.
“I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to ever see him again. He was in me, Orin. I felt him crawling around inside my head. He didn’t want to leave.”
“The book, its secrets—”
“I had to do it. It was our only chance.”
Vincent was saddened at the loss of the book—the only comfort he possessed in this world—but he had what he had come for and knew he must now move on. In the clear, miles from the Tall Man’s tree, they rested. At times he thought he could still hear the Tall Man slinking through his thoughts.
In the morning Vincent released the raven from the cage.
With the bow and quiver of arrows slung snugly over his shoulder and a poor night’s sleep behind him, he followed the bird through the forest all day. By the time night fell, the raven’s midnight body had been lost in the canopy of darkness.
“I can hardly see it,” Orin said.
And as if it had understood, the raven screeched.
“Follow its cries; we can’t be very far.”
Ears perked, Orin did just that. And in the late hours of the fog-ridden night, the bird led them to a decimated part of the forest. Trees were toppled over and lying atop one another, while others seemed to be ripped straight from the ground, leaving massive holes in their wake. Others, looking like African baobabs, were thrust back into the earth upside down, roots sprawling in the misty air. There wasn’t an animal about, and the ground was curiously soft. Ahead there was a clearing, as if the forest had been scalped, and here the moonlight shone down from the heavens, illuminating a circle of statues.
Orin slowed, trotting clockwise around the peculiar sculptures, each one so heavy it sat lopsided in the sodden ground, some deeper than others. Vincent noticed they were men, all frozen in various states, looks of torture and anguish etched upon their faces. They were uncanny in their detail, as if a volcano had erupted and real people had been caught in the ash, captured for all eternity.
After circling, Vincent and Orin hesitantly followed the raven into the center of the stone ring. The bird pecked at the ground. All around them the fog thickened.
Vincent waited for Death, a chill across his spine. What was this place? And if the raven stopped, if this was where they were supposed to be, then where was Death?
“I’m not ready to die,” said Orin. “I can’t die like this, not as a horse.”
“When your time comes, my friend, I promise you, you will be a human again.”
Clouds shifted before the moon, and a foul cry penetrated the forest. Spooked, the raven took flight. Something was coming.
Vincent descended from the horse and searched through the fog and into the distance. And then he saw it. Death.
The psychopomp emerged from the darkness. Before such a petrifying presence, the fog lifted, sucked back into the sky. Whatever grass had managed to grow quickly shriveled; the dried leaves crumbled. In its presence, nothing lived.
But Death was not quite the vision that Vincent had expected to see. There was no skeleton in rags, no hood or scythe, no hovering wraith. Instead, Death was wrapped in bright white cloth. It was bound so tightly that the sickness beneath—the wasting away, the rotten core that bled through—was clear. Its legs were wrapped together so that Death walked oddly, a limping and slumping gait. Even the face was concealed in an almost sheer sheet of white, only blood, rich red blood, seeped through and was splattered in various spots. Death’s arm, free of any muscle, dragged a sword behind its emaciated figure. The sound of the blade scraping along the ground cut at Vincent’s soul.
Death entered the circle of statues, and Vincent swore he could hear them scream from within their stone tombs.
“The golden boy.” Death’s voice was neither male nor female, but a combination of the two. It was harsh, like glass continuously cut at the throat and severed the cords. “You’ve come for this.” It dropped the sword on the ground between them.
Vincent found that he could not speak. He was cold, so cold.
“Your end, shall it come now, will not be like most. I will not bring you where you are supposed to go. There will be nothing better waiting for you. No, if I choose you should die, I will keep you for myself.” It pointed to the statues surrounding them. “Like I did the rest who sought the sword. They are my special collection, my trapped souls. Are you sure this is the path you choose?”
Vincent nodded.
“You sacrifice much in this decision. If you walk away with the sword, there are worlds beyond death that you may never see. It is the rule.”
“I will not waver.”
“You won’t. But what of your friend?”
Death pulled away the white sheet covering its face. Its mouth was a deep dark hole that widened as it wailed in Orin’s direction.
Immediately the horse crumbled to his knees, and Vincent could see his friend’s soul being ripped from his body. Death was consuming him.
“It’s me!” Vincent screamed. “I challenged you, not him! Me!”
Death turned its gaze on him. “Then look into my eyes.”
