The Children's Crusade

by Carla Jablonski

  Then another grim idea leaped into his crowded brain: Something could have happened to her back in London. It wasn’t as if Ravenknoll Estate was the safest place for a barefoot girl who was a stranger to the city. Should he go back and see if she was all right?

  But how could he do that? He’d never traveled by hopscotch before. And it wasn’t as if he could draw a grid in the grass, even if he had any chalk.

  The first time Tim had traveled to Faerie, he’d had a guide and was led through a gate. After that, he’d used the Opening Stone his father, Tamlin, had given him. That seemed to help him travel from world to world. But he didn’t have the amulet on him. So how would he get home from Free Country?

  Tim stood and stretched. Better start searching for a way out, Tim, he told himself. You may have made one great big blunder.

  He climbed up a small hill to get a better view. He could see kids off to the east, splashing in a lagoon around what looked like a pirate’s ship. To the west he saw thick forest.

  He spotted a group of kids a few hills over. He’d go and ask them how to get home.

  He made his way toward the little hill through trees full of sweet-smelling fruit. All around him were beautiful and peaceful sights. The place was quiet and clean. Nothing like back home. Here he could hear himself think. Not that that was necessarily good. He could hear himself think much too loudly. And what he was thinking about was quickly reversing all the calming effects Free Country had wrought on him.

  He walked between the peach and apple trees. Funny, Tim observed, some of the fruit looks like it is rotting. He came out of the orchard and could now better see the group of kids. They were on top of a little hill.

  They look like they’re dressed for a play or a costume party, Tim observed. He glanced down at his dusty jeans and black T-shirt. I wonder if I’m underdressed.

  A tall dark-haired boy seemed to be the oldest—about fourteen—and he clutched a clipboard. He wore the kind of poofy shirt and black leggings Tim had seen actors wear in Shakespearean plays at school. A girl dressed like Peter Pan in green tights, green tunic, and feathered cap stood next to a girl in a long, old-fashioned blue dress with ruffles. A blond boy about Tim’s age stood nearby, wearing a tattered overcoat and striped, patched trousers. Well, at least someone else isn’t all fancied up, Tim thought. Perhaps the strangest kid of all was the one wearing a long linen tunic. He was quite short and one of his arms ended in a nasty-looking stump.

  “Anyway,” the boy in the poofy white shirt was saying, “when he, er, manifests, I shall go up to him and say ‘Welcome to Free Country, Timothy Hunter.’”

  Huh? They’re talking about me? Tim’s pace quickened.

  The Peter Pan girl covered her face and shook her head. “Kerwyn, really. You have got to be joking.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Kerwyn demanded.

  “First of all, you don’t call a proper wizard by name,” the girl replied. “Second of all, why should you be the one to greet him?”

  The girl in the old-fashioned dress nodded. “One finds oneself concurring with Katherine-Peter on this.”

  Tim wondered if her tightly wound blond curls gave her a headache. That could explain her snooty expression and voice.

  “Not Katherine-Peter,” the Peter Pan girl snapped. “Just Katherine. Sheesh!”

  The snooty girl rolled her eyes. “Katherine, then. It should be Wat who has the honor of initial address. He is the most well-mannered.” She bowed to the short, one-handed boy.

  So his name is Wat, Tim thought. What kind of name is Wat? He must have been teased a lot in school.

  Wat shook his head. “I must respectfully decline this honor, good lady. Public speaking suits me not.”

  Since they’re having so much trouble deciding who gets the great honor of greeting me, Tim thought, I’ll just introduce myself. Save them time arguing, which means I might get home sooner.

  “Uh, hello,” Tim called. He jogged the rest of the way up the hill toward them.

  None of them responded.

  “You see, Griselda,” Kerwyn said, “it should be me. And as I was saying, I shall go up to Timothy Hunter and say—”

  “Sorry to interrupt you,” Tim tried again. “But—”

  Kerwyn glared at Tim. “Will, er, someone please explain to this individual with the spectacles that he cannot hang about here? Daniel?”