With Orin moaning and writhing in pain, Vincent stared Death in the face. There were no eyes at which to glare, only eye sockets. They nearly engulfed the entire face. The nose was a hole to match, same as the mouth, which continued to feast on the soul of his friend. Nothing but black holes on a hollowed face of oozing flesh.
Vincent tried to look away but couldn’t. Something, an unnatural force far stronger than anything of this world, restrained him. He stared into Death’s eyes, and it was like he was absorbed by them. He felt his consciousness ripped from his skull and pulled into the darkness, falling into a never-ending pit of despair. There he saw the most horrific images he would ever see. Things that would keep him up nights for the rest of his life. He saw sickness, torture, darkest hate, insanity, brutality. He saw plagues and famine, war and disease. He saw Stella alone and broken. He saw Orin descending closer and closer to death. He saw his mother, struck by the witch in the doorway of his home. He saw the sadness in her eyes, the fear; he felt the pain coursing through her. He saw her life as not her own.
He wasn’t prepared for this. He wanted to curl up and weep, sink into the earth like the statues and vanish. His knees weakened; his pulse raced. His throat tightened, and his eyes began to roll. He was dying.
Meanwhile Death’s eyes penetrated Vincent’s. Death wandered past them casually, touring Vincent’s past. It was judging him. It saw his flight from home and his capture by the giant and his escape from him. It saw the encounters with the gnome and the dwarf and Mr. Barlow. It saw his walk through the doorway on the cliff. It saw the Tall Man. It saw Vincent, at this very moment, staring into Death’s eyes.
Vincent felt a rush of air, an explosion in his head, and he collapsed in a heap. Beside him, Orin’s soul rushed back into his body, bowling him over.
Slowly Death replaced the white covering. “You are worthy,” it said, standing above Vincent. “My touch cannot take you just yet.” As if to demonstrate, it reached down with a single finger and touched Vincent’s face. The skin burned, but he didn’t die. And that was how Vincent came to bear the scar he was to carry for the rest of his life.
“The sword is yours to take, as is the witch’s soul. However, when we meet again, my touch will not be so forgiving.” And with that, Death left, heading back into the dark of the wilderness.
Vincent didn’t speak for some time. Nor did Orin. They couldn’t. In the center of the circle, they huddled close and slept for two full days.
When they finally woke, they felt healed. They felt new and strong. Vincent especially. Having faced Death and survived, he vibrated with life. It was a new day.
With both the sword and the bow in his possession, he released the crow. It was time he faced the witch.
CHAPTER 14
Deeply engrossed in the story, Vince had nearly forgotten he even had an audience until the second he closed the book. With the story finished, some people simply stood and walked away, while a few others stayed and asked him to keep reading.
But Andrew waved them quiet, stating, “No, no, no. That’s quite enough. You all know the story.”
After some grumbling and groaning, everyone acquiesced. It sounded good to Vincent too. He wanted to read the final tale on his own, when he could really take it all in. His grandfather was so close now to finding the witch. How would it end?
“Come with me,” Andrew said in his weary voice when everyone finally backed away from Vince and spread out across the room. “I have something to show you.”
As Vince followed him out the door, the inhabitants were consumed by their own conversations, some of which he couldn’t help overhearing.
“I’m telling you, the cave collapsed,” he heard a man say. “I’ve seen it. No way anyone can dig through now. You would have to blow it up with dynamite.”
“I swam in the lake a handful of times in my youth. Definitely salty. Wait a minute, I just realized: could that be the blood?”
“You’re as crazy as he was!”
“I talked to the dwarf’s son some years ago. Showed me the cart. Not for sale. That guy doesn’t sell a thing. Nothing like his father.”
As Vince trailed Andrew up another flight of stairs, he couldn’t help smiling. The stories might have been fiction, but their effect was real enough.
He walked down a dimly lit hall with several identical doors on either side. When they reached the third door on the right, Andrew pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked it. But he didn’t turn the knob.
“This is your grandfather’s room—was your grandfather’s room. I haven’t gone through it yet. I was hoping you would come first. Figured you’d want to poke around. He didn’t have much, but you can take anything you’d like. I’ll be back in a bit.” He paused, scratching his scruffy chin. “Wait a second. Do you have a place to stay until the funeral tomorrow?”
Vince shook his head and cast his eyes to the grimy carpet. “I was thinking of maybe sleeping in the church.”
“What? On the steps? In the freezing cold? Look, I work late tonight, but I’m going to make a phone call and make sure you’re taken care of, okay? I have some good friends in this town. Practically family.”