  The boy with long blond hair and the tattered overcoat held up a fist. “Bugger off,” the boy snarled at Tim. “We’re waiting for someone important.”

  Tim took a few steps backward. This seemed to satisfy the group, and they turned their backs on him, making their circle a little smaller and tighter.

  What is up with these kids? Tim wondered.

  “Now where was I?” Kerwyn said.

  “You was about to greet Tim Hunter, Kerwyn,” Daniel said. “And then the minute you do so, I ask about Marya’s whereabouts.”

  “She may be with him,” Wat said. He lay his hand on Daniel’s arm. “Don’t worry so.”

  “Actually—” Tim began.

  Daniel whirled around, fight in his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you to back off, mate?”

  Tim held up his hands in a placating gesture. He took a few more steps backward, but he continued to listen. He needed to figure out what was going on.

  “Yes. Right. So I shall say, ‘Welcome to Free Country…’”

  “‘Mighty wizard,’” suggested Katherine.

  “‘Noble sir,’” said Daniel.

  “‘Magisterial mage,’” the little guy, Wat, added.

  “So which is it?” Kerwyn asked. He sounded exasperated.

  “How about ‘Hi, thanks for coming,’” Tim muttered. “‘And sorry we’re a bunch of rude sots.’”

  “A tricky question,” replied Griselda. “The fellow is a master of the magical arts. One must ascertain whether or not he derives income from this practice.”

  “I doubt that he does,” said Wat.

  “Why would that matter?” Kerwyn asked.

  “Etiquette would demand a different greeting were he in trade.”

  “Excuse me!” Tim said. Sheesh. Am I invisible or something?

  “Since he is not a merchant,” the stuck-up girl with the tight curls continued, “one would suggest you begin, ‘Welcome, Lord Thaumaturge.’”

  “Lord what?” the girl in green asked.

  My question exactly, Tim thought.

  “And then, of course,” Griselda continued, “you would present him with the keys to Free Country.”

  “Keys?” Kerwyn clutched his clipboard to his skinny chest. “We don’t have any keys.”

  Tim had had enough, despite Daniel’s threatening attitude.

  “I said, excuse me!” Tim poked Griselda on her shoulder. She shrugged him off, then waved her hand in the air as if she were shooing away a fly. She didn’t even bother to look at him.

  “A medal, then, or a ribbon,” she said, “some symbolic token of our affection and respect.”

  “Well, I’m not giving him one of my games,” Kerwyn said. “Maybe we can find him something in the library.”

  “Good idea. How about a first edition?” Griselda suggested. “My tutor was always quite pleased whenever he received such a gift.”

  Hm. A book sounds good, Tim mused, depending on what kind of story it is. “Why don’t you just ask me what kind of present I’d like?” he asked. He didn’t get an answer. By this time he had quit expecting one.

  Kerwyn looked worried. “We don’t have any first editions, do we?”

  “Well, you can’t just give him some old book,” Katherine argued.

  “I know!” offered Daniel. “Why don’t we give him Kerwyn’s talking stick. E’ll ’ave a lot of talking to do come the invocation.”

  Tim’s eyebrows rose. Invocation? What invocation? But he knew better than to ask.

  “Daniel, you really don’t have a clue, do you?” Katherine scoffed.

  They’re all clueless, Ti
m decided.

  Daniel looked ready to smack Katherine. “What did you say?” he demanded.

  Wat pushed his way between them. “Come, come, my friends,” he said in a soothing tone. “’Tis not meet that the one we intend to honor should find us squabbling.”

  “Wat is right,” said Kerwyn. “What matters most is our plan.”

  “Yes.” Wat nodded. “Soon enough all the children of the Bad World will be in Free Country.”

  Bad world? Did Wat mean London?

  At the mention of the Bad World, each of the kids shivered.

  “They kill children there,” Daniel said.

  “They think that because we’re smaller and weaker than they are that they can do whatever they want to us,” Katherine said.

  “In the Bad World,” Griselda added, “all children live by adult rules. They choose if we live or if we die…if we are to be beaten, starved, or put to work at the age of eight.”