Vince thanked Andrew for his kindness and watched as the large man vanished down the hall. He was glad his grandfather had been in such good hands.
Standing in the doorway now, he hesitated before going inside. What would he find in there? Was he supposed to be the one going through his grandfather’s things? It felt like something an adult should be doing.
A full minute later, when he finally had the strength to open the door and turn on the light, he found himself looking in at a small and tidy room. There didn’t seem to be much to his grandfather’s name, not even a picture frame. Had someone else already cleaned it out?
Lingering in the air was a sweet scent that carried Vince years back in time the moment he inhaled. It was undeniable; it was his grandfather. After all these years Vince had almost forgotten. His breathing sped up; his eyes watered; his hands trembled. It was almost as if his grandfather were still alive, still in this very room. They had just missed each other by a matter of days.
The moment he stepped through the door, the light flickered out overhead, casting the room in near darkness. Vince flipped the switch back and forth. No luck. The only illumination now came from the gray skies outside a small window on the far side of the room.
As he ventured deeper into the lengthy shadows, he saw something sitting on an end table. It was the only object that didn’t have its place in some drawer or closet. Or maybe this was its place. It was a small box, its lid half opened. Inside, something glistened.
He crept closer, his eyes adjusting to the shadows with each step. When he reached the table, he dropped slowly to his knees so that he was at eye level with the gleaming object. He picked up the box and brought it close to his face. Inside, he saw a gold ring.
He gently removed it and rolled the band over and over in his palm. Is it—? He wasn’t sure. It had been so long since he had seen his father’s ring. And it was dark in here, too dark. But for some reason that he could not explain, he didn’t want to bring it out into the light; he didn’t want to ask Andrew about it.
The ring was warm in his hand, like it just came from the fire. He slipped it on a finger on his left hand. It felt right, like it was meant for him. It had to be his father’s.
But how did it get here?
His father was in Dyerville, he realized. He had been in this very room: a final good-bye. And when it was time for him to go, he had left the ring behind; after all, it had originally belonged to Vince’s grandfather.
All Vince had to do now was just make sure he arrived at the funeral the next day without being spotted by Mrs. West. That was it. As long as she didn’t see him, he would be reunited with his father in less than twenty-four hours, these past few years nothing but a long and unfortunate detour. But she would be looking for him no doubt, especially at the funeral.
He would need a disguise.
Hanging on a hook on the back of his grandfather’s door was a ragged coat, not unlike what he pictured his grandfather purchasing from the dwarf in the story. Was this the same cloak? He grabbed it and left the room as quickly as he had entered.
Downstairs he ran into Andrew, who was stand
ing in the lobby with a boy a few years older than Vince. He had glassy eyes and a sweaty brow, a somewhat mature yet nervous teen.
“Done already?” Andrew asked. “Then again I suppose there wasn’t much to collect.”
“I have what I need,” Vince said.
“Good. I’m glad. If I come across anything else, I’ll make sure to send it to you. Now, this guy right here,” he said, clasping the teen on his shoulder, “is Christopher. You’ll be staying with him and his family tonight. Chris’s mother will take good care of you. Many years ago she took me in when I was lost. You’ll be in good hands.”
Vince thanked Andrew again, and the two boys made their way out of the building and into the icy streets. Vince huddled beneath the ragged coat, throwing its hood over his head.
“That thing is filthy,” Christopher said. “You look like a beggar or something.”
One of Mrs. West’s search party approached a few minutes later. Vince thought it might have been the guard at the front gate, but he couldn’t tell for sure because he thought it best to keep his head down and the hood over his eyes. Let’s see if this works.
“Have you seen this kid?” the man said, stopping the two of them in their tracks.
Vince peeked out and saw that the man was holding a picture of him standing with his arm around Anthony’s shoulders back at the orphanage. It seemed like ages ago.
“Well?” the man pressed, moving the picture back and forth in front of the two boys’ faces.
Vince shook his head and muttered a no. The man turned to Christopher.
“What about you? Might be a little something in it for you if you have any information. A nice juicy reward.”
Christopher’s eyes lit up at the comment. He began to move side to side, little steps of excitement.
Vince meanwhile felt completely exposed. This was never going to work.
“The chubby one?” Christopher asked.
“No, not the chubby one,” the man said, his scrutinizing eyes still locked on Vince. “The other one.”
“The chubby one looks like one of my brothers.”
The Dyerville Tales Page 18