  “Or younger,” Daniel said in a low voice.

  “With Timothy Hunter, we will have the power to end the tyranny,” Wat declared. “This is our mission. This is our crusade.”

  “Our crusade!” the others chimed in.

  “If we have Timothy we have magic,” Kerwyn said. “And if we have magic, we have the master gateway to allow in all the others.”

  All of the children nodded solemnly.

  “We will meet later, to finish choosing our words and ceremonies,” said Wat.

  And with that, the group dispersed without a glance at Tim.

  Tim stared after them. He felt completely invisible or at any rate deeply insignificant. “Bet this sort of thing never happens to John Constantine of the Trenchcoat Brigade,” he muttered. And Molly would never stand for their rudeness either.

  So now what? he wondered. How am I supposed to get home? And where is Marya? Obviously she’d been telling at least a partial truth: This group of kids wanted him for something. But the fact that she hadn’t returned with him could mean that she had plotted this whole thing as a way of escaping from Free Country. Which would imply there was something to escape from.

  After listening to that group of kids, it was clear to Tim that Free Country was where Avril’s brother, Oliver, had gone, along with all the other missing children. But did they come by choice? Or were they coerced or tricked or kidnapped? Tim had certainly come of his own free will, but if Marya wasn’t around to show him how to get home, how much free will did he really have?

  His would-be greeters had scattered in different directions. After being treated worse than a bug by that crew, Tim decided he didn’t want to follow any of them. He was on his own.

  “If I were a gate to another world,” he said, “where would I be hiding?”

  As he walked he tried to piece together what he knew so far. It wasn’t much. The kids of Free Country wanted him because they thought his magic would help them with their plan to bring kids from home into Free Country.

  “They’re going to be disappointed,” Tim said. He had no idea how his power could help them do anything.

  He hated this feeling—like he was letting people down, dashing expectations.

  “It’s not fair!” he cried, stamping his foot. The loudness of his voice startled him, and he quickly glanced around to see if anyone heard him. There was no one in sight.

  “I never promised them anything,” he muttered. “They’re just assuming. So if it goes badly, they’ve no one to blame but themselves.”

  He kept walking, unsure of what to look for. “Don’t see any hopscotch grids. Or chalk, for that matter,” he said. He hadn’t a clue what a gate from Free Country would look like. “So, Tim, what did you do in Free Country?” he asked himself out loud. “Funny you should ask, Tim. I spent a lot of time talking to myself.”

  He stopped walking. “What’s this?”

  An enormous hedge blocked his path. “This looks like it could be guarding something,” he said. “Maybe a gateway to home.” The hedge was about ten feet high and neatly trimmed.

  Tim walked all around the hedge. The shrubbery was so tightly grown together he’d need gardening shears to get inside. It was perfectly square, like a bright-green leafy box. At one side he found a trellis archway, completely overgrown with vines sprouting enormous flowers. It looked as if it had once been an entrance.

  He reached out his hand to touch a bright purple rose.

  “Don’t touch!” the flower snapped at him.

  Tim jerked back his hand, startled. He shook his head. Why does anything surprise me anymore? “Sorry. I was just interested. I wasn’t going to pick you or anything.”

  “Well, then, it’s okay, I guess.”

  Tim peered at the rose. This time it didn’t seem as if the rose had been the one speaking. There must be someone on the other side of the hedge.

  “You can come in if you want,” the voice said.

  Tim’s eyes widened as the plants, flowers, and vines uncurled. He stepped inside the hedge box.

  He spotted a small green girl, high in a tree. At least, she was sort of a girl. She seemed more like a plant. Her body was smooth, like a plant stalk, but she had legs and arms like a regular person. But the hair sprouting from her head was thick grass. Tim noticed tiny flower buds dotting her hair. She was small, about the size of an eight year old.

  “Did you make the plants do that?” Tim asked. “Just move out of the way like that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s a neat trick,” Tim commented. “What else can you do?”

  He hoped she’d say “get you home without playing hopscotch,” but instead her chin quivered as if she were about to cry.

  “I think something’s wrong with me,” she choked out.

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t feel real here. Everything smells different and there’s nothing good to eat. And Junkin Buckley lied. I hate him and I want to go home.” She ended in a long wail, covering her face with moss-colored hands.

  Tim sat under her at the base of the tree. “Madam, I know exactly how you feel.”

  “You do?” She spread her fingers apart and peered down at him.

  “More or less. At least, I want to go home, too.”

  “Really? You’re not one of them?”

  “Nope,” Tim said. “I am most definitely not one of them. And wouldn’t want to be.”

  Her face brightened, and one of the buds in her hair opened. “Then we can play dolls together. This bush grew them for me when I started to cry.”

  She pointed below her to the bush beside Tim. He’d been so struck by the girl’s appearance that he hadn’t noticed that little baby dolls were poking out of the bush.

  “Dolls. Right. Makes as much sense as anything else.” A girl who’s a plant. Grass that grows lollipops. Now this. Be prepared for anything, Tim warned himself.

  The girl floated down from her perch in the tree. She hovered above the bush.

  Make that a plant girl who can also fly, Tim amended his previous statement. She is definitely from one of those other worlds—way other.

  The girl plucked the dolls from the bush as if they were flowers. “I’ll have this one and this one and this one.” She studied one, then held it out to Tim. “You can have her.”

  “Thank you, I guess,” Tim said. “So what’s this dolly’s name, then?”

  The girl smiled. “That’s Oak Leaf. For bravery. That seems to fit you.” She clutched two dolls to her chest and hugged them. “I’ve got Veronica and Honeysuckle. For fidelity and affection.” She pointed to a doll that was peeking out from under a rock. She flew over to Tim and whispered into his ear. “That’s Peony. For shame. She lives under the rock.”

  This is one elaborate game, Tim observed. And I thought my identity problems were complex. “Did you make all that up by yourself?”

  The girl laughed. “Course not. It’s the language of flowers. Everyone knows that.”

  “No, they don’t. I don’t.”

 
The girl looked extremely surprised, then shrugged. “Everyone used to know, then. They sent each other messages,” she explained. “Like bluebells means ‘I’ll always love you,’ and jasmine means ‘we’re friends.’ And asphodels…” She shivered. “Asphodels are for the dead.”

  Tim stood up and stretched. “Listen, I wish I could stay and play with you but I really do have to find my way back home.”

  “Don’t you like it here?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Me neither!” the girl exclaimed. “So why did you come?”

  “A girl named Marya talked me into it. It seemed as sensible as anything else at the time.” Though it seems really, really dumb now, Tim admitted to himself.

  “Where is she now?” the girl asked.

  Tim sighed. “I have no idea.”

  “What’s it like where you’re from?”

  “You ask a lot of questions, kid.”

  “You’re being rude. Don’t call me that.”

  “Sorry. What should I call you?”

  “My name is Suzy. And you should be nice to me because the same thing happened to me that happened to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A boy named Junkin Buckley brought me here, and then he disappeared,” Suzy explained. “I want to go home, but I don’t know how. Just like you. So I found a place to be and things grew all around me. And I just broke my doll.” She dangled the doll above Tim.

  “What?” Tim asked.

  “When I broke a doll before, I just held it out in front of me and it got fixed. Now it’s not working.” She showed it to Tim. “Can you fix her?”

  Tim glanced at the doll. Suzy had subconsciously snapped off the doll’s head while she was talking. She must be seriously peeved at this Junkin Buckley chap. “Why don’t you pick another?” he suggested.

  Suzy’s chin quivered again. “Because I like this one,” she said plaintively, holding it out to Tim.

  Reluctantly, Tim took it. Examining it from a number of angles, he could see that the only way to repair it was with magic. But could he even do that?

  He held the doll and concentrated. He thought back to when he had first used magic, to keep the snow from falling on Kenny, the homeless man. Don’t think about anything but the space between the neck and the head, he told himself. Close it up with your mind. The edges reach for each other; they want to be joined, they belong as one. Over and over Tim found words to command the doll’s neck and head to fuse—to use its former wholeness to repair itself.